Posts

Before The Phone I Stared

-
Before the phone I stared I stared at the night sky like stars were diamonds and my eyes were jeweler loupes I stared at the girl who made my heart twirl like a Duncan Imperial top I stared into the crystal ball of my wild gypsy daydreams I stared at the covers of books like they were models loping on the runway. I stared at the impending animation of sculptures and paintings I stared at birds flying in formations as if they all got the memo I stared at the brief life of hand held snowflakes I stared at the technicolor dream coats of autumn trees I stared at window displays and gave voices to mannequins I stared into the whirligig wake of my past I stared into the wild west of my future I stared at scrapbook pictures and wished I was in all of them I stared at album covers and pretended that the singers were the friends who knew me best. I stared at dogs and wished they knew my name I stared at parades that moved like never ending rivers I stared at my babysitters and whispered, “I lov...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Caretakers

-
  The Caretakers by David Steven Simon Children are the caretakers of stars that can’t remember how or when they fell. It may have been a Tuesday. It happened so fast. One minute they were defying gravity, basking in the womb of time— and then, before they could wail in unfathomable sorrow, they tumbled and flailed and landed on the beach, like the twisted ragdoll bodies of Normandy, until the Caretakers arrived, carrying them off in low-swaying buckets to their work station beneath a striped umbrella planted like an astronaut’s flag, lit by the surgical luminaire of the soon-to-be-forgotten moon, where the Caretakers began their tireless work on the resurrection of the Fallen. Points were readjusted. Spines realigned. Compasses rejiggered— guaranteeing no star would ever wander off alone again. The work ended at early bright, with a final kiss that triggered a thermonuclear reaction in even the coldest of heavenly bodies— whic...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Sundae Kind of Love

-
    My mom was a  clever girl with a tortured soul which she wore like a winter coat buttoned  to the neck to keep out the marrow chilled wind  even on the 4th of July. Her life was  rearranged  by tragedy when on a post bubble bath Brooklyn night in 1931 instead of following instructions  to keep a big sister eye on her forever scurrying  baby brother the tow-haired Harry,  she succumbed to the  hypnotic pull of motherhood  and tended to her doll with its go-to-sleep eyes and double- ruffled ribbon-tied  organdy bonnet, as Baby Harry in an effort to kiss the cheek of the beckoning moon secretly made his way to the launching pad of the window seat pressed his lips against the mesh of the screen and fell to his concrete death  while Wayne King and His Orchestra  played Goodnight Sweetheart on the Philco Highboy From that moment on my mom believed that  the family had secretly convened and convicted her of mur...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Roses In The Purple Vase

-
When darkness  defies me absolution avoids me and loneliness  is my one true companion  I return to the girls who wait for me by the decade like the one with the curvy full-breasted woman body  and wild ginger hair in the summer of 87 who loved to play hide and go seek  in the darting, day shadows of the naked apartment on 10th Street that sat like  the summit of a birthday cake atop the corner flower shop called A Simple Tryst of Fate as Rubinstein played Chopin’s Waltz No. 5 in A-Flat Minor on the  only fidelity in the room. I hold on to her like I’m suffocating her heart until the moment  evaporates  like kettle steam and won’t return until sunlight, finds the roses in the purple vase on my peaceful table and opens its petals with tenderness  like I did in the summer of 87 when her negligee made touchdown on the landing strip of her bare feet.  
Post a Comment
Read more