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Ailinn
Windchimer
2436 Posts |
 Posted - 03/03/2023 : 17:16:40
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-Fickle twilight. Spring's tricks. The mountain high. The sky lowering. The quiet before the storm. "There's faces up there. I saw them. Comin' down soon," he says. His hair curling under his collar.
In the dark... Saying places he'd choose to be. A step back. A century. Or two. "Save it all. Save it all!" he says. "Nothin' lost. Nothin' forgotten. Nothin' gone."
-Pages in brief eternity. The words around them. Tin breadbox in the closet. Rubbermaid Totes in the garage.
-No onions. No shallots. No scallions. "What's this?" he says spying chives.
...and he stays and he stays...
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Edited by - Ailinn on 03/16/2023 19:18:30 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2955 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2023 : 16:15:03
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I HAVE MARVELED
(To Diane and the women in our lives)
I have marveled at her quiet strength and dignity
and the way she has suffered at the hands of men
Yet has not lost her love for all men.
I have marveled at how she has met all
That she feared and in so doing has nothing left
To fear.
I have marveled at one that appears so empty and aching
Herself yet can find a wellspring to give others to drink.
I have marveled at how from any place
in the world, she can appear to
Warm a cold room.
I have marveled that The Gods
Continue to remind me how
Wonderful a woman and women can be.
I have marveled at her quiet strength and dignity.
She needs everything and everyone
and yet truly needs nothing more than herself.
Hank |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2436 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2023 : 17:02:20
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| He turns the hourglass on the hour to confirm its accuracy. And the sundial in the courtyard against his gold watch. She knows how he's made. American. Intense. Precise. Determined. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2436 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2023 : 17:04:42
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| "Random," he says. "Little journal entries." "Auctioneer's hammer coming down on the Case Lots. The sound of change," she says. "I couldn't carry it anyway." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2436 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2023 : 17:07:11
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| Ice brazenly breaking the trees. Cluttered gutters. Sheet ice on the river. Temperature shrinking the soundboard. Chafing hands. Needles pulling light through buttonholes all winter long. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2436 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2023 : 17:11:37
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| Sudden snow and no chains to get off the mountain. Hot soup rescue in the spartan Retreat. Later they sat with the nodding wizards. Beards in their laps. The room so still with their sleeping. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2955 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2023 : 14:12:54
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A burning bush stole my childhood
and a wooden cross took the rest.
Nowadays the spirit fails me
Nowadays I’m breaking apart.
Suicide hot lines don’t have
numbers to push
for salvation and redemption.
The church won’t give me my
money back, but the pipers
have to be paid.
Hail Mary, where the hell is Grace
Does Four balls still get you first base?
If I’ve offended you at all
how do think I feel?
Call the God of your choice
and complain.
I’m still on hold.
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Edited by - buckman on 03/15/2023 14:22:04 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2955 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2023 : 20:53:58
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Caught between the sacred and the profane.
Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Somewhere between the slap on the ass
and the handful of dirt on the coffin.
As we prepare for the evil passages coming
thru the valley of the shadows,
Know this:
This is no time to fear it;
be still and know you are not alone.
Someday it will all make sense.
A contingency of warrior angels
hover above us, my loves.
HB |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2436 Posts |
Posted - 03/16/2023 : 18:39:14
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| "See it before you write it," he says. "Don't sacrifice the meaning for a clever phrase or rhyme. Tell the truth. Every word. Every day." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2436 Posts |
Posted - 03/16/2023 : 18:51:16
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Days gone by...
Brick walks under grape vine canopies. Weeping pepper trees. A thousand lantern-lit crosses down Olvera Street. Families celebrating en masse. Three and four generations. Babies in slings. Toddlers in strollers. Grandfathers clapping hands to Mariachi music. Taquitos Machaca. Street corn in cones. Horchata and churros. Paleta carts. Fastidious angels busy with brooms through a maze of alleyway shops. Wrought iron candlesticks. Hand tooled boots. Tapestries from Oaxaca. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 03/16/2023 19:26:34 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2436 Posts |
Posted - 03/16/2023 : 18:54:40
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| Someone in the kitchen whistling. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2955 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2023 : 10:14:00
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She wore Polar bear pajamas and Tropical shoes.
At first I thought I was still asleep or tripping.
Avocado cartels have gone wild overnight.
Jerusalem artichokes weigh heavily on my mind.
They are Not from Jerusalem, they are not artichokes.
No direction home, just like me.
Persnickety rumors about new drugs
fetch me from sleep and whip me into submission.
It’s a dark world and I need to be lit up
to see my way through.
Sobriety makes me feel like a quitter.
I am thinking that eating half of a Supreme pizza
just before bed was a questionable decision
that must be avoided in future to not go insane.
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2955 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2023 : 22:58:37
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A Confession of Sorts
I’ve had suicide on retainer
for over fifty years.
Like a subscription.
It was my backup plan in case
it all fell apart at once.
When I was fifteen I didn’t
know what was going on
in my brain. It was new and scary.
Some days I couldn’t even get up,
let alone go to school.
But, like millions of others,
I did get up. I did go on.
The details of my life are
spread out in other places,
if anybody cares;
this is about something else.
Let’s just say that I worked,
I loved, I cried, I laughed.
I did lots of The Right Thing.
Just like millions of others.
Despite the fog.
But, my mind was never right.
I was not a coward because I didn’t
kill myself all at once,
like some have said to me.
You can’t be a coward and yet
fight back and continue for decades
when you have every
part of your brain telling you to
Just Shut Down.
I did the killing of myself
in the slow drip method;
a bottle at a time, a smoke at a time,
a gram at a time, a pill at a time.
Over time it becomes an ocean
and thousands of bottles.
I snorted it all; except the whiskey.
I’m surprised I still have a nose.
I’m more surprised just to be here at 71.
Maybe the ten years sober helped?
Now that I’ve stopped trying to
kill meself, it seems like my body is pissed.
I went back to whiskey for a few years,
but my liver is a wussy and is whining.
I’m here for the long haul, apparently and
it hurts every time I have to say goodbye to one of you.
Stop leaving. Stop getting sick. Doctor’s orders.
Always Remember what I said:
“As we prepare for the evil passages coming
thru the valley of the shadows,
Know this:
This is no time to fear it;
be still and know you are not alone.
Someday it will all make sense.
A contingency of warrior angels
hover above us, my love.”
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2955 Posts |
Posted - 03/21/2023 : 11:46:14
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And now, as an old man,
with the rear view mirror dimming
and the aches and pains inside
turning into the deadly physical price
to be paid for all the parties and celebrations,
I think I need to talk to my old confessor,
the Hudson River, once again.
Sometimes I feel like a
shameful, despicable fool
that took too long to
learn where the boundary lines were
and what they meant to me and the ones I hurt.
And then there’s the other times,
seeking the mercy of The Gods,
when I look in that beaten, cracked old mirror
and I see a desperate young child
lost in the confusion of growing up
and dealing with the torturing mental illnesses
quietly and mostly alone.
I think of a quote I read once by Laini Taylor:
“Bitter, bitter, this desolation of angels…”
And that’s where I shall leave it;
I don’t have any answers,
hell, I don’t even remember the questions anymore.
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2436 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2023 : 18:01:22
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For Spring. For the vine-entwined nascent world. For so much sun in their field of vision. Dazzling garden. Rainbow riot. "Show me how you did that," he says. She says, "Let's trade." His mouth opens wide silently laughing. But he's curious. He squats down in the rows. Pokes in the ground lifting blossoms. Stems dew-wet under the leaves. He looks up with such a winsome expression. "What?" she laughs. He shakes his head. Traces his brow. Places a plot there. His mind spinning like sparkles in an antique snow globe. "Coffee filters," she says later. He says, "Show me."
Some nights I see them walking on the moonlit road under the small spinning stars. Laughing. Bumping up against each other. His instinct to lean in. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2955 Posts |
Posted - 03/23/2023 : 19:25:54
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Long-haired chinchillas at the feet of
Ineffective-looking shootists
living their memories in the here and now.
She said, “‘Hold your breath,
the statute of limitations is almost
out of sight.’”
Snow-topped peaks glistening
with the strong lure of
high mysterious frozen places.
Dramatic revelations from
outside sources.
He scrambles the plot
heading for the grand finale.
A shaft of light drops a memory;
From the top of his head
to the end of the line.
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2955 Posts |
Posted - 03/26/2023 : 04:45:01
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Slow motion dream. Titular moanings.
Rest stop on the way to eternity.
Dribbling thighs, bruised egos.
Merry-Go-Rounds that never stop.
Waiting in the wrong line for redemption.
Wafer thin but daddy rich, she calls out to me,
Says her name’s written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Oh Sugar, sugar,
My candy girl divine,
Do it to me one more time…
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2955 Posts |
Posted - 03/27/2023 : 18:56:49
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A conspiracy of ravens hides under my bed
waiting for me to make a false move.
Nevermore is only a suggestion
not Constitutional law.
I’m thinking that Jesus may love me
but other than D
there aren’t any real people that
have any give a ****s left.
I’ve made sure of that
with my congenial attitude
and my winning wanna-buy-a-car smile.
When my insides finally implode
I know I can count on my honey
to wipe my brow and for Jesus to
get me a room at Hotel Eternity.
And by the way, a murder of crows
was available as a first line, but
if I can sneak in a Poe reference
I get a voucher to win a blessing.
I’m collecting them in a shoe box
under the bed.
Damn,
I smell a false move.
Father, It’s me.
I think I’m ready to listen.
Tell me a story.
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2436 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2023 : 17:02:01
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"Did you like that work?" He's drinking his UK tea. "You do it with your body not your mind. Strike the position the photographer wants and daydream the hours away. Some photographers have assistants who might step in. Lift your chin. Tilt your head. Dab a little baby oil to make your skin glisten. Some play music. One played June Christy and Chris Connor all day. I don't remember his name but I remember the lyrics to those songs. Makeup and lighting people milling about. A cortege of strangers exchanging their lives. Out on the avenue the considerate city lays out like a grid. The Library lions. The Cathedral on 5th. The star spangled sky over ships in the harbor. The liners lit up like Broadway. The Bowery. The Battery. The Village. The Park. The porters and doormen with epaulets blazing. One shoulder lower than the other from wrangling luggage through the grand hotels. Star with her bangle bracelets and Parliament cigarettes. Mint growing in soup cans on the fire escape for her tea. "Are you at home here now?" she asked me. The photographer called Wild Eye pounded his fist on the table. The set jury-rigged. The prow of a ship held together with duct tape and chicken wire. Room for only one foot to stand on posed and trembling. "Lean out! Lean out!" Wild Eye shouted. I don't read the world the way I used to," she says.
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Edited by - Ailinn on 05/27/2023 18:51:25 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2955 Posts |
Posted - 04/05/2023 : 21:47:32
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Just one more day…
Isn’t that what they all say at the end?
One more day with those gone,
with him or her or them.
One more day with ourselves,
seeing the beautiful things,
feeling the sun,
remembering the good.
Well, you got it.
It’s here now and waiting just for you.
I know how hard it can be to
go on sometimes, trust me.
But, listen, you got this.
Just one more day.
Give it your best shot.
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Topic |
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The Nightly Vigil