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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
 Posted - 04/26/2015 : 19:35:37
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| Fever dreams on the other side. Ink-stained sheets and dog-eared pages. Snow on the bureau in a souvenir globe. The couple inside perpetually dancing. Tall hotels. Dominos down the beach. Desperately beautiful. She won't deny that. |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1825 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2015 : 19:19:48
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| She carried it all deep inside her, the rolling waves and the thunder drumming loudly. Darkness was a mirror in her heart, that reflected the sadness in her eyes. Lightning everywhere, slamming down with enough power to light the brightest star even more . But, she was looking for the sun. She was always looking for the sun. |
Edited by - BarbraG on 04/29/2015 12:23:36 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2015 : 19:44:37
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Vertigo Hill. He's driving looking down on clouds. "...There...that one alone...an orphan." Indelible words he said perilous lifetimes ago.
She said "...sleep..." and rolled the window down. "Not now," he said, his mouth full of smoke. His words on fire, "...one more thing an' it's...it's...it's..." Red Flag Warning when the traffic light turned his profile green. A three-masted two-lane outta town story. Match books and menus and paper napkins. An invented dictionary. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2015 : 19:16:28
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| They sit on windy corners with cups in their hands watching jets clear the parking garage. Under the flight paths roar and rumble they read each other's lips. They move in and out of white-washed rooms flooded with sunlight on India Street where something is always occurring. Plus-tides coming up through the floorboards. Stones turning and murmuring under their bed. Fairytale lights in market-tree branches blinking in the window all night. High-wire acts in a seaside city where trumpet vines climb the crumbling cliffs stealthy as twilight. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 05/05/2015 : 20:01:21
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| The mute Fortune Teller talks to The Sailor in Sign. A bridge in the picture. Shore birds cries. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 05/05/2015 : 20:22:54
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| He has a safecracker's ear and truth serum in his show-and-telling. "...do you remember...?" he says as the head towards Little Italy. Blick Art and Mona Lisa's sly smile and Specialty Pizza Menu. "Every night. Every morning before I open my eyes," she signs. They walk along the Embarcadero. There's the Star of India rocking in the harbor. Cruise ships with their Shangri-La promise. The Coaster, the Amtrak, the Metrolink, the trolley. The beautiful curved Coronado Bridge. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2015 : 00:25:26
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| House at the top of Carrizo Road off Pines to Palms CA 74 where the wind never stops blowing. Top of the final world finally. Pavement ends. "Why?" people ask. "Why would anyone choose to live here?" |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2015 : 17:11:23
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| Carrizo Road. All rock, chaparral and pinon pine. And a treacherous unpaved road in case the Fire Department had to race up to Jack and Dorothy's. Dorothy was Texas, and Jack, Oklahoma. He took a lot of ribbing for that. "Jus imagine! Me! Marrin' an Okie!" (43 years wed.) She'd stand behind him at the kitchen table. Her small palms resting on the back of his chair. Her fingertips dancing some tune on his shoulders. She Blue-Ribbon gardened in the half-dozen raised beds he made. Wore her aprons inside-out to protect the printed side. Jack was a collector. Old pistols and maps. He gave me a map of California before Interstates 5, 10, and 15. We met them in an antique shop waiting to get off the mountain without chains. "Gotta get yourselves a place up here. Get shuck of the world and closer to the Lord," he said one night when we were all sitting on their wide deck listening to the wind name the stars. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2015 : 22:11:09
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| A sudden rain scours the air and suds the oil-slick freeways. She's waiting in the car rental lot overlooking the runways blinking traffic. A jump-suited crew is sweeping the water away. Mirror-smooth blacktop where his boots appear as if he's been standing there forever. She's afraid to fly and steals things when she's anxious. Newspapers. Plastic forks if they're white. Sugar-In-The-Raw packets by the handful. He has a theory about that. He takes her hand and they head towards the terminal. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2015 : 19:09:55
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| He stands on the tiny mosaic balcony. Insistent brushes in his steady hand. The easel anchored with bungee cords. Chipped step and wrought iron rail. She leans over the clothesline three stories high. Chickens and roosters in the courtyard below. The girls as loud as the boys. And the clamorous shout-out maze of harbor vendors pitching their wares at the edge of the sea. Oysters in puddles. Cognac-grilled shrimps. Sea urchin and abalone. Sun-wide days falling down on their shoulders. His paintings shining with plenary light. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2015 : 17:26:20
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| He tips back in his gravity-defying chair. A satisfied grin on his face. He could balance that thing on a tightrope. "Showoff," she says. He leans back even further. Almost horizontal with the floor. This time he's going over. But no. It's as if the air becomes complicit and won't let him fall. She's examined the chair many times. Solid oak and sturdy enough to stand on. Never pretty. The anchor in the kitchen he carved his initials on. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 10/16/2017 08:56:57 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2015 : 20:54:32
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| San Ysidro Gate. Nine lanes open and only "...100 minute delay." Maps and bag of chips on the dashboard. "Anything to declare?" Camera in hand she shoots the Border Patrol. They smile. They raise their hands in surrender. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2015 : 20:57:59
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| One day they're waved over to Secondary. They cool their heels on the concrete divide while the guards kick the tires and the dogs sniff around. Mustaches and mirrored sunglasses. Badges and holsters with guns. Iridescent exhaust fumes caught in their throats. A twentieth century dinner for two. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 06/01/2015 : 20:44:22
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| Days gone by... |
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Craig
Firefly
Kyrgyzstan
3793 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2015 : 20:12:24
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Booty wrote, back in 2006...
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
as I entered Heaven's door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
who made me sputter and gasp --
the thieves, the liars, the sinners,
the alcoholics, the trash.
There stood the kid from seventh grade
who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
who never said anything nice.
Herb, who I always thought
was rotting away in hell,
was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, "What's the deal?
I would love to hear your take.
How'd all these sinners get up here?
God must've made a mistake.
"And why's everyone so quiet,
so somber? Give me a clue."
"Hush, child," said He, "they're all in shock.
No one thought they'd be seeing you."
Judge NOT.
Booty...
"Lord today there's no salvation..."
craig |
Edited by - Craig on 06/04/2015 10:04:55 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2015 : 21:56:19
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| Baja life. An old pickup in the yard with half a tank. Duct taped bench seat. He drives with his right arm around her shoulders. His left hand on the wheel. It's gravel and dirt and more gravel. Some loose stuff rattling around in the bed. His voice rich with longing. Painted holidays and holy days and all the days in between. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 06/07/2015 : 20:02:44
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| Some times they awoke in the same rainy room. Their paper boat afloat on a buoyant ocean. He'd grab the fine brushes and catch her in a chimeric fog. Ice crystals in his eyes then. Gale storm warnings. Or sun-spoke rays causing light to bleed through his canvas. The blues caught under his brushes in harmony with the weather. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 06/07/2015 : 20:06:44
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| When words woke them. Caught half conscious bailing with canvas buckets. Silver flash at the horizon. Clasp of light holding the sea and the sky together. Footsteps retreating in the parallel world remembering what's yet to come. "That last life..." he said, "...you got used to it." |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1825 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2015 : 22:14:51
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| "You've done it now," she said to herself. "You've really done it !" The sun was going down and was blood orange, and she hadn't even seen it with her eyes. Only with her heart. She missed it ! Completely !! He was gone .. just like that. With no word or explanation and no look back. To where she was. ... Where she was .. was going to be a dark and lonely place for a while, but filled with memories of light and laughter and ... darkness .. that no one could ever take away. A familiar road. He had done this before. But, she promised herself that he would never have the chance to do it again. She wasn't going to miss him this time as much as she had the first. He was on the road again. He would be fine. He had his guitar .... and, his ego. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2015 : 20:32:03
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The freeways cross over one by one. The aerial interchanges. The clover leafs and scimitar configurations. County roads with their question marks and glittering glass edges. Moon-bright blacktop and country lanes. Pavement Ends invitations. He cuts the engine and lights a cigarette. His journey-driven profile. Constellations in the jewelry-store sky. Ornamental evenings. |
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The Nightly Vigil