Scene in a City With You in It

Childhood Expectation Versus the Real Life;

when you were still young,
you’d see a pastel forest in her,
that weak-in-the-knees beauty
or share a little smile,
a little tangible gift.

when you entered the scene
though a bit distraught,
you were caught
in a dead dream of never-tomorrow
and the smooth dark wool blanket dreams
you’d prepared for so long only to have them

smothered out by some smaller
little pet part of your heart,
bubbling slowly along with her-
you thought you could wait it out
you thought you could wait it out

you were living under a fear-cloud
singed by romantic off-yellow lights and the city around you dark
you were huddled in an
oversized dark wool coat, yours or someone else’s
because you had never tried,
even though you had.

winter-bitten, you saw the man
who should have been waiting up for you
who lacked the good mystique
who lacked everything,
who tasted of bitter mellon and
two vermilion cheeks,
and you knew it, just as you did when you
held her hand
those many years before,
that love was a long way’d around,
love was a long, long, long way’d round
and long still yet:

too late to show up, too late to care
you say, as you cradle your own arms
drink in your own breath,
sigh in your own poetry
sing your own nighttime lullaby.

(the chilly air seems cozy,
you say
it’s time at last, to rest,)
and you are a small dot on the park bench
in the snowy city, alone.

Copyright 2015 Golden Star Poetry

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Long Stop Though Nowhere: Chapter Two

Chapter Two
They had found themselves in a large grassy field, which opened up along a wooded trail crowded with pines and vines and which branched out from the large road the had been on hours earier. The sun was shining brightly all around them, and they sat so they could see the view in front of them. It was a stunning dusky blue mountain range which meandered out into the abyss of the horizon and seemed to go on for miles on end.

Cornelia opened a can of sardines for the tenth time that week. It smelled putrid, but Peter loved the taste. They had been living off of canned goods for the past three weeks, and she and her brother were beginning to smell like barrels of fish. She speared it gingerly with a fork, and chewed it thoughtfully. Peter opened his cream linen satchel and snatched out four rolls of bread, which had been carefully wrapped up in a wrinkled paper towel , and grinned.

“Two for you and two for me”, he said cheerfully. “The ones I nabbed from the bakery, remember?” Cornelia nodded, her mouth watering at the sight of them. “‘Cause I didn’t need me no Victor Hugo to tell me that –stealin’ a loaf?” “THAT AIN’T NO SIN!” they cried in unison. One thing Peter was known to do was quote literature, since he was quite smart, so Cornelia had subsequently, learnt various references from all the classics; that was one of the phrases they liked to repeat the most. Peter handed his younger sister one of the white rolls. She figured the sardines didn’t taste so bad if you ate it along with the rich starchy taste of the bread.

“Man, I wish Ginger was here” sighed Peter, looking over Cornelia’s head, into the distance.
“You always wish she was here, Pete. And when she was here, I…I felt so alone.”.
They had picked her up as they were traveling, maybe two months before. She was living in this shack in the middle of a abandoned town, and her mother was giving her hell. Apparantly, they were the first signs of civilization she had seen for years, and she said she would do anything to escape, so they let her come along. Ginger was the kind of girl everyone could envy. She had this small cupid’s bow mouth and Auburn hair in loose curls, big green eyes that sparkled in the sun, and lots and lots of freckles.

Then, the second week after they had met her she saw Peter kiss her at night, his lips right up against hers, and them smiling and laughing and laughing, and when she fell asleep, all she dreamt about was her brother with that girl, intertwined on the porch of a house at dusk. All she could do was sit there and watch them, unable to stop them, feeling so helpless and empty. Like she was going to be abandoned and stripped of her heart. And she didn’t know why she remembered the dream, but whenever she closed her eyes and thought of it again, her eyes still stung with sadness.

“She was gonna take you away from me”
“Aww don’t be silly, Corny, I was just thinkin’ about her”
“No, you were going to run away and leave me here, alone! She was scary, she was bright, fine, she was…no good!”
“Don’t know what you mean Cornelia, she was a darling, she was…oh god…so perfect.” his voice quieted into a hush as if he was having a memorial service for her faint memory. “I would never leave you sister”. But he said it faintly, ever so softly, as if he was just saying thoughts out loud.
Then he pressed his lips together like he was trying to remember that kiss.
She rested her head on his shoulder, and hoped he was telling the truth.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

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

Stream of Consciousness Number 13: Still Dreaming

while finding the crevases in the road
the earth swells before me
lost in some unturned dreamworld
where the cantonese i hear
is strange mangled French.
please tell me I’m dreaming
please tell me I’m asleep
please tell me no one can find me here
please tell me someone will find me here
love will find me here
you will sneak up on me like my lover
the house will crash
and its still a nightmare
the air is still and chilly
you say that
we are good
together
but i say thats the last thing you dumbo
how are we supposed to fly with those ears?
you have the fattest lips
the biggest nose
the longest neck
and the smallest toes
OH HOW
did i think you looked smart
on those walks in the park
eating shrimp and ice cream
i think it was a dream
and the songs we would sing
were childrens rhyme
what a strange mad
time
when it was just you and i

x x x x x x x x x x

I feel young
I feel strange
the sides of the road always carry spare change
so keep watch
of the lights
and the lampposts at night and the devilish sight of the stream
and im still in a dream

x x x xx xx x x

realizing the sound of subsiding dreams
is the strangest things
you are hearing me now i don’t even know how but through glass
no sound will pass
so how the hell can you hear me this well
when i scream
cant you see
I’m begging you please
set me free
i thought we were just playing
I’m your friend
not you foe
why don’t i make it up so you can let me go
ill be good
and charming
and not as alarming
and sweet
and charming and neat
ill do all of your clothes
i adore your small toes
no really i do
and the size of your shoe
all of it
is just the right fit
for me
i take everything i say
unseriously
please
make sure you don’t leave me
here

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Abandon

maybe I’m only a small stone in your hand
that you hold
while you walk
through the rustle of trees and the streets in the summer
pick me up
put me down
that’s what I”m for.

Im for throwing ‘cross smooth lakes and during storms
cause thats the times you can’t hear your own self screaming
Im for tossing down balcony windows
cause thats the times you can tell yourself you’re only dreaming
she’s waiting by the door
that lonely woman
you can tell she’s been waiting
so long.

You left me,
pebble
on an asphalt road.

how do you expect me
to get myself home?

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry