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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
 Posted - 08/17/2018 : 17:30:51
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| "You come for the Grand Opening," Santiago says. The past faithful. Brave again. |
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San Diego
Swinger
515 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2018 : 18:16:56
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| On Saturday nine foot tall puppets of Twain and Poe chatted and strolled around Old Town. Twain all in white. Poe in blackblack. Part of Write Out Loud's sponsored TwainFest. Frog jumping contest included. Trevor's also nine feet tall. Forever in bronze mid-windup out beyond the bullpens at Petco Park. Air 76, water 76. Mostly sunny. Back to you, Blaine... |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2018 : 17:09:41
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| Stained glass transom. Vertigo street. A chink in the blinds lets the days in. Sweet summer-stalled mornings scanning the chapters. Unwavering climb into his mind. Arcane hours. Earthbound flowers when June fills the rooms. Three-dimensional petal-blooms on the floor. Contradictory myths. A peripheral ocean. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 08/27/2018 17:28:31 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2018 : 17:16:05
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| This summer the mountain burned. Idyllwild in the San Jacintos. Tinder ground. Trees going up like parchment scroll proclamations. High-risk rescues. Sparks on the air. Grit in the ponderosa. Blankets of Foscheck in dirt road Dark Canyon. A place to make angels in winter snow. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2018 : 17:35:31
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| In sleep's blue room. ...And Adam names everything in the new kindled air. Briars and burrs in their hair. Flowers in thrall around them. Snarl of ferns catching their ankles. Mists lifting. Rushing wings. Mossy banks. Bubbles of light on the water. The future approaching layered green. Her hand inside his hand. Safe sun pouring down. Little niches they can't see around. Almost a fictive place but for grace and confirmation. The night coming on. The clamor of stars, "...when stars were still loud..." he says leaning up on one elbow. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2018 : 18:13:48
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My sons are local men. Proposing to their wives on the Padre score board or Lifeguard Tower 21. They fish from the jetties. Surf New Years Day. Observe tradition. Our children go back to school. Fire, Earthquake, Active Shooter drills. Literature describing Run, Hide, Fight, and Lockdown precaution. My sons don't show their dismay. We buy shoes and number 2 pencils. Leak-proof lunchboxes. ID bracelets. Dear old Golden Rule days.
Save the children, save the children...
Heaven help the children find their way... |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2018 : 18:20:15
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| ...who goes with him through the nights with her wide broom sweeping stars. "Don't stop," he says closing his eyes, "...the garden...? "Oh, many..." she says, "Some sudden. Some slow. Some anchored to clouds. All manner of color and scent to explore. What more do you need to know?" Quick-angle flight of the dragonfly... No. More languorous. More detail. More glow. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2018 : 18:24:47
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| Grandview stairs at high tide. "...like stepping into the maelstrom," he said. No plot but to keep him. Alive. Careful as a child on the witness stand, Your Honor. She still rides in cars. Takes the kids for pizza. Lights one white candle in an evening window. Paddles out on the board, sunburned cheek on her arm scanning the wet horizon. So much song in the spindrift she knows. |
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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1820 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2018 : 08:01:36
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Our differences overshadow our humanity, as we exclude others who do not share our opinion. Altruistic religions teach us to do the opposite… to include others… to love one another. This conflict of mind and heart is the eternal war of worldly concern versus transcendent trust. A spiritual schizophrenia.
As prophesized, the battle is accelerating.
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2018 : 17:21:57
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"Spiritual schizophrenia."  |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2018 : 17:31:26
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| "...psychotic experience...?" he asks leaning in. "Fever," she says. "Couldn't move my head. Kept my fists closed so life wouldn't leak out of my fingertips. IV's. Rails on the bed. Popsicles in my mouth. Ice blanket. Blood-red sea with truck-size crabs crawling out. Insects with lit cigarettes at the nurses station. Nightmare in every corner. "Meningitis," the docs told me later,'...fried those wires.'" "Do you still have nightmares?" he asks. "Sometimes a flash overrides the system," she laughs. "Parallel experience...our brain chemistry. Write your dreams down..." he says, "...so much disappears when we open our eyes." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2018 : 17:37:58
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| Wheel Inn truck stop off the 10. Dinosaurs. Nomads. Shaman shadows. Midnight gypsies and charlatans. Clairvoyants waiting on Elvis. Steady diet of chicken-fried steak. Sea of semis in the parking lot. CB crackle. Freeway hum. "...some kind of spirit vortex..." she says. He says, " You believe that?" She says, "Don't you?" "Hahaha," he laughs. No safe way around that. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2018 : 16:25:20
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| Park maintenance on overtime across the road. Men with spikes at their ankles swing palm to palm. Children cheer when the chainsaws roar and heavy fronds hit the ground. The 6pm glides into Palomar. The 7pm takes off on time. Wide wings. Cloud script on the sky. The implacable ocean rolls on. The honeycomb caves fill and empty with the tide. In a kitchen window a stoppered brass bottle. A genie inside loosening the lid. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2018 : 16:29:34
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| Bright red and yellow houses. Patches of turquoise daubed in. Tijuana hillsides. Farther south apricot flows. Beryl and orpiment. His explanation is angles. Time derailed. The veil drawn across or pulled away. The sleight-of-hand light of this land enchants him. Its wet and dry colors on canvas. Midafternoon glow on his cheekbone when he holds the brush between his teeth and talks around it. |
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2018 : 00:50:56
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| Charlie played Triple A in Arkansas, was a teammate of Daffy Dean's a while when Daffy was rehabbing his arm. He made a trip to Vancouver in his thirties, after giving up on his Major League dream, and met Ruth. They were married. I used to sit with them at Nat Bailey Stadium summer nights. I don't think Charlie ever missed a home game. "Has anyone ever hit one over the scoreboard in centerfield," I asked him, after another monstrous fly ball fell short on the warning track. "Only one man," Charlie said, "and that was a kid named Canseco." Charlie pitched batting practice for me for a half dozen years when I was coaching the Monarchs here. Into his seventies, he still had that rubber arm. The kids were in awe of this silver-haired man with the southern accent, bringing the head from behind the L-screen. Old Charlie. He loved the game, loved to teach, to encourage, to mentor. Charlie died last week at the age of eighty-three. |
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San Diego
Swinger
515 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2018 : 19:01:05
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| The children bring flowers with very short stems and put them in my hair. We tell each other stories while we chop and peel in the kitchen and when I tuck them in. The youngest has decided he doesn't need a nightlight anymore. Big new front teeth grin. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2018 : 19:04:09
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| "...let's take a run up there right now..." he says. State Route 78. The time machine highway. Lilacs. Wooden sidewalks. Orchards in the sky. The duplicitous nature of fruit trapped in trees. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 09/15/2018 : 19:18:04
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| "Think slow..." he says, "...think out loud." Too much caffeine for slow. "More citrus in the air," she says. "An orange grove then. Almost. Biscayne Boulevard. Pastel motels with plastic patio chairs. Too embarrassed to wear the bathing suit. Walked off set with the cashmere sweater I kept. Oh-oh. This is like Confession..." "Jus' doin' the days..." he grins, "keep talkin'." I had a tutor on Nantucket. Dr. Toomey. He ate Shepherd Pie everyday with the chefs. Visited his sister in Hialeah for racing season. Brought me tiny wooden crates with marzipan oranges inside. Pink flamingo postcards. I had grownup dreams when I was a child. I smoked pretend cigarettes and blew imaginary smoke rings." She shivers when he pops a small lump of brown sugar into her mouth. The kitchen smells of caramel and apples. "No shaved dice..." he says, "...no dark books...no bad cards..." |
Edited by - Ailinn on 12/03/2018 17:19:23 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2249 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2018 : 18:18:34
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| Stone shadows when the car door closes. Late light looping over his profile. It's a long road and not much on it. Sand-smeared mountains. Static. Brink of wilderness. Fast ride with sun running out. Hair wild with windows open. Rush of joy when the rock candy stars blink on. Rebel Gas. Always Open. Brief display on the desert. Two flags proclaiming one country. |
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San Diego
Swinger
515 Posts |
Posted - 09/24/2018 : 17:49:17
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| Monday's season change. The RV's leave the campgrounds and make their way north on I-5. Some will return for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Tradition for the brave. In the meantime the beach goes back to the birds. |
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The Nightly Vigil