Safe Harbor

She walks in light and shadow with each and every step; she walks with the casual, entrancing sway of her delightfully rounded hips and her bountiful and enticing bosom. The dazzling, passionate, boisterously smiling sparkle in her dark eyes colored and mitigated with a soft, wounding melancholy; those eyes, filled with equal measure of laughter and tears and hope and faith and bittersweet memory, so easy to get lost in forever.

Her thick brown hair crowns her head softly waiting for strong hands to caress it, to luxuriate in it, to stroke it lovingly as she lays her head close to your heart. Her face…those dark eyes, that creamy skin, those sweet lips that seem made to be kissed gently and roughly (often and gratefully) She is bright and beautiful and breathtakingly sensual; sensitive, energetic, strong, vulnerable, wise, naïve, girlish and womanly in the same amazing, thrilling, beguiling moment.

She is all a wise man could ever want in a partner…a friend, a companion, a lover, a confidant, a safe harbor…in the tumultuous journey that is life. A remarkable girl…a remarkable woman…

And, of course, there was no way that he could not fall in love with her.

She, of course, never regarded him that way…never took his ill-disguised passion and longing for her seriously. Her wisdom failed her in matters of love as she too often gave her heart to an endless number of vapid brutes who had absolutely no idea what a treasure it was…no idea what a precious treasure she was.

Not having it in him to try to play the brute he settled for being her buddy… her confidant…the good guy she trusts but would never fall in love with. For him, it wasn’t enough…but, with her, it was better than nothing.

She walks in light and shadow…she nestles into him and cries over the brutes who will never cry over her…and he holds her, keeping his love chaste and his longing at bay, and gives her the safe harbor she needs.

- for Chris and Magdalena (wherever life has taken them) -

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More MKW Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow

The Necessary Persistence of Memory

We were born in a crucible of fire and blood…of the sweat and the tears and the courage and the hypocrisy and the bravado that only fools and visionaries and freedmen and dreamers know intimately.

We were born of blood on the ancient byways of the Old World, blood on the fertile realms of noble Africa and blood on the plains, and the verdant fields of a “New World”.

We were born of blood spilled in burgeoning colonies created…by hubris and guile and deception, by force of will and force of arms, by self-anointed divine right…from the bright and blue, majestic and expansive, hardscrabble and bountiful, land we claimed as our own.

We were born of the blood of the young spilled on battlefields near and far…in Lexington and Valley Forge, in the shadow of the majestic Rio Grande, at Fort Sumter and in Gettysburg and Atlanta; in Cuba and Germany and France and North Africa and the blue Pacific; in Selma and Mississippi, Dallas and Memphis and Chicago and Kent State and Los Angeles; in Korea and Vietnam and Kuwait and Somalia and Afghanistan and Iraq…and we remember.

We born of the blood of the young spilled…in the name of freedom, in the name of justice, in the name of manifest destiny, in the name of a fragile union, in the name of ending tyranny and injustice and war itself, in the name of self-protection, in the name of peace…and we remember.

We were born in a crucible of fire and blood…sweat and tears and passion and setbacks and triumphs. We were born from the sacrifices of our young…and, in the necessary persistence of memory, we remember.

Dirty Laundry

I dreamt that I woke up (yeah, I know…just go with it) and heard a raucous commotion in the outer room. Walking out of the bedroom I found my dirty clothes hamper had been dumped out onto the living room floor and Jerry Springer, Montel Williams, Judge Judy, and Maury Povich were furiously digging through my dirty laundry looking for…well actually, I didn’t know what they were looking for.

“A bit on the nose, isn’t it, folks?” I said as sardonically as I could so soon after waking up.

All four of them sprang up and surrounded me. “Laugh it up, buster,” Judge Judy snarled poking my chest with her bony finger, “but when I find the goods on you I’m going to drag your no-good butt into court and let you have it! Just you wait!”

“Ooo-kay,” I said trying to take a step back from the spray of righteously indignant spittle coming from her thin, angry lips.

Maury Povich spun me around and brought his face so close to mine that I could almost taste the turkey sandwich he had for lunch. “There’s a 99.730017792% chance that you’re the father and I’m gonna find the proof!”

Before I could reply to that, Montel Williams spun me around. “My psychic will tell me everything I want to know about you, buddy. Prepare to be smacked down on national television!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that nobody watched his show any more.

Jerry Springer nudged me and bent close. “Look, if you’re cheating with your alcoholic midget nympho half-cousin who’s pregnant with your priest’s love child, I can make you a star.”

I nodded warily. “Thanks, Jerry, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Do you know what you want?” Judge Judy demanded.

“I want you all to go away…?”

“No!” Montel bellowed. “You want to be on television!”

“Why?”

“BECAUSE EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE ON TELEVISION!” they all shouted as one.

“And if you’re not gonna fess us, then we’re going to keep going through you dirty laundry until we find something,” Maury said portentously.

I backed slowly out of the room as the four of them leapt back into the pile of sweaty t-shirts and used BVDs. “Yeah, good luck with that,” I said softly not wanting to upset them again. “Lock the door when you go.”

Jerry, Montel, Judy, and Maury ignored me as they clawed at different pieces of my soiled clothing.

“Eww, what’s that?” I heard Judy ask as I ambled back into my bedroom.

“I’m not sure,” I heard Jerry reply with no small amount of concern in his voice, “but I hope to God that it’s chocolate…”

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MKW Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow

My Mother's Eyes

My mother’s eyes are ever with me…I am kept safe and strong in their light…in their tenderness and anger, their wisdom and their passion, their hope and charity and nostalgia and regret.

I am who I am because of my mother’s eyes…my mother’s heart…my mother’s strength and dreams and her boundless and wondrous and fierce love.

My mother’s eyes are ever with me…lingering with me through days of sunshine and magic, through days of shadow and sorrow, through all of my days of my journey from my first cry and down the winding path that makes up the continuing tapestry of my life.

My mother’s eyes are with me…and I am kept safe and strong by their light…my mother’s eyes are now, and ever shall be, with me.

Blessed be.

Melting (a brief Spring interlude)

So I was out watering the roses, the tomatoes, the fruit trees, and the irises in my backyard and listening to the song playing in my head (which was, in case you were wondering, “Tears Cry on Their Own” by Amy Winehouse…don’t know why, I’ve long since made my peace with the fact that when a song decides to take up residence in my whimsical psyche it’s best just to let it go rather than trying to fight it) when my mind wandered in the odd ways it sometimes wanders. I felt, for fleeting moment, like I was melting.

The sky was crystal blue and the Santa Ana winds (hot, dry winds that blow in off the desert…as opposed to the cool breezes that usually blow in off of the Pacific) were dancing softly but insistently and thus the day was unseasonably warm (91 degrees) for a San Diego May afternoon.

The sun and the spring/summer winds were competing to impishly caress and tease my shaved head and bare arms and, for a brief little eternity, time stopped and I felt like I was melting…an odd but not really unfamiliar sensation.

The moment passed…Amy started singing again…and the roses, tomatoes, fruit trees, and irises…parched by the withering heat of several days of unseasonable temperatures…got my full attention again.

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More MKW Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow

Sanjaya Was Robbed

Jake sat up and yawned. He was longing for a cigar but he was feeling too good from last night to get into that particular argument on what looked to be a fine spring morning. He stood up and stretched and then, not bothering to retrieve his boxer shorts from the floor, he followed the sound of humming towards the bathroom.

Joy came out of the bathroom as Jake neared the door. As always the sight of Joy made Jake’s heart skip a beat. Joy was wearing a pair of pink panties and a blue shirt with the phrase Sanjaya Was Robbed emblazed across its front in bold red script. Willowy and tanned, Joy was freshly showered and even across the room he could tell that she smelled wonderful.

Joy looked up and smiled brightly. “Good morning, old man,” she said brightly, putting her hand on his naked belly and stretching up on her tiptoes to kiss him. “Yuck!” she teased. “You’ve got morning breath!”

Jake reached down and swatted her behind playfully. “Outta the way, girl,” he mock-growled, “I gotta go.”

Joy was sitting on the edge of the bed brushing her long auburn hair when Jake came out of the bathroom. He stood looking at her and found himself wondering what a girl like her was doing with a crusty old man like him.

Joy looked up and then shook her head and sighed patiently.

“What?” Jake asked, though he knew what she was going to say.

Joy, playing along, went back to brushing her hair. “You’ve got that ‘I’ve got shoes older than her’ look in your eyes again.”

“Well, I do,” Jake replied petulantly.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said standing up, “so what?” Joy walked over and poked him in the chest. “If you were so worried about the difference in our ages, you shouldn’t have married me. But you did and now you’re stuck with me, old man.”

Jake smiled in the way that only Joy could make him smile. “I’m okay with that.” He put his leathery hand on her face and bent down and kissed her again. “And maybe one of these days I’ll understand why you’re with me.”

Joy smiled, patiently and tenderly, and pressed her head against the soft pelt of salt-and-pepper fur on his brawny chest. “And maybe one of these days you’ll stop fretting about silly things like that.” Jake wrapped his arms around her and they stood silently for a few blissful moments.

“I’m gonna be late for work,” Joy said, reluctantly breaking the embrace and heading over to the closet to get a pair of shoes.

Jake went to the dresser and dug out a fresh pair of boxers to wear after he showered. He looked over as Joy pulled on a pair of jeans and he noticed the shirt again. He knew he shouldn’t…there were things he didn’t, and didn’t want to, understand…but he was compelled to ask the question anyway. “Who or what is ‘Sanjaya’?”

Joy looked over at him quizzically and then she laughed softly. “I could explain but you’d be bored by the time I was half-finished. Kinda like I was when you were trying to explain to me how great that Hank Williams guy was…”

Jake shrugged and nodded. “Fair enough,” he replied amiably. He winked at her. “I love you, little girl.”

“I know that, old man,” Joy said, winking back. “I love you too.”

Jake turned towards the bathroom humming…”Hey, Good Lookin’”…as he prepared to shower and get himself ready for work. He didn’t give ‘Sanjaya’ another thought.

- for S & A -

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More MKW Blogstuff: Neverending Rainbow