In Riverside

The Shepard leads his shaggy flock
barefoot through the sticky halls
of a Greyhound station.

Frying hard on acid, they know
he is the messiah in medusa curls,
who my sister married

to play house,
bore his daughter, golden too,
but something dark

caught her heel
and rode into the world.
Dyes her hair black

picks her nose
in strangers' faces.
Sneaking out

2 am
cat's paw quiet
the sleeping house

orange blossoms
abandoned groves
gathering in tight knots

moon silvered, leaf thick trees
the weakest light
still casts a shadow

I want to say that it isn't
all-dark in Riverside:
Once I tripped and fell

a black dog leapt on my chest
sucking the breathe from my mouth.
Subject to dark thoughts

cravings for absence, as a child
I provoked the others
up all night plotting

my corruption. Like gray pigeons
they pecked my eyes
till I could see. This old gray house

scarred wood floors
wavery -glass windows,
there's a room in the back,

behind an elusive door
I only stumble on in dreams.
Nearly empty now

dusty from misuse,
window views wide and clear:
companionably smoking

peeling golden fruit.
Juices run down
chins, between fingers.

Moon-lit early mornings,
kisses, sweet oranges.
Limber tongues slide

smooth and slow in and out
through lover's teeth.
Sometimes it's only joy

That moves me, breathless
and wanting to lie back down
and sleep.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two Dreams and a Baby

Image
The dream was that there was a woman with six children and a man with six children. The woman's children and the man's children were all paired up, in each family the children had formed firm friendships with one other child. Then the two families combined and it was chaos. The children's bonds were broken and they began forming bonds with just anybody, even outsiders.   The family was completely torn asunder when three of the girls left the family and joined a college. From the college they graduated, but they didn't want to see their families at all. They were marching in a procession down a sidewalk and up a hill. When their family came close they broke and fled like crows scattering across the hillside, in flight. Crows by ms.bailey   This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. The next dream was a true anxiety dream. Dennis and I were at the grocery store shopping for Thanksgiving...
Read more

Walking on a Cloudy Day Dream

Image
In my dream, I went out walking one morning. I wasn't really fully prepared, I had on rubber flip flops, but my real shoes were in my purse. I had the newspaper because I had been reading it and there were a few very interesting events going on in the big city.   One was a tiny sword show which included a silver cutlass. Musee Marine-sabre by Rama from from the Wikimedia Commons . This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 France license. And one was train ride to under the mountain, though that seemed a little dodgy since you know what lives under the mountain. I have nearly gone on that very ride but stepped off at the last minute. Cobbled Street at Dinan photo by Wwarby © 2008 on Flickr   used under a Creative Commons Attribution License So instead I walked down the cobbled street looking in the windows of the various shops heading toward the main green of the city. I really wanted a cup of coff...
Read more

Cracked Ipad, 280Z, and Brewery Parties

Image
I n my dream we moved back into a party house that I used to go to in Riverside many years ago (though not really). The house was like 4 stories tall  and very old and partially dilapidated. I remembered from the past (dreams and life) that the upper stories were rooms and rooms of dusty lives left right up to the moment they were abandoned. You could walk through them like a museum spying on other peoples lives. But the floors and stairs were old and unstable, it was very dangerous to walk those hallways but so interesting that you had to walk them. The ground floor was the one we lived on the most. The front half was a huge living room/dining room. It was kind of like a furniture store with couches, tables, and chairs scattered everywhere. There were dining tables and chairs lined up so that at least 50 people could all eat at once. We were very excited to be back there and having a chance to live where so many wonderful times were had. The plot was that I fell a...
Read more