| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
1895 Posts |
 Posted - 10/11/2008 : 17:52:32
|
| Soon he's pulling the Ark through shallow water. His lit cigarette. His granite hair. The vine-entwined fences of Eden receding. The sky, brazen blue, the way he likes it. |
 |
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
1895 Posts |
Posted - 10/11/2008 : 17:56:17
|
| Later, when he's on his knees with cold nights at his shoulders, a sea window comforts him. A candle burning on the fog-damp sill. The salt-encrusted finials of their high iron bed. His uniform jacket and cap on the peg. His storm-smudged eyes...her high-buttoned shoes, waterlogged. |
|
|
|
buckman
Firefly
USA
2705 Posts |
Posted - 10/15/2008 : 16:47:18
|
Melinda took me to Dreamland one afternoon.
The finest barbecued ribs in America are hidden in
a little shack on a dirt road outside of
Tuscaloosa.
The menu was simple;
Half a rack or a whole.
Some iced tea and white bread.
A yellowed autographed 8X10 of Robert Plant
tacked to the burlap wall above the table next to one
of Joe Namath...
The huge man in the white apron that took the order
would have been scary in a prison shower
but was sweet as pecan pie to us...
Just Melinda and me.
Wide awake in Dreamland... |
|
|
|
buckman
Firefly
USA
2705 Posts |
Posted - 10/15/2008 : 17:49:30
|
There was a door from the bedroom to a
screened in porch with wrought iron chairs.
It caught the wind and took the smoke and
it looked out over the valley and to another mountain.
He spent alot of time there in the middle of the nite,
thinking and smoking.
It was a good time -
no, it was a grand time, he thought.
He was clean for a time.
He was outdoors with the wind and the nite.
He was a room away from the woman he loved.
In his head he put one more day on the calendar
that was back in NY.
He was thinking he might even make it this time.
|
|
|
|
Grania
Rocker
109 Posts |
Posted - 10/15/2008 : 20:22:52
|
| ...and he did. |
|
|
|
buckman
Firefly
USA
2705 Posts |
Posted - 10/16/2008 : 17:19:44
|
I pushed the horse out past the town, out to where I had buried her... I didn't come out here too often, but today I needed to talk to her, to tell her what I had done... Any success you have in this life is only satisfied when you share it with someone you care about.... Today I had made them run; made them afraid to ever come back... They will see the look in my eyes for the rest of their lives and they will remember it... They will see the difference between what they worship and what I worship and see why I will always be stronger... And I had come to say goodbye; good bye to her and to the life we had known together, and to this piece of land where I had put her body...
The snow is falling around me now, and the sound of the woods has changed as I ride... Riding away from her.... Riding away from them.... I am a slave to the tobacco in my pouch and the whiskey in my bags, but I will be a slave to no man or woman ever again.... The choices have been made for me this time, but I have learned how to make them work in my favor... Today I can ride with no guilt, I can ride with no pain; the lands that I see in the skies over the next mountain are the lands where I will spend my next days... My horse breathes the cold air and carries me onward... Ever onward we shall ride...
I look around at the thick trees and the little creek and realize that I have been riding in circles... I take the saddlebag with the whiskey and throw it into the creek... I keep the tobacco... If you are to ride away from something, Preacher, you must ride Away from it, not encircle it with your feeble pace.... Throw off your baggage and ride with the wind; God knows, there is no reason not to... There is so much more behind you than you are apt to meet up ahead that there is nothing or no one to fear anymore... Your strength and resolve, what little you have left, is not of your making, it has come from somewhere else, but it carries with it a price, a responsibility that you have ignored for too long now...
It is snowing again, as I get down off the horse.... I listen to the music coming from the creek and feel the old fever starting to rise... I throw off the hat and heavy coat and begin to sing and dance around the trees... As I spin around and around, I see the faces from my past coming out of the moonlight........ And they are smiling..... All is as it should be....
I have come to the river to pray.... It should have been raining.... I felt the sun on my face as I left the woods, and the horse and I rode over the crest of the hill and saw the river again for the first time.... My River... Our River.... Where it had all started.... Being here now without her would be like all the years I spent before her, seeking my peace and comfort in the river, except that now I would be missing a piece of my soul.... The inland town that we had gone to was behind me now; the gamblers, the ramblers..... the dead.... I would seek to find my faith again, here where I had found it in the first place, here where I was raised half a century ago before the world had turned upside down.... I have come to the river to make my confession, to seek my salvation, to see if there is any future here for one such as I, left without a heart, but still full of seeking, still full of purpose, still full of the belief that I am powerless without the help of a power outside and above myself....
It turns colder as the sun descends behind Hook Mountain and leaves me in the darkness... once again... It seems that the darkness has become my friend just like the rain... For one that has not lived the life that he was expected to, has not fulfilled the promise that was foreseen for him, has not lived in the light as he had vowed..... The faith has never left..... The belief in the power of the Blood has been there from the start and is there now, to this day.... The Father, the Son, the Man I am....
I have come to the river to pray....
Rev Buckman
|
Edited by - buckman on 10/18/2008 05:29:43 |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
1895 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2008 : 16:43:27
|
Reverend B~
I see you're holding the hand of the muse. |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
1895 Posts |
Posted - 10/18/2008 : 17:04:25
|
| Her name is Marcella Delight. She's 79 years old. Named after the daughter of Johnny Gruelle who published the Raggedy Ann stories around 1918. She told me her story, an audience of one, at Sunrise late last night. "I have such a hard time with God," she said. "All I want to do is get as far away from where I am as possible. My faith is shallow, rooted in ritual rather than belief. Unsubstantial as dandelion floss. I met the man who could take me across only to lose him. It's been well-dark for twenty nine years now, and the sorrow of his death never leaves me. 'What you mean to me...' he once said with marvelous intelligence in his clear eyes. A waiting there also. A sign. Kind for kind. Reason enough to continue." I listened. No right words came to mind to console her. She's a "temp" here with no living relatives. There's nothing wrong with her memory. I gave her a blank journal. I don't know if she'll use it. I don't know if she'll be there next Friday. |
|
|
|
buckman
Firefly
USA
2705 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2008 : 09:43:38
|
For Egbert.
After the Fiesta, I need to be alone...
I ride NorthEast for many days
Where to be October
Means something...
Where I ran and fished and hunted
As a child and learned the ways
Of the woods and of the Great One...
The trees are aflame in
Their private moondance of fire...
Against the blue of My Hudson
Reflecting the cliff faces of Storm King
It plays the illusion the Old Ones called
Riverdeep mountainhigh...
I smile to think of my Other family
Now gone on high that walked this riverbank
With me so long ago...
They were so like the October trees,
Aflame and dancing with color and
Great beauty just before their private
Winter came and turned them gray...
In the creeping darkness,
I whisper a prayer
That they would
greet me in the spring
As the trees will,
Reborn and ready
For another fling
Around the Dancefloor...
~*~ |
|
|
|
Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5434 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2008 : 11:35:53
|
Ailinn, your Marcella Delight segment is among
the best I've read of your writing.
|
|
|
|
Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5434 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2008 : 11:39:11
|
| This place, this road, this patch of ground / One bird alone is singing / You're gone and yet you're still around / And all the good you gave me / Moves inside my body now / A bell that goes on ringing / One bird alone, a loving sound / You're gone, but here, you're still around... |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
1895 Posts |
Posted - 10/19/2008 : 17:25:10
|
| Doug, Thank you for the kind words...and the light you bring to this fire. We've been together a long time sharing the song and the story. |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
1895 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2008 : 19:22:32
|
"He was a photographer," Marcella said tonight. We were standing on the wide veranda after sunset. The staff has it decorated with autumn leaves and straw people in patch-work clothes. When she said his name I knew it. "The Gallery was young then," she said. "His portfolio was- Lonliness alive. It took my breath away. It disturbed me." She stood at the railing watching the sky grow dark. Then she waved her hand dismissively. "Closure! I hate that word! It's the way of those who want things to go smoothly in spite of in spite of! An idea for fools!" I'd never seen her so angry. Her hands trembled when she drew her shawl around her shoulders.
She invited me to view her "Hobo Album." His work. She has a pass for breakfast tomorrow morning. There's a Broken Yolk on the corner of El Camino Real. |
|
|
|
Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5434 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2008 : 23:48:52
|
He didn't think it was something to share with others.
As if that private relationship would be lessened by
too much contact with people. Sundays, he'd stay home,
wake up with the bells already clanging. Some other day,
a Tuesday afternoon perhaps when the cathedral was empty,
he'd go and sit near the back and listen to the stone,
the echoes in the air, feel the quiet, and reflect on
his life and the lives it had been touched by. Coming
outside again, the light made him lift his hand to shield
his eyes. |
|
|
|
buckman
Firefly
USA
2705 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2008 : 06:30:13
|
It was 1960, so I must have been around nine.
Coming out of some famous hall in Philadelphia
having just heard Billy Graham preach about
Heaven and Hell.
A large very black lady was coming
down the stairs to our left,
just one of the many in the crowd,
when she started screaming a high
piercing scream and bright red blood
began pouring from her nose and mouth.
I remember she fell down on her back
on the stairs and the blood was everywhere and
then we were outside.
I remember thinking about what the preacher
had said about Heaven and Hell and
hoping that the lady had been listening
better than me and gotten it right.
I don't remember much of anything else
from that year, but I always remembered
that and wondered when in my life it
was going to happen to me.
|
|
|
|
buckman
Firefly
USA
2705 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2008 : 10:02:16
|
A bright October Sunday morning
after days of rain.
A 9/11 blue sky brings out
the bursting of colors on
the mountain behind my house.
Even after eighteen months of
waking up without a hangover,
the nerve endings that control
intimacy and relationships are
still stunted a bit...
The Giants and Jets are on today,
got Michael Connelly's new mystery
and a good cup of coffee.
Now, even tho I am not yet a total fool,
I know that this is not as good as it gets.
But, all things considered,
I'll take it, today. |
|
|
|
Doug L
Firefly
Canada
5434 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2008 : 11:51:22
|
What am I afraid of pausing to look at?
The old Irish poet wrote to me, asking this
of himself, encouraging me to ask it, too.
He wrote that the last time he came to America
he went mad, had a nervous breakdown in Philadelphia.
"I sobbed and could no longer speak," he said.
I wanted to write, "That happens to everybody who
goes to Philadelphia," but caught myself.
Instead, I looked at my own scattered family.
My mother and father, sister and brother, all
much louder now in their silence, each secret
about to grab a bullhorn and howl.
DL
|
|
|
|
aussiedave
Swinger
Australia
508 Posts |
Posted - 10/26/2008 : 23:40:04
|
one day
I will do a doug and alice
and just stephen bishop
into the future
I will disappear
by stealing the stars
from the sky
put on Newbury
and begin to cry
on and on.
AD
]I'm just fine ailinn,and you?[ |
|
|
|
BarbraG
Windchimer
1824 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2008 : 00:58:30
|
Lorelei stepped from, no..- she fell from the darkness at the top
of the winding staircase. Looking up, she cried out in pain. What was wrong with her? She had only had that one drink just before
she went to bed. Or, had it been two? Johnny had mixed it for
her, and insisted that she drink it straight down. It usually
calmed her and helped her to sleep -- like a baby. The baby.
Where was Elizabeth? Lorelei couldn't remember putting her
baby to bed for the night, which was something she always did.
She had to get up from the floor. But, she couldn't move her
legs. "Johnny !!!!!!! John !!! Help me !!" Silence. Only
silence. The silence in the house was deafening, even in the
midst of Lorelei's screams. Elizabeth wasn't crying, and Johnny
wasn't there.... Was he ??? |
|
|
|
Ailinn
Windchimer
1895 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2008 : 18:16:03
|
| Melancholy time in the tule fog, AD. |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
The Nightly Vigil