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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
 Posted - 10/06/2018 : 17:31:22
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| He's painting on air. An edge around clouds like a halo. A hole where a hand might reach through. In the foreground a woman in a bride-white dress. "Good brushes..." he says, "...they matter..." There's riprack along the channel. A drift fence across the beach road. He likes this place. A long walk on the bottom of the ocean. No need to breathe with sunset's green flash above them. The sleepless moon soon arriving. A small space to put the blanket down. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 10/06/2018 17:58:35 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 10/06/2018 : 17:56:30
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PLACES LOCKED BY GRACE
I could feel her shaking in my arms,
But she said, be assured I will not break.
He may have tried to take my body
But there's more to me he can never take.
I have been violated in so many ways
But there are places that must stay safe
There are places only some can go
And those places are locked by grace.
The horrors that a woman feels
or a child or even a man
That face the beasts that walk this Earth
and are damaged at their hands
Must be treated ever forward
with tenderness, a loving embrace
There is so little left to them
That will ever restore their faith
I could feel her shaking in my arms,
But she said, be assured I will not break.
He may have tried to take my body
But there's more to me he can never take.
Be patient with the child, the woman, the young man
Give them room to breathe and room to love
But what they need the most is time.
The healing comes from a higher place
than you can ever reach
It may seem now like they are drowning
But, be assured they will find the beach.
I could feel her shaking in my arms,
But she said, be assured I will not break.
He may have tried to take my body
But there's more to me he can never take.
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2018 : 19:29:08
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| $5 for parking. 50 cents a pound. So busy it takes two California Highway Patrol officers to manage the traffic in Valley Center. Grown from a pumpkin patch to pony rides, hay rides, a petting zoo, craft show, and food trucks. A family tradition more than 25 years. One kid rule. If you can pick it up you can bring it home. There's trails, and trees to climb. Local honey and jam. Red Velvet and German Chocolate fudge. Sweet Autumn Sunday afternoon. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2018 : 19:34:08
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| ...and back on the coast the 1944 wooden trestle came down at San Elijo. Replaced with a concrete railroad bridge with double tracks for the Coaster, Amtrak, and BNSF freight line. The tracks run beside Interstate 5. Fun racing them over the lagoon. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2018 : 19:47:39
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| "...talk to me, baby," he says, and he closes his eyes. "Fire Irish. My aristocratic gypsy, my father called my mother. I put those pictures away. Discovered the museum and the galleries. The library and all-night coffeehouses. The studios same-day-cash-pay tradition. Kodak or General Electric could keep me in the hotel for weeks. Pretzels. A good fountain pen. Bubbles for the tub. Room service coffee. Grand Central at my feet. No computer's who-what-when-where." When she stops talking he opens his eyes, "...and...?" he says, "...and...?", alive in the shadow of the sign and the cross in a house with a bridge between the driveway and the front door. "I got up in the morning. Cast myself in the role of the day," she says, "a character in a play. But you... You..." "You blushed..." he says. "You forgot your lines." |
Edited by - Ailinn on 11/02/2018 19:09:44 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 10/07/2018 : 20:58:59
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A Touch of Tenderness
She's searching for redemption
From a past that let her down
The dreams she had so long ago
No longer come around
The ticket to salvation
Slipped just out of her reach
She thinks the ship has sailed away
She's still standing on the beach.
Winter spring summer fall
Lessons to be learned
Sure as there's a spark inside
Bridges can be burned
A touch of tenderness in the night
A place to make a stand
The times that we remember
Are the ones we never planned
Morning brings another day
Filled with hope and chance
The gypsy music in her soul
Can make the angels dance
Dreams don't die when we awake
They just go deep inside
She's due a hundred days of laughter
For every night she cried
She's searching for redemption
From a past that let her down
The dreams she had so long ago
No longer come around
The ticket to salvation
Is just within her reach
She thinks the ship has sailed away
She's still standing on the beach.
A touch of tenderness in the night
A place to make a stand
The times that we remember
Are the ones we never planned
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/09/2018 : 17:04:53
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| School days. Today was beef and cheese tamales. With carrot sticks. Thursday is baked potato bar, which they like. Friday, "bad pizza" with salad. One fresh fruit or vegetable must be included everyday. Even if you're on the Auto Pay Plan you can bring your own lunch some days. Surfing is a PE Class. They don't have to worry about a bus pass. I remember when Cameron was six...telling Mick his favorite school lunch was grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches. The really got into that. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2018 : 02:01:18
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Of Angels and Demons
Today's the kind of day the devil
Plays hard to get.
I'm searching for the last woman
That I almost never met.
Life has got me by the ear
It's humming my funeral song.
There's so much in life that's great
It's just taking so damn long.
The angels and the demons
Don’t come around me anymore,
It may be that they’re tired
Of finding me face down on the floor.
Holy Father save me
The curtain is coming down,
I need to find a back road
That takes me out of this town.
Tonight’s the kind of night
The bottle’s letting me down.
I dive in and start swimming
But lately I start to drown.
I take the bull by the horns,
He drags me through the dirt
I keep riding for that trophy,
All I seem to get is hurt.
They try to tell me I'm doing it wrong
But I know wrong and I know I'm right
You see me and the devil, well,
We used to be pretty tight.
There are those that give and those that take
and the ones that go to their knees
But Lord just give me one time more
With one that only aims to please.
The angels and the demons
Don’t come around me anymore,
It may be that they’re tired
Of finding me face down on the floor.
Holy Father save me
The curtain is coming down,
I need to find a back road
That takes me out of this town.
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2018 : 02:03:59
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I'll Sing The Song Of Life To You
Go ahead, remember the darkness
Go ahead, remember the pain
If you need to, keep them close
So you don't look back again
At times I've watched you struggling
The child the woman and the man
At times I've tried to help you
But you would not take my hand
I'll never leave your side, my friend
I'll always have your back
I'll leave a well in the valley
I'll take your heavy pack
I'll sing the song of life to you
With words you cannot sing
I'll comfort you and care for you
Thru the winter into spring
Keep walking from the darkness,
Soon you'll see the light
It starts off soft and low
But then it roars so bright
Others came the way you've come
They're solid and they're strong
Listen, can you hear it?
The train's coming with the dawn
I'll never leave your side, my friend
I'll always have your back
I'll leave a well in the valley
I'll take your heavy pack
I'll sing the song of life to you
With words you cannot sing
I'll comfort you and care for you
Thru the winter into spring
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/12/2018 : 18:16:47
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| Miles of telephone poles. Diminishing perspective. Little whirls of dust rising off the blacktop. Long trains in their cinder bed crisscrossing the desert. Blood rushing his veins near the Wanderland Station. His jaw set. Determined. No foreseeing what comes next. And after, "...lemme tell you somethin', woman..." he says, bent over and out of breath. Both laughing so hard. Tears running down their faces. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2018 : 20:29:59
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After All
After all is said and done
After the sins are confessed
When eternity’s road beckons
And we step up to take that final test.
It’s after a lifetime has come and gone
And the wins and losses are all totalled,
It’s after the tears and the laughter
It’s after all the stories are told.
It’s then that I’ll remember your smile
It’s then that my heart will cry out
It’s then that the spark will turn to ember
It’s then that there’ll be no doubt.
The road all alone takes forever
The path is muddy and rough
The years move slowly down the page
The heart wants to shout out enough!
The memories are buried so deep
Like a book read once and discarded
The blood, sweat and tears of our romance
Left me broken and empty hearted.
After all is said and done
After the sins are confessed
When eternity’s road beckons
And we step up to take that final test.
It’s after a lifetime has come and gone
And the wins and losses are all totalled,
It’s after the tears and the laughter
It’s after all the stories are told.
It’s then that I’ll remember your smile
It’s then that my heart will cry out
It’s then that the spark will turn to ember
It’s then that there’ll be no doubt.
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2018 : 21:13:20
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The Cup
She was from Oregon,
he was from everywhere.
Somehow that glassed in porch on Geary
was just big enough and just small enough for the two of them.
He walked into the kitchen one morning
and she was just there, like the fog.
He'd forgotten his shirt
and had on black sunglasses.
She had on that little levi jacket
with the flowers on the collar.
They went to the blood bank on Mission
and he bought her breakfast with his money
for the whole day then they went to Golden Gate Park
and he read her Richard Farina.
He had to work at the bar that nite to make up for it.
She remembered his kindness that first day,
thru the years,
especially when he started in with the whiskey
and became someone she didn't know and wasn't ready for.
That first day kept her in love with him long after it should've died
and he did some hard work at killing it, but she could never stop feeling
like they were meant to stay together...
Later on, when their boy died, she kind of gave up, too,
and it wasn't long before she was gone as well.
He never thought he would have to go so far alone.
Mornings, now, he sits at the table and drinks out of her cup.
He closes his eyes and visits Golden Gate Park...
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2018 : 15:48:23
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| John D. Spreckels Impossible Railroad. Now it's Baja Rail's project to connect the San Diego-Tijuana region to El Centro. Allowing freight and manufacturing goods from Mexico to ship to the U.S. east coast avoiding Los Angeles. Less shipping time. Less expensive than trucks. Because the route is so curved trains are limited to 60 cars. Five or six trains a day would travel the route. The three to five year project includes a new Customs and Border Inspection Station. Come out of a tunnel and you're on the Goat Canyon Trestle. Scarier than any amusement park ride. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2018 : 15:55:10
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| Astronauts for Halloween. Six of them. Back from Yardage Town with yards of white canvas and American flag patches. Ace Hardware's rubber gaskets and black garden hose. Back packs are easy. Helmets... Plastic fish bowls and silver spray paint in the garage. A work in progress. A stop at the community garden on the way home. A plot started last year for the vegetable-shy children. Leave them alone for an hour. A little neglect is useful. They collect tomatoes and cucumbers. Carrots for my daughter-in-law's birthday. Two thirds cake. One third CC frosting. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 10/14/2018 22:11:36 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2018 : 16:01:33
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| He opens the kitchen cabinets. Rearranges books on the shelf. Eats brown sugar out of the box. Cookie dough out of the bowl. A shell for a sconce he says is a "presence." A ship in a bottle. A gravity-defying chair. Out on the deck he paces by the easel. Shading his eyes under the gold-squint sky. She watches him catch copper turn to verdigris. Shimmer where salt adheres to the chimes. Hummingbird's bright blurred wings. Old magic in his hand. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/14/2018 : 16:04:57
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| She dreamed of a Knight, not a Prince. Not to save her, but to say where he'd been. She knew the city wasn't the real world...but the places that say Paved Road Ends. Edge of the garden. Where the wind rises up with their names. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 10/15/2018 : 16:49:05
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Older than Bogart
I’m older than Bogart was
I’m older than Townes
I’m older than Mickey was
When that last song went down.
I’m older than Zevon,
Richard and Rick
Older than Winchester
when he stopped turning tricks.
Older than Lennon and Presley and more
I’m old enough now to see that last door.
My bones are aching
My soul’s on the run
Too much dancing in the rain
Too much banging the drum.
It’s midnight again as
That old clock spins around
Stay with me darlin’
It’s so cold underground.
I’m older than whiskey
I’m much older than wine
Tomorrow’s almost here
Last night was so fine
I’m older than most of the
Women I know
Won’t you come see me darlin’
After the show.
My bones are aching
My soul’s on the run
Too much dancing in the rain
Too much banging the drum.
It’s midnight again as
That old clock spins around
Stay with me darlin’
It’s so cold underground.
I’m older than Bogart was
I’m older than Townes
I’m older than Mickey was
When that last song went down.
I’m older than Zevon,
Richard and Rick
Older than Winchester
when he stopped turning tricks.
Older than Lennon and Presley and more
I’m old enough now to see that last door.
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2018 : 14:48:42
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I've been walking in the shadows so long
My eyes have completely adjusted.
I see things in the dark that are
long past wanted, tossed away and rusted.
One of the things God gave us
was an indeterminate amount of time.
Did we have too little, did we have too much
It all depends on the paths we've walked
And the songs we've found that rhymed
The sunny days and the restless nights
Are never up to us
Those events are left to chance
Like fairy tales and dust.
Did the angels come to sing you a song
Did the demons come out to play
Were you the winner of the battle
Or were you the one that was slain?
We struggle and strain, we run through the rain
All for a piece of the pie
When all we ever really wanted
Was someone to see through our eyes.
The path to my future was going so well
Until it went through the path of my past
The friends and memories grow hazy
As if they don't want to last.
Decisions are made and some choices are wrong
But some never make it that far
Sometimes it's fate and the Gods do the choosing
And they're the ones that tear at the heart.
I've been walking in the shadows so long
My eyes have completely adjusted.
I see things in the dark that are
Long past wanted, tossed away and rusted.
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Edited by - buckman on 10/24/2018 20:45:52 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 10/20/2018 : 06:52:55
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For Vince Bell Long Ago
Whispering ghost ships sail by
Leaving me standing on the pier
With my suitcase and my dreams.
I woke too early one morning
and
Suddenly I was old.
That scared person usually
Left behind in sleep has
Taken over
pretending to be me.
Everything hurts and
Everything is doubtful and harder to do...
Sometimes it seems like every day
We have to learn how to live all over again...
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2018 : 17:53:40
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| Bright bolt of sky unfolding. Plush clouds. So much sun through the trees. His white shirt shining beside her. California's pretty trains flying by. Ocean on the other side of the track. Gulls coasting. "...remember...?" he says. How a small item put the house back together. Everything intact. Nothing missing. Blue under the kettle. Bare feet on the floor. The mail miles away. The landline disconnected. Everything quiet around them. "...somethin' to keep in your head..." he says, sparks coming off his lashes. In her pocket, a kaleidoscope. A jewelers loupe. An eyeglass repair kit with tools that fit in a thimble. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 07/25/2020 18:03:08 |
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The Nightly Vigil