Fever, Yea, I burn forsooth. [entries|friends|calendar] What A Lovely Way To Burn [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

[27 Jul 2006|06:00pm] ( thingything ) Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

BLACK WATER [01 May 2006|09:09pm] I'm convinced that there's something there on either of our sides of the river. But it's black water between us, baby and neither of us want to talk about it. I see signs in your words but there's no justification for my feelings. Throw me a line, stranger. I've got others but I'll let them go just for yours. Too bad the river's so wide. 4 went first | Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

[02 Apr 2006|04:56pm] At The Jazz Band Ball tip, tap, bam my shoulders bow forward and my feet nimbly jump around one another punctuating my words and turning my sentences into cool jazz phrases: words smooth as coffee and smoke twisting sweetly above the harsh staccato of my teeth clicking together. You've always hated jazz and I smile, arms curled and back arched ready to belt a note. Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

[02 Feb 2006|01:33pm] ( The egg ) Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

Baby bird. [01 Jan 2006|09:56pm]       The month of June falls soggy on the rooftops of Memphis. It hangs like a wet blanket, looping around the shoulders of anyone who braves the heat. When the temperature is high, the entire city stops. Everyone lies in bed, lazily watching the unhelpful blades of the ceiling fan swirl the dust motes. When it reaches one-hundred degrees, when everyone’s finally drifted into sweaty dreams, the rain creeps up and taps, staccato, on the streets.       Rhododendron, with the heavy name that rolls around like marbles in southern mouths, ignores the moisture curled in her ears and tugs her knees closer to her chest. Rhododendron, with calloused feet and black Memphis mud between her toes, watches the ramshackle house from the back, the only one awake in the afternoon. Rhododendron, who worries about having a weak chin and once tried to wipe the freckles off of her face with a washcloth, fumbles with a piece of wood, waterlogged and swollen from the heavy wet heat.       She is waiting, like always. Rain tumbles down the kudzu clinging to the fence and traces arcs across her white shoulderblades, which are spread out like wings. With her nose jutting up into the sky, she all but looks like a baby bird, curled steady in the middle of her sodden nest.       Her back creaks from sitting so long, but she’s watching the sky. Waiting. Always waiting. Rhododendron, who wears shorts like the kickball boys, doesn’t mind. The rain is cool and sweet. Rhododendron, who has dirty elbows and dust in her ears, stands quietly and walks towards the mossy porch her daddy built, knees creaking and toes popping. She raises her arms in the rain-turned-mist, and steps under the awning, back into the lazy warm world she is always waiting to wake up. Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

[07 Oct 2005|11:00am] This was for a challenge prompt in evidence0flife: Use one sense to describe something. The sense I chose was touch. This is my entry: Cat curled, my face to the flannel wrinkles of the thin, rickety bed wrapped in a worn, warm bathrobe watching the grey light glance against the wall as the cool air from the morning stings my nose and twists into my lungs when, there a foot on my back small, pressing into my spine and more pitter-pattering up, over my shoulder and your cool, wet nose slides against my face, your whistling breathing drawing the cool air away from my skin. frail claws catch, the smallest prick and spindly legs settling down against my chest as your sweet, soft fur tickles my nose and your beating heart pounds (so loud for you, so small for me) through your back against my ribs. 3 went first | Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

So long, so far away, is Africa. [26 Aug 2005|04:11pm] This is a prompt for a challenge for evidence0flife. "Write a poem based on this picture." Here's my entry: Like standing in a fishbowl, under this clear, uncaring sky. Uncomfortable black woman, the sweat trailing down her neck and into the folds of her loud pink shirt but she is looking up. Who am I to revere this bleached stone when I have had nothing to do with it? But she, she has history in the very curves and folds of her face. Africa, mass of land and heat and love of people. And yet here she is, glaring up into the sunlight into this stone that is the spitting image of herself. I want to clamber down the steps and dig my toes into the sand and rock beside her and ask her what her god looks like. I'd imagine he's nothing like our skinny white gods but more like a lion, black skin shining in the sun. She turns and smiles at me her teeth so white in her face and her eyes shoot right through me and tell me that everything is okay. I close my eyes to the empty fishbowl overhead and tilt my chin up, lips pressed out, wantingly, to kiss this foreign face 6 went first | Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

The Rapture of Kansas [17 Aug 2005|06:26pm] Silent on this porch with the summer that was never mine; the wind blows the dust through the kitchen and into the piano to rise when the chords are struck. He has dust in the corners of his eyes but no farther than that. With his roaring black cars that kick the soil into the air, dry as a bone, to be swept into houses by the breeze. But oh, how they flock to him; traitorous, shaking the dust off of their shoulders to press their sweaty, wadded money into his warm and open palms. I am silent, resistant; soft on my creaking old porch. They are gone to their cities. The leaving left us empty, curled in the sun, the dust rising in us with our breathing. 3 went first | Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

Southern Eulogy [13 Aug 2005|08:33pm] This raw scraping in my lungs is impossible to ignore, your cracked fingernails shaped like winter air wrenching across my insides. Of course I'm still angry. Still gorgeous, though your eyes are swollen and your poor, ragged hands won't ever slide down my stomach again. Dead never looked so good 'til it wrapped around you. 2 went first | Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

Of The City [13 Aug 2005|08:32pm] But because the light will not divulge I am the truthful black No qualms have I if you tell me his heart For I am not the forest. And so I am the quiet bearer Holding your face as you bleed from the fear And why cut your lips as you whisper to me? For I am not the forest. So bite your tongue in the face of light And hold him close, as he knows you not. With softest steps On darkened concrete Leave me. For I am not the forest. Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

Day: Last? [13 Aug 2005|08:13pm] I live next door to the man who screams. I imagine his vocal chords ( electrical cables ) Attatched to his stone jaw ( zapping the tones so they jump the octaves like scorched jackrabbits ) The straining of his voice ( so well versed in the drones of human ) And I wonder if he's dying ( who flipped the switch? ) He's a painter, though, I've seen them. The homeless woman across the street The fat landlady who sings and has red arms Her husband, whistling as he drowns the kittens in a grey sack Rendered with such care as to prove the righteousness of their actions. And his body It's a holocaust in red A burnt offering to the gods of voice, maybe Or remnants of the electricity in his tone All I can think of is the superfluous knowledge that he screams Because what can you make Of a habit? 1 went first | Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

Riverbottom [13 Aug 2005|08:10pm] In the blue-black of the river, There is no longer color, save For the thoughtful green That lingers in your eyes. And they glow like young trees In the fading dawn light. Like the pale summer dress Still vivid in the rain. In the blue-black of the river Your hands stir the dark Cupping the moon in your Small, soft palms. They carress the low air: A loving of this storm-deepened sky That hid your deed from me. Your mouth is still agape That silent 'O' of surprise; It nearly fools me, The syntax of your face: So open As to make it seem you don't know Where you are Save for the rock On your chest. Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?

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