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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1819 Posts |
 Posted - 07/26/2017 : 16:07:45
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| Thanks, Craig and RoRo. You guys help keep me warm. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 08/06/2017 : 19:21:48
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| He's leaning over the precipice. No bluff in his game. Nor hers when she stands beside him ready to fall. Their bodies swaying in a last dance or prayer. Shadows on the cliffside eye-level with sparrows. The imperial sky's high-watt blue. The ocean so clear below. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 04/09/2019 18:04:27 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 08/06/2017 : 19:26:38
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| Moonless night in the Badlands under the constellations implacable stare. A flash of banded marble caught her attention and threw her to the desert floor. She leaned on him all the way back to the road limping with a knee full of cinders. He set her up on the counter beside the sink. A needle. A pair of tweezers. A bottle of tequila. A towel. His glasses fogging over with steam. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 11/16/2019 16:39:36 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 08/09/2017 : 18:05:54
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Perfect timing. Fish highways in the whitewash or edge of the sandbar. Set the hook where the current shifts. Dawn or one hour before dusk on an incoming tide. Like the bakery counter where you wait in line with a late number and pray the praline croissants don't run out. "Next!" And a new checkstand opens and you're first in line. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 08/16/2017 : 19:25:12
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| Nantucket Library when I was a child. My father, historically sentimental singing, "...wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow..." down cobbled Easy Street to Steamboat Wharf. Widow's Walks. Front stoops that opened onto the curb. The hardware store with the barrows he wanted to show me tipped up against a shingled wall. So big they looked like hard work. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 08/16/2017 : 20:02:58
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| "Are you allergic to anything?" she asked him in the evening jasmine. Bee-studded in daylight. Narcotic at night. Questions like that amused him. His quicksilver mind. His uncomplicated goodness. His shine and blue heart way. |
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Craig
Firefly
Kyrgyzstan
3793 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2017 : 04:32:54
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An invitation to a stranger in a foreign land, he was greeted with open arms and welcomed into their home. It was small talk as they got to know him and then they all sat at the long table...
“Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.” |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2017 : 18:41:03
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| -from Signal Flags. Strobe-lit sky. Moon in its tide-rising cycle. Low storm honeycombing the cliff side. Beach full of sea wrack. Water all the way home. Rain determined to take the door down. Breaching the threshold. Our Lady of the West floating in pieces on the saltillo floor. Ink stains on every flat surface. "...an' all those red telephones..." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2017 : 18:47:22
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The Sailor and the Mute Fortune Teller under Embarcadero sun. The spelled weather. The wind billowing sails in the Bay. Salt spray across the bow. Any day now they'll take that walk again. Faint smear of paint on the inside of his wrist touching hands and letting go. So much trance in those afternoons. And later. Spread-open sky through the window. Moon, a green sheen on the quilt. Their easy breathing fiercely dreaming when the needle drops back on track one. |
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San Diego
Swinger
509 Posts |
Posted - 09/27/2017 : 11:20:26
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| They're here for the school year. 3rd and 6th grade. My kids grew up in the kitchen. I show them pictures of Cameron standing on a stool at the stove flipping pancakes when he was three. Sean and Jeffrey peeling and stirring and chopping at six and seven. "You guys gonna rock and roll with this gig?" my son Jonathan asks them. They nod. "If you've got questions, ask them. If something's bothering you, say it out loud." "When will we have an earthquake?" Daniel asks. Jon goes to his truck and comes back with a half bushel of Julian apples. Guess we're making pie. |
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San Diego
Swinger
509 Posts |
Posted - 09/29/2017 : 14:41:26
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| I went searching for Cam's report cards and found the old telephone answering machine. "Wellllll..." Mick says, "I suppose you're out on the beaCHHH... Playin' in the sanDDD... And the surFFF... And the foaMMM... Wish I was there with ya..." His unique delivery coming down hard on the ends of words when he was seeing the scene in his mind. I remember those beach calls clearly. The children hungry and making a racket on the patio. The Wiffle bat striking the chimes. The shower running continuously outside. Sand on the floor. The fridge door always open. Trying to talk with him over that din. "You sound like a mother wolf with a litter of cubs at your heels, hahaha." "Jus' doin' the day," he called it. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 09/30/2017 : 17:35:45
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| Live moments in the book of sketches. Ribbon track beside the long shore where the Coaster crosses San Elijo lagoon. The shielding trees and red paverstone patio. Bougainvillea climbing the latticed wall. His head tipped back laughing. His baffling ways. His summing-up eyes filling with sunshine. His profile that never changes. Salt-weathered fences and banner-bright skies. Nodding sunflowers wide morning faces. Bells on her shoes tied with fish line bicycling to Seaside Market for the news. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2829 Posts |
Posted - 10/06/2017 : 16:57:06
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"Do you remember?
The figurines on the tabletop.
The dusty pictures on the walls,
the white bearded handsome man
that sang his waltzes quietly in the corner...
The friends stopping by on the odd nite.....
Spin around for me sweetheart,
I love to listen to you dance.
The room goes on forever.... "
-Hank Beukema
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2829 Posts |
Posted - 10/06/2017 : 17:00:13
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As I stepped out into the
Newly cold air
I smelled a fireplace and
Thought of other Octobers.
Jesse ran off for the Cavalry
When he was just eighteen
And Carmelita, well,
Carmelita she just kind of
Flew away one morning...
I've said it before, but
Some choices just kinda
Get made For us.
But tonight,
I spread my arms to the
Starry October sky and
I scream out for the strength to
Choose to be sober and sane for
Just one more day...
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2017 : 08:46:45
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I watch the children in their seaweed mantles. Sunset behind them spreading red on the water. A pentimento picture through my kitchen window. They seem so happy. So free. And later, the crowded loud meal. We clear the table and slice up desert. Flakey cracks in the crust. "Earthquake pie!" Daniel shouts, obsessed with natural disaster. "It's not in your recipe box, ma..." my son says catching my eye, "...it's improv." I have the desire. I need the energy.
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Edited by - Ailinn on 12/09/2019 21:20:54 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2017 : 08:50:34
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| His mind so hot it sizzled. His eyes so bluely fluent that night when starlight first touched down on water. Their urgent voices almost music. "Lemme tell you somethin', woman..." he said in Frankincensco. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2017 : 17:20:00
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| The first November they lost the light at 4pm. Blick down the block and coffee on every corner. They sat knee to knee at tiny tables with their hot cups under Southwest and United shadows. They had so many lifetimes to tell. All coming back dark or shining. "Your hands are cold," he said later when their limbs had frozen in place. The chair scrape when he rose. The constellations starry pictures. The shuttered mysteries on India Street revealed. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2017 : 17:18:03
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| "...benches and fences. Trees growing out of grates in the sidewalk. All the borough-connecting bridges and fire escapes clinging to ivy brick walls. So much iron and steel in that city. And din. Witches and gargoyles in Central Park. Flying dragons. Andersen and Grimm. The stoic gravestones in the little church yard. The Knights in their armor. The one with the star. A gold locket with a four-leaf clover inside. Horn and Hardart's twenty-five cent slot of tart lemon meringue pie." "The picture over your desk..." he says. The one with the star. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2017 : 15:33:49
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Solitaire is a game she plays waiting for his journey-driven profile. His blue heart way. His sapphire and diamond highways. His ruby at the top of the mast. Later when they're staring at every star in the sky she says, "This is starting to scare me." He's quiet for several moments, then, "No it's not," he says.
At the marshy edge of the bent lagoon white birds fly by rain-washed hedges. Layered clouds. Sky on sky. A bit of ragged fog for the jetty.
She writes his name in Rainy Wind font. He likes to watch it happen. India ink and a calligraphy pen. Her fingers permanently ink-stained.
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2017 : 21:41:29
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At the edge of the canvas he painted her blurred. Barefoot. Ankle deep in green water. Her skirts hiked up. Her hair falling. Falling. Only her waving hand showing through. A Dream In the Reeds, he called it. "Only one thing for certain..." he said, (and he spread his wings wide here) "...comes in every color." How he loved the story in the margins.
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Edited by - Ailinn on 11/30/2017 22:25:58 |
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The Nightly Vigil