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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
 Posted - 02/24/2008 : 16:55:25
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| There's the colander of cloudy berries and the lattice-work dough. Her flour-dusted hands and rolling pin in the picture. Twenty-four frames per second. Reel time. "You have a long lifeline," the Fortune Teller tells her. The spool of bandage travels across the kitchen floor and under his gravity-defying chair. His scrolled maps roll off the table. Eden on the floor. Now his spirit stands. Candles in his hands. His soot-smudged palms still smoldering. She places the dish before him. Beside his cup of rain. |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1825 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2008 : 21:48:57
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Daddy was a war hero. He was a warrior, plain and simple. There
were good days with him. Sometimes, he would come home and actually seem to be able to relax and put the memories of war away
for a little while. Those were the times that he could laugh and
when I would get a glimpse of a gold-crowned upper tooth that
often glistened when he smiled. When he told a joke and, once in a
blue moon he did, he would take forever to tell it, and just drag
it along until you wanted to run - - and, just at that second, he
would throw the punch line at you. He was well-trained in
psychological warfare and he often used it on a small scale at home.
The most amazing thing about this tortured man was the way he loved
music. He introduced me to so many things but, by far, music
was the best of them. There were moments when I loved him. There
are moments when I miss him. If time were not a moving thing, and
we could make it stay, this hour of love would last forever, there'd be no coming day to shine a warning light and make us realize ...
... it's over. Life is short. Shorter for some than others. As
I said, there are moments when I miss him.
(I listen to Jonmark's song about his father . . . and I wonder
what it would have been like to have a home like that. Tears in my
eyes.)
BGee |
Edited by - BarbraG on 02/25/2008 21:50:35 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2008 : 16:37:27
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Friday night at Sunrise Retirement Home~
1. Sure he had his quirks. That metal detector thing near drove me crazy. How he loved his 'finds', though. Saturday mornin's he'd be out early. Low tide he loved. Waves rollin' in slow an' him there with his Magno-matic. Some damn fool name they called it. I told him, "Lon, I wanna get to Wal-Mart before the crowd!" Famous Amos. Two for four bucks. My favorite. He'd come trottin' in after noon. Dump his trash on the patio table. I'd be in a sour sulk and he'd say, "Bess! C'mon look at this!" His treasure. Junk it was! An abalone-handle switchblade once. All rust. He got out the WD-40 and tried to work it. "You're just gonna hurt yourself," I told him, an' by God, he did! Didn't stop him, though. Wasn't 'til they paved that end of the beach and put up the pay booth that got him disgusted. Then we'd go to The Pier for fish and chips on Fridays. "You miss the old days, Lon?" I'd ask him. "Not as much as I thought I would," he'd say. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2008 : 16:49:23
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| 2. I needed to sleep in a certain place. A certain space where I felt welcome. A certain ves-tee-bule. Frosted window. Seperate mail slots and buzzers for each apartment. B-10 was hers. Second floor front. Windows that faced the park. She worked in one of them fancy stores in the millinery department. A high-class lady. No hoi polloi. Kid gloves and a little spotted veil. Looked like a beauty mark. She always said, "Good evening, Noah, when she stepped around me. Never let the door slam that whole winter. Ahh, the memory breaks my heart. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2008 : 17:33:07
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| 3. "Oh, go stow your broken heart!" Art Huffington says, "I'm no historian, but I know what happened!" Miss classy B-whatever got tired of you stinkin' up the hallway!" Art Huffington is a transplant from Miami. A sweet man who's badly smitten with McKenna's lady love. He orders Cuban food from Three Sons Deli and eats it in the Day Room. Right now he's eating a shaved ham and pork sandwich with a double side of fried plantains. All forbidden here. He's got a "cousin" (he winks) who works at the Del Mar race track and brings him contraband Cachaca. A kind of white rum made from sugar cane which he mixes with fresh limes. "'Scuse me, ma'am," he nods to Alma Cottswold, and slides the bottle back in his monagrammed pocket. McKenna's on fire on the sidelines clicking his ballpoint pen in his clenched fist. His color's rising. Is that smoke coming out of his ears? "You gonna finish those?" Robber asks Art Huffington, and points to the plantains. "Help yourself, little girl," he says, and Robber whisks the plates away. I move to open the windows. The room smells like a Caribbean dream. Robber licks her fingers and shrugs her shoulders. We're all skating on thin ice here in the Friday evening Creative Writing Program. |
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2008 : 19:19:49
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From the time he got his own room, he began reading the great
novelists and poets. In that attic above Tattersall Drive, a
gold light pouring from his lamp, he devoured one author after
another, those who wrote in English and those whose works were
translated from foreign languages. It was, he realized later,
the way in which he composed his spirit. His reading informed
all of his aspirations. He'd grown up on the wide prairie and
in his early teens his family had moved west to a large city
where he knew no one. Though he had few real friends in his new
home, he would go for long walks in the evenings and think upon
what he'd been reading. It was as though, alongside him in those
nocturnal laneways, there walked Rilke, Kundera, Faulkner, Marquez,
Neruda, Wolfe, Mishima, Miller, Celine, Gibran, Kerouac, Cummings,
Orwell, Crane, Hemingway, Hamsun, Patchen, Sartre and the many
others whose work had poured wisdom into the cup of his soul. To
be with them, reciting passages of their brilliance, to be ever
in the act of composing his spirit, that was the essential thing.
DL |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1825 Posts |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 00:12:09
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Emus, laying hens, mating turkeys, waddling ducks, horses in
a pen, strutting Tom turkeys, dogs, geese . . . what the heck?
All I did was take a ride in the country in search of fresh eggs,
and I came upon this weird little "farm". Emus ??..I say again .
And, my mom who is to be 91 years old in just a few days .. FLIRTING
with the widower who owns this menagerie. I found the fresh eggs,
picked up a jar of Pear/Pineapple Jam for $5.00 . . started the
car, backed it up right in front of Mom . . . and almost had to
pry her away from the place. I say to her, "Mom, you are welcome
to come out here by yourself and sit and talk to this guy all day..
but, by yourself. This place is nasty, Mom. Poo-poo everywhere,
and no one to clean it up!!" No comment from Mom. But, I smiled
to myself, because I knew I'd surprise her and bring her back real
soon. She's a treasure, my mom. If a little scenario like the one
mentioned above makes her smile, maybe he would let me go in his
house and watch TV while they talk. Now, I'm smiling. It's such
a gift to watch your 91-year-old mom flirt with a handsome man who
is hanging on her every word !! But, she's always been like that.
It doesn't even bother her that his wife is buried right across the
field out behind their house. She thinks that's wonderful. I guess
I do, too. Deep down. They have much to talk about. And, I need
to step aside and learn from their stories. Think I'll revisit that
place sooner than soon. How about tomorrow !!
BGee |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 03/07/2008 : 18:39:48
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Now I see: living is a kind of slow burning,
And love is what we salvage from the fire.
You did everything well except living forever.
~Patrick Clary~ |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2008 : 19:26:21
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In those early days we were like wild animals...
One time during supper,
we made love right there on a chair in the kitchen.
Everything was wet and we almost drowned.
Seems like we didn't come up for air
for years...
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Jonmark
Windchimer
USA
1791 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2008 : 21:07:23
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andrew p
Firefly
USA
3936 Posts |
Posted - 03/14/2008 : 21:19:18
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Amen Brother...you tell 'em Rev...livin' on love!
andrew
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music. ~John Milton
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2008 : 07:00:26
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Do you have any idea what it's like to go mad, I asked Melinda...
I don't mean angry...
I mean mad as a hatter,
loopy-loony-fried-to-a-crisp
beyond fear or paranoid
all the way into downtown nutsville...
I'm okay now [I think], for now, at least,
but it's why I drank and
did drugs for so long and so hard;
at least then I had an excuse,
something I could point to as a reason...
She said, But when are you going to stop smoking?
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 03/16/2008 : 08:57:45
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He was in his thirties, red-brown hair and beard covering
most of his face, leaving you with the solemnity of his eyes,
and a voice that vibrated halfway between the lower tone he
intended and a rebel octave higher. He sat alone there wrapped
in a blanket outside the drug store, shivering as it rained,
rocking like all time was crowding the exits of his body in
a hurry to be the next second out. He had a small packsack
with a broken shoulder strap, and his sneakers appeared to be
a few sizes too large, elfin in how they curled up at the toe.
Beside him every day, leaning against the outside wall of the
drug store, was a cardboard sign that explained something of
his life and detailed his need for coin. On this particular day,
rocking more rapidly than usual, he held another sign in his
hands. "Sleep Only With Strangers," it said. Two neighbourhood
women, a little older than the man and far more familiar with
grooming and perfumes, had stopped to question him about the new
banner. Their eyes had that pulled-to-the-side look in them, the
kind that seasoned horses get when they're tired and about to throw
their rider. The bit in their mouths was the proclamation on his
new sign. Somehow it was all right for him to be in the state he
was, even to explain his predicament on cardboard, but to hold up
this four-word philosophy, this shorter-than-haiku Howl printed
clearly in felt pen, was to trespass the hidden laws of the old
neighbourhood. The women admonished him. He did not respond, and
that only appeared to upset them more. Finally, fed up, one of the
women grabbed at the "Sleep Only With Strangers" banner. The man
grabbed back, joining them in a rather humourous tug-of-war, fighting
over his latest poem. As the battle waged, the woman defending the
institution of marriage and the man emitting the sort of squeaks
you get when dragging a wet finger across the skin of a taut balloon,
a crowd of prescription-filled customers gathered. It all ended in
a draw when the banner split in half from the strain. The red-faced
gal took her trophy - the "Sleep Only" part - and stuffed it into
the nearby trash receptacle. The man, rocking feverishly now, his
coin cup near empty and his hair dripping rain, quietly held up the
"With Strangers" portion, an edited version of one of the panhandler's
earlier poems.
DL |
Edited by - Doug L on 03/16/2008 09:39:50 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 03/16/2008 : 19:02:00
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| Nightly Vigil at the Cafe Lupe~ An enigmatic place. A kind of lost and found for wandering souls to tell their haunted story before heading down the road. They're dropped off on the desert by some dune-sailing-three-masted schooner. Or is it an alien spaceship? Or did they just inherit the place from the ramblin' man with the Texas drawl and sometimes Irish brogue? He's still here. He always will be. Leaning in his boots in the doorway. Looking out from under his wide hat to the purple foothills below. The Reverend and Illiance are at the card table. And Doug and Craig with that wild-eyed spectral dog at their feet. Grania still has the broom in her hand. Turning the chairs up on the tables and sweeping the dirt into a pile by the door every night. Along the canyon's perilous rim a host of weary travelers are riding toward them. |
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 03/18/2008 : 02:50:08
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ALONE
I never thought Michiko would come back
after she died. But if she did, I knew
it would be as a lady in a long white dress.
It is strange that she has returned
as somebody's dalmatian. I meet
a man walking her on a leash
almost every week. He says good morning
and I stoop down to calm her. He said
once that she was never like that with
other people. Sometimes she is tethered
on their lawn when I go by. If nobody
is around, I sit on the grass. When she
finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap
and we watch each other's eyes as I whisper
in her soft ears. She cares nothing about
the mystery. She likes it best when
I touch her head and tell her small
things about my days and our friends.
That makes her happy the way it always did.
Jack Gilbert |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2197 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2008 : 19:11:03
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At Sunrise Retirement we did the Creative Writing Program Wednesday because of Good Friday. A surprise from G.T. Lewis, a silent participant until now. (I'm partial to G.T. because of his oxygen tanks and pulmonary fibrosis.) He is describing his parents whom he is willing to fall in love with at 79 years old. His parents are both ten-plus years dead, but... "...finally alive for me. Their primitive love." "Primitive?..." Alma Cottswold leans closer. "Yes, primitive. He provided, but I didn't think he cared. Didn't think he wanted to know anything more than the roof over her head and the food on the table. That should make her happy. That was enough. My mother, though... She was beautiful and talented. She had an artists soul. A genteel sensibility. Flowers she loved and fussed over. Easter especially reminds me of her. Her colorful pots filled with flowers. The small vases of daisies down the center lane of the dining room table. My father picking them up. Oh, several trips to the pantry he made. 'They're in the way,' he said. Her posture stiffening then. Imperceptibly. But he didn't notice. And when she saw the pain upon my face, 'There's blueberry slump, George Thomas,' she smiled, and served the bastard his savory meal. Later, there was a song or two on the piano, then back to the kitchen piling on the ham for his supper sandwich. Later still, I heard them laughing in their room. She died before him. He had faith, so he endured. I've come to think of him as the man who had everything. I've come to envy what I didn't know. Ah, hindsight is 20-20. Isn't that what they say."
*
We're leaving for Mexico in the morning. Our family, a gang. Safe miles for all who travel. Continued prayers for Roy and Ginny and those on the mend.
Happy Easter, Mick. Happy Easter, George Thomas. Happy Easter Porch Family. Bless us all. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2008 : 20:12:00
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Subject: Sometimes When You're Falling
Date: Thursday, June 07, 2007 8:46 PM
Sometimes when you're falling
You think you've hit the bottom
But it's just another stop along the way
Sometimes when you're falling
You lose sense of your direction
You can hardly tell the nighttime from the day
Sometimes when you're falling
You can hear someone calling
Do you think it's the sound of your own voice?
Sometimes when you're falling
You want a quiet place inside you
Don't you get tired of all the noise?
Sometimes it's just a matter
Of looking down the ladder
To see how far you really have to fall
Sometimes it's just a breeze
That brings you to your knees
But a strong wind can fly you above it all
Sometimes when you're falling
You can hear someone calling
Do you think it's just your own voice?
Sometimes when you're falling
You find a quiet place inside you
Don't you get tired of all the noise?
Sometimes it's just a matter
Of looking down the ladder
To see how far you really have to fall
Sometimes it's just a breeze
That brings you to your knees
But a strong wind can fly you above it all
Sometimes it's just a breeze
That brings you to your knees
But a strong wind can fly you above it all
Hank Beukema - revbuckman music - 2007
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 03/21/2008 : 00:15:41
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I had turned a corner when I saw,
off in the distance,
a shabby preacher looking fella and a big, white bear.
They stopped as if waiting for me.
I yelled to them to go on
but they just stood there waiting,
as if to say....
As if to say...
As if.........
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Doug Lang
Swinger
Canada
1135 Posts |
Posted - 03/22/2008 : 11:02:08
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A WALK IN THE SUN WITH COYOTES
His hands moving in March sunlight
he said to her, "The lonely men I know
make a God of their wants, their lust
a chisel working away at the stone of each
woman they meet, as if they could in time,
with precise hammering, reduce her to
the heaven they desire."
The day was windswept and bright, and beyond
the marsh grass three coyotes took turns
leaping over fallen trees, while nearby a lone
heron stood on one leg, waiting.
"And what do you want?," she asked him.
He trembled in the cold wind, listened
for a deeper answer than he’d given before.
Look at you, at the light around your head.
He smiled, pleased to be asked the question.
"At my age I begin to know my needs, the sweet
and simple needs a soul comes to, reaching
the feast of failures. Day by day the closed stone
of my heart is cracked by hammers of wisdom.
Soon this stone will weep in joy for a love
I am, this very day, beginning to imagine."
DL
www.myspace.com/dukelang |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2008 : 20:55:38
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The Porch
She was from Medford, Oregon.
He was from everywhere.
Somehow that glassed in porch on Geary
was just big enough and just small enough.
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.
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 believe me, he worked at killing it, but she could never stop feeling
like they were meant to stay together.....
Sometimes love and life go on even when they shouldn't
and you just hafta do a little bear dance
evry once in awhile
to keep from going nuts....
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The Nightly Vigil