Falling in love with the librarian,
eye contact over a book pile
I've plopped down on the countertop,
my heart races faster than the rate on late fees.
She's pursed her lips so not to register the ring
up clacked out? Ink-blurry, the amount owed,
the receipt runs numbers into my sweaty palm
as she flaps my Dewey Decimals of cash dry.
Double doors click shut behind her exit.
Drafts dilute her air-conditioned scent.
Her shout released in another man's arms
revving her Ford, they drive off.
Betsy Ross sewed the US flag with ease
Fellow countrymen were more or less pleased
A Scotsman stole her design
His wife sewed something so fine
Flags doubling as kilts ~ Waving in the breeze
Of technology’s many gifts
many receive remarkably short shrift
Yet without one of its aging marvels
the entire civilized world unravels
So, I’d like all those short shrifters
just one sweltering summer to envision
their homes ~ un-air-conditioned
Ideal citizens, you.
Dreamed-of private individuals,
With villas and servants.
Feasts, travels, lavish meals,
And drugs at the disposal of life.
Bravery is tiring,
Easier is indulgence,
Though it does not fill the belly.
With luxury you melt in saunas,
With androgyne butterflies.
And then, in the mighty air-conditioned
halls of Sodom,
you offer your seed
to Sterfos,
the tunnelled demigod.
Apparently,
I was a naughty boy
At three,
Disappearing in a shopping centre,
Lost for what felt like hours.
Legend has it,
The infant siren song caught air-conditioned wind
And led the search party to a curtained grotto.
She tells me, there, they found
My talent on display,
A song and dance before a giant mirror,
While curious stranger neighbours
Changed their clothes.
I don’t believe the myth,
I had no talent then and precious little now, I think.
But it sure sounds fun.
Rumour has it, the best days are behind us.
Though my young’un’s on her way
into legend now.
Loves that tale.
We stepped carelessly outside
one hot August day,
to see the seething summer sun
and her wrath on us she lay.
The sweltering heat
it struck us first,
and sent us hunting for shade
dizzy with thirst.
So heavy was that air
so unforgiving that cruel sun,
she scalded my skin to blisters
then blinded my eyes for fun.
In the shade of an oak
for a moment we lay,
but through the branches she pushed
and relief she burned away.
Waving our white flag
back inside we did retreat,
to the air-conditioned rooms
sighed the sun 'vengeance is sweet'.
On those long days
when it was too hot to ride
or run, a boy would find
an island of cool beneath
a tree and sit there
with his pocket knife
to whittle away time
and a piece of wood.
A good blade could shape
the hull of a model boat
or thinly peel an apple
or carve a name clean
into the smooth bark
of a spotted gum.
There was a world to make
with a pocket knife,
mine a pearl handled beauty
with two folding blades,
short and long.
It was beyond the mind
to think it a weapon, only
a treasured possession
of pure utility, a tool
for hands to bring forth
a creation or to cut free
a form from its binding.
Finally,
years saw its blades become
blunt and spend less time
in my pocket, more languishing
at the bottom of a drawer.
It's still preserved with
a nostalgic reverence.
Nowadays, whittling
has become a lost art for boys,
pocket knives tarnished
by a new age and drafted
for duty in the service
of fear. On those long days
when it is too hot
to do anything much,
hands still crave to carve
things that substitute
for a piece of wood,
twitching away
in the cramped solitude
of an air-conditioned self.
I turned ten two days ago,
I blew out the candles with a heavy sigh.
You were born today,
Still.
Your lips inherited
The reddest hue of cardinal feathers,
Your rice paper skin
Pale and soft, fresh as silken snow.
I never knew what your eyes looked like
They never opened
Infinite iris colors
Never to be discovered
When I held you in my arms,
The guiding hand of God
drifted away
I gave the coldest of shoulders I suppose.
I looked outside the hospital window,
A frigid breeze made
The trees sway with unease
But all the leaves stayed in place.
A confetti of dust drifted
In the air conditioned hospital room
And time yet stood still
On my brother's only birthday.
There’s not much to love in the land of
72 ounce steaks
Air-conditioned grace droning over
AR-15 soaked Saturdays
Remembering is not the problem these days
Rather it is forgetting that
Children can have new names
If they pick them up with their own hands
The bootstraps have all but worn off
these snakeskin boots
And I am tired of something I can’t put my mind to yet
But I never thought I would love
Bird feces soliloquies
Thanksgiving apart from family
Humidity on top of humidity
Or evenings that never turn to nights
So I’ll just hold my own name
Firmly in soiled hands until I can
Plant it back in the ground
Where it belongs, beside a cool swift stream
Shaded by a bigleaf maple
My love for language is the best
Yet my love for her goes far mile than that.
She lightens my heart with her smile
Even when in the nighttime, I see through her heart.
She is that- subsisting
Who makes me feel healed when drained.
I recollect the night devoured with her.
Her eyes flicker more than a diamond
Her lips are far more seducing than the pinkies
Her figure might not be the best but triggers me to the right
Her smooth pointers make me feel warm
Even in the harmattan season,
I feel I am covered in an air-conditioned season with her
I shall pronounce not her inscription,
For I know not who she is owned by
She is my conviction
For I confide in her
Even the peacock is not as peaceful as she is
Yet, She bears the name
©DR.MILLZ
He did not feel the hot summer heat,
For at night the boat was his retreat.
A lissom breeze gave him a great treat.
Smell, the fresh air was fragrant and sweet.
His lass slept quietly at her seat.
Then the sun will rise and both will greet.
Quickly got up and their lips did meet.
Their breakfast prepared so they did eat.
The large boat kept steady, quite a feat.
But time was up, they made a retreat
To the port, a manoeuvre complete.
There the perfect berthing place so neat.
Their big boat so large was like a suite,
It was air-conditioned, they slept sweet.
The heat is so oppressive, I’m tempted to agree
Hell couldn’t be any hotter indeed, so I shall flee
To the arctic regions of my air-conditioned home
Becoming a sad recluse like a disconcerted gnome,
Thank goodness, I am a southerner of true gentility
Knowing the intrinsic value of homemade iced tea!
Written July 23, 2022
(My late father was a construction worker.Remember him on Father's Day.)
The construction workers with
Sweating foreheads
Dry throats
Burning skins
Blinding eyes
Struggle to build
An air-conditioned roof
Under the sun
For you and especially for you
While themselves
Working at a place
Without a fan or an air conditioner
But under a burning sun
Hanging from a roof called the sky
By the goldfish pond at the end
of the walk, a spider labors intricately
in the overhanging sage and rosemary
to build a snare for thirsty prey.
A deadly spiral from the center out.
Out here on the side of the hill
I call my yard, the sun burns through
my shirt and the humidity is thick
enough to drown the impulse I had
to get something done today.
I thought to cut the grass, or repair
that place on the house where the rain
has eaten away the wood. I’ve got
gas for the mower, and lumber,
everything I need except the ambition
of my youth when nothing could
stand in my way. But now, I’m not
so hungry I feel any urgency to spin
anything except around, and head
back inside the air-conditioned den
to worry about what just happened.
Copyright
Vol Lindsey
11/25/2011
She sponges her face to brightness.
She has been depressed before
but this trench her mind trudges through
is full of a clinging dark mud
and she can't get out of.
At work she has to teach her hands
to do things she has done a thousand times before.
Then there is the mirror,
she cleans and wipes it constantly
but at each glace she sees her face blurring
as it leaves for nowhere.
She eats alone, the restaurant erupts
with an air-conditioned laughter
that makes her head spin.
Back home she drinks and drunks.
Her friend calls:
"That guy in Section D,
wants me. Last week still hurts.”
“This morning I almost didn’t.”
she replied.
There is a long pause,
duct tape holds together the center -
just.
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