007 Challenge

[JCSTREET]

Well Owner replies

this is cunning, tres cunning, nina

(I had the wellhouse cover and well cover off twice today, teasing the pressure switch to operate again and give me WATER. Water went out while I was in the shower but I've learned t only soap a little bit and rinse off quickly so that I don't have to get out all sudsy

The boys used to say, hey
Sudsy, hey Sudsy
can you come out to play, can you
scrape all those suds off and
come out to play, hey
Sudsy
will yer mother let you out?

Sudsy
don't scare the horses
all white like that, except
in Belfast it's
don't skur the horses

( dunno - just made it up on the spur (not a pun on horses)

 

[cherries_on_snow]

"The hunger at the empty bookshelf" (cherries-on-snow)

I often think of this, I
know that hunger, even
at my house it was
mostly Readers Digest Condensed though
my Dad had a book called
The Tutorial Statics and
there was a a bound edition of
Sir Walter Scott stories which he'd won
at some private school his mother
had packed him off to
after his father died

Every summer I would be sent off to the ranch my one non-pervy grandfather managed. Grandma Mary, lovely redhaired woman, had collected four shelves of Reader's Digest Condensed Books. A few of those books might have been better after surgery, honestly. Most were not.

 

[JCSTREET]

1. subj. refers

PS - that's a lot of iron steaming into the Med, there! Mr T wants it bigly but Mattis has a cooler head

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Overnight

Airstream strokes the city
warm and washes off
last autumn's rags and rot
revealing nude
Earth promises, with all
their tender ambitions.

The woke raise their limbs
cross blocks, atop stoops, shed of
coats and boots, planting seeds which
split safe husks for succulent hope
that they might burst ground as pretty
bait for bees whose precious
landings solve perfume for yield.

Every flower spreads
prettily for bees. Mostly, though,
Mosquitoes.

 

[JCSTREET]

Soft and Wet on the Tongue

The air is fat and
succulent
Spring rain breeds umbrellas
DNA mutations
make them green, yellow, blue
or black attached to
Saville Row pinstripe suits

(you can take that to the bank)

a chill Sancerre beats
a cheeky Chablis
for after labour loucheness, maybe
hardening up to a Chassagne Montrachet later

though

professional drinkers may prefer
Grey Goose

the sucking sounds of boots
on soft, wet ground
remind one of moose
in alder groves

Moose are shot
with .308 rifles, they have
a flat trajectory

but moose
are out of season

like

taking off your hat in restaurants
when ladies are present

(I just make this stuff up - it's not official)

-30-

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Moose move off road
when danger honks. Bullwinkle
was not smart but smart
enough to squirrel odd tips.
Majestic rack aside,
The stubborn elk will stake his ground
thus forfeiting his hide.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Stupid insomniac quit
fidgeting. Mulling. Succumb
to quilt your fractured genius,
flashlit query. Drop the clutch
and nevermind the pearls
That roll free from its broken
Seam. Whatever nightmares come
Will come. Insomniac, be still.
Prone. Quiet. Perchance to dream.

 

[JCSTREET]

She Sleeps Not

Restless and turning, lispy
in her sleepmumbles, her

nightie sweaty when I nub my lips
to take little kisses and spoon

into her foetal form I
ride the sleephorse
into hazy dream, we were

looking at a light house, looking
at a lighthouse when
warm salty waves
ruined our shoes

-30-

 

[cherries_on_snow]

No blue jeaned Jersey girl was better loved
Nor better versed than dearest Angeline.
No diplomat exists who better solved
The set of outliers. Wrestled main to mean
some better version, better selves who carry
common loves and losses deeply grieved.
When I was done with love, the man I married
gone, your written love made me believe
that love was not a limb diseased and severed.
Love survives all tragedy, all loss,
all broken plans, all violent winds, all weather.
And when we can't, love still believes in us.
Believer, love seeps through your every pore
the love you sowed is more. And more. And more.

 

[JCSTREET]

Gadzooks

This is really fine material, Miz cherries-on-the-finest-of-snow - I feel frissons of your poem resonating at bone level

She wrote for another
but I still felt the butterfly
wings of her notes, the
beating heart of her words, the
fine trill of the soft air

the hum
that through the earth flows rich
fills me with her, fills me
with the fine heat of her heart
swelling

to contain all that she loves
to caress and cosset

-30-

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Against long slant slates of rain
Boots plunge, plant lunges over, longer, again
As needed. The city doesn't get called
On account of rain. It battles through
Flooded tracks, pierces the howl
And howls right back. Whatever
Convuluted transit mashup necessary,
Sidestepping twisted umbrella carcasses,
Cityzens press, shake, comb and stand
Up to count in, punch in, burst in
Wet but willing and drier by the minute.

 

[Angeline]

No blue jeaned Jersey girl was better loved
Nor better versed than dearest Angeline...

Just beautiful. Thank you.

 

[JCSTREET]

Blown Kisses

So many blown kisses
so many she

has a lovely warmth
relaxing aura
pulls me in, she is
butterfly wings
sensed in mid-flight but
so fleeting
so evanescent that one wonders
was it just a dream
on the sleephorse of night, I

ride the sleephorse of night
hard on her
until dream's made flesh

-30-

 

[JCSTREET]

Summer Trysts - Part the First

She's a long cotton dress and a
big straw hat
no nylons, breeze mischiefs her thighs she

fights to hold the hat, to
hold the fair trade purse from Ecuador, she
fights to keep her skirts from rising, oh for a
cotton half slip . . . drat

there's always something
half forgotten
in the morning

holding the handbag - it's a win
holding the skirts down - it's a win
holding her big straw hat - oopsie
gone for a burton
bought the farm
shot down in flames
gone west

skip to maloo my diddly hat, he
vaults a park bench, races across the green
stoops to conquer . . . but
the hat still spins, twitches
jumps in a skitter dance, tumbles

caught in a gyre - heading for the artificial lake

run, run, run my ardent swain (for
that is what he will become), run
run and stoop and reach and grasp

that's how they meet, his sweaty canter
back to her marvel eyes
thank you kind Sir

he

bowing with a Sir Walter
Raleigh flourish
grins shyly, she
lingers

both unsure for a moment
he shy
she lingery

what to do, what
to do
indeed, what a to-do

he shy
she lingering, uncertain
fluttering her fingers
inadvertently

he

eyebrows raised . . . coffee? spring water?
Veuve Cllquot, he's
kidding but
if she held him to it . . . ?

lemonade fat, cool
droplets on the glass the first
murmurs
of an endless conversation

(to be cont'd [or at least he flippin' hopes so]))

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Fair trade purse from Ecuador among other insights-- are you on some governmental psi programme?

 

[JCSTREET]

Mk- Ultra

Fair trade purse from Ecuador among other insights-- are you on some governmental psi programme?

Huh! Who me? <--------- (points histrionically to self).

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Even water remembers.
Riverbeds are matressed
with what could be carried
until it couldn't.

Twelve feet of leak
swelled and branched
through my private
bedroom closet. The super,
Jerry, swears it is dry and
safe, now, for all things
boxed or hangered.

Three unmarked brown
boxes begged scrutiny. One
costume clothing collection
succumbed to mold. Another
safekept years of sandals,
the year I gave up leather.

The last was letters. Remember
how once, long distance
was paper planed? Of course,
I wept
and read
and read the thin, frail
strands of sheer tenacity.
Susan in Equador, Eric's twelve
pages from a forest tent,
letters sent from prison, posts
from mother, grandma V. sent
photos. All these dearly refolded,
reenveloped skins long shed but
saved for better times. Better tears.

My friend the wellkeeper knows
all about leaks and swelling melt.
Thus the closet's crowned with plastic
tubs, restricting water's access
mostly.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Breakfast bites back
juiced from fat lemon.
The citric acids
hiccup wretched tannens
over one's remaining teeth.

 

[JCSTREET]

There is some clear brilliance here, beyond anything I have essayed recently (Fr. essayer - to do, to try). You easily retain your Olympic gold

 

[cherries_on_snow]

The bitter shatter is still music.
Glass fractures longing into sharp
Hunger, bitter anger, hitmen with keys.
But as it tumbled down, any given vase
Would smooth the air with all
Its gleam and avoid fuss. It fractures
Prettily.

 

[JCSTREET]

The hunger for
her haunting voice
afloat on aethered night, the

warm blood of her
racing heart, the
nose-tickle of her russet locks, so

fleeting is the dark with its
misunderstandings, its
tears of mistaken ire, its
intimations of something warmer
to come not
phoenix perhaps, but
close and melding

demons
dance at night
just beyond distance
drawing the unwary
to knee-shaking maunderings
senseless concerns
aching anxieties of no pith

on the pillow
the heal of fingertips, the
murmured endearments, the
softening of keloid
until
it can be licked away

-30-

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Beautiful, JC.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Streetlamps illuminate
Mothwings, pollen,
Smoke and whispers
Rolling low fog over boots.
Half-hearted step suns
Checkpoint until dawn
Safe steps home or other
Places gone. Not me. I lie
Quietly in bed, in restful
Dark, believing still in stars.

 

[JCSTREET]

Spanish Lesson

LA GUARDIA CIVIL

By JCStreet © 2018, all rights and lollipops reserved

Viene, viene, la guardia civil
sus caballos rompen la noche

grita, grita la luna en el cielo
tomando a su pecho los nubes

huyen, huyen las bandurrias

TRANSLATION


They come, they come, la guardia civil
their horses crushing the night

It cries, it cries, the
moon in the sky
clasping the clouds to its breast

They flee, they flee,
the bandits

-30-

Notes:

In Spain under Franco, the Guardia Civil was notorious for its ruthlessness

 

[JCSTREET]

In the Park

HUNCHBACK IN THE PARK 700501

There’s a hunchback in the park he’s been
there for three years
and
no one
thought to touch him, they

thought he was dead!

He still is but it’s too early
to tell where the body is buried

--certainly not beneath
that girl
moaning softly under the tree

certainly not in that cave
over the hill
where Venus sets

Who can he be the pale figure
with a bone in his mouth

That’s no dog
throwing its howl to the moon, that’s
no chisel
severing his mouth
leaning drunkenly into the wind

There was a girl here today
plump-thighed, with a blue school tunic
hiked up higher than the regulations permit

She dreamed of the hunchback
three nights back
thought she was dead

But she still comes
dangerously plump-thighed
in Spring

Days like this there’s no tomorrow
the sun takes care of that
bathing
the ruby glow
under the tummy
forgetfulness . . .

to be continued

--30—

(all girls in this poem are over-18—some of them are 90)