Red Leaves

Red leaves, red leaves, all down the street
Red leaves don't mean very much to me
Unless those red leaves, red leaves, are under your feet
And you're walking on red leaves, walking next to me
Then I like 'em
Like 'em pretty good.

You left your funky brown jacket on the back of my chair
And I like it, like it, like seeing it there
Red leaves, red leaves, blowing crazy in the wind
I hope you come blowing back to fetch it again
Cos I like ya
Like ya pretty good.

_______

for dverse poetics...color.

Reverend Jim

Reverend Jim snaps, and drowns JoAnne Pfister in the baptismal font
on Easter Sunday
right in front of the entire congregation.

No cookies in the social hall for Jim this time.

In his years on the run,
the ruined Reverend learns some hard truths--
that women lie their heads off,
that RC Cola tastes like shit, especially the diet,
and that cats, though beautiful,
worship only tuna fish, and meet in terrible cabals on the sly.

You doubt these things?
Then, how wonderful
that you have not suffered.


For a time, he lives in a trailer park with a waitress
who has seven Persians and tells him she is the 
reincarnation of Saint Joan of Arc.


Her refrigerator has so many magnets on the door,
it looks like the uniform of a South American military officer,
a deranged puppet ordering crackdowns...
Inside, it is full to bursting with cans of RC diet cola.


"I love you, Jimmy," says the waitress,
leaving him a generous tip after acrobatic sex one night.
"I'll never leave you,"
but her bags are already packed and hidden behind the cinder blocks outside.


Alone,
hunted,
steeped in sin like the devil's tea bag,
Reverend Jim flees the trailer as he fled the church so long ago.


His hair grows long,
and he moves ever further into the surrounding wilderness.
In the weird intermittent flashes of a lightning storm,
he asks for God's pardon.


She washes him clean with the rain,
whispers in his ear to come home,
poor sinner,
come home...
But at the last minute,
a dove falls neck-bitten and dead at his feet.

He hears,
very faintly,
the sound of a tiny bell,
and when he bites his knuckles, the rain drops taste
metallic and awful.


Reverend Jim decides to stay where he is,
miserable and ridden with fever dreams of the woman he killed.
He has kept one large cross through all the heartbreak,
and uses it it as a hammer
to build his tree house,
because the damned must be resourceful
and make the best use of whatever is at hand.

_____

Skay Boder!

Tonight I had to go to the pharmacy to get Bosco some more insulin. In line, I was behind a pretty woman and her toddler son, who sat backwards in the cart, facing me.

He looked at me for a moment, and then got this gimormous smile across his face. He pointed and said, "hemmet! hemmet!" The woman turned around, looked at me, smiled, and said to him, "That's right! She's wearing a helmet!" He was so excited about my helmet. It was adorable.

Then, bouncing in his seat, he crows, "Skay boder!!!!" His mom goes, "Skateboarder? I think she's probably on a bike, honey." I fessed up that I was.

That little boy was soooo excited about it. Fireblossom, sk8ter chick? Hmm, maybe not, but I walked away grinning.

School For Minstrels

The minstrel sat in the street, singing love songs--

Lies flew out of his mouth like blackbirds;

A beautiful onyx rain.



When I woke up that morning,

Luxury seemed a birthright.

Far away, tired soldiers marched with bibles, tobacco, and my picture tucked away in their packs

As if I could care.

The sun rose.

I leant in the stone window and ate a peach.



The minstrel roamed the cobblestones, singing songs of glorious battle--

I threw a shoe at him,

But half way down, it grew wings and perched on his shoulder,

White as a lily.



The ghosts that evening strutted like grandees--

Clouds lounged in my bed.

Plotters lurked outside my door,

Shivs hanging from their robes like crosses.



I had the minstrel killed, brought in, and served up as supper--

I picked at my food.

I said, "I want a woman,"

The way one might say, "I want the devil to shine my shoes."

My family paused, mouths stuffed full,

Then threw me out.



Now I sit in the street before dawn, singing love songs--

I don't believe a word of any of them;

I have nothing.

I am scorned by all.

But I wait well into the afternoon for a particular chambermaid I fancy to pass by...



She always carries a single ripe peach in the pocket of her apron.

I must have it,

And despite my lack of faith, and my absurd feckless history,

I am wiser now than I ever was before,

And am quite prepared to humble myself.

Indeed,

I am ready and eager

To beg.

_________

photo: Swati