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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
 Posted - 03/03/2018 : 17:05:18
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| In the middle of the year he said, "Don't hang up on me..." and he laughed his cracked-in-half laugh. The days flamed into summer. Turned hot and sleepy. His shirt on the chair back. Empty boots by the door. Shimmering halo of heat overhead burning color onto their skin. At the south end jetty the Fire Department practiced swift water rescues. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2018 : 17:40:58
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| Rock-strewn beach after the storm. Sea star-strafed and rolling. Moon a bright V of light on the water beyond the NO TRESPASSING signs. Cops and Coast Guard mustering in the parking lot. Locals offering donuts and coffee. Deep down in the ocean the magnetic fields drift. Up on the PCH traffic lights swing in the wind. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2018 : 17:50:45
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| His canvases leaning against the walls. Cartons of paraphernalia. The particulars and inventions of their lives. "...market to mine," he laughs, smearing paint with his finger, not the brush. It was the year of El Nino. The Jet Stream shift. Big rain many days. Pistol-dark skies. Black tarps anchoring the cliff side. Sand bags supporting the porch. "The first thing we're gonna do..." he says. She's kneeling by the trunk. Paper towels and a hair dryer. He appears in the doorway with two cups in hand. He spreads the pages in a circle around her. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2018 : 18:01:43
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| The house with blue shutters and lintel over the door. The curtain of jingle shells on the patio. The jar of keys on the counter. The clock that lies. She's tying hibiscus stems to the trellis. Triple knots. "Too obsessive...?" she asks. "Dedicated," he grins. Here come the hummingbirds wooed by red. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2018 : 18:07:09
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| An acre of sprawl off Coast 101. WEEKENDS 7AM TO SUNSET. Antiques-On-Consignment. Time-contained stalls. The mystery of emptied attics. Each decade in its frame. Hint of scent in a stoppered perfume bottle. A patron spirit for the crowd. "...catching up to the past..." he laughs, but he means it. There's also local honey and strawberries. Meat grilling on sticks. Street tacos. Chili in Dixie cups on the corner. "Order it up," he says. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2018 : 18:11:38
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| Dark cyan sky in the Valle de Guadalupe. Late afternoon vineyards bordered with mustard bloom. All that buttery light in the hollows. Alebrijie totems on the window sill. Sheets waiting to set sail on the line. Star wine in the viney green. Early moon balloon-high above them burning the house down in Mexico. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2018 : 19:01:22
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Traffic magic. Seagulls sailboat footprints in the sand. Sandpipers feather and foam at the ruffled edge. Water flooded with sunlight. Out on the ocean the pleasure boats travel to Catalina. A new branch of green leaves aboard one. Bon Voyage banner and remnants of a christening left behind on the dock. Above the Pacific the Flower Fields glow on in April. Fifty acres of tissue-thin blooms. Translucent. Like paint on glass. Step lightly here. Close and careful. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2018 : 19:08:42
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"Let's go where we're gonna go seein' so much..."
"...if one is good...two is better...hahaha." Market in O'side Harbor. Honey roasted peanuts out of the barrel. Fill a little brown bag for a dollar. Embarcadero's afternoon sunlight so bright with its kettle corn smell. "Day of the flowers..." she said, "...how they always come back..." Walk around Liberty Station. Arches and alcoves. Warped air in the jet blast over NTC Park. Grand balcony overlooking The Gaslamp's striped awnings. Music spilling into the street. "Listen..." he said. Something leaking before the flood.
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Ginny G.
Windchimer
USA
1810 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2018 : 03:52:04
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Your writing so beautifully poetic, Ailinn.  Thank you for sharing it. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2018 : 19:45:37
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| Thank you, Ginny. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 04/16/2018 : 17:02:39
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| "Cards is jus' payin' attention," he says, tipped back in his gravity-defying chair. His easygoing manner and instant grasp of information. His proficient shuffle and ace-flipping thumb. "No bluffin' in this game," he says. But she reads the signs. How he taps his middle finger. How he glances up without raising his head. Slight lift of his left eyebrow when he sets his glass down in the same circle. "What else do you think you know?" he grins. Silver clasp holding the sea and the sky together. The night just beginning. Lightning spiking the clouds. Ocean full of rain outside the window where men in yellow slickers are wrestling barricades. If he picks the blue deck she wins. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 04/16/2018 : 17:10:41
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| "...thought they'd be here by now..." she says. "Sat in the park after dark rain or shine waiting for them to rise out of the river... Damp smell by the tomb. Fog on the Hudson." "...an'...what did you...think would...?" he asks not ready to abandon a fantasy. "I thought we'd...be able to fly..." she says, "bump into each other...in the sky..." "Ummm..." he says, "ummmm..." falling asleep in slow motion. Safe in this night. Nothing in the sky but his light now. |
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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1819 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2018 : 10:25:42
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| The experience was poetry in motion to young Newbury. After work was done, as waves rocked them up and down and back and forth, the men joked and passed the bottle. Celebrating the moment, Mickey would make up a song. The shrimpers would laugh and cheer; the seagulls would cry, and Mickey would sing again. As the sun set off the ship’s stern, bottlenose dolphins danced to the beat of the boat. Meanwhile the ocean - always the same, always different and always powerful - provided majestic rhythm and transition to Newbury’s music. |
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San Diego
Swinger
509 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2018 : 21:15:59
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| Encore, Joe. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2018 : 19:15:40
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| "My father taught me to paint and smudge pastel and charcoal. My mother, a bright star, appeared nightly. I hadn't been introduced to her yet. Black limousines. Priests benign and smiling. The creak when they went into the ground. The crowd dismayed. No one I knew there." He's leaning forward on the deck. Sun in his hair and on his shoulders. Elbows on his knees. His tanned hands intent cleaning brushes with turpentine. A small pyramid of rags on the table. "Why this story so often?" she asks him. "It keeps getting safer," he says. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2018 : 19:19:09
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| The warped rocker's uneven rhythm. Stars in the gentian-dark sky. His mind alive with midnight. They're sitting on the deck eating ice cream. Moonlight on the spoons. He tips his dish up and lets the melt run into his mouth. "C'mon..." he says, and he grabs the pole and the bucket. "Now...?" she says, but he's already moving to the watery edge. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2018 : 19:23:46
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| "I'm angry," she says. "Better already," from him. She says, "I got the days mixed up..." "Me too..." he grins, "...by the calendar on the fridge." Border crossers. San Ysidro gate. Wake of diesel fuel. Combustible horizon. Too late to turn around in this ether. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2018 : 19:27:54
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| Winding black-top one lane road backing up to a National Forest. Copper sink and fieldstone fireplace. Autumn on the mountain. Steep slopes and craggy outcrops. Breathtaking view from the deck. Snow on the peak from last year. "Do you think the dead remember?" she asked him. A deer suddenly lifting its head in the clearing. The clouds white-shouldered and quiet. The space filling with leaves again. |
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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1819 Posts |
Posted - 05/03/2018 : 10:15:34
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If verse and melody floated around Newbury’s universe until captured is not the point. When he sensed a song was out there, or in there, delivery became the mission. This is not the same as pulling an obstinate rabbit from a hat, but is closer to the point made by Michelangelo in a 16th century letter: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
Except Newbury did not claim to work in just three dimensions. His domain was the fifth, and he humbly described himself as “just a conduit.” “Good writers can’t take any credit for their work,” he explained. “All they can do is take credit for workin’ hard for the people who receive it.”
Starin’ out the window all I wish is
I could hear the words I’m hearin’ in my head THE SAILOR |
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Egbert
Swinger
Netherlands
813 Posts |
Posted - 05/06/2018 : 03:20:31
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| It takes exhausting efforts trying to get a grip on the words hovering in my head. Love ya, Joe! |
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The Nightly Vigil