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Wordgrove Post & Review ~ 7.27.15 (Guest Editor, Piffin)

Posted in Wordgrove on 07/27/2015| Leave a Comment »

~.~.~

Quoted in the Grove:

I love your lips when they’re wet with wine and red with wicked desire.

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Be no longer tender.

Cover me with frenzied kisses—even as I would drench my body in the cruel torrents of the rain.

Envelop me from throat to ankle in delirium intolerable…

~ Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff

I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;

Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:

Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,

Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.

~ William Shakespeare

Look, if you want to torture me, spank me, lick me, do it. But if this poetry shit continues just shoot me now please.

~ Tank Girl

~.~.~

Announcements:

The prompt for this week’s Prewritten Exercise is:

I had the sensation of bobbing on waves, though I’ve never been on open water.

~.~.~

Prewritten (July 23):

Prompt One ~ translucent; libation.

BarTalk:

“The Gelding Shed”

The ploy was translucent
Ply with drink to seduce
And libation of rum juice
And in the carriage house
Baby trap a tipsy spouse

Greymane:

“Distant Shores”

Seven sottish sailors with a barrel full of booze
tried to ride the stardust tide aboard a midnight cruise
They sailed a trail of comet tails painted in the sky
They prayed for breeze to calm the seas no angel dared to fly
They set their sail beyond the veil that shelters weary eyes
Translucent phosphorescent hues of oceanic lies
They sang a dirge of dreams submerged in shadows of the stars
and shared a famed libation named The Lemonade of Mars
They journeyed seas past galaxies exploring silent moons
As each one sinned they lost their wind adrift in dark typhoons
They ran aground and nearly drowned beneath the wicked waves
Where sirens call a laughing squall to lead them to their graves
The mystic misty mariners prepared their last goodbyes
The distant shores forevermore illusion in disguise

Piffin:

“Running from the Start”

I have to wonder
At my God and His creation
This child of thunder,
Ludic laughter and libation
I have no guilt
About my journey into darkness
I was not built
For herald angels and their harkness
Life isn’t living if your will isn’t free
They say love is forgiving, baby, give yours to me
And look my way
Or look astray
But, looking like you do,
I fill my hand
In ardent stand
So you believe it’s true
That I wasn’t running from the start

The night is pitch
But all her shadows are translucent
She scratch my itch
And I am drawn by the inducement
My boots made bolder
By the potions I have swallowed
Over my shoulder
I see, once more, you have followed
I’d rather leave you, babe, than lead you to harm
But this rainy day girl could use a shot in the arm
So tie me down
Or tie me off
Just tie me up again
Then tie me at the finish line
And we can both pretend
That I wasn’t running from the start
I wasn’t running from the start
I wasn’t running
From the start

~.~.~

And now, a brief word from our sponsor (courtesy of TommyO):

http://www.fizzies.com/fizzies-flashback/

~.~.~

Prompt Two ~ man cave (courtesy of Jukie):

Jessalee:

Workday done, and boy am I beat
Long day, weary my feet
Family happy, chores complete
I hightail to my retreat

Just a shed, but still my home
Where I can be totally alone
Sanity kept, no need to roam
Complete with cable, wifi and phone

And though my life has been kind
I still need my own space to unwind
That old feeling in my man cave I find
And hope like hell it don’t make me blind

Greymane:

“Spelunked”

A warm escape from worldly weight
A place to misbehave
A place that we can contemplate
The comfort that we crave
We dial down as we sedate
What sanity we save
All obligations dissipate
Bearied in our cave

~.~.~

“Ballast”

~.~.~

Impromptu (July 23): bathtub; indelible.

Bartalk:

“The Glimpse Encounter”

Chance glance, incredible
Inked in color, indelible
Bathroom, she in her skin
Fetchingly edible holding
Two pints of bathtub gin

Greymane:

“Holiday”

Death took a holiday sometime in June
to sow his dead oats and to howl at the moon
His doctor prescribing a summer of sin
of hot tub bikinis and bathtubs of gin
He flew to the islands in search of cheap fun
His pallid grey skin needing time in the sun
He packed up his scythe and he summoned his staff
In his absence he promised them time and a half
Mai Tais and luaus and dancing ’til dawn
but the balance of nature stops cold when he’s gone
He had no idea the chaos he’d cause
by defying the progress of natural laws
His absence had thrown the whole world out of synch
with each destiny carved in indelible ink
When the universe noticed that no one had died
The powers that be had his passport denied
Death stumbled home to his deathly domain
with a thundering pounding parade in his brain
The balance of life for both living and dead
dangles by dangerous delicate thread

Jessalee:

on my honor, i will try
there’s a duty to be done
so i say aye
to remove these rings from this tub.
my honor is to try and my duty is to scrub.

people don’t need to know my name
if i’ve not scrubbed well then i’m to blame.
if there are no residual marks for you to see
then i’ve done my job well enough to me.

i’ve tucked away a memory or two
and when i’m feeling low, i say this to you:
indeliable mark, and i will come
to scrub away that filthy scum.

on my honor, i will try
for the american dream,
and i say “aye.”
there’s a reason here that i still scrub
my dream is to live well and to rise above.

TommyO:

The parking garage was part of the old shopping mall that stood at the edge of town. The mall was demolished a few years back. Seems the upper-crusters of the town didn’t take kindly when the squatters took up residence in the old Foot Locker or Cinnabon. So the called in the bulldozers one day, tossed in a few tear gas canisters then began to push the building into a huge rubble pile. Me, I could understand squatting in the Foot Locker. Maybe find some old Air Jordan’s to impress the other squatters, but living in the Cinnabon with the indelible aroma of cinnamon or that iced glaze that could clog an artery at a thousand yards – that was just cruel. You had to be the lowest squatter on the squatter totem pole to pull the Cinnabon.

Anyway the mall was gone and the only scar left of 1980’s greed was the 7 story parking garage and no reason to park there unless you were dealing drugs or having one of those classy affairs with your secretary in the back seat of an Oldsmobile. David had said that I needed to go up to the top and see what was there. You couldn’t drive the ramps cause the chamber of commerce had insisted that some of the rubble be used to barricade the parking structure. You could make it to the top in one of those gas guzzling Humvee tank cars, or a 1987 Oldsmobile cutlass with a secretary in the back seat. All I had was my two feet, too much time on my hands, and not enough good sense to tell David to kiss off. He joined me on this litter adventure.

On level three he turned to me and started to push me toward the edge of the garage. He was playing around so I grabbed him by his backpack, kicked out his knee and began to drag him toward the edge. Man can Dave fight like a cat in a burlap back when he needs to. All I was able to do was toss his ball cap over the edge and the two of us watched it flutter down to the broken pavement below. When it hit, he just turned to me and mouthed ‘asshole.’ We both laughed. That’s what friends do.

We broke into the glaring sunlight of the top floor of the garage. When our eyes adjusted we didn’t find any Humvees or Oldsmobile’s. Just broken chunks of concrete from the mall and a few parking lot light poles that had been rammed by drunk high schoolers until the place looked like it was littered with gigantic alien antenna pointing homeward in all weird directions.

“See it?” he said.

“No. You idiot. I don’t see anything.” I stopped, ‘cause I did see it, or at least I thought I saw it. “You mean that thing?” David nodded. In the middle of the floor sat one of those old claw bath tubs. Painted in horrendous florescent paint, all sunflowers and daises. The only thing more out of place would be David at a graduation ceremony.

We walked over to it and saw that there was ‘stuff’ in the tub. “It gets better,” David said as we got near. “it’s full of books.’ He said. Not just books mind you, text books. Old, heavy, 400 pagers. I picked one up and looked at the title. “An der Entstehung der Arten.” Gibberish as far as I was concerned. It wasn’t English, and it wasn’t porn. I wasn’t interested. Flipping through the first few pages I did recognize a name: Charles Darwin. I showed the cover page to David.

“Didn’t they name an award after him, you know for being stupid and dying?” That rang a bell, so I snapped the cover shut and threw the book at him. David had cat like reflexes and he ducked the tome as it whizzed passed his forehead. My guess is it landed somewhere near his ball cap.

Looking through that weird bathtub on top of an abandoned parking garage was a mystery – no doubt about it. By the time we walked outa there and picked up David’s ball cap we forgot all about it.

Piffin:

“Cain’s Bathtub”

I lose heart
I lose hope
As I work with the soap
And I fight this indelible smudge
I scrape and I scrub
But, with God as my judge,
This damnable mark just won’t budge

~.~.~

“Faerie Web”

~.~.~

Glass Table

Bartalk:

Nexus ~ A Collection (Previously Reviewed)

Piffin:

“Gun”

You cast brown eyes upon me

Like a line into my ocean

And caught a frail piranha

That you should have thrown back in

I wooed you with pornography

Vanilla body lotion

And soul Americana

Picking fights I’ll never win

I want to beat John Boehner up

And fuck Ani Difranco

I want to steal a Sherman tank

And drive it through the mall

Or hitchhike to Bolivia

And rob myself a banco

And die, more butch than Sundance,

With my back against the wall

Still, you back every silly scheme

Each pharma-fueled ambition

And help me to the garden

Where we watch the setting sun

While night begins to fall

A response call to my condition

I find the strength to stand

And hold the moonlight in my hand

Just like a gun

I take myself on trips sometimes

That fairytale beginning

When I only looked forward

To the memories we’d share

I never thought I’d be the type

To wonder who was winning

Or feel the ice in Spanish eyes

That cut me with a stare

Most days I walk a tightrope

It’s an act I have a flair for

While you run far below me

Stretching nets from end to end

Some mornings I feel all you need

Is something broke to care for

It’s on those somber mornings

I curse wings that never mend

Though afternoons are golden

Laughter teeming like a shower

That lights the brilliant colors

Of this tapestry we’ve spun

Some evenings there is only dusk

That holds a weary hour

Where words escape

That blow holes in the things we cherish most

Just like a gun

I love that you don’t pity me

My past or weak illusions

You love that I take comfort

In the honesty you crave

You hate it when I hate myself

And all life’s grim conclusions

And lie here on this bed of ours

As if it were my grave

My hand around my throat

A useless noose, a faithless daughter

I cry inside for darkness

You undress and close the door

You walk across my moat

A barefoot saint upon the water

While I lie here in candlelight

Caparisoned for war

You penetrate my armor

With Latina ammunition

Warm lips that grace the nylons

On my legs, each careless run

‘Til I give up my foxhole

In this fray of soft attrition

And finally lay my heart down in surrender

At your feet

Just like a gun

Greymane:

“Big As The Sky”

Reaching for rainbows and tripping on stars

I followed the future she told with her scars.

I called for an answer, she leapt at the sun

and ran from a feeling she could not outrun.

Her eyes told a story, her passion a song

In all of her glory how could I belong?

She took my hand softly, I started to fly,

My heart opened up to her big as the sky.

She opened her arms and I quickly fell in

My lost soul returning from where it had been.

Drifting forgotten and lost in the black

I took hold of her magic and found my way back.

Her radiance blinding me, nothing unsaid,

She lovingly pulled me back into my head.

Her heavenly body could make anyone cry.

My feelings had grown for her big as the sky.

From the Sea of Tranquility to way beyond Mars

It’s hard to hold on to the spirit of stars.

If someone would find me alone on the moon

They’d say that I left Earth a little too soon.

But call me an angel to strap to my sleigh

And you’ll find I will meet you a bit past halfway.

From this moment on ’til our final goodbye

There’s a home in my heart for her big as the sky.

~.~.~

“Slave to Love”

Written and Performed by: Bryan Ferry

Guitar: David Gilmour

Tell her I’ll be waiting
In the usual place
With the tired and weary
And there’s no escape

To need a woman
You’ve got to know
How the strong get weak
And the rich get poor

Slave to love

You’re running with me
But don’t touch the ground
We’re the restless hearted
Not the chained and bound

The sky is burning
A sea of flame
Though your world is changing
I will be the same

Slave to love