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Heading HomeBitter-boned, I break and crumble to dust
My pockets full of keys to places that no longer exist
An oystershell ashtray full of butts and ashes beside me
Testify to dreams of green hedges and white picket fences

A tapping on the door, a rapping on the wall
Ghosts always like this hour just before dawn
A bird screeches and I wake again to the stinging day
And shufflestep towards home from a thousand worlds away

Boulevard of Lost HopeA five dollar bill
Four dimes and a bottle of whiskey
In a crumpled up
Paper sack

Wife beater
Carpenter style Dickies
Ball cap
Turned back

On a road side bench
Watching cars on the fast track
Doing eighty five

As if anywhere
Is better than here
They may very well
Be right

The boulevard of lost hope
Paved in broken glass
And ill repute

I grew up
Not far from here

I came to celebrate
Life changers
And wake up calls

Sold my dreams
For freedom

Now even in the worst of places
The world
Seems brighter
To me

Garage saleI wonder if it will get easier,
a thingless life.
Body of one,
room for none.

For sale, cheap:
A PlayStation 2, used.
An ambition, abused.
Four walls, beaten.
One lamb shank.
...no, that's eaten.
Ninety-seven DVDs, watched.
Three novels, botched.
One brain, worn.
One heart, torn.

& other things, call for details.

Everything must go.
Like that girl in her waist coat
who called herself my wife.
Like that man in his leather jacket
who told me how to live my life.

Soft ParadeDown the darkened four AM streets
Morrison leads the Soft Parade
I've had enough beer for it to be all wavy
like watching a movie underwater

Bridges burn behind them
hearses falling off into the river
The string of bad luck and trouble is almost over
gone quietly in the early morning hours

Not with a bang or a whimper
only an extended sigh and the shake of a rattlesnake's tail
I watch as always from my window
feeling the dawn aching to come

Wild RiversGrandfather:
Boy, come read wild rivers with me,
learn more than those books can teach.

Boy was young.

i.

Grandfather had skin
of the baobab tree
and knew of muddy oyster banks
where fleshy pearl houses hid,
how best to clutch and gouge them,

knew patterns of mullet mouths
when they kissed the surface
of deep pools
how they differed from the shimmering chaos
that were whiting schools
down by the rivers flaky delta.

ii.

Before sun or at dusk
among wisps of woven water
they would venture,
dodging mosquito swarms by feel of air
against humid skin,

and in darkness boy learnt
how the rivers midnight can show
t

When I Dream of ParadiseLive Oaks
dot the landscape,
towering over the world.

Sheer cliffs
carved into the country side,
as if God himself
manned the chisel.

Rock bottom lakes
with water so clear
it makes ten feet
seem like two.

Rivers and streams
cascading over falls
with sounds
that put even the most restless spirits
to sleep.

God how I love
the Texas hill country,
an affair
I've held
since I was a child.

So it isn't a wonder
when I dream of paradise,
this is the place
I see.

SOMETHINGWhat smoky poltergeist has lit out

across the dusty plains of my mind

and left no footprint?

A contrarian alchemist turning

my gold into lead and taking with it

all my illusions of clarity

Those wizards and sorcerers hawking

their false incantations and last right lies

I sense another curve in my future

Something just up ahead

the beauty's in the leavingRead aloud here.
sweetheart, let's head out. let's
drink up the desert asphalt and that last bottle
of johnny walker blue--
one last toast to the copper sunsets,
to the good earth. a pair of
tailgate stargazers, you and i:
roaming curves across the glove compartment map, until
every foldline is worn flannel-soft
and it'd rather stay open
than closed.
let's forget route sixty-six. let's forget
the numbers
and pick up terra cotta dust--
breathe in the mojave. let's pretend
that the world's already ended
and it's just us.
let's leave the door unlocked
and go
west.

Save it for your PriestForget the fall
It's the landing that hurts
I should've started fresh at thirty
Put aside childhood love
And just lived a little
I guess I'm stubborn that way

Only now it seems
I can't run fast enough or far enough away
Distance is key
But some people don't want to be left

If she loved me
She'd let me go
How's that for a cliché'

Instead I have to push and pull
Tear myself away

I know what you're going to say
Save it for your priest
But I don't talk to God
And I don't read the horoscope either
I never trusted mine anyway

I write instead
And not unlike yourselves

I've learned a lot along the way
Lessons old and new do

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Tautby *beeinthebottle

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

©2012-2013 *beeinthebottle

The life of an introvert. 12/5-6/2012. Minor revision 1-8-2013.

~Meggie272 Jan 13, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Some lovely use of alliteration and whatnot in this one

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*beeinthebottle Jan 13, 2013 Writer

Thank you.

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=Sammur-amat Dec 28, 2012 General Artist

Very honest and beautiful piece, lovely lady.

Congratulations on the DLD!

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*beeinthebottle Dec 29, 2012 Writer

Thanks so much.

(I love your icon, by the way.

)

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=Sammur-amat Dec 30, 2012 General Artist

You are most welcome, lovely lady.

Thank you for the compliment as well!

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*alapip Dec 23, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

congrats, Lisa!

four of my favorite writers got DLDs!
two of them i suggested! yes! yes!

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*beeinthebottle Dec 23, 2012 Writer

Thanks, Mr. Pip. I really, really appreciate your support.

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*alapip Dec 23, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

yours wasn't one of the poems
i suggested. you're too well
recognized.

do you still like me?

Reply

*beeinthebottle Dec 23, 2012 Writer

I'm not well-recognized...it was just happenstance. And of course I like you.

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*alapip Dec 23, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

y'ar too!

yup

be advised:
atleasthalfofhtetimei'mhalfkiddingmostly.

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