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Nigel Morgan Nov 2012
There’s a film by John Schlesinger called the Go-Between in which the main character, a boy on the cusp of adolescence staying with a school friend on his family’s Norfolk estate, discovers how passion and *** become intertwined with love and desire. As an elderly man he revisits the location of this discovery and the woman, who we learn changed his emotional world forever. At the start of the film we see him on a day of grey cloud and wild wind walking towards the estate cottage where this woman now lives. He glimpses her face at a window – and the film flashes back fifty years to a summer before the First War.
 
It’s a little like that for me. Only, I’m sitting at a desk early on a spring morning about to step back nearly forty years.*
 
It was a two-hour trip from Boston to Booth Bay. We’d flown from New York on the shuttle and met Larry’s dad at St Vincent’s. We waited in his office as he put away the week with his secretary. He’d been in theatre all afternoon. He kept up a two-sided conversation.
 
‘You boys have a good week? Did you get to hear Barenboim at the Tully? I heard him as 14-year old play in Paris. He played the Tempest -  Mary, let’s fit Mrs K in for Tuesday at 5.0 - I was learning that very Beethoven sonata right then. I couldn’t believe it - that one so young could sound –there’s that myocardial infarction to review early Wednesday. I want Jim and Susan there please -  and look so  . . . old, not just mature, but old. And now – Gloria and I went to his last Carnegie – he just looks so **** young.’
 
Down in the basement garage Larry took his dad’s keys and we roared out on to Storow drive heading for the Massachusetts Turnpike. I slept. Too many early mornings copying my teacher’s latest – a concerto for two pianos – all those notes to be placed under the fingers. There was even a third piano in the orchestra. Larry and his Dad talked incessantly. I woke as Dr Benson said ‘The sea at last’. And there we were, the sea a glazed blue shimmering in the July distance. It might be lobster on the beach tonight, Gloria’s clam chowder, the coldest apple juice I’d ever tasted (never tasted apple juice until I came to Maine), settling down to a pile of art books in my bedroom, listening to the bell buoy rocking too and fro in the bay, the beach just below the house, a house over 150 years old, very old they said, in the family all that time.
 
It was a house full that weekend,  4th of July weekend and there would be fireworks over Booth Bay and lots of what Gloria called necessary visiting. I was in love with Gloria from the moment she shook my hand after that first concert when my little cummings setting got a mention in the NYT. It was called forever is now and God knows where it is – scored for tenor and small ensemble (there was certainly a vibraphone and a double bass – I was in love from afar with a bassist at J.). Oh, this being in love at seventeen. It was so difficult not to be. No English reserve here. People talked to you, were interested in you and what you thought, had heard, had read. You only had to say you’d been looking at a book of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings and you’d be whisked off to some uptown gallery to see his early watercolours. And on the way you’d hear a life story or some intimate details of friend’s affair, or a great slice of family history. Lots of eye contact. Just keep the talk going. But Gloria, well, we would meet in the hallway and she’d grasp my hand and say – ‘You know, Larry says that you work too hard. I want you to do nothing this weekend except get some sun and swim. We can go to Johnson’s for tennis you know. I haven’t forgotten you beat me last time we played!’ I suppose she was mid-thirties, a shirt, shorts and sandals woman, not Larry’s mother but Dr Benson’s third. This was all very new to me.
 
Tim was Larry’s elder brother, an intern at Felix-Med in NYC. He had a new girl with him that weekend. Anne-Marie was tall, bespectacled, and supposed to be ferociously clever. Gloria said ‘She models herself on Susan Sontag’. I remember asking who Sontag was and was told she was a feminist writer into politics. I wondered if Anne-Marie was a feminist into politics. She certainly did not dress like anyone else I’d seen as part of the Benson circle. It was July yet she wore a long-sleeved shift buttoned up to the collar and a long linen skirt down to her ankles. She was pretty but shapeless, a long straight person with long straight hair, a clip on one side she fiddled with endlessly, purposefully sometimes. She ignored me but for an introductory ‘Good evening’, when everyone else said ‘Hi’.
 
The next day it was hot. I was about the house very early. The apple juice in the refrigerator came into its own at 6.0 am. The bay was in mist. It was so still the bell buoy stirred only occasionally. I sat on the step with this icy glass of fragrant apple watching the pearls of condensation form and dissolve. I walked the shore, discovering years later that Rachel Carson had walked these paths, combed these beaches. I remember being shocked then at the concern about the environment surfacing in the late sixties. This was a huge country: so much space. The Maine woods – when I first drove up to Quebec – seemed to go on forever.
 
It was later in the day, after tennis, after trying to lie on the beach, I sought my room and took out my latest score, or what little of it there currently was. It was a piano piece, a still piece, the kind of piece I haven’t written in years, but possibly should. Now it’s all movement and complication. Then, I used to write exactly what I heard, and I’d heard Feldman’s ‘still pieces’ in his Greenwich loft with the white Rauschenbergs on the wall. I had admired his writing desk and thought one day I’ll have a desk like that in an apartment like this with very large empty paintings on the wall. But, I went elsewhere . . .
 
I lay on the bed and listened to the buoy out in the bay. I thought of a book of my childhood, We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea by Arthur Ransome. There’s a drawing of a Beach End Buoy in that book, and as the buoy I was listening to was too far out to see (sea?) I imagined it as the one Ransome drew from Lowestoft harbour. I dozed I suppose, to be woken suddenly by voices in the room next door. It was Tim and Anne-Marie. I had thought the house empty but for me. They were in Tim’s room next door. There was movement, whispering, almost speech, more movement.
 
I was curious suddenly. Anne-Marie was an enigma. Tim was a nice guy. Quiet, dedicated (Larry had said), worked hard, read a lot, came to Larry’s concerts, played the cello when he could, Bach was always on his record player. He and Anne-Marie seemed so close, just a wooden wall away. I stood by this wall to listen.
 
‘Why are we whispering’, said Anne-Marie firmly, ‘For goodness sake no one’s here. Look, you’re a doctor, you know what to do surely.’
 
‘Not yet.’
 
‘But people call you Doctor, I’ve heard them.’
 
‘Oh sure. But I’m not, I’m just a lousy intern.’
 
‘A lousy intern who doesn’t want to make love to me.’
 
Then, there was rustling, some heavy movement and Tim saying ‘Oh Anne, you mustn’t. You don’t need to do this.’
 
‘Yes I do. You’re hard and I’m wet between my legs. I want you all over me and inside me.  I wanted you last night so badly I lay on my bed quite naked and masturbated hoping you come to me. But you didn’t. I looked in on you and you were just fast asleep.’
 
‘You forget I did a 22-hour call on Thursday’.
 
“And the rest. Don’t you want me? Maybe your brother or that nice English boy next door?’
 
‘Is he next door? ‘
 
‘If he is, I don’t care. He looks at me you know. He can’t work me out. I’ve been ignoring him. But maybe I shouldn’t. He’s got beautiful eyes and lovely hands’.
 
There was almost silence for what seemed a long time. I could hear my own breathing and became very aware of my own body. I was shaking and suddenly cold. I could hear more breathing next door. There was a shaft of intense white sunlight burning across my bed. I imagined Anne-Marie sitting cross-legged on the floor next door, her hand cupping her right breast fingers touching the ******, waiting. There was a rustle of movement. And the door next door slammed.
 
Thirty seconds later Tim was striding across the garden and on to the beach and into the sea . . .
 
There was probably a naked young woman sitting on the floor next door I thought. Reading perhaps. I stayed quite still imagining she would get up, open her door and peek into my room. So I moved away from the wall and sat on the bed trying hard to look like a composer working on a score. And she did . . . but she had clothes on, though not her glasses or her hair clip, and she wore a bright smile – lovely teeth I recall.
 
‘Good afternoon’, she said. ‘You heard all that I suppose.’
 
I smiled my nicest English smile and said nothing.
 
‘Tell me about your girlfriend in England.’
 
She sat on the bed, cross-legged. I was suddenly overcome by her scent, something complex and earthy.
 
‘My girlfriend in England is called Anne’.
 
‘Really! Is she pretty? ‘
 
I didn’t answer, but looked at my hands, and her feet, her uncovered calves and knees. I could see the shape of her slight ******* beneath her shirt, now partly unbuttoned. I felt very uncomfortable.
 
‘Tell me. Have you been with this Anne in England?’
 
‘No.’ I said, ‘I ‘d like to, but she’s very shy.’
 
‘OK. I’m an Anne who’s not shy.’
 
‘I’ve yet to meet a shy American.’
 
‘They exist. I could find you a nice shy girl you could get to know.’
 
‘I’d quite like to know you, but you’re a good bit older than me.’
 
‘Oh that doesn’t matter. You’re quite a mature guy I think. I’d go out with you.’
 
‘Oh I doubt that.’
 
‘Would you go out with me?’
 
‘You’re interesting.  Gloria says you’re a bit like Susan Sontag. Yes, I would.’
 
‘Wow! did she really? Ok then, that’s a deal. You better read some Simone de Beauvoir pretty quick,’  and she bounced off the bed.
 
After supper  - lobster on the beach - Gloria cornered me and said. ‘I gather you heard all this afternoon.’
 
I remembered mumbling a ‘yes’.
 
‘It’s OK,’ she said, ‘Anne-Marie told me all. Girls do this you know – talk about what goes on in other people’s bedrooms. What could you do? I would have done the same. Tim’s not ready for an Anne-Marie just yet, and I’m not sure you are either. Not my business of course, but gentle advice from one who’s been there. ‘
 
‘Been where?’
 
‘Been with someone older and supposedly wiser. And remembering that wondering-what-to-do-about-those-feelings-around-*** and all that. There’s a right time and you’ll know it when it comes. ‘
 
She kissed me very lightly on my right ear, then got up and walked across the beach back to the house.
Awoke Sunday morning
To words that were easier
Than the night before.
I was always expecting good
mornings
To be harder than good
nights

I asked you for a
Four-letter-word-for “very often”
You asked me to
Pass the salt
You didn’t know.
I slid it across the table.

Sunday morning was without
Saturday night-forced structures
It was without
Long answers to questions
That we weren't sure if they were
As complicated as they seemed.

Sunday morning left us with an answer for
23-down and
For 68-across
Saturday night we were a defeated blank
We were
An empty grid
Save a four-letter-word
For nothing
In tennis.
CharlesC Feb 2013
this American crossroads
on a cold winter night..
parallel people observed
their laptops and smartphones
foci of isolated attention
connecting to elsewhere..
no central cheer
as might be conjured
in older places with
a warm central stove..
coffee art on the wall
seemed stagnant ignored..
youthful waiters serve up
Gold Coast Joe
Blonde Roast
to customers soon to
sit down and withdraw..
headlines in the NYT rack
reports political struggles
parallels of scale..
a barrenness..
these are parallel times...
Took 287 South
to a Borders
Goin Outta
Biz Sale.

Books may be
anachronisms,
relics from
yesterdays
analog age,
but literacy's
bankruptcy
does have
advantages.

Take an
additional
30% off on
any orphans
pleading
release from
the discount
racks.

Snooping down
the literature isle
Samuel Beckett's
somber face
arrested my
roving
eyeballs.

A stern stare
printed across
5 spines of
his shrink
wrapped
oeuvre
commanded
my arm to rise
to liberate the
face from the
dismal shelf.

In mid flight
my reach
was hijacked
by a Kris
Kringley red
snow flaked
trim tome
standing
open face
next to
earnest
Beckett.

It was "The
Christmas
Sweater"
by NYT
Best Selling
Author, Glenn
Beck.

Clasping at Beck's
book, it inflicted
a nasty paper cut
to my ring finger.

My mind recoiled,
thinking, "serves
you right. Like
Martha, I shoulda
chosen the better
thing."

I'll never
make that mistake
again.


Borders Books
Riverdale
2/20/11
jbm
TheSanguinary  Mar 2021
Broken
TheSanguinary Mar 2021
It had been a while
Even tho no tears were shed
I could feel it was a wound tt would possibly leave a huge scar
I had no bad intentions when i said it
I had no ill meaning when i did it
I did it out the pure feeling of longing
Out of the innocent feeling of yearning
If i had to mke an apology
I would apologising for loving a woman like a lil girl

It was all love at first
And that love kept growing n spiraling out of control
Everytime my hrt beat ...... i swear i could feel it ...... as if its about to break through the cage
Everytime i put my hand on my chest it was as if im trying to calm a mad dog down
A feeling i loved n hated
Cause Everytime it reminded me of how deep it was
How deep the wound was gonn be
As i kept replaying the worst case scenario in my head
And making more rush decisions
In a sad attempt to protect my heart

In the end it didn't hurt
At least not at the moment
But the longer i sat there the more i could feel the wound opening
As if its about to rip my hrt in 2
I clucthed at my chest
Held on for dear life
The laughter echoed in the empty starry nyt
Reminesce of a broken heart,
No.......broken mind
As i sat there feeling regret from the word protect your heart.
Its that feeling u get wen u r hurt...... funny cause u knew it was gonn hurt bad
Kristine Jensen  Jul 2015
nyt
Kristine Jensen Jul 2015
nyt
Du er mit nye kød,
fanget på min krog,
i mine tanker,
man siger at forskellighed
er en fordel for
realationen,
det må tiden vise,
men jeg er optimistisk
- du var min for en nat
WHEN WE SAY GOODNIGHT

Every night when we say goodnight my heart ****. Sad and thinking tomorrow will never come, therefore I'm sleeping now so I could catch you in my dreams. Just close your eyes and see me right next to your heart. You breathing in me. I live on you like parasite. I know you love me,  I hold   you tight in my heart. Love you to the sky and beyond. G--Nyt HONE !
#c9_fm
bladknopperne ville være spredte og udspærrede,
hårspidserne tørre, nederdelen limet op ad låret og
et barns sidste rømmelse
der ville være en rødlig substans i papkruset, nærmest skrigende
som et opråb og tæt på lyserød som hendes milde hud.
der ville være ømme ankler og grådige berøringer,
der ville gnides op ad et dunet kindben indtil de skarpe
konturer af et nyt menneske truede sig frem med katteøjne
og et sidste underspillet, barnligt, men stadig skyldigt støn
- digte om alt det, der vandaliserer os
anna charlotte Dec 2014
nyt år, uden sår
ikke et piv, ikke et kvæk
al smerte vil være væk

måske nyt hår, hvem ved hvad der sker i det nye år?
ikke jeg. men dig har jeg forladt
det vil nogen måske finde plat

men efter denne tid, og alt denne slid
er det nok endelig ovre, tid til at plovre en ny mark
og kun til mig selv kan jeg sige tak
Marolle  May 2015
Landsbypigen
Marolle May 2015
drømmen om storbyslivet og drømmen om ****
mareridt om landsbylivet og mareridt om hvile
det var sådan jeg havde forestillet mig det
livet i byen versus livet i landet
min forestilling var korrekt i starten
nyt hjem, ny hverdag, nye bekendtskaber
jeg faldt på plads, jeg etablerede mig, jeg integrerede mig
jeg blev det menneske jeg ikke ville være
det menneske der altid er forjaget
det menneske der ikke har tid til at smile til folk på gaden
det menneske der ikke kan andet end at smalltalke
jeg blev det menneske jeg ikke ville være
endelig opdager jeg denne forvandling af mig selv
jeg husker, hvem jeg var engang
jeg husker de stille morgener, med den friske luft
jeg husker gåtur med mine forældres labrador
jeg husker roen
jeg husker smilene
jeg husker minder
jeg savner
jeg holder disse minder i live
jeg bliver mindet om dem ofte
specielt når jeg har de dårlige dage
når jeg så tilbringer tid med mine home-girls
da opdager jeg, at det er der jeg har gemt dem
alle minderne vi deler, alle minderne om drømmene
disse er splittet mellem personer fra landsbylivet
personer der kender mig fra mit gamle liv
disse personer søger jeg til på dårlige dage
for jeg blev det menneske jeg ikke ville være
nye bekendtskaber forsøger at forstå mine minder
og omvendt forsøger jeg at forstå deres
men det kan aldrig blive det samme
for vi har levet forskellige liv før vi mødtes
og forståelsen vil derfor aldrig være fuldendt
man kan snakke om her og nu begivenheder
og forsøge at skabe fælles minder
der kan snøre os sammen som et spindelvæv
eller et ekstra sikkerhedsnet
men nye bekendtskaber vil forevig og altid
minde mig om den jeg engang var og den jeg er blevet
for jeg er blevet det menneske jeg ikke ville være  

*(Marolle)
Kan ikke længere kende mig selv og føler ikke jeg har forandret mig til noget bedre og nyere. I går mødtes jeg med en barndomsveninde og følelsen af hjemme og gamle minder var fantastisk. Det kurerede mig for en tid, indtil nu.
ConnectHook Dec 2016
You have always encouraged us, your deplorable neighbors, to be open-minded, to be tolerant, to build consensus and to appreciate diversity. In light of recent electoral events, we think you have a golden opportunity to practice what you so tirelessly preach.

    We sense that you are upset, bewildered and disturbed by your new president. We are sorry you feel that way, and hope we can make the next four years easier for you. Please keep in mind that many of us irredeemably deplorable clingers endured eight years under that community agitator, although he had not received our vote. We also put up with the grating, strident scoldings of that woman senator and ex-Secretary of State for a long time. While we certainly despised many aspects of their agenda, we did not march, chant hateful slogans, or smash up any property. We did not inundate electors with pleas to switch, nor did we threaten even one. We did not melt down on YouTube or fill Facebook with melodramatic profanity-laden tirades. Please pause to consider this. Perhaps it is time to be tolerant and to appreciate the political diversity of our Democratic Republic. Calling people fascists, racists, misogynists and bigots is getting old now. Instead of telling us what our values are and why we are such bad citizens, why not join us in some small way as fellow Americans on a quest for greatness?

   Yes, we know. It bothers you that that we do not get all our views from NPR, MSNBC and the NYT. We are aware that our vibrant variety of news sources is not pleasing to your erudite sensibilities. (And please forgive us for not being as apocalyptically alarmed as you are over "Global Warming"). We are aware that the tactical failure of vote recounts, pressuring electors, and throwing infantile tantrums has left you feeling hopeless and without a game plan.

   Mother Russia is also concerned about you, for you are in fact as dear to her as as any of her adopted children. In your deeply troubled state, she longs to embrace you. Maybe this is an opportunity for you to seek solace in Orthodoxy and to delight in the richness of timeless Christian ritual. This would be far better activity for your souls than crying over lack of gender-fluid bathrooms and easily-procured abortions. Mother Russia is grieved by your confused notions regarding faith and family. Rather than celebrate perversity, why not participate in true diversity and join us in making our sovereign nation great once more?

   Liberal progressives, we have need of your enlightened and broad-minded creativity in these troubling times.

Sincerely,

a brainwashed dupe and minion of Vlad Putin
⛧ ✝ ☃ ☪ ☠ ☮ ☯ ☢ ✌  ☮ ⚔  ♥ ☭ ✪ ⚢ ⚧ ⚩ ✿ ⚥
♫ Oh Lord, Kumbaya.... ♪
Gaye  Nov 2015
Buzkashi Girls
Gaye Nov 2015
No one knew her birthday
But they dragged her like
The goat of their war,
She did not let flames eat her
But called the local radio to-
Recite poetry, its Rumi’s land.

Dari and her beauty eloped with
Uncle Sam's heartless lads,
The land no longer of brave men-
Shovels and rich coal mines;
Today they are editorials of NYT
And international helplines.

Where are the cowboys?
The mysterious eyes?
Why are the muslin trousers-
Red? And why is the pop culture
Hiding under rich black curtains?
Come out! Come out safely!

Do not let them shoot your
Child, do not cultivate terror-
Bonsais. Stop! Stop being poor,
Stop being needy, they’re
Killing you, little, every day,
Your own ****** traitors!

Give a final applaud to their-
Bombing! Get back your land,
Get back the air, water and
Your tomorrows. I’ll wait for
You to come outside the radio,
Its Rumi’s land.
"If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine" -Ernesto Che Guevara

— The End —