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gravelbar Oct 2010
She is the calmness of night in the burning sunlight
The rain falling from clouds that can't hold water
Salt of the ocean, stone pulled from wet earth,
after the downpour.
He is grass growing from broken ground in the field
The cedar tree pushing its limbs towards sunshine
Clear cold water, cascading down pitted limestone
walls, eroding the face.
Their love is the world, from which all life springs
The beating drum of nature & instinct, intertwined
Inorganic love, brittle as cast iron, rusting itself
away.
gravelbar Oct 2010
Rain runs down the windshield, blurring brake lights
Heavy drops concentrated into rivulets
Swept away by motorized arms on the glass
Red brick blurs by in the corner of my eye
Speeding by neon signs in the dark
A worn down face on a bar stool, just a glimpse
Of a tired lonely life, drowned in a bottle
When he wakes up in the morning, shivering under sheets
The chill of sweat soaking the mattress
The pounding in his head like hammers smashing bricks
The smell of last nights sickness, cloying & rancid
That spot where she used to lay her head is empty
That spot where she used to lay her body is cold
That spot where she used to touch his heart is burning
Burning like that cheap whiskey he sips with tap water
Burning like her pictures in the fireplace
Burning like the sickness in his stomach
Chained to a bottle & a memory long forgotten
Puddles keep forming, rearranging the dirt
But he's seen enough, for tonight & all other nights
Enough rain & enough snow, he wants sunshine
To sit & sweat, feel the enveloping warmth of summer
When he was young & everything was possible
No one could die & the world was so beautiful
But now all he sees is ugliness & futility
Now all he sees is her face
gravelbar Oct 2010
How the Dandelions wave on your neat little grave,
in a ghost town in Colorado.
Gutted cabins rotting into dirt, little piles
of split wood memories.
A rusting stove where you cooked their meals,
among the pines, surrounded by snow.
Now that iron is thin as paper, rusted holes,
inhabited by birds nests.
Your little headstone says you died of pneumonia,
at the age of thirty seven.
Two children you had, by a worthless drunk man,
who could barely hold it together.
One son took up a job down on ******* Creek,
searching for fools gold.
He died a young mans life, no chance to grow old,
gone at nineteen, never came out of that hole.
Another worked the railroad, running down those tracks,
until he heard a nations call.
Didn't stand a chance, shelled in those trenches of France,
too much mustard gas, didn't last long.
They're buried here, in this little aspen grove,
forgotten in their repose.
But those Dandelions still dance & wave,
among those lonely graves.
The Dandelions still grow, despite it all.

— The End —