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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 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
2825 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
2825 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
2196 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
2196 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
2196 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
2196 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
2825 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
2825 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
2825 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
2196 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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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2018 : 20:32:52
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I've got a problem getting out of here
It's like someone's locked all the doors
I've got a problem getting through to them,
I don't feel anything anymore.
I loved you more than my very own life
It was San Francisco in the rain
Then in New York deep into the night
It went off the tracks and we lost the train
It should have lasted a lifetime
I shouldn't have drank so much
I wouldn't be such a sad old ghost
Ashamed to feel a woman's touch
The trouble with love is nothing at all
But when it leaves part of you dies
By the time you outlive your destiny
You've run out of all the good whys
Tomorrow they say I have to get up
Move on and go back to the job
Maybe later I can finish my dream
About the years we let our hearts rob
The good things are the memories
The bad things are much the same
How we go on after we stop breathing
And realize we were to blame
I've got a problem getting out of here
It's like someone's locked all the doors
I've got a problem getting through to them,
I don't feel any thing any more.
https://youtu.be/muglEkZqRt8
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 10/25/2018 : 07:57:54
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It started as a dime a dance romance
Underneath a quarter moon
Her eyes asked me When and
My hands gently answered, Soon.
Angels in the treetops were singing
A song about A long road home
I spent the whole night howling
About an old man too tired to roam
Desperation and gloom get the best of us
Madness can be a place to rest
It's after the scores are all settled
It's after the sins are confessed
It started as a dime a dance romance
Underneath a quarter moon
Some moments outlast forever
Some moments are gone all too soon.
The Gods say you'll never be back, love
But I'm hearing that same old tune
I've got my dime and we've got the time
And tonight there's a quarter moon...
I'm dancing and dreaming again love,
Hearing that lonesome old tune
I've got my dime and we've got the time
And tonight there's a quarter moon...
https://youtu.be/OTA8SGXGJkQ
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Edited by - buckman on 10/25/2018 08:00:28 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2018 : 16:17:35
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| They stop at the field stand for corn and oranges and decide to rest by the lake. The mine is closed. The sun, hot and spilling. The dam is quiet and dry. They spread the blanket and let the trance afternoon float by. Cloud stories. Castles and faces overhead. Rorschach shape shifters. Apparitions in the sky. "You ever think about..." he starts. "Um-hmm," she says. "...if there are, they're concealed among us," he says. "Then how would I know you're not one of them?" she asks leaning up on one elbow. "How would you know you're not...?" he grins with his eyes closed. There's him and then there's everything else. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2018 : 18:34:29
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I could have sworn I had told her
I had nothing left to give
The future made no promises
Velvet days and nights were lived.
[The spark tastes too delicious
It's so hard to be denied
Our hearts are fed by wishes
And starved by foolish pride.]
It's what dreams are made of
On starry starry nights
It's what leads to madness
And the wrong thing feeling right.
It's the agony and ecstacy
With almost nothing in between
It's what lets us bear the world
The leaves fall, the grass turns green
We do the dance and we lick our lips
And we never see the bruise
It's a lover that we think we want
It's a friend we always lose.
[The lips, the nights, the tangled hair
Then days without desire
It doesn't take a hurricane
To take the spark out of the fire.]
It's what dreams are made of
On starry starry nights
It's what leads to madness
And the wrong thing feeling right.
It's the agony and ecstacy
With almost nothing in between
It's what lets us bear the world
The leaves fall, the grass turns green
I could have sworn I had told her
I had nothing left to give
The future made no promises
Velvet days and nights were lived.
[The spark tastes too delicious
It's so hard to be denied
Our hearts are fed by wishes
And starved by foolish pride.]
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2018 : 19:17:50
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| Top-heavy draperies crowd the windows in a high-altitude town. "Let's take them down," he says. A mountain of faded brocade on the floor. Brackets and screws. Brass hardware. Dust in their noses. Motes floating in rooms growing colder. Wind in the eaves. Hot tea. All they need till they get to the Village. A stop at the woodpile. Frost etching the leaves. Branches breaking under their feet. Breath in front of their faces. First flakes falling. Tahquitz asleep in his stone peak. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 11/02/2018 : 19:23:25
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| Different energy when he wears the black shirt with deep cuffs. Riot of ideas ricocheting. He presses the tips of his fingers together. Truth serum flooding his veins. Prism colors. Brief interruptions in the bookmarked world. He likes to sit on the deck in the dark when the stars are missing. Midnight eyes. Faraway ships on the water. All those out of town stories. Urgent and insisting. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2018 : 06:49:56
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Whistle me a up a tune, Mick
My heart is breaking in two
I'm spending the nite with
my closest friends,
Her memory, a bottle and you.
Sing me a sad one like only you can
I know there's more left in this heart
It's a long train we're runnin
Gettin faster each day
But we've come so far from the start
What ever she took,
she took me by chance,
It was all we could do just to stand
The first days were wild
The nites all aglow
There was still time for holding hands.
Some things you lose
Others you burn
Some just get taken away
Nights filled with whiskey,
The days fueled by pills
It's gonna stop hurting today
So, Whistle me up a tune, Mick
The night is just right for two.
An empty glass toast
to beginnings and ends
Her memory, a bottle and you.
Sing us of ramblin and shining blue skies
Fade the words right into my heart
It's a long road we're drivin
But gettin shorter each day
We've come so far from the start
Sometimes all it takes
Is one little dance
You feel it, she's holding your hand
The days of the child
The years watching him grow
Are stored safe in another land
Sounds like the blues
But some days you learn
Some just get taken away
Words chase the whiskey,
The mountains are hills
It's gonna stop hurting today
So, Whistle me up a tune, Mick
The night is just right for two.
An empty glass toast
to beginnings and ends
Her memory, a bottle and you.
Sing us of ramblin and shining blue skies
Fade the words right into my heart
It's a long road we're drivin
But gettin shorter each day
We've come so far from the start
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2018 : 14:02:58
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After the Fiesta,
with the little town and my family dead,
I need to be alone...
I ride North and East for many days
Where to be October means something.
Where I ran and fished and hunted
As a child and learned the ways
Of the woods and of the Great One.
The trees are aflame in their private moondance of fire.
Against the blue of the Hudson River
Reflecting the cliff face of Storm King,
It plays the illusion the Old Ones called
Riverdeep mountainhigh.
There is and will be another story for each of us.
The long golden tale of each precious life.
Some filled with love, Some filled with loss,
Mostly a measure of both.
Every turn in the river
Takes the story to a new place.
Some we choose and some are chosen for us.
But, we are each of us even Now, immortal.
Whether to Heaven or Hell eventually,
our spirits will All be Forever...
That choice is always ours and ours alone...
How dim sometimes the Light
we follow seems.
But when we get out from the towns
and their false glow that Robs our vision;
Out under nothing but the sky and His face,
Our eyes will again divine the light and
The path thru the forest will shine like the Sun.
I smile to think of my past families,
Now gone on high, that walked this riverbank
With me so long ago.
They were so like the October trees,
Aflame and dancing with color and
Great beauty just before their private
Winter came and turned them gray.
In the creeping darkness, I whisper a prayer
That they would greet me in the spring
As the trees will, Reborn and ready
For another fling around the dance floor.
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2018 : 17:27:55
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| Ninth birthday. An unimportant one. I was longing for two numbers. Men in dark suits by the trees. Words, I suppose on the stone later. I didn't choose them. Didn't pack up the trunks or the houses. The bank and the church and the judges did that. All tidy. Monsignor gave me an Infant of Prague holy card for my Missal. Baby Jesus dressed up with a crown. And a small box of chocolate-covered cherries. I still like them. He rests his hands over hers. "I wasn't sad," she says, "I was angry." "I know..." he says and he holds her hands tighter. He has a theory about that. "Nothin' disappears..." he says, "...put away but not gone. A deeper well to draw from..." When the wind picks up he steps in front of her. "C'mon..." he says, still holding her hand. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 01/10/2019 17:41:19 |
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The Nightly Vigil