I was created to notice the cat
catching butterflies.
If I were God
I would be lonely
and I would need
someone
to notice
how the cat catches butterflies
and brings them into the house
and how they are
to her as big a prize
as any mole or mouse
Crap - she says.
Little Lolita has broken yet another nail.
A Lee press-on painted sparkly blue.
Lost - she is.
In a steel world. Populated by heavy machinery,
And danger.
Her bosom explodes over the push up bra
she wears tightly like a rubber band under
Her see-through white tank top
ribbed over her curves like a sheath.
Yet, how little material it is,
Reeks of sweat - drool downward like a waterfall,
Smelling of a highly intoxicating smell
More of an aphrodisiac than Good'n'plenty or pumpkin pie
And the men dressed in three o'clock shadows
And wrap around safety glasses, and blue mechanic overalls
Are spellbound.
"Hey baby." They say.
"Cutie, wanna come sit in my lap?" They say.
Little Lolita says nothing, even though she wears a perfectly formed mouth.
For she has a baby to think of.
A single mom, she is.
And raise her, she must.
College ain't for her, and neither are the streets.
So, she continues.
Screws the cap on the hot engine, tight as a virgin.
Daydreaming of her replacement nails.
And she smiles.
The next ones, a French manicure.
Professionally done.
Black crosses in a velvet dusk afternoon The sun burnt out on the dusty coal slag scarp Ringing steel on the cobbled streets in the cold Winds sweeping the grey stones Swirls, eddies, magical clouds of toil and dirt Dancing around the scurrying feet of the toilers procession From the cotton mills and cursed machinations A multitude of weaves and a solitary cry For freedom's voice A release from this hellish ploy This life long trap, this agony of sweat From Ivanava to Manchester in the mill town madness of a lost century Honest sweat for a pittance and a promise A better world in the making Working to build a future, a freedom Enslaved in the industrial 'revolt' Chained to the machinery of enslavement And mre than a half century on .... Dust, delapidation, desertion, despair The heritage of the textile revolution And the scurrying feet are still heard Ghostlike on the dirty streets In Manchester and Ivanava They still remember .... But the black crosses are gone The weavers taken down and laid to rest Though the wind still sweeps the grey stones And fairy like eddies of silver dust dance in the velvet dusk afternoon
I
Library gentry
Faces now familiar
Share isolation
II
Dinosaurs evolve
Flaming dragons on the wing
A bird in his nest
III
Faces remembered
Seen in busy corridors
Once again strangers
IV
Petals fall softy
Simple words and emotions
Into the river
V
Words still elude me
Empty and unexpressive
Void of all meaning
You shot an arrow
into the sun
and shattered
the glare into
a million
green-heart garlands
blooms of love
grapevines
of absentminded joy
You stayed
Into the darkening
day and drank
milk from the breast
of summer
In the manifest
of night we bathed
reflections washing us
toward an unchartered shore
You plowed your fingers
through my damp hair
and stretched it
into cascading ribbons
Deeply kissed
I watched your hands
bind the purple silk cord
a gentle caress a
'round my ankle
I trembled-
in my belly
I looked into your handsome face
the vulnerable face of a man
honest and real
You see the seam of grief
ironed into my eyes
You feel the sands of
loneliness etched in my bones
You recognize stubborn strength
and frail fragility
You throw thunderbolts
into the eye of a camel
widening our way
You carry me on shoulders
of the Himalayas and
lift me to the heavens
You scream my name
on the currents of eagles
and dare the vultures to descend
You float with me in
fields of lavender
and your whispers sing
and meander in melodies
long forgotten
I kiss the blanket of night
in gratefulness
and curl in the furls of
your sails
In the twinkling of your eyes
and the dawn of your smile
I turn toward you and rest
Letter to the Editor: (skyearth1@aol.com).