Surf Blue

Do you remember
my brother's little cars with the real rubber tires?
We would load our dollie in the back of his ambulance
and leave it on the tracks.
Ding ding ding, dollie--
you think you feel bad now, just wait til old number 7 comes through.

Later, we took out your grandfather's Plymouth
with the push button automatic.
The radio played Golden Earring
and the back seat was bigger than our first apartment.
We fishtailed through those years,
and though you said you knew where we were going,
you lied just as sweet as ever.

How I loved your fingers.
There aren't enough rings in all the second hand shops of the world
to do them justice.
I remember them, and how they found their way,
slick little devils that did the trick every time.
I told you not to take that job in radiology.
I hated to see you lose those tapered beauties one by one.

Sometimes I think the only clear view comes through a cracked glass.
If I could find that Plymouth, I would sit in it
and recall how you told me I was a better kisser than any movie star.
Now, my teeth have gone soft in my head,
I live on pancakes and don't give a damn if the mail or tomorrow comes.

I want to sit on the tracks in a long white bed,
and dream of how we used to be.
The train system is run by computers now,
nobody to feel guilty if I get spun like a carousel,
an old doll in a gas tank bomb of a car,
crashing headlong to feel you restored and handsy

touching my face so tenderly
as if I were made of blown glass and what they used to call
surf blue with eggshell white.
________

for the mini-challenge at Real Toads.

 

Sleep Walk

one day, he'll be shot through with cancer,
empty as an old oxygen tank.
she'll forget him before the year is out,
and marry somebody else;
when she's three months along with a baby conceived from make-up sex,
she'll take thalidomide to help her sleep.

bill and larry have dates,
but would really rather be with each other.
larry will solve it with a noose;
bill will become a cop and bust fags with a baton.
ellen is already bipolar, but doesn't realize it yet.
millie will marry a dentist who will beat her brains in,
then he'll sit in front of that same fireplace sucking gas from the clinic.

tonight it's still early, and they're waiting for larry's cool aunt
who will tell their fortunes from the tarot.
on his deathbed, cancer boy will remember how his date's boobs felt in his hands,
but he'll have forgotten his own sons' names--
the ones whose hair will be longer than hers is now.
_______

for magpie 174

 

Old Fashioned

I'm old fashioned, so people tell me.
I wear a wide brimmed feathered hat when the weather turns nice,
and I eat ice cream from a silver bowl,
as unhurried as a house cat.

I don't drive--
I stay by the side of the road, wearing my high button boots
and a sash of deep sky blue.
There are cirrus clouds that move faster than I do.
I like to watch them and give them names
like Gwendolyn, Lillian, and Marguerite.

Come calling, one of these days.
The glider on the wrap around porch has seemed poorly balanced to me;
it turns street-side by itself, as if to look for you,
when all I want to do is to listen to the bees in the honeysuckle or the catmint,
and to fan myself as I read my Emily Dickinson.

I'm old fashioned, that's the rumor.
Maybe that's why I hold my tongue and shade my eyes,
only dropping my reserve around Rose, the old calico.
She knows your ways,
because hers are the same.
So, if I'm patient and rub underneath her chin in exactly the right way,
she'll rumble and spill.

Pussy will undo you, like fingers pulling pink ribbons.
That's when I'll spring and make you mine, the old fashioned way--
believe me, little bird,
mark my words!
________

Concocted from a scrap of comment I made at Verse Escape, about something entirely different. Sometimes my imagination takes off without me!

 

Chokecherry's Kiss

November is the lover who leaves--
December is the long nights, after.

Doors lack kindness--
women are windows, trusting fools.

Hinges hold the weave of hand touching skin--
Chokecherry's kiss is the Mistress and the Master

Of sugar-boned lovers gone by dawn,
leaving only absent laughter.

Rachel

Gilled creatures,
go back.
Back to the sludge-depths,
down where the dead-roots rise.

What were you thinking you could offer me?
I wear white lace gloves
even while shucking oysters.
They must be bought live, in their shells,
so that they may whisper to their conquerors
at the fateful moment.

All right.
I'm being ridiculous,
but you didn't know me back in mushroom days.
We took our German professor
down to the cold beach.
I have his accent still, in a jewelry box, in a drawer,
a little trophy for me to keep.

Back then,
I admit it, I was toasted most of the time.
I have a lot to answer for,
but I'm not sorry for the road I took.
I had a cute top I made from hurricane flags;
when black-haired Rachel ran her fingers up under it,
I blessed her for it, as the gooseflesh rose.

My universal veil and my bullshit affectations are gone.
I'm sober these days,
no shrooms, no Schlitz.
Listen, I could give a shit less
for the dead things
and the depths.

Let me just stand here,
sailor,
mermaid,
woman of my dreams...
when I sing to you, let me do it in daylight,
facing into the wind
like a sea bird.
______

I got some of my words HERE. Flipside, do you like that picture? I knew you would!