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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
 Posted - 02/18/2019 : 17:53:36
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| Black and white photograph. Dust storm in the middle of a thousand-acre construction boom. The guy in the pilot car quitting. Disappearing down a street with no name in a puzzle of streets with no names. The bystanders dismayed. ...and now the house arrives at the crossroads. OVERSIZE LOAD. A tall Victorian with windows boarded over teeter-tottering on a wide flatbed truck. A piece of antiquity to be planted before wine town becomes the new city. "...like I was lookin' down on a maze..." he says later, "...I saw the way clear an' I took it." He likes black and white. "More rooted in time..." he says, "...more enduring. Think of old newsreels, honey. They don't have the same weight in color." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2019 : 18:07:29
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| He gets up from his gravity-defying chair. "...an' after...? he says. In his pensive mood the room becomes a portal. "I got out of the city," she says. "One Summer. Sewed tobacco for Consolidated Cigar. Dirt-floor sheds in rural Connecticut. Different pictures. A new point of view. The boys picked the leaves and the girls sewed them. A ballet reaching up. Pushing the stems into twisting twine on the drying racks. Dusty. Real work. But you do it with your body not your mind. We started at 6 and broke for lunch at 10. Cheese sandwiches on Wonder. The boys were a nuisance. They hid snakes in the baskets. Or worse. Best part of the day was a bath. I was glad I did it but ready to get on the bus when the season was over. Back to Horn and Hardart's tart lemon meringue pie. Pond's Cold Cream. Star painting on my face with MaXFactor. Her jangly bangle bracelets and Parliament cigarettes. Kind of like a mother." "Were you lonely?" he asks. "I was busy..." she says, "I was thinking..." He's eating clam chowder out of a pan at the stove. He brings it to the table and hands her the spoon. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2019 : 18:10:43
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| The narrow alleyway splendid with stars. The balcony aglow and floating. The broken-hinge gate. Bougainvillea pulling the trellis down. The heavy blue-dark arched door. He's handy with tools and ready with good intentions. A man like that you tell the truth to. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2019 : 17:08:24
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Things to remember, things to forget
Maybe what's left of it now.
Days by the river, ice bound and blue
A basket, a bottle, moments with you.
Sounds so simple, but wasn't it cold?
Fresh-faced, looking ahead.
If we could've jumped forward
Looked back at today
Would we find us alone in our beds?
With your head on my shoulder
Your hand on my back
I could almost dare to dream.
Plans that we made
At the end of those days
Words that we truly did mean.
It's only too late,
When we bring down the gate,
Lock up, turn out the lights.
There's a path not yet walked
For one, maybe both
Where the past and future are right.
[So many miles between then and now
And more between us and romance
But, Hell, here we are
It's the wee, small hours
There's always time for a slow dance...]
It's nearly a year since I last saw your face
These days I'm just learning to walk
So much to offer, so little to give
But we're dancing, no time to talk.
With your head on my shoulder
Your hand on my back
I could almost dare to dream
Plans that we made
At the end of those days
Words that we truly did mean
It's snowing tonight, I can picture the lights
On the mountain from your back porch
Hard to tell, I was under your spell
I always carried the torch.
Some of my edges, cleaned and smooth
Some rough as ever I fear.
It's late in the game, there's no one to blame
What doesn't bring a laugh, brings a tear.
[So many miles between then and now
And more between us and romance
But, Hell, here we are
It's the wee, small hours
There's always time for a slow dance...]
Well, here we are
It's the wee, small hours
and
There's always time for a slow dance...
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Edited by - buckman on 02/20/2019 17:12:26 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 03/04/2019 : 17:24:20
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| A new patron greets pilots in Little Italy. Three-story mural on a building in the flight path to Lindbergh. A young woman in an aviator's cap gazing up at the clouds. Biplane with the title banner trailing her arm, "Before the Horizon. Beyond the sea." Fisherman's net floating in the sky. Sun Tarot card shielding her eyes. A San Diego welcome. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 03/04/2019 : 17:40:27
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| He chose this corner of the house for its light. His canvases leaning against the walls. All that striped lemon through the windows. And doors down the hall mixing decades, "...your blue heart and endless candles..." he laughs, "...know what I'm sayin'..." He's standing at the easel with his "good brushes" from Spain. Caught in the world on the canvas. A woman barefoot in a man's cloud-white shirt. A circle of tiny bells at her ankle. Little music. Saltillo courtyard in the distance. Suffused saffron glow. His image, hand raised in the gazing globe when he cuts the sky with Chrome Yellow. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 03/04/2019 : 17:47:47
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| "Pixels..." he says. She laughs and tucks her skirt under her knees and sits down on the top stair beside him. There are ragged kelp piles down the long beach. Jingle shells left by the storm. "...where the water door opens..." he says, "...no bluffin' in this game. Yeah..." The grin in the lantern room when he shows her where the land notches in. Easily missed with its ever-present fog bank. "The whole place so dangerous and brimful of longing..." she says. Garden of wonder on the other side waiting. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 03/16/2019 15:52:33 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 03/05/2019 : 14:33:05
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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 - 03/10/2019 : 19:08:02
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| He's drawn to history. The origins of language. "Book of Invasions," she says. "Medieval account of the search for Ireland and their spoken word. 'They sail on the sea both by day and by night...' Something like that. And how Caicher the druid melted wax in the sailors ears to protect them from the Sirens songs and stories. The great battles. Their long dragon shields and javelins and double-edge iron. By the time you finish it you're ready to pick up the sword or put out to sea." His covenant with time when he closes his eyes, "...Atavistic..." he laughs, "...can't be bred out..." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2019 : 19:10:04
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| ...and now each day grows a minute longer. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2019 : 16:04:08
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Eating Swedish meatballs over Spanish rice purchased separately at the deli. Irish whiskey and Mexican beer on the side. Let’s hope they get together well and don’t battle inside me.
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2019 : 18:03:53
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| "...pictures of your life..." he says. In the first painting she's at the edge of the marsh in a long white eyelet dress. (Santiago says cross at Tecate. The children say the Border is too risky now.) The surface of the water trembles when she steps in. Knee-deep. One hand gathering her skirt. One hand reaching out toward him. He calls the painting, A Dream In the Reeds, "...painted it to slow it down..." he says. Iridescent clouds. Sky wet in the water. All that light leaking through his canvas. (Santiago says he's packed up what was left at the house. Says UberValle is safe. The children say Santiago is dreaming.) He says their story lies between the lines, "...an' all that water out there..." Blue shadows under his eyes. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 06/23/2019 18:21:10 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2019 : 20:27:11
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Clocks - One hour ahead
Brain - One hour behind
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Edited by - buckman on 03/12/2019 20:29:37 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 03/13/2019 : 22:14:36
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Music from the heart
Not for cash but for the art
Starving poet's know
Life is too short-sweet
Too middle age crazy now
To abide a fool.....
Rich get more richer
We all keep gettin poorer
What's a boy to do
Prufrock and poesies
Shimmering little toesies
All the stars in tow
I love this old creek
Where did it start, does it end?
It should be famous...
First touch of spring, late
Makes it better having waited
Good things are like that...
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 03/16/2019 : 16:23:34
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| The preordained impact. His lean-over-the-cliff point of view. His bright and dark pages. "You know it. I know it too," he says in a cold room in front of a fire. He adjusts the logs on the grate. Carries the quilt to the sofa. "Gone was the endless lawn that sloped to the seawall," she says, tucking in. "The tall waiters with their musical arguments and rebel ways. Brigid's scolding. My mother's face fleeting in every frame. The sanctuary of my father's knee. Driven to the dock and put on the ferry. Off to the trains. The Conductor escorted me to the first car to sit with Fiona. She was a postulant/chaperone. A child herself. Eighteen, maybe. She wore city clothes and had long hair. She gave me a pair of crystal Rosary beads. She didn't speak until we reached Grand Central. Two nuns in blue regalia greeted us there. Delivered me to a place in the city where I minded my own business and bided my time near a window with a view of the bridge. I said my prayers and ate their Sunday ice cream," she says. "I planned my escape." "Wellll..." he says. ""We're here now..." Cinnamon Churros. Blister peanuts. Big chocolate from Trader Joe's. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2019 : 12:10:10
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We wonder why we go mad
We wonder how and why we go crazy
Most blame their parents, the parents blame them
While really the whole bunch is just lazy
It doesn't take a genius to write a song
All you have to do is pick a simple tune
Like an artist finishing a painting
You discover
It's all because of the weight of the moon.
The moon takes our heart, the moon takes our brain,
And just like the tides we cave in and we rant
The artist seeks to harness this power
And sometimes they do and sometimes they just can't
The tides they come and go
The world spins round and round
We know we're just renting space
While the Gods are lost and found
The noises don't ever seem to stop
The rain just keeps pouring down
We blame God and we blame the devil
But neither of them gets the crown
It doesn't take a genius to write a song
All you have to do is pick a simple tune
Like an artist finishing a painting
You discover
It's all because of the weight of the moon.
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 03/24/2019 : 19:30:00
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| "What do you think about sleep?" he says. "It's restorative," she says. "Okay," he says. "Try to remember the pictures in your head before your consciousness switches off." He's talking about hypnogogia. Alpha and theta waves. The mystery in free-fall. "...flashes of other past or future memories there. A bridge... A connection." "Too big to think about," she says. "No, listen..." he says, "it's like remembering you can fly in your dreams when you're in trouble. You can do that now." "Not always," she says. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 03/24/2019 : 19:34:28
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| San Elijo. "Write me a letter," he says, "...everyday. I'll read them when I get back. Later he stares at the pages unblinking. Nights in REM time. Stars in their hair. The couple in the souvenir globe dancing. Beyond the track crickets warm their wings for music. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 03/24/2019 : 19:43:58
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| "...let's go where we're gonna go seein' so much..." Cherry blossoms in Balboa Park. Floating lotus in the reflecting pond. Straight to Blick with the colors still wet in his head. The open markets on India. "Gypsy food. Those little incense cones in the shop that smells so good. Trinket stuff, honey..." Paper cups of orange ice and Campari. Bread hot in the bag to cross the bridge. Coronado's wide flower boulevards. Fair light on the dream-sheened ocean. Sand-blown road by the Hotel Del. His penchant to be close to water. Apricot clouds. Threads of frayed silver alive with light the last hour. "An awning city," he says. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2019 : 23:11:56
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Desert, Southern California, 1970... With two lovely Israeli ex-military women. I figured I was either going to get lucky or killed.... We were tripping in a Mustang at 100mph and 100 degrees...
I did not get killed. |
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The Nightly Vigil