Category Archives: relationships

Vignettes in Yellow Brick

We were kids
In the old apartment,
Just sprouting into adolescence
Not in poverty
But we knew
Who the Bailiff was
And somehow
We were always saved
And could always stay
The bricks were yellow
The hallways dim with dirt
Broken windows
Smelly carpets
Pothole pavement
Freeze in winter
Boil in summer
Lazy landlord
Nothing fixed on time
But pay the rent we must
On time
It was home I think
For nigh on ten years
My brother and I
We two, inseparable
Bunk beds, one room
That was us
He had the top one
He was lightest
But not light enough
He came crashing down
On me, one night
Bolts not tight. What a fright
That got fixed, then one night
We had spaghetti for dinner
He got sick
Over the side, down the ladder
We fell in with little hooligans
Maybe we were hooligans at heart
Made stun guns
From sawed off hockey sticks
With clothespin triggers
Holding tight bands of rubber
With bobby pin bullets
The Police did not like this much
And we heard about something called
Juvenile Hall
Guns confiscated
Wrists slapped
Started a gang
With pretend wooden swords
And Mom’s old sheets for flags.
You’ll put someone’s eye out with that
The side door at Yellow Brick
Had a tall narrow window
So you could see outside
Coming down the stairs
It got smashed
And was left open
For a day or two or three
Our friend Stanley
Got used to running down the steps
And right through the open gap
Until one day the glass man came
And we didn’t know
We heard a loud crash
And screaming
Stanley nearly died
He was so cut up
The neighbors brought towels
They were soaked in his blood
There was a fire in the night
Outside in our underwear
In October, all clear
My little brother had a special friend
Named Stewie
But they moved away
His Mom Sophie would drive him
For visits, sometimes overnight
One time, she came to get him
They went to go home
And were never heard from again
Died on the road
Bad crash
Our little girlie friends
Started growing a little
I liked Rosie, and brought her cookies
Puppy love
There was Arlene too
She took needles every day
And the backs of her legs were red
We loved Elvis
And at thirteen came The Beatles
Change in the world
I went to work as a bagel baker
At thirteen. At thirteen.
Life had new things in store
It was our time
To leave the street we called
The Yellow Brick Road.

***

[Image:  https://pixabay.com/users/mabelamber-1377835/%5D

Eavesdropper

At our summer retreat
I am ten, and a half.
From the outhouse,
I hear your voices,
casual as you return from the pool.
Such a ninny-
Won’t go in the water.
Howard, tell him he’s supposed to enjoy himself.
That’s why we’re here.
Unsuspecting conversations hurt the most.
They are honest and free.
I come back to the trailer,
fake nonchalance.
Hurt inside, feeling foreign.
They all go off to visit the neighbors.
I stay back.
What’s the matter, stick in the mud?
I say I will go shoot some baskets.
When they are gone,
I take a towel and go to the pool.
I watch.  I see.
I climb the high dive tower,
and I drop.
But not for you.

 

 

The house of You

Awoke were mine eyes
and tangled was i
in the webs of the house of you.

But a light had arisen
in that windowless prison
and a pathway had come into view.

The storms you collected
their practice perfected
they swarmed and they battered anew

but i busted your cleaving
and as i was leaving
another had sailed with me too.

painting by Jaroslaw Jasnikowski

Periwinkles

They headed down the valley
With their wine and picnic lunch.
The periwinkles blooming
They gathered by the bunch.
Happily remembering
The times that they had spent
As children, in the old ravine
Inside a makeshift tent.
With jam and jelly sandwiches
They’d huddled from the rain
And hoped that in the days to come
They’d be there, once again.
Soon they would be parted, though
Still children, and they wept.
They’d always been the only ones
Whose promises were kept.
Two decades passed, the wheel had turned
They never did forget.
And often looked within their hearts
Without the least regret.
Close unto this very summer
He thought of her once more
And prayed that he would find her
As lonely as before.
A fairytale friendship
Remembered o’er the years
Had sent him on this errand.
He’d not forget their tears.
Now he was a grown man
And thought she must be married.
Indelible the memory was
That in his mind he carried.
Back to their old school he went
To ask where she had gone,
But none knew of her whereabouts.
They said that she’d moved on.
Please tell me where, and name the town!
He cried, and someone spoke-
The old and grizzled janitor
Whose memory then awoke.
Away now, with the precious answer
He went with all good speed,
And sought her out, for days it was
He’d not paid any heed
The search had finally led him
To a dark and dingy bar.
She’d worked there as a waitress.
T’was said she had a scar.
And that was how he found her.
He would not have recognized
Her face, so drawn and haggard
But still, she mesmerized.
She waited on his table. He touched her hand and said
“Lissa, do you know me?”
She slowly shook her head
He spoke his name, and handed her
A jam and jelly sandwich
Her eyes grew wide, and then she cried
O’er the scars that marked her damage.
A man she’d met and stayed with
(She was so all alone)
Had used her as his punching bag
And cut her to the bone.
Remembering the long ago
And the tent in the ravine
Her heart within her melted
And they quit the ugly scene.
To his own, he took her
And let her rest in bed
He waited on her day and night
And caressed her weary head
Whole had she become now
And when this day had dawned
They went to pick the periwinkles
Of which she was so fond.