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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
 Posted - 05/09/2008 : 20:50:20
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HELLO?
After hours, entering a space he only knows by day.
The lock opening louder than before.
He punches in the code to stifle the alarm, hoping
it works. Otherwise, the police will come and he will
be nervous explaining.
When he flicks the switch upward, the light comes
on suddenly, fully, and he squints, raising
one arm to shield his eyes.
Where eight hours earlier there was a cacaphony
of workplace sounds, now there is silence
and the click of his shoes on the tiled floor.
He stands there, peering at the photographs
of co-workers who have died. They look right at him,
their smiles still alive. He touches their faces.
A different scent here at night. The Mexican family
has done its cleaning, and he smells the wax
they have put on the cafeteria floor.
He is startled when the phone rings, uncertain
whether to answer. The message machine comes on.
A woman's voice, Indian in cadence, says hello.
Hello?
He wonders if it is the wife he's never found,
if she has tracked him down at last this Friday night
here on the coast. Hello? she asks again.
As he goes to pick up the phone there is a dial tone.
The machine clicks off. No name, no number,
just that round, sincere question. Like a small bell.
He reaches in his coat pocket for the flask, takes
a drink and turns on the radio in the manager's office,
finds the late night jazz program on CBC.
It's an old Bill Evans number, Peace Piece.
Solo piano. He turns out all the lights, sits back
in the manager's big chair, feet on the desk.
Bill plays the piano shyly, as if touching a girl's
hands for the first time. As if the sensation has taken
all language from him except for touch.
There is a darling soul that waits in each of us,
waits for a moment to come like a hand
to touch our cheek, say small important things.
It is a hand that already knows the imperfect
places, the scar, the fallen fruit. It touches us with
a knowing, and we breathe toward our tears.
Hello?
It is almost two in the morning when he wakes up.
Radio Sweden has taken over the CBC. He presses
the button to hear her voice one more time.
DL
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2820 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2008 : 07:02:41
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Visiting Cloud Peak with Priest Tenge in Fall
Human existence in this world:
Duckweed cast adrift on the water.
Who can ever feel secure?
That is the reason
I took up a monk's staff, left my parents,
And bade farewell to my friends.
A single patched robe
And one bowl have sustained me all these years.
I'm fond of this little hut
And often spend time here-
We are two kindred spirits,
Never worrying about who is guest or host.
The wind blows through lofty pines,
Frost chills the few mums that remain.
Arm in arm we stand above the clouds;
Bound as one, roaming in the far beyond.
-Ryokan (1758-1831)
-"Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf" |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2820 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2008 : 07:53:41
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We had a plan.
We were going to catch up for the first time
since we'd been together.
Took a three year bank loan,
invested in some coke,
alot of coke.
The plan was to step on it, sell it,
pay our bills,
catch up,
get out from under,
start again.
We sat at that table for a long time,
hours, days,
back and forth to the bedroom,
then back to the white mountain
on the table.
In a week it was gone.
The loan lived on for the three years.
Make The Gods laugh.
Make a plan...
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2008 : 18:27:23
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"You are broken only if you break."
~Mickey Newbury~ |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2008 : 18:33:28
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| A snub of candle between them when he turned the hour glass upside down. His long shadow already in crisis. His cherished face, harrowed, but not distraught. "Tell me a story," he said, "make it last the night." Time passed. A century or three. The power on Cielo Azul flickered but never went out. They looked up at the sizzling stars. The squadrons of Angels, the legions of Saints. "Listen," he said, "sometimes I get tired of flying above the clouds and I look for a warm corner to lie down in. The dreamsleep is as much a miracle as the flight." |
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 05/15/2008 : 15:13:16
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LATE FRAGMENT
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Raymond Carver
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 05/15/2008 : 18:51:52
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"It wasn't for music
you came to me, but
for daring - mine
and yours."
~Tess Gallagher~ |
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 05/15/2008 : 19:21:28
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Once I lay on the bank with my eyes closed,
listening to the sound the water made,
and to the wind in the tops of the trees. The same wind
that blows out on the Strait, but a different wind, too.
For a while I even let myself imagine I had died --
and that was all right, at least for a couple
of minutes, until it really sank in: Dead.
As I way lying there with my eyes closed,
just after I'd imagined what it might be like
if in fact I never got up again, I thought of you.
I opened my eyes then and got right up
and went back to being happy again.
I'm grateful to you, you see.
I wanted to tell you.
Raymond Carver
(from "For Tess") |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 05/15/2008 : 19:40:34
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"Soooo... Dream and fly.
I'm holding your heart out of harm's way."
~Mickey Newbury~ |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2820 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2008 : 14:14:51
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That first year married, we lived in a shack...
No kidding, a shack. Your garage is probably
bigger than this was. And it was for two families.
A deluxe shack.
But, at that point, both of us fresh off the road and
twenty years old, it was better than a cave, on a beach
or the parents basement.
We'd met on the road in California and
came back to NY to get married;
just for the Hell of it...
and alot of it was,
Hell, caused by both,
to be fair and generous to,
well, me...
But, there was a fair amount of Heaven, too,
those twenty years.
I'm sorry, DD, wherever you are,
for the shacks and the bad jobs and
mostly for you never getting to see me
all grown up,
finally...
[almost]
It's been a long road without you.
You know,
that first year married I don't think we ever slept...
~*~
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2008 : 00:05:24
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He said it doesn't look good
he said it looks bad in fact real bad
he said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before
I quit counting them
I said I'm glad I wouldn't want to know
about any more being there than that
he said are you a religious man do you kneel down
in forest groves and let yourself ask for help
when you come to a waterfall
mist blowing against your face and arms
do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments
I said not yet but I intend to start today
he said I'm real sorry he said
I wish I had some other kind of news to give you
I said Amen and he said something else
I didn't catch and not knowing what else to do
and not wanting him to have to repeat it
and me to have to fully digest it
I just looked at him
for a minute and he looked back it was then
I jumped up and shook hands with this man who'd just given me
something no one else on earth had ever given me
I may have even thanked him, habit being so strong
Raymond Carver
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2820 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2008 : 07:18:07
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Duke Ellington riding in the back of his limo,
somewhere in Indiana. He is reading by lamplight.
Billy Strayhorn is with him, but asleep.
The tires hiss on the pavement.
The Duke goes on reading and turning the pages.
-Carver |
Edited by - buckman on 05/17/2008 07:18:37 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2008 : 13:01:32
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Cool summer nights.
Windows open.
Lamps burning.
Fruit in the bowl.
And your head on my shoulder.
These the happiest moments in the day.
Next to the early morning hours,
of course. And the time
just before lunch.
And the afternoon, and
early evening hours.
But I do love
these summer nights.
Even more, I think,
than those other times.
The work finished for the day.
And no one who can reach us now.
Or ever.
~Raymond Carver~
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2820 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2008 : 16:37:09
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Nothing cuts thru the nite like a solitary saxophone...
Slicing the divide between truth and lies,
solitude and solitary
fact and fiction
frailty and strength.
Peeling back the layers
built up by the day & the world.
Leaving nothing but
you and the truth...
HB |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2008 : 17:31:36
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| The Magician moves to the foot of the stage. Sees the hopefuls in the front row lean closer. She knows it's his cracked-in-half laughter that saves them all. He tosses the Life Preserver into the crowd. Picks up the saw and steps forward. Her pins-and-needles sleeping limbs. Her wide-open unblinking eyes. "Pixels," the Magician offers, and begins sawing, "too close to the big picture to see." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2174 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2008 : 17:34:40
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"Two tin cans and a thousand miles of string."
Maybe a little more string now, Baby. |
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Craig
Firefly
Kyrgyzstan
3793 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2008 : 21:00:19
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She threw a rock then hid her hands...
~ Craig |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1824 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2008 : 22:19:06
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"Broken Toys"
Little broken hearts. "Such a pretty little face, with a heart
that's been torn .... Living in a borrowed space, from the moment
she was born . . How many tears she's cried, but never tears of
joy . . . Someone's taken a little girl and made a Broken Toy".
"Two sad little eyes, painted heartbreak blue .. the simplest of
his dreams.. never will come true ..someone elses pain fell on this
little boy . .. someone's taken a soldier, and made a Broken Toy"
"Broken Toys,.. for every one we break, a broken life takes its' place... that one day will break Toys of its' own . .Oh, Lord .. we have to mend these Broken Toys . . and let them be children again .. give back the innocence stolen from them..
These words are from a song that B.J. Thomas recorded. The video
is almost impossible to watch all the way through . . . but it
is worth the tears. This should be played on all of the radios
and televisions in the world all day and all night for just one day.
What am I saying ?? For just one minute to get some of the words in.
I'd settle for that.
BGee
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2820 Posts |
Posted - 05/24/2008 : 21:37:02
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Lemme see, it seems like the trailer was just outside of Washington, PA.
In a big, open field right next to the interstate.
We all piled thru the little door, snowcovered
shivering and laughing, falling all over each other.
We'd been out ramming snowbanks
with a VW bug, trying to get stuck and then
lifting it out when we finally did.
Anyway, the trailer didn't have much
but it did have a stereo and a recliner and a mirror.
I remember doing Crystal for the first time
and lying in that chair vibrating
to Emerson, Lake and Palmer's first album...
Sometimes you have to look back down the road
to see where you entered the tunnels...
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2008 : 14:21:31
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Not for a moment,
beautiful aged Walt Whitman,
have I failed
to see your beard full
of butterflies.
Federico Garcia Lorca |
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The Nightly Vigil