June 2014

	June 2014 Flame Brouhaha One Single Malt Silhouettes of my Withering Verse Hazelnut Eyes Sugar and Spice The Fallow of Valley and Vine Power Washed Mute The Key of Thee	Flame I would hold you as a tulip’s hips its dew a nourishment, a moist tender meal. I would dance you like a mad castanet, vibrant, urgent, our fuses to the fire. I would love you as dawn kneads the sky, a flame beneath your dreams
Brouhaha Wind whipped, battered the grove luminescing after the storm, as if Absinthe were poured on the leaves. Backlit with bruises of rough hewn slate on a militant sky, varicose and raw. Two Greek faces staring at the sun, the argument over, their words lost in the chuckle and gossip of the drains. No open wounds, no divorce. Nothing to see here folks. Move along!	Our Single Malt You may wonder puzzled at how I can see you in this amber gold glass, it’s scotch rich with histories and the money I paid. But I do see you, your hand upon mine as I clasp the glass, the stool next to me filled with your mocha hips, your shoulders gleaming in the winkling brass. I do see you, holding my eyes with a promise that will burn longer, smoother, deeper than the scotch.	Silhouettes of my Withering Verse I am content to partake the breath of Orion, the frosty dark glitter of Alnilam and Rigel, their footfalls on these milk lit cobblestones are echoes of light in my bittersweet dream. I held your heartbeat alive in crisp lilac sheets. I rattled our bones to a fugue in G minor. I lifted our exhausted wet wings, to heal. sighing in the auric flames of fierce August skies. Now I am resigned to this ‘lingua fossa’, to the scrawl upon my inner skins. Verse tattoos buzzed into my bones, each datum etched, left for my chance recitation. I am content to be whittled, a linguistic landscape, a scrimshaw, a cameo, silhouettes of my withering verse.
Hazelnut Eyes I’ll be seeing you in the gleam from the sax man’s brass, the winks in your martini’s glass, the swish of green satin walking though the door. I’ll be seeing you in those hazelnut glances, atmospheric dances never leaving our stools. He played At Last and the room feel silent. He played each note as if birthed in the longing requited. I felt cold in that moment as you slipped from my grasp, my fingertips lost, my heart in suspension… The music? The martini? or the loss of your hazelnut eyes.	Sugar and Spice Only in April do the skies wail in pain or lift the earth to such a vibrant song. ’42 dead in tornado’s path.’ ‘Holland, Michigan’s tulips smack at record bloom.’ ‘Floods ravage river lands after harsh winter. Cherry blossoms overtake D.C. Pollen counts worst in a decade.’ Only in April have I lost my heart. Only in April can it rise in solace, mended by your bitter chagrin and regret, rinsed by this liquid southern breeze.	The Fallow of Valley and Vine I think I shall toast my fortune, seems my liver smiles on the vintner I use. I’d have that victory cigarette but I’d never survive its chemistry’s allure. I’d be puffin my brains out at the furrow of Cedar and Pine. I am still immortal it said. Nothing out of range, every enzyme in its place. No signs of my subtle abuses, no second foot poised to crush my heart at the fallow of Valley and Vine.
Power Washed I washed the concrete for crissakes. Easter is tomorrow. It’s pristine, powerwashed of the season’s mildew and mold. ‘As if penance for some gospel’, one neighbor reflected. ‘Ah geez, Edith, the gospels?’ No lamb’s blood detected. No Allepo pine. The neighborhood overlords are happy, this lot is now in compliance. - Selah!	Mute It’s not like it was before. There are no answers in the embers, in the shadows we left behind. Just the white, where the colors were, when our skies spoke in tongues. It’s not like it was before. There are no answers now in the gyre’s aftermath. There are no answers in the questions, none that will matter anymore. Just the silence remains, cold, like ratty sox on a march afternoon.	The Key of Thee I have a box of orphan keys, the mortal remains of dead locks. I can’t throw them away of course, I might find that clock or suitcase. Was this my mother’s key? I know the cedar chest key, and the skeleton key to great grandfather’s desk. Was this the key to our first apartment? I have a dimple key and no clue for what it is for, but it is too unique to just toss away. I’ve a barrel key for an old bike lock, but no old bike worth locking. Here’s a slip of paper in the box with a data decryption key. I forget the software that used it. On the backside is the key for Photoshop 2.5 There is a Letter ‘A’ from the keyboard of a dinosaur Mac and a P from an ancient Underwood. The A came in a scarlet envelope one Friday in the mail. The P was for the heart of Patrice. I have no keys to get out, only keys to get in. I’ve no key for success or weight loss, no lost bank box or treasure chest key. I have but my locks and they only fit the key of thee.