Precious and Threadbare (day 2906)

Precious is the value of things
Laying down in silk
Folding each crease between your fingers
As the light summer wind blows lazily
On the floral window blinds.
An old tuned radio floats in,
Blending with traffic
That beeps and yells and screeches
Intermittently, unsymetrically
And my smile reaches across
The ancient carpeted room,
Parts threadbare,
Parts so coiled around this scene
That our precious breath
Falls together in romance.

Legion’s Strain (day 2338)

So at last our North Sea Queen
Had her legions taught and adept,
Lamenting heard from shore
Where the abandonned had gathered
Bow of the vessel was pointed – of course – due north
To icy depths the legion were bound.
Back and forth the North Sea Queen strolled
Eyeing her crew to weed out the weak
As if it were still needed
To strike fear into her warriors.
They had been trained and hardened
Against the coldest of stones
Heartless and dedicated and ruthless and cruel
And each one full willing to bend at request.
She dressed in pure blackness
A sign of her coldness
Around her neck was wrapped ten strands of silk
That had come from the deadly
In an act of submission,
Her boots were thigh high
Of dear Spanish leather
Stained by the hands of those who’d defied her,
Her coat long and dark that swept to the floor
Beneath she wore – dramatically expected –
A gown of black lace.
So it was the ship creaked and groaned
Under the weight of a legion’s strain
Bound by blood to following orders
With the North Sea blowing with fury
Home again, home again, row row row.

North Sea Queen VIII by Doreen Broers
North Sea Queen VIII by Doreen Broers (ig)

Midnight (day 2271)

You are a midnight that I watch
A tall letter written with love
Emotion twirling around the dance floor
In silk and leather attire
Sipping scotch in a dark corner
Watching every single eye contact
As patrons of the night
Denizens in full regalia
Touch shoulders and recognize
Hold each other in sweet embraces.
And your visage recollects
Games we’ve touched on,
Half unsuspecting
In a gypsy sort of way
Where decadence cannot ever decay
Because it rides tonight,
Midnight in your purse
Towards jewels hidden deep inside
The glimmer in your eye.

Down Turned Reverberations (day 1912)

You know, it’s ok.

It doesn’t matter that the sky seems to fall when you stretch your eyes wide at the beginning of a new day. It doesn’t matter that the tangle in your heart matches the tangle of your long, curly, brown hair drooping about your itchy nose as you fling from side to side with a worn out cactus shirt reaching down to the same legs you rest your morning coffee on.

I’ve found a reason that doesn’t rely on these silly momentary things. I’ve found the silk road, pock marked by moths with an unsettling history that left a lot of sad pages in the brown covered diary I’ve never re-read. I’ve begun to maneuver this silk pressing just as I would walking through busy streets or desert, dry mouthed and heart fleeting as beats reverberate off of every single thought.

It’s ok.

It’s a revolution that cannot get taken away, it’s the dull side of a newly sharpened axe. How many rows have you planted to become the star lit sky we all look up to; arms are better for hugging then the cold glass walls modern giants embed their soldiers within.

You’re not the only one with down turned memories of what we could never see, never hear, never even share from the distance we watch each other from – but our morning smells seem to remind us of nothing but the closeness we have; but evening silence is a feeling we so easily forgive.

It’s ok, and I’m never really very far.

Love Steps (day 1029)

What does it take to love you?
What does it mean to hold your heart?
Like a delicate silk perfectly folded
Into five evenly spaced sides
Without creases.

What kind of fingers dance, prance
About sticky honey-buckles?
Long strands of hair into the deepness of my soul.
For forever was a long drive
Straight West into sunset’s romantic heart.

What kind of foot pierces clear waters of a hidden brook?
What does the water taste like
After it drips off your tentative toes
Recoiling into giggles, riddling squirrels
Into silence.

Dragging Left Wing | Chapter II (day 923)

IV

Ritual is what makes us so easy to perceive. But she pulled me away from what had always been designed; a teacher of thought and logic, of expression, of impression on my mind. But she was young and full of piss which drove me up the wall. After-all, what was I but a callused sitting stone washing away in the early light of a new winters day. My teeth were clinched and dragging along my feet I made my way up the paisley covered silk pressed firmly on the wall.

[I didn’t mind that she had taken over the top drawer of my burgundy chest of drawers, I didn’t mind that I found her panty-hose draped about my table lamps and the backs of my chairs. In fact, it added to my manliness, it fit right in with my Winchester typewriter – half filled with mumblings I had managed to emit amidst the booze and fucking and freezing air that curled my lungs up into a gait so tight I forced my thoughts to relax the fingers on my mind]

But she was there, full naked visage to luxuriate my mind into a casual saunter amongst peacock feathers, top hats, rhinestones, and suits with chain watches and glittering eyes with too much joviality. I had no choice in this matter, not like I cared one damn bit about the mess she enjoyed making of my bed. She, like I, was full of eyes that pulsed – praying for something she didn’t know how to verbalize, a feeling she didn’t know how to mentalize, a desire she didn’t know how to materialize. Her eyes searched the bottom of empty tumblers, her eyes found the cobwebs reaching out for life, her eyes danced with the streams of light that flickered through the room catching elements of history that spread like the lost ghosts echoing through our minds.

We dove into our fury like lovers we’d always wanted to be. We pushed those warning thoughts to the backs of our minds so we could hardly lay trace casual thoughts that appeared on our tongues. Life was good like this, it lacked the severity of the dying grid that forced mothers to sell their children for some sweet pudding and a souvenir to take home and place so thoughtfully on the pathetic mantle of desire’s dream. Neither of us was following this path, nor ever dreamed we would, for it was a withering dream fed by fat pockets, a machine that mimic’d zoo-keepers begging city council for more tax money to feed the wild and elusive buffalo they hunted for pass-time with foreign dignitaries.

V

I crawled out from that room and tip-toed down the wooden hallway laid flat with fading rose carpet that left spaces between it’s dying glory and that crushing 90 degrees up. Striped wall paper marked unevenly by portraits of bygone entrepreneurs.

[this is what we had taken to calling those devils who thought nothing of selling their souls for profit, that crude and lewd crowd that scantilized fashions and sourced the inner most pleasures of human soul. Even animals treasured the pure delight and unrelenting pursuit this basket-case crowd so freely expressed]

From the roof hung cob-webbed chandeliers bought at the nickel-and-dime store half a block away. “They look good,” is all we could say every time we traced these steps, giggling to ourselves. We didn’t care, our world didn’t depend upon such trivial matters of the outside world, of such trivialities so coveted by the people we laughed ourselves to sleep about. Gutteral expressions that splashed around the ivory colored ceramics.

I thought deeply about the sound of my wooden healed shoes echoing around my mind’s voice, shifting glances and kindling old romances while strutting with poise. I winked and nodded back to the gaping voids, the children of my finesse. I am neatly hand drawn, sculpted with imagination, created with the artful eye that dares to draw outside the lines.

[but oh, I thought about the land I came from. The cold street corners with auto-mo-biles and two-bit barber-inos, with fancy ladies strutting on knockoff stilettos practicing their how-ya-doin looks. Nostalgia is a soft sword when it piques the tendons of your heart]

VI

I never knew to meet her, but I always met her there. I always stopped and stared and waited until she could find me through the haze. She knew it too – she confessed one intimate night – all smiles and flutters and oh-yes-it’s-him stares. I liked those moments, letting it sink in, letting the leaves fall to the ground after upsetting them in air. Without fail, a smile the spread into a softly blown kiss so thick I could breathe it in and heavily let it curse through my veins. This was the tingly moments I came to love and learn.

I found casually my sorted seat, to file away my thoughts. A square-topped desk with hash marks set deep within its long history as a peacemaker, a romance kindler, an easy ledge upon which to sit as orders filled the air. It wasn’t so big that I could harbor much company and still keep my affairs in order, so luckily I carried my leather bound estate about to sort up my rapport – so easily spread about the square that I’d begun to call my post.

[visitors were few in such an office – as much as my notoriety was known – though they did come and disturb my thought in the heat of its best battles. The drunken fools who’d had too much were often such throwers of folly, but hardly I, who’d set up here, could curse them what they’d bear]

[note: to read full epic follow dragging left wing]

Lilac Bushes and Green Pastures (day 706)

Your pleasure dances daintily around my mind
Lilac bushes and green pastures
With a pond to walk around
A silk tipped hat, a pretty bow tied
About your supple pink cheeks and curly locks of hair
That is where we dined by the pond
Amongst willows and butterflies
Laughing as we nibbled on butter cookies
Tea kept warm by the knit cozy pot
While lounging guests strolled to and fro
Our minds weren’t on them
As we played our cards in the game of courtship
Flashing wild jacks and jokers that shined
But it grew upon a time for us to resign
Bidding each other a farewell, adieu

Shippin’ Off Blues (day 638)

Blues running through my veins like a thousand year old steam train
Shufflin’ with rhythm unprecedented, unfounded, and glorious
Hustlin’ with mood set out for bad-ass gangsters fixing for the night

I’m gone baby, I’m ready for the big show
I’ve been shining these here two toned, Italian made leathers far too long
I’m shipping off in the next thing that moves
Towards better days with freedom I call home

Fixating on darker things of the night
Little noises
Smoke wafting up fedora covered heads
Huddled around the exclusive club
Ladies with silk dresses courtin’ slips
Not of tongues, but of long slender lines that draw up the side of a beautiful woman’s leg
Moonshine whiskey in small parlour glasses that clink with each sip from thawing rocks

Baby, I’ve got the blues tonight
Steady glow from jukebox blues
Ol’ wooden chairs that drag on hardwood floors
Pompadours for men with long chains scraping round the ground
Bouffants on pretty ladies with elbow length satin gloves
Sittin’ ‘mongst the men, leanin’ on tables and chairs
And Lady Theodore, the spectacle of my amazement
The light of the establishment
Glory and style and beauty encapsulated

I’m hustlin’ tonight baby
I’m ready for the big show
I’m shippin’ off ‘n the next thing that moves

(day 142)

Publicly
You are Queen Sheba
Privately
You wreck the silk you lay upon

And cruelly you are
Within all your membranes
Your twisted circles
And battered gestures

Servants who respect
Desire to please
Are treated like vermin
Amongst your knees

To late tomorrow
For the love has all gone
The bitterness reigns
And your friends have all blown away

Into the blue skies of a new day