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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
 Posted - 11/21/2018 : 18:20:37
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| Her head bowed. Her hair falling. Her fingers playing with the tortoise shell comb he found at Batiquitos Lagoon. "...so hard for you to say...?" he says. Psychiatrist or a good Priest. Shining childhood. Croquet lawns. Cobbled corners and clock towers. High-bannister widow's walks. Like smash cuts in film. Covert damage. Consequence without cause. Later gargoyles. Her own Rosary. A scatter of rice on the floor. Kneel now. Every thought a venial sin or more. Klieg lights. Express elevator in the hotel. Room Service coffee on-call. The Park. The Planetarium. The Knight with the star. Random wolves in the diorama rooms. The man in the moon on the fire escape. The game of don't think now. He wants it all. Not the way she tells it. Flat without inflection. Smiling in the wrong places. He has the stories but he wants what's behind the words. She knows why. A deep breath. Tears on her ivory blouse. His inviolate trust. One and only. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 01/10/2019 17:42:45 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2018 : 18:31:37
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| "...think before you touch the cards..." he says. "Your energy... Where you want it to go." He cuts the deck and taps it with two fingers. So much at stake when he grins. There's fog over the sink. Red blur of the hummingbird feeder. Light dripping off the ice plant. Kokopelli drunk in the yard. "You first..." she says when fate intervenes and the room becomes slightly unmoored. "Two outta three..." he laughs after the first game. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 07/13/2019 17:14:35 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 11/23/2018 : 17:43:41
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Love went from forever to memories
In the time it took them to blink
Romance is just a wisp of smoke
It disappears when you stop to think.
They fit together, damaged and broken.
Eyes wide open, dreams unspoken
Hearts left alone get tired and weak
Turn hard and cold, no breath left to speak
Forever to memories in the blink of an eye,
Happily ever after falling out of the sky,
Do dreams become wishes and wishes become lies?
Surrender's alright, we see with more than our eyes.
Eyes were recognized, stumbling round in the dark
Unfamiliar explosions, dancing on sparks,
Nights they went crazy, the days they went sane,
Desire fed the river that drowned out the pain
The same spirits haunt them both at night
Whispering shadows, doubts and fears.
Yesterday's hopes are tomorrow's choices
Moments of passion, hours of tears.
Forever to memories in the blink of an eye,
Happily ever after falling out of the sky,
Dreams become wishes and wishes become lies,
Surrender's alright, we see with more than our eyes.
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 11/28/2018 : 09:11:44
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The evening comes
but never soon enough.
As I watch the last sliver of sun
disappear behind the mountain
she opens the door.
The room is filled by the scent of woman
and vanilla.
As she fits her small body onto mine
I said,
Why did you come back?
She said,
I told you you'd never see me again,
But if it's dark... well....
Then her voice got husky and
I stopped thinking about writing a poem...
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2018 : 18:57:48
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| We took all the children to Anza Borrego to see the meteor shower and Ricardo Breceda's metal mirage. Raptors. Mammoths, scorpions, and dinosaurs. Creatures fifteen feet tall with sickle teeth randomly appearing on the desert floor. A three hundred fifty foot long dragon crossing the road. We walked to some but drove to most. Objects are farther than they appear. After midnight we settled in a wide wash to watch the Phaethon meteor show from the asteroid Palladian. Geminids in the night sky. Like ballroom globes with glittering dust trails. Anza Borrego is a dark sky designation. I think of people who cross the desert at night and don't know the sculptures are there. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 12/03/2018 09:24:59 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2018 : 19:04:30
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| He paints what he sees around him. But this is different. Eerily beautiful. And foreboding. "From memory...?" she asks, bemused. He pauses with the brush, "...their longships..." he says, "...were the most seaworthy." Oars in the water. Weight of history there. Stem and stern dragons. Square emblem sails. Flinty light off the shields on the gunwales. A fleet of them coming in. A woman in a modern-day dress on the shore...looking out as if at a picture. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2018 : 19:08:43
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| It's the past inside-out. The rusty keys. The tracks and the crossroads. Abandoned or chosen. The Interstate at the corner. The storm in his traveler's eyes. "Episodic..." he says, "...know what I'm sayin'...?" The kettle on. The kitchen warming. The life that's here and now. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2018 : 19:12:30
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| All bloom in the fevered garden. Green seasons inside him naming the names. His glass-like language and uncomplicated goodness. Chutes of light through the trees ocean-wide on the cliff side. No other voices but their own. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 12/04/2018 : 11:02:00
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You are a treasure.
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 12/04/2018 : 11:06:21
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I told her,
I've been crazy for forty six years now.
Even remember when it first came on,
like a breeze that made me put my collar up
and huddle into my coat.
It was a Friday night in Nyack, 1966,
in front of the St George Hotel on Burd Street.
Sitting in a car with friends, drinking a beer.
The world didn't shake and the radio didn't stop playing,
but I knew part of me had slipped into something new,
different and scary and it wasn't just the one of me
in there anymore.
People say, You've always had a job.
People say, You raised a family [sort of].
People don't know.
Most of them.
Point is, I told her,
After awhile, you can get good at anything,
even madness.
It just takes practice....
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 12/04/2018 : 19:44:01
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Happy year.
Sorry I'm late. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2018 : 01:57:04
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It started as just a stumble
But before long it was an all out fall
He was back on the whiskey
She was back dancing in the halls
In a storm started out in a fire
The flames just built 'til they got higher and higher
He was born to die an addict and a fool and
She was born to die a liar
They could never keep their eyes on the prize
Mouths always just above the water
Working all day and fighting all night
The weeks swallowed up the years
And one by one it all just turned harder
Some say he just snapped one day
Others never saw him disappear
I thought he drove straight into the river
But that night my vision wasn't all that clear
There always was a rumble
From dusk til dawn's early light
What made them burn as lovers
Made the fire feed off of the fights
It started as just a stumble
But before long it was an all out fall
He was back on the whiskey
She was back dancing in the halls
There was never time to enjoy what they had
They spent it all treading water
The weeks swallowed up the years
And one by one it all just turned harder
Some say he just snapped one day
Others never saw him disappear
I thought he drove straight into the river
But that night my vision wasn't all that clear
They could never keep their eyes on the prize
Mouths always just above the water
Working all day and fighting all night
The weeks swallowed up the years
And one by one their hearts just got harder
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2018 : 17:01:27
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| We took the children to the boat parade last Sunday. Past the Star of India and the Embarcadero to Coronado Landing. A spectacle of light on the water. Sailboats are the most beautiful. And the Star's masts lit high against the San Diego skyline. We do it again tomorrow night after we pick up the cousins. Revolving door on the house. Musical chairs in the kitchen. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 11/20/2019 15:17:46 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2018 : 17:09:13
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| "...again...?" he says when the match is over. But hasn't he already taken advantage by choosing first? And he's a fair man. But this isn't a matter of fair or tact. When the sun drops below the window sill she'll move toward him with her benign smile and long lashes and he'll think he's sure to win. That thought is with her when he ups the ante, "Double or nothin'," he grins. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 07/13/2019 17:15:55 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2018 : 20:21:45
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| In the time between sleeping and waking the mural appears. Crowded with faces. Trees with dark branches. A wooden boat tethered to a dock in one corner. An antique dresser with mirrored doors in the center of the boat. A woman reaching out from the mirrors. Her image split in two. Water warps the wall and spills over the mural's edge onto the floor. A man stands in a puddle with a brush in his hand. The crowd of faces recede. The trees brighten. The woman steps down from the painting and takes the man's hand. Out on the street it starts to rain. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2018 : 17:20:04
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It's as easy as breathing to fall into love
But, how do we climb back out?
Their hearts weren't meant to be broken
Crushed by the shadows of doubt
He'd told her he was far past any point
There was nothing more to prove
She said don't lie to me and yourself
Truth is you've got nothing to lose.
Their worlds were tumbling in motion
At different and frantic speeds
Never time to think about wants
Each lived according to needs
A soul starts out with everything
It needs to travel the road
One scared little heart is all we get
Made of flesh and blood not gold
Her eyes held the songs unwritten
Her spirit was flaming and bold
He's an old man who sits by the campfire
and cries when the ashes turn cold
Music was made, debts never paid
The piper doesn't work for free
No regrets, not a one, just shadows of dreams
Where real love becomes a memory
It's as easy as breathing to fall into love
But, how do we climb back out?
Their hearts weren't meant to be broken
Crushed by the shadows of doubt
Music was made, debts never paid
The piper doesn't work for free
No regrets, not a one, just shadows of dreams
Where real love becomes a memory
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 12/24/2018 : 15:10:01
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| His name was Melvyn but everyone called him Red although his hair was white then. They'd see his van in the old market parking lot, or VG's when they needed a donut fix. He built wooden boats in a rented barn a couple of miles from the house. That winter when he'd disappear for several days they'd drive over with something warm in a basket. Apple cider cake was his favorite. The barn was high-sided and cold. He built his boats from cedar and oak. He burned avocado for heat in a wood stove. He had a Goodwill sofa and a bent willow rocker as big as a throne. He always had the coffee pot on. The moted light and fragrance cast the right spell for stories. Wanderers. Fisherman's tales. Ghosts and gators in the Okefenokee. Back when San Diego developers were buying up all the coastal land for gated communities. When he got the notice he packed up and moved back to Clearwater, Florida with his sister, Rene and four nephews. Boatbuilders all in the Sunshine State where the squall line comes in under lightning and thunder. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 07/25/2020 18:07:14 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 12/29/2018 : 14:35:08
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”It's Hell to die ugly like this.”
That's what she said to me.
I didn't think that and nobody else did,
but she did and that's what mattered to her.
She always loved having looks.
She strutted with it.
She flew on it.
The sickness took it long before time did,
but she carried it right up until almost the end.
It was the last birthday before she died.
We made love for the last time
For the first time in a year.
She felt herself as old and tired and ugly and
I loved her slow and sweet in the dark,
Like when we were younger and both
Full of life and beauty...
She cried and whispered,
“Thank you.”
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2818 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2019 : 22:05:33
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Consolation prize.
Almost a winner.
Tearing down Rt 66 in 1972
past the rusted Fords and the dirt side roads
leading to lives I would never know.
Heading back East with someone I barely knew
who would consume the next twenty years of my life.
Too young to slow down long enough to listen to anybody.
Old enough to know better...
Lost her in the sun.
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 01/02/2019 : 21:25:03
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| The woman who cut the children's hair has opal-blue eyes and a cast on her right foot. She has a job where she stands all day. "Sit," she says, "we can chat." She tells me she has "a serious Starbuck's addiction...but I've made a resolution. Be easier if it wasn't just two doors down," she shrugs. She has photos of two young women in caps and gowns at her station. "I was married in a borrowed dress I gave back. My father-in-law found my engagement ring in Two Guys parking lot. I changed my name and didn't look back. A cheerful wife. Never sane," she laughs. I lost him to an asthma attack. He had the twins in the car with him. Thank God he was parked." She takes a long sip of her Americano. "He's outside of Oakland fifteen years now. I did it for his mother." On our way to the door she calls me back and hands me a recipe card. "Starbuck's Cranberry Bliss Bars. They only make them at Christmas so I bake my own. Don't leave out the ginger," she says. Her eyes the brightest thing in the still-decorated shop. I wish I could talk to you about her. You'd tell me we were good friends in another life. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 11/20/2019 15:19:40 |
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The Nightly Vigil