Forelsket feelings from celestia,
let yourself fall into that blessing.
Cassette mix created just for you,
may coax us into undressing.
Pillow talk so soft and savage,
slow down get a little deeper.
Intro lines are not needed now,
blow me kisses make my soul stir.
(I decided not to enter this in a contest as I like the title to be Frozen Bloom --still conceiving this...)
she was sitting by the old porch
holding a yearbook
when he returned to his old abode
he saw her with thumb sandwiched by the pages
where a tiny blossom was pressed
the lavender hue slowly turning into grey
as if it was there sometime ago
he could hear a sonata fading from afar
as he was about to run to her,
she turned her face away
and vanished in the gossamer silhouette of the fading twilight
winter came, his heart was a cold as snowflakes landing on his cheeks
that Monday morning
and he found this blossom
this frozen blossom hanging on cherry branch
as if it was the last to cling
she was not there in the old porch
gone were the hanging vines
that waltzed with the west wind
gone were the sweet songs from a cassette recorder
but the rocking chair was still there~
he sighed and whispered to the frozen blossom
that he'll keep on waiting till he hear her footsteps
coming close to him once again
even when he knew not when.
Mistakes of our past are packaged ballads
recorded on an eight track cassette
constantly rewinding itself track after track
haunting us with its infinite instrumentals
of despair,oppression, and depression
No matter how many times
we turn down our audio Pandora Box
the mixed tapes of our mistakes never cease
to record the lyrics of those ballads
composed and sung in those
bitter, powerful , rhythmic
demonic voices
of Lucifer, the front man
and his backup band of dark spirits
endlessly mocking and taunting us
of our past afflictions and transgressions
with their raging, high tempo staccato tracks
like fiery arrows and poisonous snakes
piercing through every fiber of our mortal souls
I heard a voice,
a static laugh, playing on a cassette tape
A muffled cry, looped into a comedy show.
Buzzing, ringing, echoing...
It keeps repeating—
Piercing through to bone,
Gripping my chest as if
My fingers might crush it—
Opening my mouth to
Spit out my heart.
A vast cage called home,
A bleak stage called family...
"Can’t this relationship go beyond rights and duties?"
No matter how desperate,
Or how much I beg—
There is no return,
Neither safe escape
Nor a crossroads...
Acceptance would never come.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Every Breath You Take — The Police
Total Eclipse of the Heart — Bonnie Tyler
Against All Odds — Phil Collins)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They dance behind my ribs, these ghosts~
Every breath you take,
Every move you make,
I hear them still, though the speakers are cracked.
The night is a bruise, purple-black,
Turn around, bright eyes,
but the stars won’t rise,
just the hum of a neon vacancy sign.
And the odds? They laugh in my face.
How can you just walk away
when the ache stays,
a cassette tape jammed in an old machine~
rewinding,
rewinding,
but never
playing clean.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the year slips loose~
a cassette tape unraveling
in the teeth of an old machine.
we try to press rewind,
but the film keeps curling
into shadows:
laughter caught in a stranger’s doorway,
a missed train dissolving into steam,
the way your hands held silence
like a fallen leaf.
now, the calendar thins~
we fold the days smaller,
smaller,
until they fit inside a pocket~
a quiet weight
to carry into the dark.
It was a wonderful year -
nineteen hundred and eight-five,
the first time I'd known mutual love.
Physical touch was our love language,
and yet we were eight thousand miles apart
when calls were a week's pay...
and so, you sung words of affirmation,
your voice on cassette, the Christmas carols
that so touched my heart.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I.
Grandmother's teacup—
chipped rim against morning light.
Steam carries her voice
through kitchen's cinnamon haze.
My thumb traces where hers did.
II.
October wind gusts,
scattering maple keys like
childhood marbles. Lost
in tall grass, knees stained with earth—
was that laughter or the rain?
III.
Old cassette tape whines
a song we danced to once.
Silence between notes
holds the shape of your shoulder
against mine. Still warm. Still here.
Hot off the heels of Back in Black
A face melting 10 track
From the opening with cannon blast and more
It went to number one, Back in Black only number four
What? You question and rightly so
How did Back in Black peak so low?
Not sure, but none are out done
All AC/DC albums are number one
Even Powerage (the anti-disco disc)
And Flick of the Switch
Will scratch where you itch
(don't scratch the vinyl)
Or Fly on the Wall some say
Doesn't fly the AC/DC way
Hey it's all AC/DC when tracks are laid down
So put it in the 8-track, cassette or CD
into the player and rock your hometown
So when I listen to AC/DC my neighbors do too
All the way through (the mists of time):
For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)
(P.S. Thank you Daniel Mannix for the history of the Coliseum in Rome
AC/DC wouldn't have had the inspiration without reading your tome)
(P.S.S. AC/DC music has spawned more air guitarists
Than any other group or suzerainty or boxcarists)
How perversely exciting it used to be, in
the months after you made your decision
to abandon this hopeless situation
meaning [rueful laughter] the UK, not so much
the shattered bones of you and me
I was still hanging on, a faithful puppy
getting up early and heading out to Heathrow
to provide the welcome committee
and then I went straight to work? and where
did you go on those days?
I forget you had other friends, and
that strangely I wasn't the epicentre
of your multiverse
30 years have passed
the children you had with Wolfgang cycle shorts
may even have children now, but
Facebook won't furnish me with that information
On those airport journeys I always listened to
the Blood on the Tracks cassette
I found in the office 'library', a source of much wonder
which also included rare volumes, magazines
and actual vinyl. They didn't appreciate what they had
and neither, here comes the punch-
line, did I
Sadly I breathe misery
From all that’s happened to me
It’s difficult to forget
What’s played in the minds cassette.
I amble along in fog
Can’t glimpse the sun for the smog
Or grass of green, it’s unseen
If only it was a dream.
But then a nightmare it’d be
A dream I’d not wish to see
It’s no kind of paradise
What lies there before my eyes.
I rise up in the morning
Praying no mist is forming
So that my vision is clear
From dawn until stars appear.
Rarely I sleep through the night
Demons hound my head with fright
I wish I could find some peace
So that my worries would cease.
To inhale joy I must do
Whenever I’m down and blue
There’ll be an answer for me
Till then I’ll breathe misery.
Side A:
Players of an album made...
Vinyl, cassette, CD.
Audio output displayed
To ears of you and me.
Mono in the days of old
For output of a song.
Better mixing would unfold
When stereo came along.
Physicality was more
Abundant way back when.
One went to the music store
To buy albums - and then...
Side B:
...after years of being sold
In shops to you and me,
Music nowadays is told
And heard in MP3.
One's collection can be built
Online and through their phone.
Consider music as a quilt
With tracks together sewn.
Who would have visioned or thought
That since days of devices,
Artists can be streamed and bought
At reasonable prices?
Quicksand caught generation epoch,
restless whirring of a drill in the dust.
Zenith of color shifts saturation to none,
black and white film on video cassette.
Ensnared in a cage lowering to molten,
hourglass is losing sand to run dry.
Eyes fixate to the sunny horizon,
flicker dims as monsters crawl,
from beneath beds, closets,
bathroom stalls.
Those noises,
creaks in the floor,
are very real.
Ignore them,
rummy for thy belly to fill.
Turn up the radio and ...
It's the same ol' situation,
The same songs, same band
That raised my generation
That was then, this is now
Nothing's changed but my age,
And four numbers, somehow
On a calendar's page ...
It happened again today
In the store where I shopped,
In the restaurant, I heard it play
Proving the 80's never stopped
That was then, this is now
O, to revive a faded fad,
If we never forget how
Good times can still be had
Life, like a cassette tape
With two sides, was designed,
From Side A, Side B can't escape
If you just press rewind ...
Roses curve almost as delightful as her curves
Roses curve like cursive italics
Roses curve like bed sheets
We sleep on petals in Brazil, eyes azul
Love is crazy and I'm a fool
For you I'd drop dead by bullet because your gorgeous shouts gracious goodness
Roses made the word vivacious
Curves that aren't tasteless
Let's face it nobody knows where lost souls find hope
But when we slow dance with no audience, I swear I've found it
Roses die but the feelings forever grow
Roses curve like her smile and it makes joy bloom
Roses bow but this bouquet isn't for the play
She takes center stage
My darlin darlin, my gorgeous rose
This love is old school, it's all I need
Old school cassette tapes with the same warm sound as your voice
Vinyl symphonies that match your heartbeat
I just want that to be
My theme music for my paper machete mentality
Molding this house of balloons while I watch channel orange
Her Divine Feminine sharing the same background
With my Igor reflection
Love is a wasteland
But the petals we dance on make it easier
p.s. the world slows down with you in my arms...
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