Bouquet Pale As Mountain Dew
Oooh! that
lyrical, lyrical night
splashing against the firmness of my gentle breasts...
finally flowing free between my melodic belly and hips.
All right!
Big fish, liddle fish
fimmin' in d'sea...
Swaying to
a different drummer, a different beat.
Not in the least surprised by my sudden musicality, Tina grabbed me by the waist, mirroring my mindsong. Ola! by then, the combined power of our csardas and perfumes was guiding my clumsy feet, exciting them through every step of our starlight fantastic. Lifting us to another time, another place. With a wild aerial bliss, we were soon floating over the hills of Moldavia, bewildered and inspired by, like, Trent Reznor. Or... Indigo Girls. No, Penny kept playing "Behind Blue Eyes" on her harmonica.
Myself, hovering, riding the music as well as I could. Airily. Infatuated. Focused. And all that liquid silence-- like gentle whoosh of doors opening and closing in Star Treks past and present. And she cupped her hands like Little Walter. Ooooh!
Know I'm sayin'?
The force that drives the green fuse drives a Fanta delivery van behind my house, on weekdays after 11. My back-door man. Hah! Sure, a stranger. A multi-millionare wanting only devotion, respect and a non-careering housefrau who could do a passable version of "Lili Marlene" each and every Armistice Day.
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
My lover likes to whisper things like "Pepsi, Please," and "Coke Is!" as he thrusts into the darkness of my indifference. As if, say, a little sugar water could make the world go away. Or disappear like circling wheels behind white cirrus.
Staring and glaring, questioning the tears welling in our eyes, we walked from New Cumberland to Lemoyne, through 3 different time zones in the moral equivalent of a heated rush. Tina, on the other hand, was growling, moving, breaking free from hurt. She closed her eyes; pounded against the doors of the men's room, splintering them like Keith Moon drumsticks! Her eyes....
Ba-da-BOUM!
Snowblind! Emerging into sunlight, prematurely-- that bitch!-- leaving me behind,
I, who never wanted to leave. Incandescent. Irresolute. Fi! To the horror of that other blonde who was roaring and cursing in unintelligible idioms about redundancy. Some kind of financial wonderful. Like internet overruns or somesuch. Those eyes.
Look: falling in make-believe. To Penny, our love was the beginning. To me... it was an end. A middle. A muddle, a kind of lost weekend. A regenerative trip to Nepal on gossamer wings. A trip to a flower show in Philly. A penetrating look into the dark side of botany! Whoa, I saw musicians crossing fields of black tulips, where others gamboled and nuzzled in discreet light of Goodyear Blimp. Y'know where I'm comin' from?
Know what I'm sayin'?
Moi? I went looking for love in all the wrong places--yeah!-- and found myself caught between ivory dreams of lumbering pianos and harmonicats, so I crossed under the new Andromedean constellation and headed back, along the Market House on Broad Street. Still bathed in fading moonlight I flew over Towne House and felt the power! Yeah, mighty, juicy visions of deconstruction spilling out of my secret place of places.
Crossing out all my wells of pain and sorrow, and soaring to new heights of giddiness and hope. Resignation. Nonesuch.
In my mind's eye, a vision of Penny. For no apparent reason, she stood in near darkness and vacantly watched a weak Susquehanna sunrise.
BirdsEye. Cassiopeia is long gone. Holding up both cool arms in bland supplication. The mountain laurel-- not so fragrant now; orioles are scarce. Nighthawks on their way to Brazil.
Wife of Cepheus, Mother of Andromeda!
And when just Spring comes
I just may look out to the majesty of
those goddamn hills. Yeah!
Fish gotta swim.
Robin's egg blue.
> > > > --Marty Esworthy
> martyez@lycos.com
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Poetry Thursdays