Tantalizing thoughts
Undone
by fingers
reaching for my buttons, you mock me
passing the fragrant stares we share
as the blouse falls, but lingers
near the small of my back.
I smile and ask you to
whisper in my ear,
yes… just like that.
Plant your lips there
on the lobe
with some tantalizing
thoughts, you begin
planting seeds
making me somehow
believe this was
all my idea. You look clever
without your
shirt and me without my
blouse seeks to have one of your
hands study the curves
of my torso, or weren’t those the plans
while the other searches for the key
to my heart.
Up on Mulholland
BROWN DUST BILLOWED, as the winds drifted through the Santa Ana’s. Hot and blistering west they could be seen balling up in pale tones. Thin as smoke, thick in colour, close to the warmth of toffee. Dust clouds rolled, aggressive low riders clipping into the canyon, and on either side of the road the dull contrast of green cacti stuck upright, camouflaged mercenary soldiers in that perfect khaki green –all standing along the roadside. And each thick and stiffly waited there under the glare of hot sun and above it all –blue sky, but with a single notion, these thorny cacti waved single finger salutes out to the occupants of the big silver cab as it wandered past; up along Mulholland Drive.
Nathan Ainslie wasn’t much of a talker; he was however a great driver, taking extra pride in the cab he drove. Making sure it was always clean outside and spotless inside. He was one of a handful of black drivers in Los Angeles, but like everything else here in this city –everything wasn’t always as it appeared. Nathan Ainslie didn’t look black, didn’t act black, didn’t smell black, and as far as George Brooks the manager at the cab company was concerned –Nathan Ainslie barely had a tan. Nathan did however pay attention, and listened, and observed, his eyes always in motion, scanning the road, and he as always was checking his rear view mirror. He was always in uniform, and never once did he embarrass George Brooks or the Sherman Cab Company and show up drunk, nor did he ever call in sick. George Brooks liked Nathan because he was loyal, he was honest, and never made excuses and never showed up late or misdirected his fares by taking them the long-way around to their destinations. George paid him well, and always sent Nathan exclusively to pick up passengers from the Ambassador Hotel when the Sherman Cab Company was called to do so, only because he didn’t trust the other drivers with picking up those fares from that hotel.
George knew full-well that Nathan would get out of the cab, open the doors, lift the luggage into the trunk with care, making sure that those people who ever they were; were looked after with the very best of service. When the cab showed up to pick up Charlie Wolf, Nathan got out and opened the door and greeted him with a good morning sir, before Charlie hopped in the back with a newspaper folded up under his arm, there was no luggage so Nathan shut the door, and got in asking Charlie where they were heading. Nathan pulled away from the Ambassador Hotel, and didn’t turn the meter on until the cab rolled off the driveway and onto the boulevard.
Nathan pressed the cab up into the foothills after being told where they were going, and Charlie eyed the cacti as curiously as he did the Los Angeles Times which sat on the backseat of the cab with him for most of the ride. He also watched with interest the swirling dust repeatedly skip between the cacti, draping out in broad strokes as it came up through the dried creek beds, and across the road long ahead of the cab. He sat back glancing out his window as a number of dust clouds blew past, his sunglasses reflecting nothing but blue sky from above, while his eyes were trained to prospect and sift through the images surrounding the cumbersome foothills; rugged rock formations, dried up creek beds, rolling hills, cacti and yucca plants, along with bright orange poppies and wild sage, and miles of scrub and low brush, each one fluttered by in small sprigs of mildly interest combinations. Charlie’s journalistic eyes flickered freely on each as they were recorded and zipped into his subconscious, he continued his long lazily look out the other side of the cab catching sight of a coyote trotting over the colourful terrain heading in the opposite direction trying to chase down a rabbit. Charlie smiled finding it amusing, the very thought of seeing wildlife like that well within city limits was novel if not refreshing to him. The foothills around Los Angeles were a resplendent change to the concrete canyons of Chicago’s core, and would require an adjustment period, but one he was willing to try.
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Ladies and gentlemen…. all of them. Seek and start a love affair with your hearts
Everything just fades away
Antiquated relief comes with a price, as progress pushes up our astute values—we seek enumeration, we want to be counted, we want to belong, to become apart of the living mechanisms we inhabit. So we try to cut away the big box cancers that sprout up in ugly mass, and we cast or votes for less is more, picking favours in hometown heroes, those small mom and pop stores with classic characters with names like Vince who runs the butcher shop or Margret who sells flowers to young lovers out of her truck, we seek to sit in cozy comfort sipping coffee and tea on lazy Saturdays and sun filled Sundays in shady alleyways down on Main Street.
But instead old Vince closes his doors because we have lost our way and taste for beef, grazing instead on greens. So the shop’s doors close the windows get papered over while we wait to see who will meet our standards before we let them in. Sad but true, the weight of steak is no longer being sold in the old store on Main Street. The interior is bare, gone are the counters, the sawdust strewn across the wooden floors, gone are the flies, gone are the smells we once remembered so well, gone are the cutting boards, gone are the characters who used to sell us all choice cuts of meat.
The smell of blood no longer drips it just fades away, that one lost dog that used to sit out back waiting for scraps leaves for another town, and we wait to see who will be moving in. Life goes on without Vince, life doesn’t sit still, but we pressure the town council to do right by us, for we know best what will fit into our grand scheme of things. Slowly we pass by the store but look less and less through its closed doors, we melt into a routine taking up time in some other small store, and we hope for something more as the push on Main Street echoes in the tones we want to represent us because the progress we seek is the romance of yesterday, we just want it packaged in a new way. But everything falls apart, everything goes away, sometimes it comes back another day.
I dislike flying
But I love traveling…. got home 30 minutes ago. Its the whole thing with the time zones getting me all crossed up. Tired but not, sleepy but not. Did some writing while I was back home, posted a few pieces. The one I just posted I wrote on the plane home tonight. Anywhoo… I really want to thank all of the editors for their over exuberant zeal the last week or so. Now a wow to all these new people who have decided to follow, let me say warmly, thank you. Look I’ve been pretty wrapped up with stuff back home, and work tomorrow I can almost say I’m looking forward to the distraction of it. I’m sort of out of it right now, but I’m going to try and catch up on some of your lovely blogs and I think some good hard reading of your posts is in order. Thanks to all, really, Cheers Dean
Find your way home
T O D A Y A C H E S O F T H E C O L D N E S S I felt firsthand, aches from the departure of a lifetime ago, aches from the hunger I once knew so well—yet here I stand, with my soul unwrapped, my heart is naked and striped from your tender touch, here I feel so alone, abandoned. My eyes are fully open now and see how unwanted you made me feel, how strange is it to know how this makes me feel. I’m stranded in the fragrance you left behind, I’m bound to nothing but how this all feels, so unreal and yet so very surreal, an alien world of scales and fins, knives and breaking glass, and all these painful blow guns pushing darts against the surface of my skin. I feel so branded and marked now, I’m scarred without my wits to end the pain, yet I cannot chastise you for leaving, nor can I regret not going with you.
I blink coldly staring wistfully standing by the curb near the end of your parent’s former driveway, yes it’s sad. In front of the empty house that used to sing to me but no more, yes it used to beckon me, call my name— and I came running to see you straddling your open bedroom window. The window is black now both in memory and in depth, for there is nothing but regret and the emptiness of the room you left. I find no courage, only this weakness for you as I stand up next to the retched row of hedges in front of this old house. It’s reigning with overgrowth wrapped around the wrought-iron fence that keeps me out, like barbed wire, tight and fierce —the gate is barely visible, and I dare not ask you if you feel as I do. I pause to look up and I see stars in the night sky, my eyes close, melting into this fading memory— of this fragrance you left me in, and the time we wasted has evaporated with heartache. Looking back as I walk away I can only hope you will find your way home, to me, to us, to fill this hunger I have for you— can’t go on like this, for if it does I’ll starve to death.
A stolen moment
[I want to melt into the scenery and be forgotten here in Paris. Here for the last day, the last moment, before we head home, so we sit sadly on the edge of Jardin du Luxembourg, a Parisian Park like no other, just across from the Sorbonne. Sitting near the crumbling stone walls of an old church at a table in some tiny sidewalk cafe, and to the right through the doors we see history hung on walls of this old church, and this is my scribbled thoughts of what roams around in my head]
ON THE BLOCKS of wood up against the hard surfaces of painted board, Russian Icons stare back silently while stolen glances from old friends sitting in this old forgotten Orthodox Church. Inside we see old people and young people, they sit with nothing better to do, so they reminisce about all those yesterdays painted against hardened memories, even from out here they feel warm and fuzzy like old sweaters filled with comfort where every invisible stain is accounted for. Stories are spread like that, mouth to mouth, spilling yarns and cherished moments begin to occupy the mind as smiles unfold, as those lovely stories are told and retold, and eyes search lovingly up to the front of the altar and pray for better days. While stolen Russian Icons from the same forgotten church are lifted, some say rescued some say taken away for safe keeping, but they were stolen no more so than the glances, no more so than the nostalgic thoughts of make-believe of all the things we saw and sometimes perceive to be our reality, stolen like the stories shared amongst the people. Spilt wine now sits in pools of invisible stains upon the church altar and those too are the yards we measure our time here with, short is the day, and shorter is the task of living life.
Hallucinating.
Are you just an idea?
Inspiration spilling like colours
placing a canvas over my eyes
time is elusive when you want it
when I want the sun to rise
and let your silhouette burn
deep into a palette of mind
for me to paint as I see fit
Or are you a feeling?
A complex arrangement
of all the right metaphors
designed so I’ll feel something
anything, artificial and perfect
where words are only a visual
in the same way I made you;
another lie I could believe.
Source: les2moulins
In the Science Lab
Scientifically speaking—
Body language speaks
of sparks and chemistry
yet I prefer to test out
scientific theories
thrust before me
by trial and error.
[Scientific observations
noted by trial and error]
My tongue is tantalized
by the view
my hands have now sunk
to a new low
down into depths
I never
envisioned
my poor eyes weep freely
with pleasure
as my fingers become
crippled
by the softness
of your smile.
Mark one up for
scientific exploration
nothing beats
hands on experience.
