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srusenstrom
Swinger
USA
730 Posts |
 Posted - 04/09/2009 : 15:53:47
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C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S Hank - come to Gainesville in June and we will do the waltz...
Alaska Shirley
"May you have warmth in your igloo, oil in your lamp and peace in your heart"
An Eskimo Toast of Goodwill |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 04/10/2009 : 21:19:37
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| We were in end times. Talking ourselves into Heaven. His dreams storm-driven and demon-tossed. His ship listing under shore birds cries. A cobbled town he chooses. A white-washed steeple poking up through epic fog. Acres of candles flickering in sooty globes. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2009 : 20:04:11
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Two lane triumphs and
Miles traveled hardly stack up
In my memory any longer
To the later years of self-indulgent
Drug/drink-addled staring at four walls...
Half a century has taught me little
But that if I love it
I will lose it...
Born and raised to lead others
To Heaven I have been on the
Road to Hell for decades...
A road I have made my own
Choices to be on every step
It's true...
A week of sobriety has not made
Anything clearer except that it is
Impossible to sleep...
I feel like I have lost that fine edge
I always carried with me and
That Gnossos Papadopolous immunity
That was always in my pocket...
I have lost my romance my rage,
My dancing has become awkward
And stiff and no longer do I
Hear the soundtrack music when I
Walk the streets...
I continue to sleep alone
When I sleep,
Begging my Angels to come back
But unwilling to bid my demons goodbye...
I remain, true to my nature,
As always,
Like the scorpion that stung the turtle
As he carried him across the river...
A heart full o gold
And a head full of sin....
Rev Buckman - From A Fine Whine -Dec 2004 |
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Karen Runk
Firefly
USA
4925 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2009 : 09:01:17
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Isn't he something? And a long way he's come. You can't help love this guy.
Karen Runk |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2009 : 18:33:17
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So I said to that space best filled
by a her...
I've decided loneliness is better than heartbroken
and
heartbroken is better than faithlessness
[incoming or outgoing]
They always say you don't really live without love,
but there's so many different kinds.
But a woman's is the best.
But, still,
loneliness is better than faithlessness.
She had nothing to say to that...
Hank Beukema - 2009 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2009 : 19:26:37
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| Accordion Embroidery. The first time she saw him she was surrounded by apples. His gaze through the window caught her wrists in thrall. Caused her fingers to stall over butter-rich dough. Both the lattice-worked cardamom and the honey-almond tuile. Just a fine wisp of flour when her knot of nutmeg hit the Bakery floor. "...a little accordion embroidery," he said. |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1825 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2009 : 22:13:49
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She was almost there. Kay Starr was blasting from the
CD player in her Baby Lexus. The soup was still
hot. As she entered the little town, she turned the
music down and reached for her cell phone to call her
uncle, who has cancer and thought that the vegetable
soup would be so good. She had driven to Branford to
take it to him, and wanted to let him know she was
getting closer. She noticed that she had a voice mail.
Her husband said for her to get back to town as quickly
as she could, that something was wrong with her mom.
She wanted to turn around on the spot, but was only
three miles from her last living uncle, her mom's
youngest brother. She decided to continue on her
mission. He met her at the car and wondered if she
had gotten the message about her mom. Giving him the
soup and a hug, she began the million mile trip back
home.
BGee |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 05/09/2009 : 17:39:12
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| Once upon a time a fire escape blazed with thorny bougainvillea in the Gaslamp area of San Diego. A woman rushed up four flights of stairs with a quart of hot chicken soup. Behind the vines in that resurrected loft off 4th Avenue he told the ordained story. Teaspoonful by teaspoonful. "There's a river north and east of here. I've seen its stone bed empty." Through night songs and high fevers a hive of light buzzed at the corners of his eyes. Through a scrim of mesquite and twisted brambles his blistered feet came down. And each step expelled a small sorrow. On starry nights the fires of Catherine's Wheel whirled in crosses against the sky. "A show of light in the profane darkness," he said. |
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buckman
Firefly
USA
2825 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2009 : 17:18:38
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Reading you two can make me almost cry.
Ah Hell, not almost atoll...
Shall we dance? |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2009 : 20:02:39
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| At the edge of The Garden, part forest, part jungle, part National Game Preserve, she unbraids the lassoed vines that bind and slips into the sibilant leaves. Adam awakens. Shakes his head and rubs the sand from his eyes. He sees the footprints, smaller than his own. He stands. He moves toward the sharp-edged green. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2009 : 20:06:56
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| He believed in the road and the tarnished rain. The wake of diesel fuel against the windshield. She believed in the ocean's spellbinding edge. The smooth stones that turn and murmur. She held the spiral shell to his ear while he slept inside the light of one white candle. A litany of tides to enchant him. "Listen..." he said in the morning. |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1825 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2009 : 19:34:59
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Carefully. Oh, so carefully she entered her
baby's room, where the light is always on.
Rilynn was sleeping peacefully as she pulled
up the rocker and sat by her bed. "My
sweetheart.." she said. "My sweet, sweet
sweetheart." She loved doing this every
night, halfway afraid that if she didn't,
she would be sorry. Couldn't quite put her
finger on the reason why, but still, she
kept her bedside vigil. Rilynn was all she
had, having lost her husband just months
before. She tried not to cry. She hadn't
mastered that feat yet, but it would
come someday, as time went by. She touched
her baby's hand, and the little fist closed
around her mother's finger. She finally
had to pull herself away so that she could
rest. There was much to be done in the
morning. Much.
BarbraG |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1825 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2009 : 21:44:39
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"Don't Come Around Here....
just to see me cryin'."
Rod Stewart
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Craig
Firefly
Kyrgyzstan
3793 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2009 : 22:03:17
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"If I listened long enough to you...
I'd find a way to believe that it's all true..."
Craig |
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San Diego
Swinger
509 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2009 : 19:11:58
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| I drove by today. That little border chicken town where we used to play weatherman. 76 and 67. Back to you, Blaine. |
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2009 : 19:54:53
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Driving the motorway south from Belfast back into the republic,
the rain coming harder, the sheep huddled in their sheds,
we talked of fire, how children are drawn to it with wide-
eyed fascination, how old people are drawn to it by need,
the desire for warmth in the last damp seasons of their lives.
The house we had just visited in Belfast had a fireplace.
I'd marveled at the shiny black peat bricks stacked near the
hearth, inhaling their distinct scent as we drank strong coffee.
That hour and a half in her friends' house was dream-like.
"Often," she said, "the grandmothers were the ones who sat
near the fire, and part of their vigil was to keep the young
ones from allowing their fascination to cause burns on their
inquisitive fingers." She spoke a while then of her own mom's
mother, nights when the room was lighted only by the flames,
how they'd found her one morning, dead, her feet near the ashes.
"Tus agus deireadh an duine tarraingt ar an tine," she said,
in her native Irish language, then translated: "The beginning
and end of one's life are drawn closer to the fire."
I had nothing to say, waiting to see if she'd say more, but
she fell silent and manouevred along the roadway as the rain
pelted the windshield. After a period of silence, she turned
on the radio. There was a man reading a poem. She let out a
sigh, pulled to the side of the motorway, stopped the car and
turned up the sound. The poet's bog-steeped voice said...
People here used to believe / that drowned souls lived in the
seals. / At spring tides they might change shape. / They loved
music and swam in for a singer / who might stand at the end
of summer / in the mouth of a whitewashed turf-shed, / his
shoulder to the jamb, his song / a rowboat far out in the
evening. / When I came here first you were always singing /
a hint of the clip of the pick / in your winnowing climb and
attack. / Raise it again, man. / We still believe what we hear.
It was the great Irish poet, Seamus Heaney. The program, as it
turned out, was to celebrate his 70th birthday. We listened as
he was interviewed, as he spoke of his childhood, his life and
travels, his journey in the language's mystery. He was born
in the County Derry, in Northern Ireland. He had been awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, but you could tell
in the way he spoke of the island that was his home that it,
Ireland, was the prize he loved best. We sat there listening to
the warmth of his voice beneath the tin clatter of the rain.
DL |
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San Diego
Swinger
509 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2009 : 15:54:00
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| It's a few miles from Moonlight to Eden. A long, flat beach where driftwood and slippery shoe-sized stones collect against the crumbling sandstone. Occasionally a house slips into the sea. It's a scary walk at night. Far out on the ocean ships are blinking, but there are several places where you're wading through waist-high water with waves pushing you against the cliff. Nothing but black water ahead. And a roar that never quits. If there's a moon out it helps. Unless it's a full moon. Then the tide is higher. Usually there's a mist on the water. Which makes it feel colder and more surreal. My friend Mirella lives in Moonlight Beach and I live in Eden. We take turns walking back and forth. We have for years. It's shorter than if we drive the bright Pacific Coast Highway. But we're both becoming more apprehensive. Mirella believes my imagination is too "lively." She thinks in terms of twisting an ankle or breaking a hip. I think of other things. It's my turn tonight. Sunset is at 7:42pm, and the winds are at 6 knots with swells 3 to 4 feet. There's a Radio Shack somewhere on the PCH. I need an OFF switch for my imagination. |
Edited by - San Diego on 03/21/2020 19:34:55 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2196 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2009 : 15:55:08
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| Blues-moanin' wind through the eaves, Baby. A ghost singin' in the trees. |
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Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5446 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 06:47:57
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Nil tuile nach dtrann ach tuile na ngras...**
The first walk I took in Dublin outward from my hotel
led me to Raglan Road where there is an iron sculpture
of a man resting on a bench. It's of Patrick Kavanagh,
the man who wrote the poem after the street.
On Raglan Road on an autumn day
I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I may one day rue
I saw the danger yet I walked along the enchanted way
And I said let grief be a falling leaf
At the dawning of the day
There is the saying in Ireland about saints and scholars,
but one of poets and rebels, too. That old folk proverb
- about the wooden barrel keeping a drop of the wine
in its staves long after it has been emptied - reminds me
of how traditions are never lost in Ireland.
When it comes to poets, the barrel is never empty.
The same goes for the poetic eye and impulse.
We were sitting in the town square one Sunday morning
in Lisdoonvarna, a few guitar players, a piper,
and Richie with his accordion. Jerry was reciting
one about a lover who'd drowned and joined the seals,
and Hagan was up hugging the dancer's statue.
When the nearby church let out there came a woman
with dark hair and evocative brown eyes, her walk
so graceful, her hair catching the morning light.
I looked at Richie and let my mouth fall open
in appreciation of her beauty. Before I could speak,
he was playing, on his accordion, the melody
to Raglan Road, and my eyes began to shine...
Here's a bit of Kavanagh reading and Luke Kelly singing
the great Kavanagh poem called Raglan Road...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBndHNJoC0k
** Every tide has an ebb, save the tide of graces |
Edited by - Doug L on 05/18/2009 10:20:55 |
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old5n10er
Rocker
147 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2009 : 14:19:30
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although i'm quite sure it's heresy, my favorite version is by an american, a KY grrl, joan osborne. with the Chieftains, does that save me?
http://blip.fm/profile/hillbillyhaiku/blip/11010082
it's the aching quiver in her voice that puts it just a notch above Mary Black's version for me.
"I've spent a lifetime making up my mind to be
More than the measure of what I thought others could see"
~Billy Joe Shaver~ |
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The Nightly Vigil