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Craig
Firefly
Kyrgyzstan
3794 Posts |
 Posted - 11/28/2013 : 01:54:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Doug L
I figure that's as good an image as any for what has happened
to a lot of us who were young in the sixties, who chased
something through the decades since, a dream later transformed
through the dark truth of time into an assassin...
And as the day bends down into night, we turn and look around
at our loved ones and realize they're about all there is of
home anymore...
Reflections.
I was born in a shotgun shack
That leaned against a railroad track
I could hear the whistle blow
All the way to Del Rio
I was turning seventeen
When I packed up my hopes and dreams
Loaded my old beat up car
Turned the key and burned the tar
I burned that highway down in '59
Yes I burned that two-laned highway down in 1959
I never did look back I did not see that railroad track
But I burned that highway down in '59
Winter came in sixty-five
I fought the cold to stay alive
And when I tried to light a fire
I was burned by my desire
Winter came in sixty-five
I fought the cold to stay alive
And when I tried to light a fire
I was burned by my desire
There I was at twenty-four
Faded dreams and nothin' more
So I hit the road again
Oh that road its back my friends
The seventies were kind to me
I was young and I was free
Had it all and then some more
I could walk through any door
Then a star at eighty-three
Caught me too far out to sea
I hit a reef and I ran aground
On the streets of Guitar Town
I burned that highway down in '89
Yes I burned that four-lane highway down in 1989
And I never did look back
I could not see those railroad tracks
Burned that highway down in '89
I can hear my momma pray
Prayin' for a better day
I can hear my Daddy say
Honey I will find a way
He worked his fingers to the bone
To make that shotgun shack a home
He kept his sadness deep inside
He had that dream the day he died
I burned that highway down in '59
Burned that dirt road highway down in 1959
I never will look back when I don't see that railroad track
I burned that highway down in '59
So now keep my soul to the Hotel California
I get lost to the Mason Dixon Line
I have run there with a lady East of Eden
And I burned that highyway down in '89
Yes I burned that highway down in '89
I have run there with a lady East of Eden
I burned that highyway down in '89
Yes I burned that highway down in '89
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Edited by - Craig on 11/28/2013 01:56:37 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2013 : 16:08:06
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Promissory notes. Stories I tell the Sheriff.
I lived on a green street under a canopy of trees. Across the Sound city lights shone in November through chill air where there used to be Summer leaves. A skyline beyond the strict branches that beckoned with childhood memories. "Laugh before breakfast, cry before bedtime," Brigid McCleary's admonishment along with toast and a three-minute egg. Brigid was brought over from Clonakilty Cork to be my nanny. A kind-hearted woman who wore dense cotton stockings and sensible shoes. She'd dab at her eyes with embroidered handkerchiefs describing my "disgraceful deportment" to my patient father who'd nod and say, "...there, there, now, Brigid..." in his killer brogue. I was too curious to be a good child. I grew up in hotels hiding under the linen-draped banquet tables observing the grown-up world knee-high. When I finally got out on the street I found life in the library stacks and Village coffeehouses. In the cluttered markets and open cellar doors, the fire escapes wrapped in militant ivy...
Outside the light is leaking out of the sky and late commuters are rushing to catch the Coaster. He leans forward on the table and pushes the cups aside, "...go on," he says, "...keep talkin'..." Unreliable twilight making it impossible to read his expression. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 12/05/2013 : 19:09:22
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| She's used to his directness and intense blue gaze. They're in a club in crowded midtown where music is playing in a downstairs room all smoke and tiny tables. Neon sheen on rain-slick street at eye level through the grated window. Dark cars and taxi's idling at the curb. "...nothing sinister or impossible to sleep with...just vagabond memories. A restlessness that defies explanation. Safe in the tunnels where it was always night. Bright light anonymity. Rush and hustle. Violets and pretzels and Mont Blanc pens. Everything you needed in the subways..." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2013 : 01:29:23
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| "...and after?..." he says. She's polishing the gravestones in Eden. "After the accident I was marched into Saint Pat's in my new school uniform Friday afternoons for Confession. I was nine with small opportunity for sin. I watched the other girls to see how long they stayed in the box. "Bless me, Father...." I said. "For your Penance, then, three Hail Mary's. Now make an Act of Contrition." Always the same three. Like a recipe or a prescription. I liked the Cathedral smell. The blue shadows. The banked votives and high-wheel chandeliers. The reassuring round-the-clock traffic. But I was sent to an archaic upstate town where I caught pneumonia and spent Christmas leaning over a croup kettle coughing. The voice in my head said 'run'. I became a diligent runaway until transferred to an orphanage near public transportation and a train across the Park. The same three Hail Mary's wiped the slate clean every weekend. Like fog or breath from a mirror. Winter-dark days when I felt grace raining down on me." He's quiet for several moments, then, "Were you lonely?" "I was wary," she says. He says, "...your hands are cold..." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 12/18/2013 : 22:35:36
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| Sitting still in places until they were stiff as stones. A coffee shop in Little Italy under wind and the flight path to Lindbergh. Mona Lisa across the street with her sly smile and specialty pizza menu. Star of India in the harbor rocking like a cradle. Jets threading nonsense between retrofitted high rises. "Pick up your feet when we fly over the parking garage," the pilots say. The stars stay up for hours over the honey glazed bay. Hot palms and check point deals where you buy what comes in through the window and pay for waiting in line. All the poets across the border remember his name. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 12/28/2013 : 17:45:23
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| They sit at many tables late into the nights. With each telling he raises the stakes. The unraveling thread in the corner is what keeps his eye. "Lean on me," he says, and places a frame around each story. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2013 : 17:47:08
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Marcella Delight, still beautiful with a champagne flute in her hand. Boughs and flickering candles on the mantle. She's showing me her new Rancho Mirage townhouse where the famous photographs of her dead beloved line the walls. A gallery of black and white except for the small framed picture on the nightstand beside her bed. Her gypsy-bright skirts hiked high in the middle of a shallow stream. His shadow crossing the water because of the angle of the light. I can tell by the trees it's somewhere in the north east. "The sorrow of his death never leaves me, but I've had to give up grief because it affects my arthritis... I know I've told you this before," she says, handing me several hand-written journals as we're saying goodbye.
There's long shadows on the desert floor before the switch-back Santa Rosas. Stones piling up memories on quiescent cairns in the quiet creosote air. All that kinetic energy loading the San Jacinto and San Andreas faults. I follow the speed limit all the way home. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 01/04/2014 : 18:02:14
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Before he cast her in the role, before he ever put his arms around her, before he knew her for one hour, "...I know everything about you..." he said.
"They fed me butter and bread. A sprinkling of sugar on top. They put me down for an afternoon nap. No rocking chair story. Simply laid on a bed with a white hobnail spread. A summer room on Nantucket before my parents arrived. They set my shoes in a bay window where filmy curtains billowed like sail. Rose hip bushes and glary ocean light. They closed the door quietly and their tiptoe voices retreated. I saw it and heard it at the same time. A faint whir of sound. A stealthy sleight of green. A hinged swivel head and alien eyes. Mechanical saw-tooth arms. The rush of terror when I knew it could fly. For an hour I watched it riding the curtains and inspecting my shoes. When they carried me back to the kitchen I had the popcorn imprint of the bedspread on my arms and legs. The chef caught it in his cap and they made a big show of taking it outside. But it wasn't a mantis while it was in the room. It was something else." "How old were you then?" he asks, sitting so close their knees and chairs are touching. "I could walk," she says, "...but I never wore those shoes again. Bronzed. Collecting dust on a bookcase shelf." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2014 : 19:04:02
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| Blue manicures and silver sequined capris parading down the Boulevard. Morning markets ablaze in Monterrey sunlight. Food trucks on every corner. Queso. Corn and lime. Priests in wide hats and black cassocks. Widows praying at the Panteon gates. Red cellophane on the taxi floor when the mourners step out with sticky fingers. There's a too-high curb on a stony back street where a woman rushes to meet her beloved. Dangerous shoes. All trust and abandon. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 01/27/2014 : 08:21:18
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| At the edge of evening in the Valle de Guadalupe a small house invents itself at the end of a rutted road. There's an old metal glider on a wrap-around porch with a fresh coat of turquoise paint. A white wicker chair with worn sunflower cushions. Behind the house is a post-rail fence and an untended vine-entwined arbor. In the photograph he's standing still although his silhouette appears to be moving. His walk, so rolling and easy as his booted right foot comes down. Bright yarns in the kitchen window beyond his shoulders. Eyes of God. A picture that makes her eyes sting and her fingertips burn. |
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aussiedave
Swinger
Australia
509 Posts |
Posted - 02/14/2014 : 01:02:04
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| John 1 verse 5 |
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aussiedave
Swinger
Australia
509 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2014 : 00:30:31
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this love.
as Christ loved his church,
this,
a measure and depth of love,
immeasurable..
deeper than
the bottomless..
this,
like the ever expanding
universe,
a love
beyond human comprehension,
a love
forever unfolding,
all encompassing,
as it cleanses and purifies,
a holy love..
that lasts for all universal eternity
~~*~~
..so is the husband's love
for his wife,
he would die for her,
literally,
and unto himself,
for this love is
eternal,
this love
is never ending.
dR February 2014 |
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aussiedave
Swinger
Australia
509 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2014 : 22:04:06
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TiLdE
bring me water |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2014 : 20:40:00
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| San Elijo. There's a certain resolve in this painting. The spit of land he placed in the center of the canvas with a stroke of bent water where the lagoon turns back under the bridge. The colors mostly muted blues except for the Railroad Crossing sign and smear of black in one corner. The black of plus-tide nights when he pulled up on the porous sandstone strip (too narrow to turn around so he had to back his way out) and cut the lights. DANGER - SLIDE AREA - PARKING PROHIBITED. The dark water rising. He'd light a cigarette and tell her to roll down the window. She'd grip the car door handle and stare down the track until the train roared across the trestle. The car would rock back and forth loosening fistfuls of stones into the water. He said she cried out when the train went by. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2014 : 20:43:02
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| In the next painting she's laughing with the water can in her hand. Enamel blue and sturdy. Too heavy to carry full. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2014 : 20:45:44
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| Both stubborn and born to it, the pixels were adding up. A steep incense rising. Fever stories. Flash paper. Consequence on every page. |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1825 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2014 : 19:29:08
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| She had wrecked the car. He would never believe that she hadn't done it on purpose. He thought she did everything on purpose. She only knew one thing for sure. She would rather go home and face the consequences, instead of having him lurking behind every tree the next day, and in the days to come. There was just one thing. She couldn't remember if the gun was loaded or not. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2014 : 17:51:45
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| That winter they lived inside their coats in a city so steep there were stairs built into the sidewalks. A wet wind off the Bay lifted the curtains away from the sill and rattled the window panes. Rarely a morning without three feet of fog on the floor. They kept their shoes on a shelf stuffed with newspaper, and a bucket of charcoal behind a closed closet door. There were coffee kiosks on every corner and a tight-wired harp-like bridge. Salt mist on the finials of their high iron bed where his hair burned a hole through the pillow. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2014 : 18:15:20
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-for Mick.
I was thirteen and living in the Commodore Hotel above Grand Central. The big three were Ford, Conover, and Powers. I worked for Conover. My picture on the cover of magazines. Christmas issue Peter Pan collar with halo over my head. Holding a book of carols with my mouth in a little O. I'd pass the news stand and see that girl and imagine her house in the country and big noisy family. I named her older brother Ted after a photographer at Pagano Studios who kept a fishbowl full of candy bars. My irritating sister was Monique whose mother was always on set lunging with a can of Aqua Net. Her cloud of flammable vapor in a room full of Klieg lights. Star was the makeup lady who drew on my face. MaXFactor Pan Stick her camouflage of choice. Star kept a "secret weapon" hidden in her smock pocket. A greasepaint called Clown White that made your eyes camera-bright. Star wore bangle bracelets and smoked Parliament cigarettes. She had a boyfriend who worked in the Terminal and a daughter who played cello at Julliard. I was a good model. I could stay still in an awkward position for a very long time. "Don't sweat, don't scratch, don't sneeze." Take your chit to the pay window and get it in cash. Clean up and hit Horn and Hardart...
He loved this story. Many versions. "I can see it..." he'd say, and start with his twenty questions. Where I was born wasn't the first question he asked me. "Manhattan," I said. "Oh, Lord," he said, "OH, LORD!" Days gone by. Smell of Pond's Cold Cream... Scent like a photograph. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 02/26/2014 20:53:32 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2014 : 14:32:42
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Friday night at Sunrise Retirement Home.
Lu- "...surely them pearly gates will be open for me 'cause the life I endured made me worthy. We were married right outta High School, my Tommy and me. Rented a railroad flat in a tenement his aunt and uncle owned. Aunt by blood, and uncle by squirrely. We had the top floor above them and I told Tommy they probably held a glass to the ceiling when the lights went out. They kept fish and parakeets that died right away. The birds went out in shoe boxes. My in-laws kept fish too. The bowl so cloudy I never saw fish 'til the day I tapped on the glass with my new engagement ring. I worked in his folks hardware store a dozen years. I wanted to wallpaper my kitchen and was flippin' through the big books when Tommy's Ma says, "Pick from the barrel, Lucille." A huge wooden barrel with off-print seconds. Twenty-five cents a roll. Let them take it outta my wages, I told Tommy, I want what I want. But Tommy said they were offerin' the barrel for free and I couldn't offend them. We were married forty-one years when he passed in '98. I realized how angry I was when I stopped going to sleep in his tee shirts."
Yoli- "He had a limp. He was easy to see coming to me." She's speaking of a time in another country where men worked on site all week long and were let off half-day Saturdays. How she would pick him up in the truck and they'd drive the hour home to share bolillos and bowls of pozole. "Later we drink Antonio's salty wine and have a bath with candles."
Lucille and Yolanda. Two women in felt slippers in the Day Room splitting buttermilk bars from Cove Bakery.
*
One of Mick's favorite meals was grilled cheese sandwiches and Campbell's Tomato soup. The last supper we had in San Diego when Mick, Susie, and Laura were on their way to Texas. "Newbury Gourmet," Mick called it. Cameron said the blessing. He was six, and at the end he added "...and please, God, take that thing out of Uncle Mickey's nose." "Amen," Mick said. He was an inventive cook with daring kitchen instincts. Off-the-wall combinations that worked. He tweaked my Thanksgiving menu many years. I said, Mick, you could be a great chef. "I know," he said, "hahaha."
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The Nightly Vigil