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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
 Posted - 08/18/2014 : 19:48:24
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| "I know everything about you," he says, before she knows him one hour, "...come back tomorrow..." and he quick-steps across some cracks in the sidewalk as the fault line shivers beneath him, "...ya see what I'm sayin'?" he says, "hahaha." His today always has some yesterday in it. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2014 : 19:51:47
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| Nights in the limo under low stars. Her rustling silk skirts. His dark suit lapels. A world sliding by tinted windows. Denny's on Sunset. Lou D's maple butter with muffins to go. Call ahead and he runs it out to the curb. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 08/18/2014 : 19:57:37
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Cheery guide popping Swedish Fish into her mouth taking them down under the dam. Tour busses and boats and Lake Mead above them. Winged Figures of the Republic keychain he slips into her pocket because she loves the road. "...save it all...save it all..." his creed.
I watched the crows in the parking lot this morning. Mythic Motel getting a 21st Century facelift. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2014 : 17:54:06
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Sunday morning brunch. Lucille, Yolanda, and Claire, (the new widow),
reading their LA Times horoscopes out loud and honeying up their biscuits. Lots of cars in the parking lot with party pinatas. Grand and great-grand children spilling orange juice in the Day Room.
Later: "...glass of wine, OK? Margarita?" Big grin. Robber's plating "Cardiff Crack" from Seaside Market. My son and daughter-in-law decorating desserts. In love with squeegee bottles. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2014 : 18:07:20
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| She's watching him watch sea birds touch down on a weather-worn deck in September. He's telling three-masted stories. Charting his way on some uncharted ocean. Diaphanous light unspooling. Acid-etched clouds. Clear edges like glass. Blue-domed sky blinking through. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2014 : 18:13:56
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| "This ocean... I knew it before I knew you," she says, "it's coldness." "Wrong on both counts," he says, "hahaha..." And certainly it's warm where they are. Their salt-dusted skin burning quicker. He says the orchid light at sunset is worth it. So many words with sails and a blurred moon silvering the horizon. Sometime in the night he kicks the covers free and sleeps with his feet escaping. Her sunburn shivers then. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2014 : 20:10:35
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| Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night and he is beside her under white sheets. "White sheets..." he says, "the better to see you dreaming." "Red Riding Hood," she says. He says, "Who...?" |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 09/16/2014 : 16:21:00
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In the hotel business the bar is the last room to close. My daddy would sit me up next to the cash register with my blanket and Raggedy Ann. I'd fall asleep in a din of Irishmen arguing Sweepstakes and Revolution. They wore white shirts and long black aprons. They folded crisp linen napkins over their arms. When the dining rooms closed they drank whiskey and laughed and slapped each other heartily on the back. Sometimes they broke into song. My father looked like Spencer Tracy. He had a thick brogue. He'd lock up and carry me back to my bed along the pathway where the ocean was loud. He'd whisper close in my ear and point out the stars that were mine. "...Aye, and that one too..." he'd say, and I'd nod my sleepy head. I loved the way he said 'too.' Like a promise or a guarantee.
He sips his coffee, "...don't stop talkin'..." he says. He doesn't blink. He knows where the pictures are from that time. He's separated the black and white from the sepia. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 09/16/2014 : 21:36:10
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| ...and the pictures of them laughing with the checkpoint guards playing cowboys and cowboys. Arches and alcoves in the small house at the end of a dead-end dirt road. Wrap-around porch with a metal glider overlooking the vineyard's misty irrigation. Monet light in the morning. He paints blue edges on odd-size cardboard pieces. "A puzzle in a puzzle..." he says. She prints spice labels in alphabetical order. India ink. A calligraphy pen. Angels stare in through the wavery glass, curious and still. God eavesdrops above the treetops. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2014 : 19:55:33
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| Pictures in the memory attic. Dinosaur diner out on the 10. Velvet Elvis and T Rex "Endless Breakfast" menu. Scorpion paperweights at the check stand. Snakeskin belts and bolo ties. Miles of semis and freight trains rolling across the desert floor. Pinwheel wind farm's dust and weedy wonders. Web of adrenaline shivering the backs of her knees burning that high octane fuel. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2014 : 19:52:49
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| My huckleberry friend. Every night. Every morning before I open my eyes. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 09/25/2014 : 23:03:30
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| "I never thought... I never looked into it..." she says. But he sees things in historical perspective, "...something...some memory...some...?" "No..." she says, "No. Just laughter and ice cubes clinking in the glass. Second-hand stories overheard of a time before I was born. He was in the hotel business. On an island thirty miles out to sea. Choppy waters and a granite coastline. Mother ships wary of shoals. Brazen blockade runners with their raucous brotherhood. Their vocabulary of determination. Stubborn. Rough and musical. The riot in the blood. Three lighthouses in a triangle. Two on the open sea. No high candle on the back side. Just the ever-cold Atlantic. Did they find a hidden pocket beach? Midnight bayberry and beach plum? Did they bring the boats in or was it all brag? I don't know. He was sixty when I was born. My mother was twenty-four." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2014 : 20:55:10
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| Everything he says she finds. In less than a day they finish each other's sentences. Unaware. The trees run wet with weather. "Would you like to come in...?" she says, folding her umbrella. He holds the door open. Touches her waist. Takes the newspaper and places it on the floor. Stoops down and removes her shoes and sets them on the paper to dry. He does the same with his. Slow-motion rain on the window. She reaches for tea and the kettle. He sits down at the table where so much of their life will occur. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2014 : 17:06:02
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| They often shot in Central Park. Mornings and evenings because of the ambience of the light. And because afternoons were full of loud trust fund kids intent on tormenting their nannies. They shot Summer in Winter and vise-versa. Wool leggings and fur-collar coats in July. Camp shorts and sundresses in December. In between shots I'd sit on a cold bench drinking hot coffee when I was ten. "You liked that," he says. "You betcha!" she says. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2014 : 17:11:52
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| "Don't open that can," she warns him, "a room full of prayers and lost passports." "Be careful..." he says, decades later in the lobby of the Blue Shade Motel. Low lamps where the desk clerk runs the radio all night long. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2014 : 19:21:53
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| East side, west side. Raise your hand and catch a ride to a rundown warehouse in Chinatown. Seven flights of circular stairs. A silo-style black metal birdcage. They shot the catalogs there. Freight elevators to bring up the clothes. Free lunch in underwear and barbershop cape. Pond's Cold Cream clean up later. Grab the handrail at the top. Go airborne with cash to the bottom. Anonymity back out on crowded Canal. "Soooo..." he says, long pause, "...jus' doin' the day..." She shrugs her shoulders. "I showed up once a month at Diocesan Services. Smiled. Stood up straight with my feet in third position. Posture and attitude counted for a lot before computers." It depends on his mood what happens now. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 10/24/2014 19:39:33 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2014 : 19:41:37
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| They make an unusual couple. Tiny Robber with her Grimm's Fairy Tale tats, and long tall Garret with his rep tie and American flag lapel pin. "My carrot-top slice of white bread," Robber calls him. Garret works at the Research Center where they clone the Presidents, the cabinet, and Elvis. A local rumor because of the low bunker-like buildings folded into the hills, the helipad rooftops and security folks talking to their cuff links. Garret gets in with a palm print. They'll marry on Valentine's Day. On the beach, weather permitting. Marco will make the wedding cake. Heart-shaped. To be shared at Sunrise. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2014 : 20:02:27
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Front page Coast News: SANDAG is replacing the old wooden trestle over San Elijo Lagoon. Construction is expected to start...
The Coaster crosses the lagoon and the bluff crumbles along the edges. A little less bluff every year. Posted. DANGER - SLIDE AREA. Where he parked those full moon plus-tide nights when the train shot across the trestle. Water so high it was lapping the tires. No room to turn around. And he knew it. "You knew it too," he said. |
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aussiedave
Swinger
Australia
509 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2014 : 23:20:20
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breathe in
incumbent,
a rationale in limbo,
duty bound for those
predisposed
to do,
for doing, is living,
to those who think
they are alive,
a life,
full to live,
three score and ten
is never enough
to finish,
life, can be nothing but a measure
of finite individual breaths.
for who remembers the dead?
and yet,
they who live
are they who are dead,
the walking dead,
devoid of life
and music,
listen,
to the living,
can you hear them sing?
captured, found within
the music,
is a bridge named agape'
it is a soul's release,
a heart's song,
a healing balm,
breathe in eternity
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Edited by - aussiedave on 10/19/2014 23:23:52 |
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aussiedave
Swinger
Australia
509 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2014 : 23:40:36
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in limbo
in limbo,
an experience of human
suspended
isolation,
severed, cut, the prism blank,
cold, comatose, a non-entity,
devoid,
waiting for the resumption
of time,
held back
by an infralapsarian
destiny,
foreordained,
this,
a cosmic reality.
in limbo,
where future emotions are stored,
kept sacred, until ripe for release,
where darkness reigns,
and lonely silence stifles all improbable thought,
where non-existence lives,
it gives birth to the black abyss,
deep, bottomless and endless,
all time halts.....
and waits.....
no-one hears the sound
of frozen isolation,
for no-one knows.
kept in limbo,
for a moment, a time, a year,
or two,
a decade,
an era......a micro-second,
an eternity,
a human experience
of one. |
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The Nightly Vigil