Long Stop Through Nowhere

Chapter one.

The only thing that the red truck in front of her wasn’t going to do was kill her. Maybe cars in this side of town went slow, you know, like that phrase–slower than molasses in January? Yeah, that’s the one. No, It definitely wasn’t going to kill her. But she had heard her mother say very distinctly that the world was much more stark and scary when you went out into it’s clutches, and cars were one of the things you had to look out for.

“I told you. Practically no one drives here Cornelia, it’s a dead zone. Nobody lives here.” said Peter.
“Then why’s he stoppin’?” drawled Cornelia vacantly.
“Because we were just about gettin’ ready to cross the street, that’s why. Didn’t nobody ever tell you ’bout such a thing as driving rules?”
“Uh…no” Cornelia admitted defeatedly.
“Well then, what are you waiting for? That truck ain’t gonna wait for us any longer! go on, git!”
“You sure, I?…”
“Git! go on ahead, that driver ain’t got all day!”
The brisk morning air suddenly struck the two young travelers as they flittered across the narrow dirt road. Pine trees ran along it’s whole length; an endless wood ran on either side of the mountain highway like a secret hideaway into the endless mystery of nature. But that wasn’t their focus anymore. They were almost on their way to a city, and this was just where civilization had begun to turn up.
A twisted grin began to play on peter’s sun burnt face as they continued walking along the road.
“What’s so funny?” whined Cornelia, who was just about through with her brother’s pointless games.
“You don’t know about the pedestrian’s right of way, Corny. It’s like knowin’ the world goes around the sun. Common knowlage.”
She hated it when he called her that stupid nickname. And she hated how he knew more big words than her, since he was in the tenth grade.
“What’s a ped-est-rian?” Asked the bewildered girl carefully, who was now at her wit’s end. This question only made Peter laugh harder, snorting through his nostrils and cackling like a hyena, which made Cornelia even more outraged. At least, thought Cornelia,we only have ten more miles to go. It was a comforting thought at best.

If seen from above, the whole journey would have seemed startlingly picturesque; A young girl with shockingly red hair walking down a mountain path along side a much older, very red and tan boy dripping in sweat, looking as if they were on some secret spy mission to save the world, hold up the one car traffic of a huge scarlet truck in the middle of the day.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry
I do not own this photo

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Untitled-poem written at age 11

Last night I was reading Pablo Neruda’s translated work “Extravagaria” translated by Alaister Reid (which you should really make a note to buy, if you are at all interested in poetry), and then I suddenly got in the mood to read some of my older, more random poetry. I have spent a good part of the night and early morning sifting through old binders crammed with small poem fragments, half of which really make me realize how far my poetry has come in almost three years! Then I found this one, which is frankly one of my long lost favorites. I never get tired of this poem, and I thought you might enjoy reading it. So without further adue, here is me, writing poetry, age 11.

Untitled

Trees with stemless
leaves
grow in summertime.

finding the rainbows in the sky
the love, the war
and the blood of mankind

I am the orphan
lost in time
taking in the sights

of eternity

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

Monolouge-Bad Influence

I felt like writing a monologue today. Don’t ask me why.

BAD INFLUENCE

You wanna hear about it? Ok. So basically we had this big barn in the backyard when we were little and Emma would always pretend to be a chicken in there. And she would flap her arms out like an idiot and say things that chickens might say if they had brain cells. But she would scream. When we went into kindergarten it was the same torture all over again, only she wouldn’t let me speak. It was her game, she said. Eventually she just didn’t want us to be friends.  It was weird, you know, cause most of us would play in our little groups, and we didn’t, so it kind of made me feel special. But then she turned out to be some brat from the valley who had no clue on how to get by in school. She was like that all through Junior High even, I remember her getting three D’s and she didn’t even know it was a bad thing. She ended up going to Juvie or something. Wait, no, Sarah told me about that. Sorry,  that was a rumor. Anyway, I guess I’ve been used like that most of my life. And I never get any wiser after,  And then came the whole problem of relationships, which, on the whole, do make me want to gag. But Paul was different at first, you know? He loved me so much it was almost Ethereal. Well, that’s what Amy and Daisy and Leah all said about him. So that’s that one. And the rest of my girlfriends have all gone to become waitresses at some dump restaurant at I don’t even know where, and they’re just making minimum wage on the side so that they can even afford college. It’s sad, you know? My friends. I was the only one who ended up with a A in any of the classes they failed last year. No, actually, It’s pathetic. I can’t make friends with one  good person, and it’s really itching me to know why. Can you get the hell out of here?

Ruby Fly

She was only five at the time, so it seemed natural. Her feet were like turrets on old english castles.

But they had five toes each, that she knew

ruby touched the ball of her foot and squealed. It was ticklish.

the end of her toenail glistened int he sunlight

it was a bright reflection

but she couldn’t quite see her face in it.

Likewise, her toenail couldn’t see her.

The magpies on the street were all a hollder

the murder of crows darted through the unblemished sun scrapings

that were inevitably burnt into a sea gray sky.

the butterfly nest is now filled to the brim with wings

and ruby is a child again

feeling soft orange feathers flutter on her cheek.

She squints, and sees a shard of glass in the grass

she can’t see her face in it,

and the glass can’t see her.

She smiles, because life seems so funny.

She puts the shard of glass on her sill

and her mother doesn’t bother to spot

it’s invisible light shows.

her brother is a magpie

her mother is a crow

and she, a butterfly.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

A.A. Milne- a thought

How influential A.A.Milne has been-

I think what he’s done- it goes unseen!

But truth be told, in truth conveyed,

the only truth was what he said.

And I myself, have read them by,

and by so when, I was a child.

I listened to them on a tape

(which, sorrowfully, I had misplaced).

But memory, it serves me well,

of all the poems I could tell.

I’d memorized them- every one

(well not each page, but half as done).

And when I do, it makes me smile,

that when I’m sleeping all the while,

those places come to my minds eye,

lie twitching in their idle sky.

I feel the lapping waves and sand,

I feel the sixpence in my hand,

I smell the air, the salty seas,

and what a little child I’d be……

Copyright 2012 by Golden Star Poetry