| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
 Posted - 02/11/2017 : 17:55:24
|
| They wanted a quiet house with a clock that chimed only the odd hours. Or didn't chime at all on some days. A clock they would carry with them. But the movers were on strike and the utility company forgot to turn on the electric. So cold in that first kitchen they shivered at the stove. A box of wooden matches and a blanket. When heat finally rushed through the grates they sat on the floor with their backs to the wall in a room that jutted into the sky. |
 |
|
|
BarbraG
Windchimer
1824 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2017 : 12:23:58
|
| He stands about 7 inches high, but he's growing. Honest, he's growing. He is black with a silver face and the biggest black loving eyes you have ever seen .. He wants to be in the big Show, but he is not going to be perfect in that way... maybe a pound over the 10 pound limit...but, hey !!! ... anywhere he goes, he will make someone smile, and maybe even laugh out loud...He is going to be a joy in this world... actually, he already is.. |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 03/05/2017 : 18:20:59
|
| He watches her arranging books on a shelf, "I see you put up the spices alphabetically too..." She blushes. "Oh hey......." he says. High-stepping nights in the dirt floor cantina. A fine dust settling on their clothes. Food in foil or on sticks on the corner. Shimmering light in a vineyard town. A white wicker rocker. A rusty metal glider. A can of WD-40 on the porch rail. |
|
|
|
Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2017 : 20:31:52
|
Trick Farlow owned a little record store in the 1970s. He managed to survive selling folk and blues mainly. His second-floor walk-up apartment was walls of records and a stereo. He had a cat named Furry Lewis. That old apartment was an endless source of wisdom and wonder when I visited the big city, with Trick as head librarian. I got an education there.
Trick played me a lot of records. Once in a while a whole side, more often a few selected songs. Coffee going. Always the coffee going. Window open, sound of the street below. Furry Lewis his cat on the sill looking down. Trick would be standing up, moving around. Knew every inch of that room and never stubbed a toe. The way he'd handle the album jacket, the sleeve, the disc - a dance sequence he could perform in the dark, so practiced and perfect. He'd go to the turntable and lift the needle to a different song, shifting the order of things. I got to know his favorites that way. Sometimes he'd skip the songs he treasured most, I noticed. When I asked him why he did that, he'd say because he loved them so much. You see, he never wanted them to grow old.
The city street below Trick's window was alive all hours. I don't know how he slept up there. Guess you get used to it after a while, the waves of sound, water your bed is a boat afloat on. Trick could sing pretty well. Deep voice, whiskey dredged. He'd sing along with Fred Neil and it was eerie, like Fred doing a duet with himself. "Where's the Jim Crow section on your merry-go-round? I just can't find the back..." He memorized, you know, every sound, every pop and hiss. Familiar. Not just a record any more but his record. His by touch and wear and love. The way you know all the tiny marks and stories on your lover's body.
Trick was social. Had to be, running a small record shop. The apartment was a meeting place, too, but also a sanctuary. People would come over, stop below the window and holler up. He advised friends to do that, said it gave him first right of refusal. There were times he wanted to be alone. Had to respect that. Who'd I see at his apartment? Let me think. Patrick Sky. Buffy. Old John Hurt came hobbling up those stairs once with Paxton. Oh, and Harry Smith. Strange guy, Harry, but a talent, and a vault of American musical history. When Harry was broke he took the gems of his flea market 78 rpm sides to Moe to sell them. Moe Asch, Folkway Records. They hired Harry to make that big LP anthology of folk music, the bible really. You know who transferred and produced that set? Péter Bartók, the composer's son.
Trick Farlow's old apartment and the records that he played. Never left there thinkin' other than I wish I could have stayed. Like striking gold in a world of tin, some riches never fade. Trick Farlow's old apartment and the records that he played.
DL
|
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2017 : 11:20:43
|
| I walk this beach every morning. "Tell me..." he said in the middle of the night. I carry a pad and a pencil. I pick up smooth stones and shells. Occasionally a feather... I come home with my pockets full of sand and wet paper. I let the pages dry on the patio table laid out carefully for him to read. |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2017 : 11:26:07
|
| Late stop at Blick for "...the days flow of color." "No Blue Amnesia," the clerk says. "They're not making that color anymore." The persistent thread of memory. Kite tugging at the string. Splinter under her thumbnail. SkyWest Express. Short walk across the tarmac before giving up to gravity. "Something to distract you," he said. A kiss on the cheek. Several time-stained pages to ignite in her hands. |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2017 : 11:29:30
|
His elbow out the window in uneasy sunlight. AM/FM from the moon. Death in their palms in that Valley heat. The old hotel boarded up and abandoned. Windows gone. Sheet of checkered oilcloth flapping in a scroll of wind. How long did it all take to happen? Rinse of brown dust before the spirits walk in redolent in sepia. |
|
|
|
San Diego
Swinger
508 Posts |
Posted - 03/21/2017 : 17:32:56
|
| Doug- A pleasure to see you here. You are missed. Ro |
|
|
|
Jonmark
Windchimer
USA
1791 Posts |
Posted - 03/21/2017 : 18:21:28
|
| What Ro said. <3 |
|
|
|
Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2017 : 00:54:45
|
WHAT MEMORY SAVES
Roads go where they need to go
Fencepost bent by years of snow
These farms make prayers for sun and rain
Hardscrabble lives that grow the grain
Holding to what memory saves
Stones that mark the Blackfoot graves
Grandfather wind in fields renewed
The seasons turning out our food
And hearts so true they seldom sing
Or pin their hopes on anything
The bodies ache from all they know
Fenceposts bent by years of snow
Roads go where they need to go
Off a grid road east of Saskatoon
A summer night, a heavy moon
Almost touching down to earth
Your older sister giving birth
Inside the house we heard her moans
Walking near the Blackfoot stones
Painted stars on your white blouse
A newborn's cry inside the house
Smell of berries growing ripe
The great unknown, a glowing pipe
The lonely singing loon
A prairie night, the heavy moon
Off a grid road east of Saskatoon
It's long ago, I don't forget
I wanted you the day we met
Alfalfa field outside of Craik
The reservoir, the trains that shake
Leaves pulled off the hardwood trees
The black flies and the bumble bees
Sweet taste of your secret skin
The sky above, a wild blue spin
Hold on to what memory saves
Tall grass near the Blackfoot graves
The ground so wet
It's long ago, I don't forget
I wanted you the day we met
My body aches from all I know
Fencepost bent by years of snow
Farms that pray for rain and sun
Hardscrabble lives and day's work done
Holdin' to what memory saves
Stones that mark the Blackfoot graves
Grandfather wind in fields renewed
The seasons turning out our food
Hearts so true they seldom sing
Or pin their hopes on anything
My body aches from all I know
Fencepost bent by years of snow
Lives go where they need to go
DL |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2017 : 18:20:37
|
| The widow died with Rosary beads in her hands. Her son, Santiago calls, "Maybe you come one time before the house is broken..." A straight shot down the coast. Cross at Tijuana. The Border towns have all grown darker. The alleyways more crowded. Tarnished history piled high in grocery carts. Camouflage prophets preaching apocalyptic dreams beside a barrel of fire. Aerosol artists to archive it all. Gasoline-on-water color comments. The road is improved on the way to Guadalupe since tourists claimed the vineyards. Santiago rolls out an architectural rendering. The "new" hotel. Grand opening January 2019. I ask him the name but he shrugs his shoulders and hands me a package wrapped in newspaper, "Un recuerdo," he says. I wait until I'm home to open it. A carved pine eagle with wings in flight. An inviolate journey. A book with all the pages numbered 1. |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 04/09/2017 : 17:12:40
|
I didn't talk until he said, "Talk to me..." Insistent as a metronome. Like flying into a star, I waited for the collision. "Optical illusion. Like red..." he said, coming down hard on the 'd', "...a bigger color."
No dark books in those old sun-spent days. Sandy feet on the floor. A back yard full of gulls and salt water. The porthole's brass framed circle of light. The stars bright conversations. Spring-heavy fogs. Blustery branches. Green on the trees. Slow bees coming in. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 11/16/2019 16:36:48 |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2017 : 18:47:16
|
| When he spoke of that world they were eerily there where the mountains ground down to sand around them. Fickle weather. Wind from the east. Static on the radio. A sky scarcely shy of caving in. Horizontal lightning. Kindled clouds. Slow-rolling freights pulling thunder through the passes. A place where the COLD water ran hot from the tap and the air smelled like biscuits burning. He wanted fragmented enchantments on the backs of Triple A maps. Salt on the chimes. Sea sounds breaking the barrier. His touched face a light in her hands beside a weedy ocean. A deep breath in the next destination. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 07/06/2017 08:18:46 |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2017 : 20:20:01
|
-Intermittent weather...
Wind-lifted leaves on the track. A cindery rain-coming-on smell. Twilit commuters rushing to catch the Coaster.
Sea of glass on a still afternoon. They watch a small plane skywriting hearts on the static blue.
Copper sunset. Saffron assault through the blinds. A cold drink in a hot room before the AC kicks in. Neon allure out the window in a city of shrines and fresco Virgins.
That other Eden at the edge of the canvas. The long road awash in mirage. His sweat-stained shirt. His sunburned hands on the steering wheel. The boundless design in his mind. The tyranny of time in the rear view mirror. |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2017 : 20:35:57
|
An album of houses. Another and another. Until their dreams were full of revolving doors. Their pockets heavy with shiny Schlage keys. The phone men arrived and provided new numbers which they forgot before the end of the day. The sun set and the moon rose over rooftops and trellises. Courtyards and harbors. West-facing views. They'd jump up in the morning and check out the window before they even opened the news. They smiled at their neighbors. They kept to themselves. They put their grocery carts away at the market. They never parked in the handicapped zone. Some late afternoons they'd cruise the old addresses. A broken stone pathway. A citrus perfume. A blaze of bougainvillea. A moving van. The past spit-shined and polished on a freshly mown lawn.
|
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2017 : 20:42:43
|
Air 61, water 60. Coldest May in San Diego in 64 years. Back to you, Blaine. |
|
|
|
San Diego
Swinger
508 Posts |
Posted - 05/12/2017 : 22:31:01
|
| There's a wall of paned windows in the background which suggest an inn or hotel. A large cat and a vase of flowers out of focus. In the picture my mother's mother is stiffly seated on an oval-back chair. She wears her hair in a braided crown. An ankle-length traveling suit and gloves. Over this, a blue ticking bib apron (the only item hand-tinted so the color may not be true), and a cloche hat in her lap. But what's most interesting are her shoes. Two pairs. Both mid-heel and ornate with ribbon. One pair she's wearing, the other rests beside her on the floor. Faded cursive says Hudson Valley. No date. I can't imagine the occasion for such a get-up. Time to sort through the family albums. Note places and dates on the back so the kids don't go crazy thinking their life was a Hitchcockian dream. |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2017 : 20:09:55
|
Mythic story where nothing goes wrong for a lifetime. White flowers in the clouds. Wide shelf of bluff top before the inevitable fall to water. Trumpet vine spilling out of the sandstone. Incoming tides flushing the honeycomb caves. Iridescent fish in the white-wash. Sunburn shiver on a moonlit deck still day-warm. Mariners stars shooting into the sea.
"Here come the stars now, lady..." he said, "...nightlights the chandeliers envy." |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2017 : 23:41:03
|
| They're out on the deck in the dark. He's leaning back in the rocker with the blanket over his knees. They left the old chair out so often it warped and rocks unevenly. "...where...were we...?" he says with his eyes closed. "A lush garden..." she says. "Thirty miles out to sea. Mostly Irish and English there then. Sweepstakes and Revolution. The ferry arriving with liquor and linens. Copious amounts of food. Guests with steamer trunks and too much luggage for a Summer stay. Brigid was busy all day. Fingering the Rosary beads in her pocket. Annoyed when I interrupted her prayers. No bedtime story. No graham cracker or biscuit. A tiny spark of rage blooming in me." "Preview of coming attractions..." he grins without opening his eyes. I snuck out in my nightgown. Hid in the privet hedge. All fireflies and stars around me. A misty dew settling in. No one came to find me. No one knew I was gone. I wasn't afraid. I thought...this is what grownup is." "How old were you then?" he opens his eyes. "I'm not going to tell you," she says. |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 06/18/2017 : 22:37:51
|
| Cracks in the sidewalk jaywalking home. Citron light caught in the cloud glow. He's telling the story. Raising the stakes. Heart-hammering manifest truth. The night sky crowding with stars. The shining edge he's grown used to. |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
The Nightly Vigil