"manicured" poems
between the concrete river
& the park where the bums share a bottle
wrapped in a brown paper sack,
there is a cul-de-sac of plastic houses
holding hands & sharing manicured lawns
wooden cars that don't even make any smoke
drive down gray asphalt streets.
fathers that tell mothers they have jobs
wear down street corners sharing beers with the bums,
like they already are one.
all these paper families rubbing shoulders
until everyone has paper cuts.
going home to dinner around a table full of paper love.
suburbia is flimsy
paper towns shining white
smiling neighbors & shared lawns
paper people slowly falling apart.
couples with their tongues down each other's throats,
midnight in supermarket parking lots
dribbling beer in the backseat
they bought off the bums.
they say,
I love you, I love you, I love you.
until she leaves for a paper husband
& he leaves for a paper wife.
now they live on two separate cul-de-sacs
with the same cutout love,
as the parents they despised.
& when they have kids one day
they will tell them
*never kiss before driving,
never befriend bums,
or guzzle cheap beer in backseats,
or on park swings.
& never settle for a paper husband
or a paper wife.*
remembering the love
that was flimsy,
but never paper.
100,000 miles away from where they grew up
& 3,000 miles away from each other
3 kids each & plastic houses
rubbing shoulders & sharing lawns
living in a paper thin suberbia
chafing under their paper love.
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 3:09 AM UTC
Let me trade in my smile for fangs
And my feminine fingers for paws.
Let me trade in my manicured nails for claws
And my curly locks for silver fur.
Let me trade my heart shaped mouth for a long snout
And the freckles on my nose for whiskers.
Let me trade my curves for a round, bushy tail
And my clumsiness for strength and agility.
Let me trade my tears for whimpers and barks
And my voice for howls in the night.
Let me trade my dinner reservations for hunting down a moose
And my poor senses for keen ears and a nose.
Let me trade my soul for a different one
And become a friend to the moon.
Let me live my life as a wolf
And all that it encompasses.
Let me symbolize the dawn and the dusk
And let me symbolize the converging of light and darkness.
Because that is wolf,
And that is what I see, when I look in the mirror.
Mar 28, 2014
Mar 28, 2014 at 10:42 PM UTC
Oozing charm and fluency, over exuberantly, without vanity or pride or an arrogance of mind
remaining humble and kind
looking just fine
Not with the fittest physic or perfect teeth, manicured hands drenched in gold leaf
Or a sharp suit and tie which underneath emptiness lies
But a beauty that shines bright like a beacon
signalling hardship, success, failure, determination
Strong and truthful
Unapologetically flawed
Lost youth and adult gains
Ageing memories and hunger pains
slight wrinkles, cheeks with dimples
passion,
it's quite simple
perfection is meaningless
It lacks personality and taste
Humility, humour and good grace
The hard times you stared point-blank in the face
However, on the other hand
It's like you're from another land
Im lost
In your perfect imperfections
Filters and airbrush aren't a true reflection
Of the life you've lived of the story you've told
When you've been weak when you've been bold
what made you happy or caused you stress
How you like to chill and rest
Or put your mind and body to the test
I want to see what makes you, you
I long to see it all
For its what makes you beautiful
Mar 3, 2017
Mar 3, 2017 at 2:02 PM UTC
Sickly might,
cravens and craving demon drooling bite.
That fleshly flaunt of fool and privilege,
he burned to smoldering.
Lapped his blood from crowned jewel
and corroded golden spires.
The lost cadaver,
pride driven manicured demon of self
driven greed and godly hunger.
Such as fiendish that ******
the sulfured serpent,
tis a sickened beast in dread black suit,
raffled in silken red tie
it's but the psychopath's blood smeared human hide.
Crave the flesh,
tear and splatter the soul from within,
fiends of fantastically practiced to perfect parallel smiles.
They'll slip your soul from the bars of your throat,
reap every inch of the body's hold.
Steal friendships to lips,
lives to hips,
slurp the killing,
seize the blind weeping cold.
You've got nothing not to be swept and stole.
Soulless has a studded luster,
but the ****** socio bleeds liquid sins,
bears fangs plastic wrapped in blades,
human game is the psychopath's wet dream.
Aug 28, 2011
Aug 28, 2011 at 12:27 AM UTC
I imagine myself
A few gentle decades older.
Finally grasping the cusp
Of success.
Living in my own apartment
In New York City, nonetheless.
Wearing an Armani coat
(Whatever those look like.)
Walking idly yet prestigiously
Through winter in the city.
Taking care not to laugh too loud,
Talk to myself, smile too much.
A small, attractive female
Has to be serious to get ahead.
Customers will buy from a happy girl
Only if she is early 20's, at most.
That is Marketing 101.
I am a small fish in a large sea;
The principles of Darwinism
Still apply to me.
I've learned long ago to succeed,
I must stifle the welcoming smile.
So along the familiar concrete
I stride,
Carefully manicured hands
In pockets.
The Filipinos know better
Than to rush on the hands
Of a businesswoman caressing
A successful career.
She tips well and lives well.
I walk along with cool calm
And feminine grace.
I have regained the safety
To be feminine once again.
The criminals know better
Than to infiltrate
The Business district
And cause trouble
To working professionals
In Armani coats.
I imagine myself a few decades older.
Kissing snowflakes unenthusiastically.
Yes, I marvel in poetry, in Nature,
But I have matured
Much like the snowflakes themselves.
At the end of a cycle,
No matter how beautiful.
My actions flow gracefully and delicately.
I melt into New York City
Like a cell in a body.
Pumping fuel into the *****
To sustain the mass.
A tumor.
I smile subtly as I slosh along.
I recall, once upon a time,
On my lower-class youth.
***** jokes, crude dancing,
And cluttered apartments.
I approach the high-rise building
I call home and greet the doorman
With the obligatory disregard
For his innermost being.
Poetry truly is in the strangest of places.
Even in an enigma like me.
I enter the marble floors,
Wiping my feet,
My rent as sky-high as
The building itself.
Elevator. Comforting motion sickness.
This is success.
The pit of my stomach sinks.
I tell myself it's the motion sickness.
I return to my apartment,
With its symmetrical details.
My thoughts return to you.
You've never stepped foot in my home,
But you've always been here with me.
I get dinner started.
I set out the extra glass, like always.
Rituals like these serve
As my Sunday mass.
I drink your glass with my evening medication.
Dare I say like always?
Dec 16, 2016
Dec 16, 2016 at 6:09 AM UTC
pretty pearl anklet
adorning your foot
tiara crown
princess ***** cow
all dressed up in a dark red
cherry sequined
come **** me dress
black lacquered nails
body beautiful prepped
for ordeal by gang bang
and pretty girl strangle
torture blood ****
wiggle wiggle
**** pink aglow
glistening hive
your mouth piece
bilingual
fucky and baby talk
all manicured and bejeweled
glitter and tears
***** food
inch worm lover
little bludgeon
your excited
for a bed of nails
what a luxury
legs spread wide
***** drool melt
your scent
a silk **** cocktail
in thick puce
stained pink milk pom poms
****** beyond tabulation
come sweet cow
its time for slaughter
down on your haunches
you look up
thrilled
dark dreams do come true
i love you
like the bog loves bones
embalmed in spice
Dec 23, 2016
Dec 23, 2016 at 10:20 AM UTC
Starched Dress Shirts
Shiny Polished Shoes
Manicured
Well mannered
Only one hidden desire
He ate big fat rats
Feb 6, 2016
Feb 6, 2016 at 12:00 AM UTC
Fragrant rain
legends of decaying days
pools of darkness
isolated moments
clean white skin
manicured hands
and stylish stubble
in an unmade bed.
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 28, 2014 at 2:40 AM UTC
The bright sun’s rays
Are dappled as they strike
The manicured greensward.
He, tall, lithe, teeth all aglow
In cream slacks and pastel blouson,
She, fair and fairylike in acres of shimmering gauze,
Alight from the auto
At the site of their ‘manger al fresco’
Let us call them Justin and Jocelyn.
The basket is heavy
No matter.
He lifts it clear to carry
She gasps, he grins.
In minutes the scene is set
The rug, the plates, the glasses
The pate, the cold chicken,
The fruit….the wine.
He deflowers a bottle of Moselle,
Wishing it were her.
Guessing as much she blushes.
Ants retreat to nests
Wasps attack alternate targets
Flies zoom elsewhere to feed.
And all the while the sun
The golden sun continues to dapple.
The rain is not quite horizontal
As Joe and Judy
Run from the bus stop
To the stony beach.
Not quite horizontal
But driven off the sea it tastes salty.
He, ordinary, average, in a dampening grey mackintosh.
She, hair bleached in a sister’s frock and jacket
Holding hands,
And hold each a sandwich
Cellophane wrapped.
Squatting against the seawall
They eat.
Wet eyes flash bright signals.
Joe has a small thermos
Its vegetable soup,
And somehow a hardboiled egg appears,
To share.
The rain continues its attack.
Jul 25, 2014
Jul 25, 2014 at 11:58 PM UTC
From beginning to end
she kept a straight face.
If she didn't, she would just explode.
The white, silk polka-dots
surrounded her, billowing
like an ivory cloud.
She grasped his finger tightly,
Her manicured hands sweating, feet throbbing.
The ring touched her head.
She had not promised herself to another.
She kept a straight face.
If she smiled, she would just burst.
On their heads were glorious crowns
of laurels and satin,
and they danced the ancient dance of Isaiah.
She kept a straight face,
if she didn't watch where she was going
she would fall, but he would catch her.
*May you be as loving as Isaac and Rebecca,
as fruitful as Jacob and Rachel.*
Another squeeze of his pinky, and a twitch of her cheek.
God grant many years!
Chant onlookers.
Her eyes flooded and washed away
her straight face.
Catching her soiled tears,
Papa's paisley black handkerchief.
She was still his little Tzeitel.
Jun 26, 2010
Jun 26, 2010 at 6:09 PM UTC
The steak tartare had painted toenails
And manicured hands of polished silk;
Mouth with apple, daintily wedged,
Floating in a bath of milk.
I helped myself to a silky ****
Sliced across it's still-pink grain,
Seasoned with a squirt of lemon
And coarse ground pepper, for a tang.
The seasoned broth was the finest gravy
To moisten the neat cuts of meat,
And sweetened fat, in a frothy pie
Ended the repast, with a treat.
Aug 12, 2010
Aug 12, 2010 at 8:44 AM UTC
perfunctory actions
zombie habits
sheep normalcy
blindly following the cud chewers
lemmings fall to their deaths
slowly
genetically engineered crops
dusted with pharmaceutical poison
laced with irradiated petroleum pesticides
fed to the babies of the poor –
wealthy voyeurs eagerly tune-in
as the impoverished masses rot
for viewing pleasure
leisurely strolling across manicured lawns
those in power scoff at the growing spectacle
unaware that the cake is stale
and the masses smell blood –
hurriedly, accountants shuffle tax rates
mix those with interest credit
season it with mortgage fees
and serve it on wall street
place mats
taking stock of stock market gains
gamblers do double gainers off high rises
adding to the flesh being consumed by the under class
under classed –
underclassmen, underpaid, stretch under ware elastic
as waistlines expand with the debt ceiling
both symbolizing the slow decline of
the American dream
screaming into the sewer
fewer eyes look back as disease dulls the iris
loss of the inner shine
glowing reflection of living organisms
fading as the day
slips into the blue-black –
night falls on a nation of imbeciles
brain dead patients
broken by depression and weight-loss scams
hearts crying out for care
personal and compassionate
instead are met with sterile robotics
and sanitary “C” students dressed in white
fearful of lawsuits
and spiders
they prescribe to symptoms
without knowing insurance number 87319A23-S1
is a human being, just like them
also living in fear
of the same establishment –
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
In the Webster dictionary beauty is defined as:
"The quality of being physically attractive"
And it never specifies what attractive is...who gets to decide it
but...
The screens, the magazines, they all scream
In high definition their definition of "beauty"
Beauty is itty bitty waists and walking twigs
negative spaces between legs that subtract another's value
if the gap is not there
It is lipstick and pale pink blush on rearranged faces
like children playing dress up
or a giant game of make-believe we are made to believe
that something is wrong with the way we look
And we have been directed well
the cruel criticism oozing out of over-injected lips
typed out with freshly manicured tips
"she has weird ***** "you have a weird nose" "lay off the cookies"
we read off the scripts, taking turns playing the villain and the victim
and there are no heroes here
There are no standing ovations, no thunderous claps await
Is anyone really watching?
Does anyone really see?
With pain hardened eyes we glare
we compare compare compare
ourselves to the models, the barbie dolls, the flawless magazines
our friends, our sisters, strangers on the street
and in our rooms before the mirror
our reflection the bearer of bad news
"you are not the fairest of them all"
will we ever be?
So much trial for so much error
we are worn thin and even so
even so we are told to lose a few
And we run, endlessly
in the hopes that we may be worth something
If only we would realize that beauty is a noun, a word created by man
between beaten and become
If we win this race we will have beaten the monster society has become
and see
that we are all worth more than words
we are flying off the page
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 4:59 PM UTC
I knocked on society’s door,
Hollow footsteps through the crevice of civility,
A ***** welcome mat with a broken doorbell;
No visitors wanted who were not invited,
And understanding was buried under the porch.
In Law’s front yard,
picketed with ire and arrayed with disorder,
Olive branches strewn across dry grass,
lay an empty briefcase marked in leather.
Gavel and irony betrayed her whimsically.
Garden beds in front of Understanding;
Plundered of roses and wanton petals.
Bland stems wilted amongst the weeds.
Relinquished of entitlement; water led
Towards apathy and entropy instead.
A house of Perhaps: vacant,
Open front door to empty rooms.
Leased to opportunity but vacated in days,
Renovations procrastinated; mocked by
The neighbor of dismay and wry.
Ignorance paved a new driveway,
The unanimous watch of Lively Cul-de-sac;
Gated community with hopes of manicured
Lawns and pools. Procreated in the minds
Of not wild men, but surveyors.
Mar 6, 2012
Mar 6, 2012 at 4:17 AM UTC
jab at the moon
frame the shot
under
a perfectly manicured
golf course.
Apr 25, 2014
Apr 25, 2014 at 3:33 PM UTC
Neon Stella Artois lights and sly hellos
It commenced as we were flew spinning
Ticket stubs and ink -stains
Oh, as our love flirted we both were seeking
Brooklyn Subway stops and ***** clothes
We perched by the equator but only when beginning
Backwards flasks and *******
Then winter solstice was challenged by spring’s springing
Strands of soft pearls and wishing wells
We shivered the anxious touch of a faux July summer’s evening
Empty bar stools and firelight
It was still bitterly February but with the mockery of songbirds floating
Two Thirty Seven A.M. and sea shells
How can the world deceive us in this fashion: fools, we accept ever-knowing
Buttered bread and hindsight
Dawn will crash with frostbite and these daisies will pay the price of their beauty’s sinning
Wine before noon and payphone bills
Wind will eviscerate this moment for once you have touched the sun the ice is more than suffocating
Dry heaving and ribbons
We were only waiting then at the heart of a train station for the stretches of shadows to lengthen
First drags of cigarettes and blue diet pills
The glitter within the dew drops stolen from our tired eyes when our first summer was stolen
Cheap motels and kitchens
We could barely exchange syllables, our melodies quarreling, our blood had thinned
Calendar pages and black lace *******
The euthanasia of the spring would have hung us too if we had breathed it in
The Last calls and lollipops
One can repose more gently in the absence of color than in the theft of sin
Bitten manicured hands and autumn leaves
We used to sleep in a room with wonders, windows, and blankets within
Midnight whispers and rooftops
It was the only place that could soften the swords in all this ruin
****** wrappers and painting supplies
Today is cruel, it cannot be summer if the world doesn’t spin
Happy hour cocktails and goodbyes
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 2:16 PM UTC
Hundreds of homes sit
Cookie cutter produced
With manicured red rose bushes
And fences painted by immigrants
The suburban white breads
Flock to these copycat communities
Eager to fit in with their pale skinned
Blue eyes babies and mother-father pair
It’s all pleasant and just a bit
Creepy; the lack of contrast
How are we to manage happiness
With such tasteless lives?
-x-
I’d like to take a hammer
To these mass produced homes
And hack their roses to mush or
Kick their fences to splinters
To make a **** original piece
No matter how bizarre or damaged
So that our skin color, our *** would be
The last thing to be seen as ‘weird’
Maybe then we’ll be content with the contrast
In a home that just breathes our presence
Even if we’re out and about; living
No part of us, even our home, will conform
To the standards of society
Nov 6, 2011
Nov 6, 2011 at 4:51 PM UTC
It’s not about the hand you were dealt with,
It’s about how you play the hand you were dealt with.
But
Imagine that the hand you were given
attached to fingers
with blistered pads and splintered prints
that wound in swirls of blood soaked skin.
Imagine, that the nails of each finger
crucified you to stars
willing you to brighten the night
for children who fear the dark
regardless of your burns.
Imagine, that your palms
were crumpled pieces of paper
stuffed into the back of a trash bin
on fire,
the burning smell of garbage and secrets
indistinguishable from one another.
See
Some people,
they are given hands lined with rings;
diamonds, silvers, and golds
not a single callous and well-manicured.
Some people,
they are given boneless pieces of plastic
that fail to do so much
as curl and unfurl themselves:
hands that are growing desperate to feel
the things they touch.
Some people,
they are given scabbed knuckles
that shake so bad
they can only find comfort
in scratching themselves henna tattooed scars;
digging six feet into their skin,
creating burial sites out of their own bodies.
Tell them anyway,
It’s about how you play the hand you were dealt with.
It may never make a winner out of them
But it will keep them from leaving the game entirely.
Aug 4, 2015
Aug 4, 2015 at 3:21 PM UTC
The silver
Birch trees flaunt
Their glitz as I
Stroll through
Deep pearl
And sand
Pebbles
Gorgeous green
Mansions swirl
Around and
Blackbirds pick
Seeds from
The posy bunches
And sparkled
Grass.
I pass a
Pink butterfly house
With large Daisy
Heads protruding from
The diamond fencing.
The next house, a rather
Pretentious 'Cordillera',
Sounds like a disease.
A farm gate shields
4 by 4s and I'm
Now passing the weird
House with the crocodile
And gorilla and
Coloured Cow
And dog statues.
Coming to the
End of the lane
Of silver I pass
'Lane end'
Cottage with its viney
Stature and freshly
Manicured front lawn.
High cube hedges forming
A pathway to the porch.
In The final
Mansion if
Nosy passers
Have a peek you
Can see a
Swimming pool,
Fluffy Towels draped over
The Silver pool chairs.
Flitting to
The end of the
Dappled birches,
Approaches
A wide country green
Covered in bunting
Bathed in buttercups.
May 24, 2014
May 24, 2014 at 11:54 AM UTC
Banked up against a terraced mountainside
photogenic pristine rows
of blasting green
rows of manicured waterways
with two buffaloes treading ballet-like
between squelching mud and green shoots
the paddy fields stayed buoyant
all season through.
Come harvesting time
and thrashing the sunburied ripe
tendrils of husk and seed
along threshing traffic wheels
the husk sought divorce from
the long tongued long grained
wives -and parted ways.
Soon the pudding spent its silky smooth sexiness
on a plate of punchy aromatic costumes
that invaded the senses and palate
in sensual smoothness. Oh my!
Ricebowl pudding
of the worlds staple.
Author Notes
Gluttony beckons just now!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 6:45 PM UTC
Weaknesses
My weakness is sweets, but don’t get it twisted, no food is found to weaken me. But a sweet personality can, so can a sweet smile, or a sweet touch. Basically sweet people are like sweet candies of different cultures, and I shall be a proud cultural culinary taste-tester, moving races like NASCAR in motion.
My weakness is money. The all mighty dollar isn’t so almighty to me, but what it can do is. I long for the materialistics of life that money can bring, and the attention it can get you from supermodel brides or low-key bed warmers. I like the feeling of being wanted and tolerated regardless of what I’d do and how I’d do it.
My weakness is power, for, if I held the power of a man’s life and spared him, he’d be loyal indefinitely, and that would be enough to satisfy my needs to feel loved. I’d have a friend who felt indebt to me, and that feeling of needing to accommodate would change my view on what was real and what wasn’t.
My weakness is attire, for you see, when I walk into a room, I want to draw the eyes of those watching, hateration rising in their veins and jealousy shown on there face. I want the Black haired beauty with the short red skirt and open-toed stilettoes with the dark purple toe nails and thick hips to come my way and think lustfully of me, is it a crime to desire such reactions?
My weakness is body, for I love a girl who can take care of herself. Long hair, manicured nails, teeth that aren’t begging to be drilled, it’s a weakness I have and can’t seem to fix. But then again, why would I desire to fix it? I’m not asking for perfect like a conceited rejectionist, or wanting more than what I can give like I was lying to myself, I want someone who can keep up with themselves before even attempting to keep up with someone else.
My weakness is *** appeal, because whenever she bites her lip and looks in my eyes, I can see rockets shooting through her glass lenses and aiming at me. But once I smile back, determined face, cute features and as much appeal as I can muster, explosions happen in her body that causes goosebumps to pepper her flesh like shrapnel in a war-zone.
My weakness is skin to skin, after all, it’s my right to want to be loved, why not demonstrate it by holding hands? Why not live past the edge and on the tip of existence like birds on a powerline? I am careful enough and she’d be loving enough that no vibes of failing would even cross our way.
Sep 21, 2015
Sep 21, 2015 at 9:37 AM UTC
Long and lithe fingers,
comfort moulded into cones,
is where art kisses geometry
and meets one of its own.
Her hands are to touch
manicured and glazed,
you feel home and lost
a Pharaoh now, and next a waif
The nails, you find and wonder
filed for a student and trimmed.
Not a wisp of colour
bare as a bone, naked and skinned.
Snug in a life song,
a pallbearer of untold griefs,
they are a stark sight
of colourless coral reefs.
On but a blue moon,
they’re a savoury rare,
when hungry eyes feast
on the riotous fair.
Why, one day, I ask thee?
She would smile and wouldn’t tell.
‘Never felt like’,
is her No Comment.
May 1, 2021
May 1, 2021 at 12:25 PM UTC
shuffled into the hallway
the laughing ignorance
stews in its bathrobe and cigar
at the edge of its own manicured lawn
with a pale eye it it calculates
with a thin cold lip it ponders
he makes his lazy way to his bed among the spilled leaves
makes his way to the comforts of eyes closed visions
the laughing ignorance proverbial
fool in ragged cloth dancing a jig
on a spring moon's grave
flowers in hand and wreaths of holly adorning
his head like a crown of soft thorns
his skilful laugh echoes across the barren field
littered with the passing of days
strewn with the formulations of nights bitter embrace
no mere words can delay or
mislead the way that darkness creeps into the mind
when alone with its own devices
done with his jig
he sits on the springs moons grave
and sips at the christmas wine
savoring its crisp life on his tongue
the laughing ignorance still wearing
the dancing fools leather shoe
is a hobbled prisoner of his laughing jest
no other time or place has room for his kind
for his pantomime of long lost victory's
on beachheads of distant sandy shore
his rancid eye calculates me
in all my rumoured mistakes
and he speaks to that dream not to me
so i will leave him here
standing in manicured existence
of his own sour pain
the fall will find him sleeping sweetly
on the spring moon's grave
and it will renew him
leaves swirling down as the world steals the crown
of the tree above
he will be a young man once again
renewed by the promise of maidens dancing
and the dance of winterlight on snowbound fields
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 12:55 PM UTC
There’s plenty of flesh on her finger,
sagging, loose, folded ,
crumpled at the knuckle.
The nail is peach, white at the tip
manicured, manufactured; plastic.
She reaches out towards a musty key.
The greyish, flesh-coloured cube
awaits her touch.
She withdraws from her ******
her finger folds away with the rest.
Reassured, she begins again.
Her fat stub hovering
over the scrabble of letters
With a satisfied click
the key flattens into the board.
Mar 7, 2012
Mar 7, 2012 at 6:19 PM UTC
The glaring orange and red vermillion rays stretched over the mountain top and city skyline in the humbling spectacle of nature’s dawn...
Lifting away the frightful, cold and deathly nuances of the city by night...
The dull glaze of the concrete motorways,
Spun and circled around the growing organism of steel suburbia...
Filled with a meandering stream of colourful cars
Feats of engineering beauty
The blaring noise of traffic drowned out the natural stillness of nature’s beauty...
In the peak rush hour of a Cape Town mourning....
To the left of me...
Stood the deathly profile of a street urchin...
The little lady...
Body thin and frail, hands out-stretched in a sinewy leather grasp...
Warn and tattered rags for clothes...
Burnt and ***** face....
Yet still able to muster a look of hope....
I lifted my fingers to my mouth
And let out a shrill and deafening whistle
Drowned away by hooting and the hum of the engines, spurting noxious fumes,
Defiling the air....
She turned with a vigorous jolt
Raised eyebrows and a head turning smile...
I ushered her towards me with my outstretched hand, well manicured nails
Not a wrinkle of hardship characterising the clean skin
In the burning rays of yet another hopeful morning...
At least for me.
As her body was moving, all I could see were her eyes...
They pierced me, danced for and contorted the world around me....
A hazelnut brown painting, embedded in a small circular hole in the skull...
A gateway to the emotions
Connecting everyone, regardless of age, race or even stature...
As I gazed, captivated.
I saw compassion, longing, loss, warmth and passion in her eyes – the whole spectrum of humanity
In two small but infinitely deep pools
Cascading into a never ending abyss of emotions
Of pain, suffering, a little joy and infinite hurt....
Then I blinked...
And all those emotions, those connections and our future...
Were gone in the simple gesture of a fluttering eyelash
As she looked the other way...
The car lurched forward yet again...
With the flash of a green light and safety of movement
To the other side of the intersection
My hand still outstretched holding the crumpled buffalo note
My contribution to a severely needing hand
Lost with the bustle of life continuing, and leaving behind all too weak to keep up....
She began to scurry away, back to her pavement
I looked back...
The little lady gone.
Lost forever
Sep 8, 2012
Sep 8, 2012 at 6:15 PM UTC