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Ailinn
Windchimer
2155 Posts |
 Posted - 11/25/2007 : 16:38:36
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| The Arsonist's apprentice. Her heart's low flash-point and faulty fuse in his fistful of frayed trip-wires. His smoldering pages like short-circuited lightning where smoke from this fire still rises. The plot in his heart God sees. "Flame...not sparkle," he whispers. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2155 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2007 : 16:41:49
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| Rules to use when walking on water. Pray the prescribed prayer. Don't look for the Lifeboat. The waves will grow teeth and sink into your heels. The Coast Guard will be busy with coffee and donuts. The tide will rise under your bed. Expect that. Remember red right returning. Three bells. The Sailor's weather-wise eyes. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2819 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2007 : 20:31:04
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Melinda turned and said to me,
When you spend an entire life
dreaming of sex, likker and drugs,
There's not much time left for
career, family, savings...
I turned away and said,
Oh well, there's still time...
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Jonmark
Windchimer
USA
1791 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2007 : 20:54:17
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| You're on a roll Hank. |
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andrew p
Firefly
USA
3936 Posts |
Posted - 11/25/2007 : 23:45:25
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jeez JM...I hope for Hank's sake, it's buttered!
andrew
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music. -- -John Milton
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Edited by - andrew p on 11/25/2007 23:46:01 |
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Craig
Firefly
Kyrgyzstan
3793 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2007 : 20:00:38
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The Anvil. The centerpiece of the smithy, the center of the universe. Each anvil has its own spirit. Some ring, some are quite dampened with no resonance at all. Each one different, but somehow, each one the same.
...he rises from his stooped position one last time. One more fire, one more blade.
He raises his hammer and "strikes the iron while it's hot". He strikes again and again until the dull sound turns to a ringing. "Back in the forge with ya!", he exclaims. "A man can go to Hell for hittin' cold iron!"
He waits patiently, as he has many times before. Waiting for the right color, waiting for the right heat. The steel in the forge starts a low hiss, a spark or two comes from the fire. The piece is singing, telling him it is time to go back to the anvil and to be striked with the hammer. An act he has repeated for what seems like forever.
The old bladesmith is doing the only thing he knows. "This will be the best one" he says, as was his custom to say to himself every time he performs this ritual. He moves in perfect unison with the dance.
The dance. They always dance on the walls of the old smithy. Everytime he works, they dance. The shadows in their elfen ways, stay to the walls, keeping rhythm with the firey forge and jumping with the sparks at each hammer blow.
He lifts the piece from the face of the anvil, looks over it once again with a keen eye. He lightly taps it to straighten it until it is perfectly true. He marvels at his handiwork as he examines it one last time.
It is done, it is finished. This last one. The iredescence fades as the fire in the old coal forge slowly subsides. The figures fade away at each passing moment. The shadows on the wall will be no more. The glimmer of hope is gone. It is now over...
The forge is now cold,
the anvil rings no more.
~ Craig
I was asked to post this once again. |
Edited by - Craig on 11/29/2007 20:03:44 |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2819 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2007 : 20:35:13
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I told Melinda,
I didn't quit to bring me back to you.
I quit to bring me back to me.
It should've made her happy either way,
but I'm not sure it did...
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2819 Posts |
Posted - 12/01/2007 : 11:15:12
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The men at breakfast at the Lutheran church were all Norwegian seamen or
carpenters with hands like steel and older than me...
My Dad had gone to speak and I was there as his guest...
Some of the men even remembered me from twenty years ago when I ran a weekly
meeting for alcoholics in the very basement we were eating in...
I found out that when I fell out and started the "life" again, a few of them
had gone back, too and had let the dark side take them over and were long
dead now...
It reminded me how precious every moment of sobriety must be and how much of
an influence, both good and bad, we are to others...
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 12/01/2007 : 23:33:47
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BESSIE SMITH
When she came north the interviewer
asked her why she
wore a sequined dress
She laughed
up from her belly she smiled, said
I wear these sparkles
to fool people a while
Make 'em think I dropped
down from the stars 'stead of
comin' up out of
the river
DL
http://www.myspace.com/mickeynewbury |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1824 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2007 : 13:10:26
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"Go on, go on up ahead and wait for me where the river
branches off." Dad didn't want me to have to walk as slow
as he did. I knew he wanted to run with me and jump up beside
me to pull some low-hanging moss from the trees. The simplest
things had been the most fun in the raising of me by my Dad.
He taught me to linger on things that were pleasant and to stay
a long while with those who made me laugh. He taught me that
the best things in life ARE free !! "No, Dad . . I'm hangin' with
you today !! If we walk at a slower pace, we can talk. If we
run, we'll be out of breath." "Well, son. That sounds good to
me. When we get back to the house, I'm gonna start whittlin' me
another walkin' stick ! But, it's the runnin' stick I really
want !!"
BGee |
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Jonmark
Windchimer
USA
1791 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2007 : 19:12:15
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When I'm not working maintenance, I work the front desk.
It balances out to be about 60/40... front desk/unclogging toilets.
At first, when the new schedule got posted, I'd ask my boss whether I should “dress for people, or trash”. Lately, it's been more clearly defined.
Mostly it just means a different shirt, and a closer shave.
Front desk can be mind numbingly dull hours interspersed with moments like plate spinning Chinese fire drills. Five people checking in, three phone lines lit, and at least one guest, pissed off about something, wanting to be served first.
You see it all at the front desk of a hotel.
Often the worst of people come out when they are road worn, tired and hungry.
Had a guest check in last night who insisted she'd reserved a Queen and had been put into a room with a Full sized bed. The clerk on duty tried to convince her she was wrong, but the disagreement spilled over into my shift this morning. I was ready to take out a measuring tape to prove she was wrong... but then again, the guest isn't EVER wrong.
Sometimes, no matter how many miles you've traveled, and how much "snow is on the roof", people can still surprise the hell out of you.
Had a couple and their sons stay with us for three or four weeks. The wife was ever so polite and fastidious... always borrowing vacuums, cleansers and brooms from housekeeping. Getting her own fresh towels and linens at least once a day.
Susie homemaker.
They checked out suddenly last week. Husband came to me at the front desk needing a battery jump and asking about his security deposit. I pulled his account up on the computer, told him we indeed owed him a few bucks, and he went off with our chief of maintenance, Jim, to get his car started... telling me he'd be back in a few for his money.
Next thing I know, the family car sped past the office and out of the parking lot.
Then Jim came to the desk and said, "you've got to see 145… NOW". So I locked the drawer and followed him down the hall to a room that had been totally destroyed. Both chest of drawers shattered... garbage and waste everywhere. Paint job totally ruined... even the electrical outlet covers had been striped from the walls.
Jim and I spent the better part of two days rebuilding that room.
Just goes to show you... you're never too old to have the wool pulled over your peepers.
Jim and I often whistle the same song at work.
Hotel California.
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Edited by - Jonmark on 12/03/2007 20:12:51 |
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2007 : 21:12:49
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Jonmark, I'm right there with you. Hotels and motels. I
used to stay in the ones I played at when I was on the
lounge lizard circuit. Boy, you'd think the circus was
in town every night. Then there's the Hotel Myspace...
where Mickey's nephew(?) showed up to say hi a while ago.
Turns out to be the same one who won the big raffle that
first gathering after Mickey passed on. Those who were
there remember, recall the worries over whether it would
be a tear festival, all about the sadness of losing him
(and it was, at times), or if the music would lift us, or
if somehow we'd get a signal, you know?. When they picked
that ticket for the raffle winner - was it you, Roy? or Ron?
- the folks did a double take. Mickey's nephew was the
winner. His name? Mickey Newbury.
Tonight on Mickey's myspace page I got a message from a woman
by the name of Snow, telling me how her mother used to play
Mickey's music to her when she was little. A few messages later
I learn that her two names are Snow Jewel. I mention that Sammi
Smith had that pretty name, Jewel. Turns out that Snow Jewel
is Sammi's daughter.
I told her about meeting Sammi in 2003 at the Gathering, that
we'd go out and have a smoke and talk a bit while her dog Gator
watered the bushes. Snow Jewel said she remembered her mom talking
about me, about a song of mine. Who knows? I'd like to believe
that. I also told Snow Jewel about Girl Hero, the song I wrote for
her mother after she passed, the one Laura sang at the Gathering
soon after Sammi left us. Long story short, I emailed Laura's
rendition of that song to Snow Jewel tonight. She wrote back to
thank me, said the song made her cry, that it brought back twenty
years of memories of her mom.
It's not always easy being clear about why we do music, why we
write songs, spend more than we make. Must be a matter of the
heart's longing. Jonmark works in a hotel wearing two different
shirts, I work a couple of jobs to keep it together. Happenstances
like tonight's bring it all back into focus. Yes, indeed.
GIRL HERO
Concert halls and highways
Diners, old motels
Saturday night guitar pulls
Sunday mornin' bells
From Charlie Brown, See You Around
To the Toast Of '45
Makin' gigs and raisin' kids
Tryin' to stay alive
One more introduction
Thank you
One more package show
Those outlaw boys and their outlaw joys
Where did they all go?
Waylon called me Girl Hero
Mickey shared his light
And in Tennessee, Kris helped me
To make it through the night
I was born in Orange in '43
One hot August day
An Apache girl in a world at war
They named me Jewel Fay
I first stood alone at a microphone
Eleven years of age
And I lived to see my boy and me
On the Grand Ole Opry stage
One more introduction
Thank you
For all the love you show
Those outlaw boys and outlaw joys
I'm with 'em now, you know
Waylon called me Girl Hero
Mick and Willie shared their light
And in Tennessee, Kris helped me
To make it through the night
DL
http://www.myspace.com/mickeynewbury |
Edited by - Doug L on 12/02/2007 21:58:06 |
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Jonmark
Windchimer
USA
1791 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2007 : 06:40:21
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| Very very cool Douglas. |
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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1819 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2007 : 07:50:24
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| Good job, D. |
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Karen Runk
Firefly
USA
4925 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2007 : 09:26:28
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Very visual and very good. Thank you, Doug
Karen Runk |
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Lois
Windchimer
USA
1556 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2007 : 12:01:46
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| .....the circle is unbroken.... |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1824 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2007 : 20:21:47
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Walt said it well . . .
"It's a small world, after all." You have a special gift, Doug.
But, I know that you already know that.
BGee |
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Jonmark
Windchimer
USA
1791 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2007 : 20:45:56
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I'll never forget what it felt like to share a stage with Sammi.
After the first song, the first night, as the applause was dying down, she turned to me and said "I SURE wish you lived closer to Oklahoma".
Suddenly, a thirty year old picture in my mind's hard drive pushed it's way front and center of a young, petite, Sammi in a mini skirt... barefooted.
Maybe she felt thirty years younger, too.
Then Gator got hungry for attention and the spell was broken.
At least my spell was.
But I'll never forget.
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1824 Posts |
Posted - 12/05/2007 : 20:56:25
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I was looking back to see if I could still see you as I
rode over the ridge and headed toward town. The rain was
coming down really hard. It was time to go for the doctor.
The baby's arrival couldn't have come at a worse time. We had
been hoping to get into town long before labor started, but
life got a jump on our plans. The best laid plans . . . you know
how that goes. I sure hated to leave you alone but, with the
weather coming in, I really had no choice. I knew I would stand
a better chance of getting Doc back to the farm than getting you
into town. I hadn't really thought of what my life would be like
without you . . . until now. The horse stumbled and nearly fell.
He was terrified of the thunder and lightning. But, I pushed him
even harder. And harder. All my hopes and dreams were riding
on him. I had to make it back to you in time. What was the
alternative ? |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2819 Posts |
Posted - 12/07/2007 : 17:05:06
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The water came at me from all directions.
The Great One came out of the mist.
He said, You have been vain of late; it displeases the spirits.
I said, All men are vain.
Vanity is not what most people think it is.
When a man is vain, it only means that he is pleased with the effect he has
on other people.
Forgive me, Father, but for too many years I didn't care.
Suffer me my indulgence...
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Topic |
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The Nightly Vigil