Air and Smoke–Stream of Consciousness #14

Frogs croaking at midnight
a twin heartbeat
like moss engraving stones entwining with spongy hearts that bleed
the question now is who will carry the porridge?
who will listen to Sumter describe the events that followed his desasterous night of frogs croaking, camping in the woods?
who listenes to him, the dusky hours grow long
the day widens into a smile
furrows into a frown
the clown
Sumter,
banned from the camping ground just as the air was warm
in the chill,
he knows the only comfort can come from
humming a silent tune
a tune which he will pick himself
in doing so he sounds just like the twin heartbeats of the two croaking frogs
he must find his little world
he must find it
or the summer will drag him through an endless pit
and he will see himself as a small boy
groping for the sidewalk and the sun
not knowing that the only eventual destination was death and lead,
the spongy twin bleeding hearts his own.
he feels the ground
the moist air lightens his eye
upwards is an unforgiving sky
tinged with something else he cant describe,
but we shall call it a vague
and unmistakable hope.
he clings to the forrest ground, the moss,
like a child refusing to leave behind his blanket.
the porridge is on a stove growing cold
it’s breakfast fire
warming time
but poor Sumter on the forest ground
the enemy of which he made last night
sleeping on a bed of firs and pine cones.
the last of his breath escapes from his nostrils,
tendrils of air and smoke in equal measure
percolate the air
but he is not there with his friends to see the fire or to hear the stories
because he has told them his story
and that was the one story
they could not hear
so instead they decided to shut him off
and he, with his breath
and they, with the fires, keep burning aloft in their own separate ways,
he pains to think of them, the little children he has left on the
other side of the mountain.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

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Waiting And Forgetting

She forgot what she thought of
Love and decided to make a
Wrongful Wrenching
Portrait of her face
As a misplaced representation
Of a misadventured
hopeless fascination.

She forgot what she thought of
Love and decided that
The canvas looked brighter
When set to flame
In a bursting unabashed evergreen
Emerald
and a face
all lit up–

She sifted the unused canvas
Through her mind and
Thought she could leave behind
A face
An arm
Or any lost
Notions of love
Confusions of love
And love—

She even made a home for it
In a ballroom
Where the steps
Make shadows of love
And the distance between the girls and their
Actual hearts
Is bigger than the
Love itself,
Where the footsteps
Like shadows
Will dance,
Parallel to themselves
Forgetting about
the girl they knew so well
Maybe an inside-out shell
Pinned down:
She still doesn’t know
What she thinks
About love,
And she won’t know,
Not then
Or now.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

At the End of the Day

just before we begine, meditation:

uncharted island
of somewhere in-between the
right and wrong

where can I find you,
queen mystery of it all
that hides, unseen?

don’t find me a fire
a berating sun-drenched love
who follows my tracks

don’t find me the steel
or windy night time blue,
but some cool temperate:

I think I’ll just bathe
in the medicinal sway
of unfailing breath.

xxx x x x x x

an afterthought

yes, that’s it
she eases into a chair
her bones ache and she
finds that the view is not as lovely
as she thought it would
be.

A ticket or the house key
is misplaced
but the train station still finds a way
to make it’s contents drip in an empty thickness
depositing the worker and civillian,
the unceasing drama that
plays at the day like a child with baloons,
too soon bought then let out of grasp
floating higher and higher
and up to the sky:
watch it fly
watch it fly
watch it fly
watch it fly
At the end of the day,
And it passed me by

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Small Town Musicians who Have Never Seen NY Play a Rhapsody in Blue

i.

the brash sound
of barraging horns
enter a city
which they have never seen,
but only thought about
in a dream.

Nobody ever
speaks about
that hamlet on the edge,
where,
sun baking,
we stand naked,
running like children, over a bridge
whose lake
no longer flows in a steady stream
but lies a stagnant body
as if,
holding up a glass vile
one could see the sun’s reflection through it’s
clear distorted flesh.

Still,
they play music
about the city
they have never seen,
a g o r a p h o b i c,
the l a n d s c a p e r o o m y;
All you need’s a ‘scraper on the skyline
to play a whole new tune
on the rooftops of your own
metropolis
land.

‘Cause,
if nobody bothered to save up the cash
next year or or last year
or the year before that
you can just
empty your pockets to the
dry riverbed
and hope it carries you upstream.

An exercise
in thought:
Think of yourself
as a bus on the way
or a fire escape
housing a homeless cat
or an open sinkhole in the street
and the endless plumbing below….
now, open your eyes:
you’re still in the same place,
aren’t you?

ii.

Penny Perfect, like a biscuit?
the brash sound
No says Penny Pie I’ve got three here
of barraging horns
here Penny Perfect wanna walk some?
enter a city they have never seen,
but only thought about in a dream
no says Penny Pie lemme stay here please
nobody ever speaks about that hamlet on the edge
Penny Perfect that’s fine sweet angel, and
where, sun baking, we stand naked,
Penny

Penny

Penny

Penny

Perfect.
running like children over a bridge
Gingham Gorgeous take a photo
whose lake no longer runs
Gingham Gwenny I’m no looker
in a steady stream
Gingham Gorgeous care to gambole
but lies a stagnant body, as if
no says Gingham Gwenny I feel tired
as if, holding up a glass vile
Gingham Gorgeous what of money? I’m broke and
one could see the sun’s reflection Through it’s clear distorted flesh
Gingham

Gingham

Gingham

Gingham

Gorgeous.

 

iii.

the brash sounds
of barraging horns, now dampened by sounds of rainfall
enter a city
which they have never seen,
but only thought about
in a dream,

while white-washed walls wet and wither in the water .

Nobody, nobody ever speaks about
that hamlet on the edge,
where,
rain pouring,
we stand naked, open armed and empty,
running like children, over a bridge
whose lake overflows in sound.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

 

The B-10 Mystery– a short story

Just before we begin–

this is a piece of fiction that I wrote, and I know  it seems a bit out of character, considering the fact that I usually  just write poetry. However, I was very interested to write this, so I hope you all enjoy!

love,

–GSP

 

PROLOGUE

Nobody lives on on the fourth floor anymore-at least, not after what happened to Mrs. Winters. No, everyone stays an arms length from that thin dusty blue carpet and the doormat in front of apartment B-10 that once bore the strange and unfamiliar word “welcome.” It’s funny people even speak of it now. Most people would just label it as a “convenient superstition”.

PART ONE

Molly strode up The narrow staircase nonchalantly, carrying a rather large and unmarked cardboard box. She was dressed in an out of style Calvin Klein tee shirt, a taupe, knee-length overcoat and perfectly washed, but faded and slightly ripped, designer blue jeans, suggesting that she had once been wealthy but recently lost all of her money.Molly Plunked Down the Package outside of apartment B-10, smiled briefly, then ran down the staircase to the lobby and was gone.

A man at the end of the fourth floor hallway had arrived there accidentally, just as the old building elevator, which often malfunctioned, carried him one floor above his desired destination. He observed Molly walking along the fourth floor with purpose, carrying the box, and suspected her of doing something she ought not to do.
The next morning, the man tiptoed up to the apartment B-10 and realized that the box, and whatever lay inside it, was gone. The man shuddered. He dragged his feet back to his residence, then sauntered through the door, unlocked his desk drawer, picked up a shiny revolver and shot himself. If anyone were to have asked him who took the box before he went back to his apartment, he would never have disclosed what he knew: people have a way of constructing detailed and vivid stories on their own, and have such wild imaginations that it would spoil the fun of explaining it.

 

PART TWO

A small portion of a conversation between a Ms. Hewitt and a  Mrs. Cooke, at seven thirty eastern standard time, Monday, June seventeenth, 1996.

Ms. Hewitt: You know he had a bad day, Maggie! It was bound to be a rash decision!

Mrs. Cooke: No, not the way I saw it. He was pacing around the kitchen table giving me that look. I got so freaking scared,  I–

H: Well don’t you dare blame me, I was the one to get nearly 50 letters from the man,while you sat there at home doing nothing to stop him.

C: Don’t exaggerate.

H: What?

C: I said don’t exaggerate. It’s called a Hyperbole.

H: Yes, we all know you went to grad school, Margaret.

C: He only sent you five letters.

H: More like 20.

C: The point is, I know he hid it from us.

H: So… he had it brought back for…safekeeping?

C: Bingo!

(there is a long pause. Ms. Hewitt breathes heavily)

H: Let me get this straight. Are you telling me that Bas***d had the balls to do PLAN G?!?! Of all the–

C: Nobody has to know!

H: Oh, but they will know, they will Maggie, the second it gets there someone’s gonna go bananas. And if it gets out, It’s gonna be–wait, who did he hire?!

C: Molly

H: Ah Shit! you’ve got to be kidding me!

C: I can always have her let go–

H: No, No! It’s all ruined! she knows too many people…

C: We have it under control.

H: That’s highly doubtful.

C: Beth, we have it under control, okay? I love you but–

H: Yeah, love you too.

C:  What I mean is,  sometimes things don’t  turn out how you want them to. And, I know it’s never getting any better for us, but–

H: You want me to order flowers?

(Long pause)

C: You’d do that for me?

H: Of course.

C: Thank you darling.

H: Not a problem. Call me if anything else goes wrong in the next 24 hours, which I’m sure it will.

C: That I will do.

H: well, so long for now.

C: so long.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

 

 

 

Internal Dialogue

After “The Pillow Book”

1.

I’m lost in a transient sort of state

utterly lost  and abandoned,

I mean who was this girl–

this thing–

I’ve become?

 

2.

REGRET

on a  dry, razor- perfect cut lawn,

her red lips are stained with a sort of

forced forgetfulness.

the magenta furls of summer,

like kites or long twirling dresses.

White alabaster carvings in her mind

of a boy she almost left behind,

like a patch of cool shade in the late afternoon,

making her swoon.

 

 

3.

THE DREAM

The wooden chime sings in the air, as

we take a moment to find ourselves once again.

We will sing, like two small flutes,

like proud-breasted birds,

on miniature twigs,

as the wind rides on the current like a dancer on the water,

flickering in

and out

of everything,  as if she were a

skater without skates.

she flies once again through the night

without any means of suspension

not by firelight,or torchlight, or by the sound of her breath,

but by the only sense that she has

which is senseless.

 

4.

I’m lost in a transient sort of state

utterly lost  and abandoned,

I mean who was this girl–

this thing–

I’ve become?

 

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Photography Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Velvet Night–Photography post #1

While that sound could be

either your voice

or the strings of a course violin

I find I fear the failure

of my hands to move

my lips to open,

letting in carbon dioxide

(but that’s just a myth, wouldn’t you think?

sort of a saying?– stop talking!)

my eyes to blink,

or my mind to waver

from savoring the idea

that somewhere, somehow

you will embrace me like a great vat of velvet night

encircling the atmosphere

urging me fly to you

like a moth embraces light.

 

what casual thought is this?

you exude a freezing warmness

that I could not touch

but touched me.

like summer in an endless frost

where a bird soars upward gazing at the view

of the lost wandering few

I remember who I am upon the waking,

but discard my reality with the early morning dew.

 

So, because I fear that which is finite

I choose you, not here,

not there not really anywhere

but soft, plush and light watched,

yet hidden in plain sight,

a truth that no one knows,

like a vat of velvet night .

 

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry 

Photography by Golden Star Poetry

The Other Window

When that glass window is my friend

so too, hers

and both of us lost

both of us engaged

in that uncertain drama,

in something so vile it turned our stomachs and guts into

piles of squeamish liquid:

 

When that music in my ears is my lover

so too, hers

and both of us separately entranced

both of us “some other where”

in that lost lost place

we call

home.

 

Sometimes I will try to coax her out, while

the days pass by

all in place, the city glare

and the hanging humid air…

 

sometimes this small age of uncertainty

is the age of vulnerability,

as the gentle days go by

without a warm embrace

I  enter the world where

the one man makes the other man feel

ashamed for being himself,

while telling the world

he needs to be himself,

and pressing upon you

the urge to be like him

making you forget

you were just normal

to begin with.

 

now, eight days later in the rocking  bus

enshrouded in my own solitude

I think of  the girl I didn’t really love

and the boys I never really knew

but practically died trying to:

 

I look back through the window

and I am trying to be alone with  myself

without her prim-rosy face

which is turned the other way

to face the other window,

 

and as the day slowly fades

she is losing herself in herself–

but I couldn’t be her,

and I couldn’t blame her.

 

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

 

 

PS.

I do not own this picture–I should probably start saying that, since I did get a camera. Unless this is a photography post, or I specifically state it, I do not own the pictures I use in my posts. Okay, Bye!

Black Blue White New

 

the  people on the ground,

heads bent,

un-phased

and unable to look at the ever reaching sky

 

“is it worth it?”

they ask,

 

“what,

i was just  little boy yesterday carrying my book bag,

the sun hanging deep and low over my brow

and my forehead stank of breath ad of  saltwater

tears, and–”

 

The shapes become all engrossing, so

i  find some

recluse

in an old painted book store

of who-knows where

 

suddenly

as i read a line from a silent ode he brushes against me and i don’t

know what is happening and suddenly he

is with me and suddenly he

is around me surrounding me and

the shouts of the street people seems to die in the

sound of his voice;

 

“ENTER MY MIND”

he says

(that’s a command)

“let’s

enter it

together

and  see

the glorious undertaking of you and me”

 

his eyes like seascapes

or sky-scapes

of piercing blue fantasies

as if

he was always

there

 

but with a rush of the train and the steam he’s gone

in the blink of an eye and a lash he’s gone

in the mood of a novel or book he is gone

and the slight inclination of head he is gone

 

and i lost that sky….

 

Now looking up to the expansive light

so much like his dazzling

unshakably passionate eye

i find myself on the street

like all the countless others,

among the thousands of women and children–i am just like them

and the whisper of giving up—i am one of them

and the shouts of the street

i am them.

 

love

seemed to pass me only as i was ready

in the fashion of

true bittersweet punishment;

i sat on a fountain and spilled coins from my pockets

and every wish was a wish for him.

 

 

now i am  holding him once more

and he surrounds and envelops the air

 

but this time i am dreaming it,

and this time the pavement seems all too hard

and the  spurs in the ground digging at my heels making them bleed

 

will you please

tell me

if i can even breathe

in this,

without at least some

well-deserved

exhilaration?

I think

in that case

i might just need

for you to feel

discovery

(but oh

it’s a pity i found the loveliest boy

In town

when he was just about

to wreck his vengeance

on me)

 

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry