For some, certain places
hold a rather mythic oeuvre
in our veins; they are seen as places of magic.

Maybe a cyclist couple
have spent most of their money
on traveling  the world for their blog,
their last stop is New York City
so that they may get pictures of themselves
at places like The Brooklyn Bridge, Lady Liberty
& that megalithic skyline reaching the clouds.
Or maybe a foodie from Wisconsin
just wants to try Famous Ben's Pizza on the West Side
because its New York ******' New York pizza.

Maybe a doe-eyed screenwriter skips
his flat square suburban town
to sell his words and soul to the sprawling sunny L.A
where dreams are made in pixels.

Maybe some New Age beaded wrist to ankle lady
spent her life savings to jump over the ocean
to visit the ancient pyramids built for a purpose
yet fully known.

Maybe a bearded dude
visits Easter Island to try and understand
the complexities of his ancestors while
soaking in the rich vastness of nature around.


Maybe I used to see places this way. Probably...


But in these places people live!
It's not mythology to them.

Maybe every night a homeless man prays
& begs for food on the late night A-train in NYC.

Maybe a middle-aged fading blonde couple
spend their time in L.A at a health food store
to recoup the savings they lost joining a cult way back when.

Maybe a Swedish teen  traverses the trash
and littered-burned streets of Giza everyday
on her way to work
hoping funny looks aren't shot her way
for the way she dresses
or shouted at by bearded Salafi men.

Maybe a rare species of bug is unknowingly stepped on
in Easter Island.

Today, i see magic in getting lost on the NYC subway.
I found magic mythology on the beaches of Dahab,
80 miles away from Cairo.
I see magic in the mythologies,
while others live it,
        the daily grind.

*It's all around if you know where to look.

I could kiss you and like it

          Pressing slowly

Thrilled

     by the softness
               of your flesh

Compelled

     To ****
          Upon your upper lip

     And bite
         Gently upon the lower

Surfing the tidal waves
          of your tongue

                    Synchronizing auras

I'd breathe you in

       Absorb your energy

And exhale life

I could kiss you
                  And like it

Indeed Love it
                  And make you Mine.*


©Tina Thompson
01-18-14

There's but one indulgence
     One delicacy.
That will ease my hunger
     Please my appetite.

It is a sweetness
     No baker can provide.
A delicious treat
     A most Savory delight.

The aroma visits me daily
     Dismantling all self control.
I can taste it by thought
     But that won't soothe my soul.
    
These cravings are possessing me
     My mind and body can't rest.
In order to cease my desire
     I must Feast upon your flesh.

© Tina Thompson

She tends her cactus garden,
beads of perspiration,
works with a maniacal absorption.

One of many visitors she receives
yet looking at each other's eyes
dawned this quick realization;
similar maniacal obsession and passion.

A tornado she was, self created,
in her swirl uprooted
many huge trees, even tombstones
by the sheer force unleashed,
with her poetic flourish.

Love of a crazy woman
with effervescent creative  surge,
is a magical portion
brewed by a witch ,
in her forbidden rituals, night after dark night.

Injured by conjugal lust, unrequited
prompted to walk the garden path
holding hands of lovers, one after the other,
who took her to wilderness, deeper and deeper
and at the end to a blind alley,
life was a tribal dance,
from where return was impossible.
She never had to apologize to her mate,
who for all the world to see, remained  with her
till he went behind the curtain.

Imagine a life, a walk
through a cactus garden,where sharp thorns would nip,
searing pain and bleeding has its moments of exhilaration.
Life pulsated wildly for her on such notions,
(There were many who walked with her for each adventure)

They met, poetry flowed like wine,
she had a rare warmth seen in women of such creative combinations,
she feared nothing, but  her truth made many squirm.
Midnight dances of her and her friends gypsy bunch,
attained such fame.But all ended in a great  betrayal,
she was deep down a naive woman,
craving for love, to immerse in it.

On occasions she would change identities
at will, she was one but many
there wasn't any one like her before or after.
They would walk through the witch's cactus patch,
somnambulists reciting poems,
when they are together, in private,
cactus spine criss- crossed his skin
her nail wrote poems on the back
of the lover of the moment,
each one bled like soldiers in combat.

One monsoon night brought
everything to an end,
the cactus garden was trampled by
big grey wolves, the journey
met with an abrupt end.

What is she, cactus herself,
vampire, witch, lover indefatigable,
with the heart of a lion?
Erotomaniacal  poetic surge,
yet a fantasy in flesh and blood?

**They buried her
in a cactus garden away from town
not even ten people arrived to mourn,
not even all her lovers, had time that afternoon.
Her songs of pain, pierced hearts and they
still shed tears,
cactus garden, it was---
the metaphor perfected by her life and death.

however i choose
to abuse these loose reigns
to gain whatever gallops may overtake
to overrun the rampant jade
in summer's plum, my teeth in no shade
but the plump flesh
of a ****** day; brightly at heel
of my toes, bejeweled
in ocean spray
fresh cut lawns with diamond dew, disarranged
sprinkler cast before midday
to cheat the sun,  a sip or two -
and slake the thirst
of emeralds
i would soon delight
to cantor through.
to roam
with eyes too wide
to choose
a culdesac ... to dread-
or view. Perhaps
a glance at crates
and crude cadavers of a life
removed -
from every thing i worship twice !
while prancing, ever-prancing -
through
the manicure
that has ' no cure '
for Nature's way
of tending too the over-groped
and fussy plucked,
some Charter barks
you have to do; What Art dispels
what man has framed ?
what power drapes
the Land more true ? A dozen Elves ?
Prayer in school ?
what genius
never fails to ask -
the question that reveals the fruit ?
or listens .... to the loamy grass ?

a very
few, if any who -
would
do
the same; the
mortgage and a
landscape, paid;
' in-full.'  [ The first ]

with love, the glade ?

The Earth
is all i know,
would do
for nothing,
all...  Spite all -
we do.
however we blockade
or stake
the acreage
we have papers prove-
belong to every
dispossessed
with keys to doors
that lead to
rooms -
that seldom have the sun
inside the red Redwood
the old thing died
too raise your roof
under god's blue
sky.

To shelter
men from other
men,
who covet what
you keep in
them.

a 1000 yrs of Life, undone  
to build our vapid
ornaments.
a forgery
of hearths; and hardly worth
the vasty parlors
lost.

we parcel, carve
and auction
off
our petty Lots of
*******...

the empty ones we polish
while our homeless
remain home-
less

the echoes of a simpler time
too weak to even haunt them.

our shame intact, we slash
and burn, for coffers have
no conscience.

our charity is scarcely more than earplugs
for a blindness; a band-aid for an Apathy
a thimble and
a wine list
etched inside the hollow
just below the milk of kindness
that soured
in a palsy hand
that brought a drop
and spilled it.


However
I have chosen more
than fiberglass and
fountains
my habit is to wander off
the beaten path
to mountains.
To slopes
of avid avalanche
and quiet shouts
of Silence -
that echo and return
as if to soothe
my withers'
finally...

an
ache
to meadowlark and leap
for leagues without a harness
without
a gate to keep
the lush pavilions
at a distance

nothing
to contain
the gift
and no one
there to
name
it.

nothing but the wind to kiss
and no books to
explain
it.

knitting with scissors you run with.
will get you there. but you can't buy a house. i'm sorry.
you might, miiiiight get the Edwardian Tudor for a mansion in false claim
but you keep your gaze, your weary gaze ....and slumber not so sweet, my sweet.
knitting with false gods will get you everything
but  Not the Other Thing
that gnaws at the substance of your gut
where the heart resides like a lion
addicted to Aesop Fables -
and dry humors that decimate with bounty
flooding the bleak with our windmills !
you and i are regardless.

knitting with shopping carts and dead batteries. washing ashore.
lick your lips at the foam
of our hysterical event. pitch a ******* tent.
and eat more stars than you came in with.

sew the hole
with a hole and
answer the phone sometimes,
****.

i ain't got all day but you might take your time
like an aspirin.

how terrible it must be
to have only two feet to walk with., my sweet.
how abhorrent, the torrent of gimp.
you are not kind, but kinda die more than our lasting -
and have ever been fasting in the break of our ventures...
suturing the succulent bog of my wound till blown glass is ****** dry... humorlessly.
you are with me... but
not with I
that stalks the reason.
you are with the one
whom's cup runneth over, and traipses thru the flint gleam
of our founding urge. the dirge forge of our burning inert !
' We' are where it hurts... and you might be clever
but you slug at love's light speed
to put the brakes to a freight
of infinite need.

there tears fall,
on this blank piece of paper.

these tears that i swallow,
are soundless and muffled.

these tears are only mine,
nobody knows the reason.

nobody can save these tears
or make them disappear.

these tears still fall
every day on this blank piece of paper.


these tears are now shattered
on a piece of paper that is no longer blank.

these tears are now printed forever
on this written, scribbled paper.

these tears are for you only,
perhaps you don't deserve them,
but i need my closure.

and that closure are the tears
and this piece of paper where my heart is written.

my love for you,
the tears that you don't deserve,
the words that only my soul understands,
the heart that is no longer yours,
the love that you do not deserve anymore.

*people turn out something they should never be.

Nostalgia of a love
*
It is your eyes that hypnotize me, and your gentle voice that dominates me
In my cold solitude, your embrace, soft and warm, softens the cold air
It is with your sweet kisses with which the essence of my soul falls in love
With them I dream from far away
They are the memories I carry everywhere

I didn't know how to handle
All the broken pieces of my heart
They all left
And I believed that I was all alone
But then I looked up
And there you were
Carefully picking up every piece
And smiling while you did it
Like you were honored
To be the keeper of my shattered heart