coronado island
orange street is the main street
and i
can't think of a better name,
to get out there
you have to take this
bridge
that snakes out of san diego
across a small part of
the pacific
and into
the good life
and it bothers me
how you
were expelled from the
seat of
luxury,
you with
the
good looks
and
kind words,
you who adopts small
animals
and
picks up
the morning shift,
you who
buys the exotic fruit that the
rich
pick up,
squeeze,
and set back down,
you who
brings me
tragic drink
after
tragic drink
on a
rainy night
with
good body language—
you who
soaked up something from
those pale blue shores,
stole something
from
paradise
(your initials here)
i'll take you if i want
i'll take your
slender neck
your weak knees
your deep breath
your big eyes
mouth
smile
you're easy
Video
mercy
meet me on the mississippi
with a bottle
meet me with your wet hair
and a movie star smile
meet me with
marching bands
and eyes filled
to the tip
with strange sadness
leave your brain far behind
and
meet me in the wet
streets of new orleans
responsibility
I used to joke about
breaking my lease
and moving into a shack
outside of New Orleans
and taking you with me
buying a pig and a piano on
credit
and growing a beer belly
while you finally gave into
your genetic need
for vodka and tonic
and laid flat on your back
on the porch while I
wrote 1 and a half minute songs
about the wild nights,
pounding them out on the
piano instead of on
square, lettered keys
and we'd have BBQs,
a car that has trouble
starting in cold weather, and
magic jobs that delivered pay
checks and health care
but no heartache
and, of course, you'd have your garden
I wondered if I had figured out
how to pull it off if you'd
still be around
I wonder why I thought that
it wasn't my responsibility
to make it happen
will you please write about New Orleans accents?
yes
the shore
the girl was
down from arlington park
and interviewing
the famous trainer
she was beautiful and
interested
and
I picked
lanerie
over
bridgmohan
and
albarado
because fairgrounds
is
about
who’s hot and
the gamble
on the turf
and it’s about the
heart,
like the city
and
when they
put the new orleans
accent on the
call to post
I lifted
a beer that
was lighter
than the same
at belmont,
santa anita,
delta,
sunland,
I watched the horses
walk up to the gate
and that was enough…
and
later
we laid up
in someplace off of decatur,
some place impossibly old
and abused
a
thunder on the streets
that no amount of
bowl parades
and drunks can
erase,
an amazing sound,
silent,
class
standing on
the shore
another thing about new orleans
i met you in jackson square
with
your glasses
fogged
and stamped with my thumbprints,
your long
funny hair
around your shoulders
waiting to get your
mouth around
a drink
as
I took you and your
wiry, kind hand
towards the
mississippi
Dixie Flyer - Randy Newman
Dixie Flyer - Randy Newman
if we had our bare feet on Canal
we browsed the Hustler store
in the French Quarter
with a few drinks in us
after breakfast
and we overheard
2 women talking,
one said that the statue
of the guy from
that famous
new orleans novel
was a few blocks
away
and when you
heard that you said you wanted
to hug
it
I thought that you should
so we
walked out into
the sideways rain
and
our clothes stuck to us
and we found the statue,
an even 6 ft,
and you hugged it,
like you said you would
and it
was a great thing to see
tonight there
is no
rain
and
i turned down a
party invitation
for my own bottle of wine
and
i don't know if I'll write tonight
maybe I'll stare at the screen
and turn on some music
maybe i am
wasting
time i have no right
to waste
maybe
i'm doing it wrong
off the grid
you are make believe
because
the way you exist
in my head
is not
the girl they
take state ID pictures of
or mail utility bills to
you
do not exist
to the people making closing time announcements
over drugstore PA systems
or to
whoever you've found
to replace me
yes, you walk and talk
and sleep and eat and
smile and fuck
but you,
you only exist to me
language
i'm out
of
words
i've just
got a
feeling
i don't think
it's possible to
write it
i've never read it
but
you carry it
somehow
with each breath
with each breath
you heal the
earth,
you heal the
air that
hangs heavy
and
thick above
lonely heads,
you take it in
and it comes back out
a little better,
electric,
a
part of you
brightlightsloudnoises: "young" is now available on...
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I've been writing on tumblr for about 2 years, this is my first collection of work.
"your glow" by bill winchester Click here to...
"your glow" by bill winchester
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Judy
I had a black Chevrolet truck, it was twenty years old and it stalled a lot, especially on cold mornings. I knew the trick of how to get it going again. You had to press the gas pedal the right way while simultaneously turning the ignition the other way. They call it finessing, well I don't but plenty of other people do.
It was the was ideal sort of vehicle a teenager should have: from the parental side of things, it didn't attract cops and you couldn't get very far in it and from the adolescent side of things, it was cheap and it looked good, I mean really good, people would go out of their way to complement it, I'm not kidding. Also, and most importantly, it was a way to independently get around.
Diana got in and she was sweating. She danced, ballet, and she was good, she won awards and crap. I didn't really do anything but she didn't seem to mind.
"We're getting food?"
"Yes," I told her.
She threw her gym bag on the floorboard and took out East of Eden. It's a hell of a thick book, she opened it at about the middle. She had plenty of time to read, she worked the register at a nail salon.
"There's a part in here you'd like."
"Yeah?" I doubted it.
"Yeah, it's about this family and there's this chapter that's kind of out of nowhere. The mom wins this ride on a trick airplane and it freaks her out."
"What's a trick airplane?"
"An airplane that does tricks."
"Right." I stopped at a light, the truck sputtered but kept running. I was never nervous about the stalling, I was just always aware of it.
"She's certain that she's going to die when she gets on and so she just kind of accepts it and says goodbye to the family and when she gets on the pilot really goes nuts and does all these flips and the family is like cheering and all that."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, and when they finally land, the pilot gets out an he's like, 'damn, that's the craziest old lady I've ever flown!'"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yep. He thought that while she was yelling and freaking out that she was encouraging him to do more tricks."
"That's pretty good." I did think it was pretty good, but I don't know if it was enough for me to sit down and read it.
Over the course of her relating the story she had fully changed out of her dance stuff and into normal stuff. Dancers are really good at that, actors too. They can change in about five seconds. She was putting on eyeliner, the sweat had disappeared, she even smelled good. I didn't know how she did that…
We got to the cafe where we go and hopped out. The place was a chain but not like a national chain, like a local chain, so it wasn't too bad. Mostly old people went there but our friends worked there so we went there, we always had.
One of our friends, Judy, was right there when we walked in, she was restocking the toothpicks. She was a short girl, a little chubby, really blonde, curly hair. She was the most sarcastic person I'd ever know but her eyes were strange, not sarcastic at all, they were incredibly kind, depressingly so. It was an odd mix.
She looked up at us, "You guys look terrible."
"Well, it's fucking hot," I told her.
"Go sit in my section."
Diana wasn't offended by Judy's bluntness as I imagined most girls would be. She knew how she was. Even if the comments were from a stranger, I still don't think she would have minded, a lot of social things just didn't register with her. It was probably why I wasted so much time with her.
We got a booth next to a window, it was dark and we both watched the headlights roll by on the highway. Thursday night.
Judy came over with her tray. She set two coffees in front of us and then a banana split between us.
"Judy," I said, "cut the shit, we didn't order this."
"Fucking eat it," she said and then she walked away.
heartofgoldstomachofbaconrebloggedyour post:late breakfast/early lunch Literally one of the most...
Literally one of the most beautiful pieces of prose I've read.
Hey, thank you very much.
late breakfast/early lunch
I walked down the stairs from my place to the parking lot. The sun was out for the first time in days. It was hot, uncomfortably so.
By some luck, Angela was out there checking her mail. I had hoped I'd see her again this week but I knew the chances were slim to none. I thought about the stray dog I'd tossed half a hamburger to last night—perhaps there was something to karma after all.
"Hey," I said.
She turned around. Her eyes were a very light blue, pale, it was unsettling.
"Oh, hey," she said.
She had a handful of grocery advertisements and credit card offers. Given how short she was, the large stack looked kind of comical.
"I hate that crap," I said, motioning towards the junk mail.
"I know, it should be illegal, it's just waste. I mean, I'm just going to throw it out."
She began shuffling through the stack, tossing every other item into the can next to her. She held up an envelope, it had a picture of a smiling woman on the front. The caption said: "YOUR DREAM IS INSIDE!".
"Look at this bitch," Angela told me, "who smiles like that? What a fucking moron."
I nodded in agreement. "What are you up to today?"
"Nothing, I worked a double yesterday, I'm so tired. I'm gonna quit soon," she had reduced the pile in her hands to two envelopes, bills I assumed,"where are you going?"
"I'm going to Chipotle," I paused briefly, "you want to come?" As I was saying it I felt stupid for some reason. It isn't necessarily a stupid question but your brain will trick you like that sometimes.
And then she laughed, it wasn't an open-mouthed gut laugh, it was a small laugh through closed lips. It had a musical quality.
"Sure," she said, "I'm hungry."
***
I have a Japanese car, I bought it certified pre-owned about a year ago. It was the first foreign car anybody in my family had ever bought. At first, my parents gave me shit about it but after I had driven each of them a few times in it, they said less and less about it. It's a good fucking car.
Angela was in the passenger seat and we drove through the upperclass district and she pointed out the houses that she hated. We stopped at a stoplight beside a high school, kids were filing out of the front door, either to their next classes or to smoke a quick joint in their cars.
"I went to school there," she said.
"It looks like a good place," I told her.
"It's not."
"Why's that?"
"Did you like your high school?"
"It was ok, I don't really think about it." It was true, I didn't. My class' ten year reunion was coming up, I wasn't going to go but the idea didn't really offend me like it seemed to other people. Time moves on and fast, but it does for everyone else too.
And before we knew it we were standing in line.
Angela was from California so she knew the drill, she got a burrito bowl and I got a burrito. She sprung for the guacamole which I respect, and I watched the asshole with 20 piercings in his face roll my burrito into a ball instead of the cylindrical shape illustrated on the menu above him.
When we got to the register I paid and she grabbed my wrist as she reached across me to grab a plastic cup for water.
***
I was in the process of moving. The unit was in the same complex I was currently in but it was on the third floor, which I like—I like having a balcony as high up as possible. I invited her over to check it out and she said alright. And we took the mexican food up the flights of stairs and I found my new key and let us in.
As soon as we got inside, Angela laid down in the middle of the empty carpet, right under the ceiling fan. She put her bag of food on her bellybutton and it went up and down. I watched her. It seemed like she'd been waiting to do that all day.
if you'd blink
that
was love
over
by the glasses,
by the olives
and toothpicks
not in the moonlight,
in the sunlight
it was
RIGHT THERE
didn't you
see it?
that was love
over there
in the jaws
of
a
normal
day
theprincessqueenrebloggedyour photo:thewearyreaper: After a particularly stressful… Just got...
Just got mine in the mail today as well!!!!
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