Scribd Stories

Just expressing my mind.

These are the warning signs of a visceral God at work: The repressed hands become tender and forgiving once again, The calloused eyes begin to see the wonder of a thousand newborn suns, The chained heart learns to leap at the thought of angels and popsicles.

Now it is a vineyard, like so many others;/But when you taste its wine, you drink the blood of your brothers.' From Red Hill, a French folk song. I let someone else do the driving for a little while- I watched the lines blur behind us, each racing after the next, towards some vanishing point just beyond the Stuckey's sign; I am abandoning Red Hill again.

My gas-stained hands touch her steel, and for a moment all the world seems unemployed. (I stand in a hole reamed out by greedy oresmen, and silently wait for their own untimely closings.)

The five older ladies have poured their tea again, And look to each other for recognition. This has been quite a summer, yes it has, And Charles and William and my boy Walter Have really taken a shine to their new garden, Says one, steadying her cup for emphasis.

This is how easily two stiff souls can learn to bend, And pivot around the mulberry times Like dancers, defining their time and space.

This is where the desperate stitches begin to take hold - In the wary edges of unproven cloth; In the delicate fears of virtuous women, In the fevered robes of noble soldiers.

Somewhere in the white hot core of the Dancer's spirit lie the remnants of too much vision, lies the residue of a thousand broken treaties: lies the child who bartered with discount Angels. She will no longer mistake the gardeners for her Messiahs.

On the one hand, we have this couple-so young, so connected, so grounded. The balloon they released together into the Memphis air held two cards in tow as it found its way between their hands and the balloon maker's place.

and with each passing day he shoulders the weight, as if he were the only strongman left in his own heart's circus-

Four small whispers can now leave rehearsal, the last cigarette has been ground to ashes. It was once important for us to kill some Negroes, no matter how many times they claimed to fear God― no matter how pretty their dime store dresses were― no matter how late they were for choir practice.

Your tattooed stigmata is showing, my dear- that spot of willful blood lies dormant; while greedy hosts of Angels draw illicit lots, and seek redemption in performance.

Let us skip, you and I, through certain half-smelted streets; where time and conscience dissolve like watches, and glass shadows catch the first sun's rays fully on their mistaken faces.

The fish could hardly be expected to remember us- Two sleep-dusted Ohio boys, working a pole with Brother Blake, methodically plinking the glass of Heritage Lake.

I picked up my first stray when I was five, and it promptly died. He was a fine catch, as strays go - Strong in spirit, eminently playful, relatively grateful; But he soon discovered the highway the hard way, And I discovered that traffic does not slow down for grieving boys.

and when all that remains of our dimestore dances are scuffs on aching linoleum, I shall consider you carefully, and know that we were gods once.