A Song For You

But now I’m so much better
And if my words don’t come together
Listen to the melody
Cause my love’s in there hiding, someplace

[Special thanks Al]

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Diamond Girl

Shine on….

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You See Now…

You see now. I didn’t know it would be like this. Who in their right mind would have ever taken it on had they known?

I didn’t know the thing would follow me here. I thought I was safe from its nose, always sniffing the wind and watching for movement, any movement. I hid in plain sight and moved slowly, so as not to call attention. After awhile, it had been so long I assumed I was forgotten. Wouldn’t you have? Years went by and the signs all pointed to the same thing-I was safe. No longer a hunted thing, of no particular interest to the one who watched.

What would you have done? I couldn’t stop living forever.

Man, was I wrong. Of course I was wrong. These things don’t forget, they never just quit. That would be like losing and one thing’s for sure, winning is everything. I’d given up the idea of that long ago, had settled for survival, but then I’d gotten tired of that and reached for something more.

I guess I forgot myself and who I’d been. I bought into the idea that freedom was my birthright, once I’d had a good taste of it myself. And you know, it is. But dance with the Devil just once, and you might have a hard time ever convincing him and his ilk that you are your own, ever again. They wait.

I’d danced to that darkness once, alone I thought, but of course I was not alone when my eyes opened in that dark. The thing was right there beside me, his hand sliding up my dress. It reminds me now of the one time I fell asleep at the wheel and eyes open, drove clear off the road. I guess I’d have to say I wasn’t really asleep, but in a kind of hypnosis. Leaving the road, I willed myself back at the last moment, but found it hard to resist the sweet slide to oblivion. Like the overwhelming urge to sleep, the drift insisted that I just let go.

The dance was the same-a demand to let go and just drift where it took me. Kind of hard to explain now, but if you know what I mean then there’s no need anyway. Once you’ve felt it you need no description. The only sane reaction is to jerk yourself away before being swallowed by a tree or embankment or the devastation of a car wreck. Sometimes there’s no going back fast enough, and it’s too late. Me, I’d just get the willies whenever I thought about how close I’d come.

Ah, but enough of my mixed up analogies. The point is, I got away with my life and after the heart-pounding stopped I was really careful for a while. A long while, in fact. Eventually I got braver and took some risks. I wasn’t such a secret. I let the world in. I bought a business and one day had a business card and then I was on TV and everybody knew my name. Well, I know it wasn’t everyone, so what could the harm be? No one was watching anymore, right?

Besides, the name wasn’t quite the same name then, and who watched the local news channel but local people?

It started with the one I called Cowboy. He materialized beside me in the quiet part of the day, and left me the sound of spurs though he wore no boots. Afterwards, I went about my business, focused on the work, and tried not to think about it too much.

A month or so later, when I’d nearly forgotten, I found myself in conversation with a young man who wore mirrored shades like that other. A different guy altogether, so I’d thought. At some point I realized he’d just stopped talking altogether and was staring deep into my eyes. I felt a lurch in my stomach and a chill when I knew I’d stared right back. Not out of any kind of man-woman thing on my part, but like a rabbit stays still when finally cornered, staring at certain death. The young man breathed in time with me, then smiled wide and showed a pointed tooth. I almost fell backward and wanted to run but could not.

“You have a nice day now, Ma’am” was all he said then, not breaking eye contact, and slowly backed up before turning away and showing me that he walked on hooves.

Was I imagining this? Had my mind finally broken? I most certainly had done some damage to myself somewhere, what with the life I’d once led. Maybe I’d finally lost my grasp on reality.

But I knew it wasn’t true. Things were insane, this was insane, but it was real. I was going to have to deal with it; somehow I was going to have to find a way to not go crazy.

I did what I did the first time. I went back to work. I smiled, made money, looked like I was supposed to look. I looked good. At least good enough to look like I belonged where I was.

Summer came. I’d always liked summer best. Everything’s more relaxed and I’m not cold all the time. I like driving, and I like to put the window down. I didn’t miss the bad weather. I’d been out looking for treasures and trying to keep cool, and my guard was down, like before.

He wasn’t there when I pulled into that gas station. And I know the sound of a Harley Davidson as well as I know anything. But then he was there, astride the big hog, across the drive from me. He was next to the gas pump, though I knew he wouldn’t get any gas. And he was grinning.

His voice came across silky smooth and honeyed in my ear, while he still sat grinning across from me without saying a word.

“Nice day.”

“Yes” I smiled. Why was I smiling? I knew it was wrong, but I was scared so I smiled. Girls are dumb that way.

“Why don’t you get out of that truck and come have a seat? We’ll go for a ride.” The warmth dripped off him in waves.

“No thank you” I whispered. The sound of his voice filled my head. His lips hadn’t moved but for the smile. I looked towards the highway and stared, cold all over though it was at least 100 degrees. Maybe I could just drive away and not get stopped for taking the gas nozzle with me. It was taking forever.

Now he was in my face, still on the silent bike. His face was in my window. How had he gotten so close?

“Just get on.” Grinning. A tiny fleck of saliva at the corner of his smile.

I don’t know if I said no, if I whispered it, screamed it, or only thought it. It didn’t matter; he could hear me and he could smell my fear. Still his smile could melt butter.

“No. NO.”

This time I’d said it aloud and I wasn’t smiling; I’d said it strong.

 He tilted his head like a beguiling child might, all charm and wistfulness, even looked a little hurt, and said “Well Honey, you don’t know what you’re missing.”

“Yeah, I do” my mind spoke. And like that, he was in my ear again, only this time it hurt, each word like a blow; “Get. On. The fucking bike.” I turned towards the right, the passenger side, the side my ear was hurting on, and he said there from the seat, “Last chance.”

I didn’t know what it meant, what last chance I drove away from, but I watched him ride off away from me too, heard the bike’s roar, at the same time he spoke from the passenger seat. A tail brushed the gearshift and I flailed at it in terror, a live snaking thing that didn’t belong there. And then there was nothing there at all, no one beside me now. And no one was watching and no one had seen a thing. I could hear the bike circling the block and wondered if he would come back for me. I knew no one would think a thing if he came back and cornered me, not in this neighborhood. But I also knew he didn’t have the need; he’d made his point. He’d find me.

So, you see. I would never have started this had I known it would come. I really did believe I was safe. I’d survived the dance and got really strong but I never guessed at what didn’t get undone. And I knew I had to stop waiting, it was crazy to keep waiting when that shit had all stopped for so long. It was time to start living again. What I didn’t know was that IT waits, and can outwait me.

I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I really wish I could pretend it wasn’t happening, but I’d be lying. Maybe if we stood together I’d have a chance, but I wouldn’t blame you if you split. Knowing what I know, I would.

Then again, you haven’t left me yet. Maybe it’ll get tired of chasing me after all. And maybe, just maybe, Ill be stronger than I think.

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Mess of Dreams

I stumbled onto you

A picture, no less

In fact there were three

 

Grinning in one

Head thrown back

Softness apparent

New to me

 

Black shades the next

Guitar aimed

Like an arrow

At her heart

 

But the last

The soul heavy tired eyes

I remember these

Even now

 

So old

For so young

A man

 

The one thing I never got

When I wrote this

The lines etch now

Just like yours

And I wonder why

I never thought it

The one thing I never wanted

Those lines sketched

Just like my own

 

I took them with me, you know

When I left

Maps to my life

A mess of dreams

Songs we laid down

You gave to me

We rolled them in our sleeves

Maybe I stole them

If you say so

I’ll believe it

 

What kind of heart would be mine

If I covered all the soft spots now

With a stronger love

Built of more serviceable

Materials

And I could guarantee

It would no longer fail

Or leak

Or bleed

 

I tumbled into her

A picture, no less

More than three

 

I grinned in one

My head thrown back

Softness apparent

New even to me

 

Black shades the next

A needle aimed

Like an arrow

At my heart

 

But the last

The soul heavy tired eyes

You resemble these

Even now

 

So old then

For so young

A woman

A man

So young were we

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Injustice

What are you going to do? Arrest me? I’ve been myself for this long now, how could you think I would stop? And I never could stand injustice.

It’s been said that when I believe in something, I’m like a dog with a bone. Not the most flattering analogy, but likely true. In fact, I believe it was you that said it first.

Try and get it away from me. Go ahead.

Then there was also your description of me as “relentless”. Why would I change my ways now? I’m just getting started.

What are you going to do? Write something about me? I’ve got my own stories. And mine are all true.

 

Gotcha.

 

        

 

 

 

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I Saw You

A smoky golden eye. Green flashes sidelong, blazing. Shocks of bright blonde flying forward, and curls of chocolate tumble from under straw. Like clouds under sun. A warning: things are not always just what they seem. Are they?

Ensconced in shiny black, nestled in leather, giving it the gas. A satisfied purring powers down the highway with a soft growl; it knows the way home.

It’s a real hot day. A/C cranked to 60 and fan full blast with every vent pointed straight at a body part; even the back seat ducts angle for an armpit. Feels good, like drinking ice water too fast, for the brainfreeze. Gooseflesh, at 98 deg. outside.

Still, she leaves the windows down and reaches up, opening the sunroof. Yeah, the best of both worlds, and she don’t care if it defeats the purpose.

Noise, wind, scorching sun. Waves of hot and cold air weave together.

The phone rings and she ignores it. A bill collector, or someone complaining about someone…what was there to say?

 

Life was like this feeling once.

Roaring rushing heat and wind through a fast moving truck; this moment, just this moment she’ll forget there was ever any other. Life is good, and maybe it was always this easy.

Doesn’t matter that she’s almost forgotten, doesn’t even want to remember, days on days of walking with her toes in the sand.

Hot, so hot you willingly run into ice cold water and throw yourself at its mercy. Again and again. Just to walk, lay, play in the scorching sun until driven to enter the sea once more. Crashing, tumbling waves spraying brine and separating hair into snakes, seahorses, braids, all painted and bleached with streaks of summer and salt. Warmed to the core, never really cold at all. It gets in your flesh, that warmth, just like cold does into your bones.

She almost doesn’t remember that it’s so much like being on a bike, one that rattles your pelvis and your soul while it takes you through the wind. A hot day, but wrapped in leather to the bite of that wind. Just you and that wind and that rattle of bones and soul.

She’s almost forgotten the kind of hot and cold this is like, almost another lifetime.

 

A smoky golden eye. Green flashes sidelong, blazing. Flying hair. A deeper growl, a faster powering on the highway, a chase. Instinctively, reflexively, forgotten yes but still ingrained, the survivor that she is takes the grip. And there is a warrior girl at the wheel with sticks and stones in her mouth and at her feet, and her hands are ready for anything.

A voice calling, yelling, and it is for her. Relief comes when it is no stranger who follows, no random menace. And then that moment comes where the brains eye knows it recognizes before it knows what or who it sees and it brings a smile, a welcome and a nod and an open hand. And before that hand closes to a fist it already knows it’s mistake and that it fell asleep at it’s post, but there’s nothing now to do but maybe stop smiling, or smile anyway. But between the gas and the brake she is kicking herself, one foot kicking the other foot, each one and both at fault because one didn’t use the gas more, the other didn’t stop and turn left. Damn. And after all, there is nothing more to do but just smile, and just drive. She remembers who she used to be, who she isn’t. She remembers the rattle, and the mark on her soul.

Along side, keeping pace, a large brown dog hangs as far as he can from the back of a Jeep, and stares intently at her. What does he know. And why is he staring? And his driver smiles ear to ear and shouts “I saw you.”

She smiles, doesn’t smile, looks forward.

“You’re still beautiful.”

The dog appears to lean further from the Jeep, peer closer at her, as though wanting to say something too. And just before she leaves off the gas to be left behind, the driver throws his voice into the wind;

“I always did love a beautiful girl in a truck.”

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Do I Forgive You?

Do I forgive you?

 

Do I?

Do I really?

 

Hate you

I loved you

I wished you dead

 

A little girl

I knew even then

Shocked into knowing

Nothing would stop you

 

Only the ash and dust

You finally became

 

Dead

You are dead

So many years now

 

Hate you

Loved you

Wished you dead

 

When I heard

Satisfaction

Did not come

 

Instead

I saw you

Lifted

 

I saw you

Clean

And whole

 

Free

 

I sent my wish

Of redemption

Up

 

I did not look

To the burning

The burning forever

 

You wished on me

 

I did not smile

A party

Nasty

Vicious

And justified

Inside

 

I did not conjure

Torment

Hell

And the sickening agony

Of shame

You pierced me with

 

Instead

I saw you

Lifted

 

I saw myself

Clean

And whole

 

Free

 

I ended this

With me

 

I forgive

 

For the rest of us

 

For all of us

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No Place Left

 

I made a wrong turn, or maybe two. That’s how I ended up seeing her and not being able to miss her—as if I would have anyway. She was riveting. I found myself wondering if everyone else passing noticed her too, or if she blended in with all the other homeless of the area.

She held a sign that said only “Need Bus Ticket”, in red. The way she held it was different, nothing complacent there, nothing passive. She was not resigned to her lot, whether choice brought her there or not. She was fighting.

Standing near an onramp, and also an off ramp, she turned, looked each passing driver in the eye, and turned her sign for their viewing. With each of their glazed looks, she turned it in a different direction, each time with a little push almost. Her eyes were direct, desperate even, while somehow not dramatic in that studied way I have seen. She turned her whole body with her sign, as if to say “See me.”

I was on my way to pick up lunch for a crew of workers. McDonalds, which they requested. Having passed her twice in going the wrong way, I was not eager to take even more time negotiating the no brain in and out of the shopping area [courtesy of the transportation powers that be—for our own safety]. But I kept thinking about her.

I returned to her anyway, honked and called out as there was no way to stop safely. When she saw me pull into the truck stop parking lot, she ran to my truck, then hesitated, unsure of whether to come close.

I held out my hand; three dollars and a gob of change. “It’s all I have.” I said.

She fumbled with her sign, thanking me. “It really helps.” She said.

I asked her if she was hungry and she looked down. “Yes.” The only thing she said.

I had bought an extra meal; cheeseburger, fries, coke. I handed them over.

 

She was on her way to Tennessee. I don’t know why, there’s no one there. I only know she is leaving something here. A black eye and a badly swollen cheek bruised fading to an ugly green told me parts of her story. I asked her her name, and she smiled then and told me. I wondered if anyone had asked her name in a while.

She was clean, not the kind of clean like someone who just got that way, but of someone who wants to be that way. Too old for how old she must have been, she had lived hard, I knew. The lines in her face told it and her teeth were worn out. There was something fierce yet gentle there, some flame burning that spoke of a life not yet given up.

“Is there something you need? I mean besides a bus ticket?” I asked, knowing it for the stupid question it was. And “Prayers” is what she said. She looked into my eyes, silent.

“OK.”

And in the moment it took me to contemplate saying a prayer for her that night I knew I’d forget just BECAUSE I deemed it something that could wait. I asked her “Do you want me to pray with you now?”

And she said simply “Yes.”

I am not a great prayer. By that I mean I don’t generally pray out loud, nor do I know all the right words and ways some do; those “prayer warriors” I’ve encountered who pray over the suffering at the drop of a hat. It’s not my way. But it was what she told me she wanted and needed.

From my shiny black truck, I joined hands with her, and prayed to God for her protection, for her path to be clear, for her to be provided a way to where she needed to be, for her to know herself for the precious person I saw, for her to find what she needed. I heard her crying, and then heard my own voice shaking, felt my face wet. And I prayed until I ran out of words. We were still holding hands.

I stroked the nubby sleeve of her sweater and wished her well, glad that at least her belly would be full for a while.

I had not thought her pretty, but used up looking. Yet as we held on I saw the softness hiding there in her face, and a kind of dignity she wore, telling me that for the moment at least, she felt some kind of peace. And I saw a plain beauty.

 

The average life expectancy for a woman on the streets is something like 30% less than the general population. Many statistics say dying by 45 yrs old is common. Many women do not live 2 years once homeless.

 

Jackie has probably been beating the odds for a while.

 

I will send those prayers up once again, and hope that this one finds her place, her safe place.

 

 

Good luck, Jackie.

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Black Pearl

 

Dark girl

So long you sleep

Beside me

Black pearl, rise

Awaken; shine, my Love

I am your dream

 

Darkness

So long you lay

In wait

Black pearl, come

Arrive now, we are one

Beautiful, my Love

I will stay

 

Dark one

So long this time

Without my eyes

Dark pearl, take hold

Unfold

Into my arms, my Love

I am your light

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Sacred Salt

 

 

His soul

Almost transparent now

The dregs

Squirming at sunlight

Foaming and withered

To a stain

 

In the salt of truth

She doused it with

It lay

Wheedling

Convincing and in moments

Even pitiable

 

Such agony

No one could inflict

Such pain

 

Such cruelty

No one would wish

This torment

 

Still

She is making a circle

 

His soul

Almost aware now

Writhes

Lifts

Sensing destruction

Darkens

Opens wide

And hisses

 

She turns away and smacks

With her shovel

And throws it to the birds

 

It was in the garden.

 

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