I know I skipped right over the 70s soft rock hits, but I figured you’d probably forgive me, or more specifically, thank me profusely, for not posting it yesterday. Instead, I’m skipping right to my Monday agenda, which was to post two story intros from the manuscript I’ve been working on….
 
I’d hoped you wouldn’t mind [...]

“So it’s a stone or a rock…” Annie mused aloud.
 
“Same thing,” Carlos said it sharply.
 
Annie fought the urge to snap back. “Witch Woods and The House at 2769 Sullenberg Lane…that doesn’t tell us much. How’re we gonna know where she hid it?” Annie sighed.
 
Carlos spun a wheelie to his bookcase. “Let’s look at each book [...]

I remember the old wooden box
Its tarnished screen inlaid on top
That coveted elusive box
Such hallowed metal inside
 
Shimmering on the dresser, breathless, unopened
Ali Baba’s cave
Opened by magic
No one’s rightful treasure
 
Yet I heard stories whispered and shamed
The upstaged engagement ring
Guilt necklace bought in a rush
A silver bracelet from the cantina
 
Those jewels I secreted and wore
My own stories, [...]

Birds leave shadows
on the grass
where a blanket is drawn
 
Close by, clouds skitter
Blacking out
The wings
 
It’s like this
On the ground
Where light and dark intermix
 
A speckled mosaic
Of wondering and cursing
Not sure what it should be
 
What should it be
A shadow, a bird
And must both fly away?
 

Steady hands, honest gazer
I crave to etch words in your marble
 
Love to make my mark
where it shall remain
and if it
peaks
dips
circles
 
You’ll touch the infinite cast edges
 
And when I turn away
And when I shut it out
And when I wretch –
to what?
 
I don’t know
 
The conviction
despite feeble veneer
is carved nonetheless
 
And when what I say is love
crazily makes [...]

electric fingers, worn by silver
move me forward, will I hear a whisper
 
spent as light in near dawn, spirals
she limps, then settles
 
sits in blonde wood acclimated to cold
peeks through the porthole, spider glass
 
pipes of light I would collect and -
forget, unbidden in deep pockets
 
padded, stuffed with dolls, grass, a look
from the hall, red paint that gleams
 
and [...]

 
CORE
When I walk here I feel OK
Though ragged feet
and bruised arms walk with me
 
Yeah you know I feel OK
 
Because I’m you
without the evidence
 
No. Mosaic alley with its tattoos and
broken melodies
 
is siren song
 
If we met face to face
dungarees and eyes that glaze
 
Kindred will know its name
 

TO ANGIE
And this is the way you tell me you’ve grown tired
and I say you’ve been tired all along
I tell you I won’t light your stone avenues,
point at landmarks unseen, or the map
still folded
I rise against your close-eyed sickness
not by closing,
but not stopping
Not anymore
This is how I yell when I pass
say I won’t [...]

SWEETIE PIE (written for my daughter, Alexa)
 
How do you make a sweetie pie
Is it something you can bake?
 
Are there special things that go in it
Do you frost it like a cake?
 
What are the ingredients
That make it taste so sweet?
 
I imagine there’s no dirt or bugs
Or socks from smelly feet
 
Maybe there’s my mama’s grin
And my daddy’s [...]