Category: EMOTIONAL

ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS -THE BU

~ LouLou ~ 5 Comments

In a current of unexpected waves I floated towards the Pacific Ocean, and landed along the anfractuous Santa Monica Mountains. Malibu where exotic fish are silhouettes behind glass aquariums perched on  sand dunes or in swank foreign carriers has bitten my interest to understand how an exotic lives.  malibu-colony1

The salty seaweed smell of the ocean streams through my car, driving down Pacific coast highway on my way to buy groceries. Vintage Market  is new to Malibu, and clerks are giddy about their jobs. They may be aspiring actors or were aspiring actors. I walk in and get a phone call that I’d been waiting for so, I set my cart down on a shelf and took the call. During the half hour call, my eyes were fluttering through the scene: tanned surfers, affluent college students, and diamond rich men and women of age, that don’t check their bank balance. Because of this, expressions are chilled as fine wines, and smiles are polite or radiating. They are a content population of 13,000, median home price is $901,000, and the median income household is $127,000. Here in Malibu every thing looks different from Santa Fe: The staging of ‘was in the business, am in the business, or want to be in the business,’ surfaces and dominates the scenery.

malibu_forbes-11528TThey are beautiful-the young teenagers who surf and paddle are true blondes, the blue eyes scintillating pools of water, young women are saddled onto 6” platforms, and then there are the stand-out power people, who will not acknowledge anyone, and expect everyone to acknowledge them. Tucked in the mountains, are extraordinary artists who live off the grid the way most people prefer to live in Santa Fe.
I am learning slowly and still hiding out at Chantal’s. Where I am living, two miles up from PCH off a dirt road, behind a gate, there are Bohemians, artists, home-office screenwriters, producers, and famous heirs of recognizable movie stars.
In the last two weeks my head feels lighter, and my heart is not aching for the Thinker, or my sunken red room where I dreamt of moving to Malibu. What I began twenty years ago is my primary act of indulgence; completion of my book, “Growing Up with Gangsters.”

In the last hour I walked down the road in the hands of sloping hillsides, horse ranches, and signature homes behind walls as high as the palm trees, built to withstand the typhoons of mankind. In  daylight  swirl of rain and clouds, it was as if I was in Ireland, walking along a road in Kilkenny, and then I roped in my imagination and returned to the mountains here, that will teach me how far to go, how to duck a car, or confront a coyote or a snake.
A full transcendental moon dipped into the black-out mountain evening, and has cured me of interior turmoil for the time being. This is part of adventures in livingness in what locals call the bu. TO BE CONTINUED

SMILEY & SIEGEL

~ LouLou ~ 4 Comments

THE SIEGEL SMILEY LEGACYReuniting with Millicent at the Mob Experience.
BY: Luellen Smiley
When I was eleven years old  our home burnt to the ground in the Bel Air fire, and everything we owned fell to ash. Shortly after my mother moved us to an apartment in Brentwood, a mammoth carton arrived and was placed in the center of the living room. My mother cut it open and urged me to look inside. I sat cross-legged on the avocado green carpeting and discovered bundles of garments; Bermuda shorts, blouses, sweaters, and shirts.
I quickly shed my worn trousers and stepped into a new outfit, dancing about as I zipped myself in. My mother watched, and echoed my childish yelps of elation.
“Mommy, who are these from?”
“They’re from your Aunt Millicent.”
“Who is she? I don’t remember her.”
“You were a little girl. She loves you very much.”
Years later, my father, Allen Smiley, called and told me to come over to his apartment in Hollywood.
“Why Dad?”
“Millicent is coming by; I told you she moved here, didn’t I?”
I’d learned Millicent was Benjamin Siegel’s daughter, and Ben was my father’s best friend. Dad was sitting on the same chintz covered sofa the night Ben was murdered.
“You mean Ben Siegel’s daughter?”
“Don’t refer to her that way ever again; do you hear me? She is Aunt Millicent to you.”
When my father answered the door, I watched as they embraced. Millicent had tears in her eyes. She walked over to me, and took my hand. I looked into her swimming pool blue eyes and felt as if I was drowning. She sat on the edge of the sofa and lit a long brown Sherman cigarette. I studied her frosted white nails, the way she crossed her legs at the ankles, her platinum blonde hair, and the way her bangs draped over one eye. What impressed me most was her voice; like a child’s whisper, her tone was delicate as a rose petal.
I spent the rest of that afternoon memorizing her behavior. She emanated composure and a reserve that distanced her from uninvited intrusion.
Over the next few years, Millicent and I were joined through my father’s arrangements, but I was never alone with her. When he died in 1982, she was one of only three friends at his memorial service.
As the years passed, and my tattered address books were replaced with new ones, I lost Millicent’s phone number. I had been researching my father’s life in organized crime, and had gained an understanding of my father’s bond with Ben Siegel. My discoveries were adapted into a memoir and recently into a film script about growing up with gangsters. During this time, I had reconnected with several of Dad’s inner-circle, but Millicent was underground, and now I understood why.
Last year I received an email from Cynthia Duncan, Meyer Lansky’s step-granddaughter. She told me about Jay Bloom, the man behind the Las Vegas Mob Experience, a state of the art museum that will take visitors into the personal histories of Las Vegas gangsters. Cynthia contributed her significant collection of Meyer Lansky memorabilia, and assured me Jay was paying tribute to the historical narrative of these men by using relatives rather than government and media sources. She wanted me to be involved.
Despite my apprehensions about the debasing and one-sided publicity that characteristically surrounds gangster history, I contacted Jay. In his return note, he invited me to participate, and added, “Millicent would like to contact you.”
A month later I was seated in Jay’s office waiting for Millicent. When she walked in, I stood to embrace her, and this time the tears were in my eyes.
Millicent’s voice was unchanged and so was her regal posture. “Our fathers were best friends, attached at the hip. Your Dad was at the house all the time. I’ll never forget when he and my mother met me at the train station to tell us about my father’s… death. Smiley was very good to us. My mother adored him too.”
Jay took me on a tour of the collection warehouse, and the history I’d read about unfolded before my eyes. The preview room was like a family room to me, because some of the men had been my father’s lifelong friends and protectors. I stopped in front of the Ben Siegel display case and saw an object that was very familiar.
“My father has the identical ivory figurine of an Asian woman. I still have it.” So much of their veiled history was exposed; between these two men was a brotherly bond that transcended their passing and was even evident in their shared taste in furnishings.
Jay showed me a layout of the Mob Experience in progress. I turned to him and asked, “Is it too late to include my father? All the rooms are assigned.”
“Millicent and I already spoke about it. She wants your Dad in Ben’s room.”
After I returned home, Millicent and I talked on the phone.
“Your father belongs in my Dad’s room. They’ll just have to make Mickey Cohen’s room smaller.”
“My father hated Mickey,” I said.
“So did mine! When are you coming back? I’ll kill you if you don’t become part of this.”

Reuniting with Millicent at the Mob Experience.
Reuniting with Millicent at the Mob Experience.

 

WHO WAS MY FATHER?

~ LouLou ~ 6 Comments

I began my research WITH WHAT I HAD; one of my father’s books; “The Mark Hellinger Story.” I leafed through the index and there was my father’s name along with Ben Siegel’s. According to the biographer, my father visited Mark at his home the night before he died. Mark had stood up in court for my father and Ben at one of their hearings. He was fond of Ben, like so many people were, that aren’t here to tell their story.
After reading the book I rented, The Roaring Twenties, written by Mark, and from there the connections, relationships, and characters began to leap out from all directions. I
submerged myself in history and photocopied pictures of my father’s movie star friends, George Raft, Eddie Cantor, Clark Gable, and his gangsters friends. I found photographs of the nightclubs he frequented, the Copacabana, El Morocco, and Ciro’s and nightclubs that he referred to in his mysterious conversations. I made a collage of the pictures and posted them above my desk. I played Tommy Dorsey records while I wrote. This microcosm of life that was created, allowed me to listen to the whispers and discover the secrets.
I dug into my father’s history without knowing how deep I had to go, or what shattering evidence would cross my path. In my heart I felt this was crossing a spiritual bridge to my parents. The flip side was a gripping torment, tied to my
prying mind. I needed to break into the files in order to break my silence, and discover my parents, not glamorized stereotypes that fit into the category of Copa dancer and gangster. No matter what I uncovered, I always knew it would be ambiguous, and controversial. I did not expect to find a record of murder, dope peddling, and prostitution. I believed that his crimes were around the race track and in gambling partnerships. Even so, I could never understand the similarities we shared, unless I knew them as people. Though I have not rebelled against authority as my father did, I‘m not a team player, I resist authority, and I don’t like waiting in lines.
I had to reinvent my mother through the subconscious. I skated over thin ice trying to set her truth apart, from what I
had invented, dreamed, or had been told. I listened to Judy Garland’s recordings, and premonitions surfaced, of how my mother loved Judy, how it must have felt to be under the spot lights of MGM, and dancing in ginger bread musicals while her own life was draped with film noir drama.
I studied my mother’s face in all her films, rewinding and stopping the tape, as if she might suddenly return my glance. She had dancing and background shots in the musicals produced by Arthur Freed. I remembered dad talking about Arthur, and how prestigious it was to be in his department.
When I discovered the Museum of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, I went down and filled out a slip of paper with my mother’s name on it and waited for my number to be called. I felt something like a mother discovering her child’s first triumph. They handed me a large perfectly stainless manila envelope, and a pair of latex gloves to handle the file. I had to look through it in front of a clerk.
“That’s my mother,” I proclaimed. He blinked and returned his attention to a memo pad. Inside the envelope were black and while glossy studio photographs, press releases, and studio biographies of my mother. The woman who pressed my clothes, washed my hair, and made my tuna sandwiches. There she was in front of the train, for Meet Me in St. Louis, and a promotional photograph in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, dated 1947. That was the year Ben was shot. I looked further to find more clues. I needed to know where she was the night Ben was murdered. Maybe she was on location when it happened. Maybe she was in New York at the opening of the film. I could not place her on June 20, the day Ben was murdered. I imagined my father called her and told her the news. The marriage plans were postponed, their engagement suspended. My father had to get out of town.
I spent everyday picking through the myths I’d heard and read. I heard a clear chord of scorn, for exposing family secrets, “It’s nobody’s business what goes on in our family, don’t discuss our family with anyone, Do You Hear Me!” I must have heard that a thousand times.
I began to dig with an iron shovel. I asked every question I wasn’t supposed to ask, and preyed into every sector of their life. I wanted to know about his childhood, where he grew up, and why he left home when he was thirteen years old. Who were my grandparents, and why didn’t he talk about them. How did he meet Ben Siegel and Johnny Roselli, and when did he cross over into the rackets?
I contacted historians, archivists, judges, attorneys, Police Chiefs, FBI agents, authors and reporters across the United States. He always said, “Reporters can destroy your life overnight.” And here I was, uncovering what he had sheltered all his life.

I wrote to the INS in WDC and asked for their assistance. Six months later I received a letter from the INS in Los Angeles. They acknowledged his file, it was classified and they could not locate it. The progress was tediously slow, and the waiting oppressive.
While I waited for the files, I read Damon Runyon, and Raymond Chandler stories and attempted to identify which character personified which gangster. The stories were about the people that came to my birthday parties, Swifty Morgan, Nick the Greek, Frank Costello and Abner Zwillman,(the Boss of the New Jersey syndicate.) The dialect of Runyon and Winchell mimicked the same anecdotes my father used over and over! By understanding Runyon’s characters I began to know my father. At night I watched old gangster movies and that opened another door of familiarity.

I read almost every book in print about the Mafia and ordered out of print books from all over the country. They began to topple on my head from the shelf above the desk. Allen Smiley was in dozens of them. Every author portrayed him differently, he was a Russian Jew, a criminal, Bugsy’s right hand man, a dope peddler, a race track tout, and sometimes the words bled on my arm. To me, he was a benevolent father, a wise counselor and a man who worshipedscan0002 me.
The INS claimed my father was one of the most dangerous criminals in the United States. They said he was Benjamin Siegel’s assistant. They said he was taking over now that Ben was gone.
That day I put the file away, and looked into the window of truth. How much could I bear to hear more?

Mom and Dad second from Left. I don’t know the other people.

MUST TO MOONLIGHT

~ LouLou ~ 3 Comments

 

MAXFIELD PARRISH

 

Now that you know I am leaving Santa Fe on an exploration of destination,  there you are again.  Igniting my flashbulbs for the seamless cinema-scope of Santa Fe, you are toggling behind me in the snow, as I plow, sweep and sprinkle salt, you are there when I am in the parade and choosing my characters to congregate, and make a party, and you are there when I wake up in the morning, to draw me out of the down comfort, sheets and pillows that bemoan me leaving, I want to get up and begin the day, because you are there, turning up the music, and opening the laptop to a new page, and the journal to a new entry, and my books that have punished me for not reading them. They are dusty and wrinkled from my sleepy attempts to find the water bottle and drink, and then the spills fall on them.  You are there when I am cleaning the stove and bathroom floors, a reminder to get on the floor and douse the tiles with love,  listen to music while I  vacuum, and end the day with my  shoes off and slouching in a comfy chair.   You are not dormant spirit, you are rising from the labyrinth of an imagined life and one that is moonlight.

MAXFIELD PARRISH

GET UP AND LISTEN

~ LouLou ~ 3 Comments

charlie-hebdo-cartoon2I DON’T LIKE WRITING IN THIS ROOM  any more: the window glass  smudged and dusty and I don’t feel like cleaning it, or buying a privacy screen because my front door is glass, and behind it is my living space: sleeping, dressing, eating and working room.

I can’t write in this room because the surroundings are stale to my eye, the rhythm too familiar, the noise still too noisy.   At least that is what I have convinced myself are the reasons.  If I admit I am seeking alternate locations, then my right hand slaps my left hand and cries;  moving doesn’t solve anything!

CONCURRENTLY to my attitude,   the doors opened to a new  opportunity, and closed as suddenly.  A common misunderstanding between sincerity and acting.  It took me three days to accept this disappointment.  A woman and her adorable daughter made a verbal commitment with her attorney present, that she would lease the house for six months, beginning February.   This would enable me to move to Southern California for an exploratory mission on returning home. I haven’t lived in Los Angeles since 1993. My friends rallied behind my winning streak.  The universe did not bring this tenant to me, I brought my offering to the universe by listening to friends, who encouraged me and injected the confidence to complete the mission. I’ve been known to launch rocket ship ideas and leave them wandering in space until another launcher discovers them.

THEN CAME WEDNESDAY.   I was at my desk  when the news broke.  I turned away from work, and spent two days gaping at the unfolding events in Paris.  Real time images, shot by shocked photo journalists, and narrative so ridden with horror, racing from one scene to another.   There were heroes, and the terrorists  and byline stories that will erupt over the next few months. The stories of each individual at Charlie Hebdo Headquarters, the policeman who pleaded for his life, and the French Police and Special Forces that stormed the enemy, knowing they too may be shot.

The next day the Kosher grocery store, and the printing press. Reporters here in the USA, stumbled on reporting the news, and misrepresenting the events.  I could see their chests heaving, the terror in their eyes, and it slapped me out of my cavern of comfort.  It hits all of us at different speeds and times, and although I am a firm believer in the war that we are not paying attention to, this day I was brandished in awareness.

I sought immediate camaraderie. I dressed at dusk,  half-work out half cocktail, whatever you call that and went to the Staab House at La Posada.    Cynical Steve was at the bar, to the left of me two suited gentlemen;   discussing a financial deal over a few hundred thousand.  In the salon several sipping couples, almost whispering. :

“Steve, did you hear what happened?” I asked

” You mean Paris?”

“Yes.”

“Yea… yea.” And as he moved away to retrieve glasses, and bottles, I pulled him back.

” Do you know what happened?’

” Tell me. I only heard part of it ?”

I retold the events as I remembered them, emphasizing  the courage of the French Swat teams and Police to blow the hostage situation wide open.

” Wow. ” he replied.

I looked up at the TV screen, football .. what a surprise. They don’t feature anything else unless by request of  celebrity, executive or neighbor. I am the neighbor.

” Can you turn on the news?  You’ll want to see  this.”  Cynical and a cupid of suppressed intelligence,  Steve switched channels. He then stopped his razor rapid chopping, cleaning, and servicing the bar to watch.

THE TWO MEN  seated next to me who were slicing up strategy over  a few hundred thousand dollars suddenly turned to the screen. I waited. Then they vocalized simultaneously their shock.

I turned to the one closet. ” I’ve been watching all day.” I said.

” It is just  horrible. ”  Then he shook his head.  The other suit echoed the same comment.

Then they returned to dicing up the thousands of dollars.

I took a another sip of wine and waited for another subject to interact with.

A woman showed up at the bar and sat down. She buried herself in a book about Indian Spiritualist and did not ever look up, only to answer her  I Phone.

As I was leaving the hotel through the lobby I checked for expressions.  The hostess was swaying back and forth on her heels, the concierge was   buried in catalogs and her  computer. The valet outside commented, ” Not too cold tonight.”

SOME of our media reported beyond professionalism. They showed their  feelings.   I am   awakened.

Are you?

 

 

 

DROPPING OF THE THINKER

~ LouLou ~ 5 Comments

It’s been a month since I’ve seen the Thinker.   The time was spent luxuriating in thought and activity.   They became days of resurrecting my business, writing, and staying at home, where my fantasia of comfort welcomes me.  Above my bed, I hung an umbrella. A vintage peach faded Parasol. One day, while I was searching for a place to store my ribbons, I looked up and watched the light sprinkle through the Parasol.  So that is where I stored the ribbons. When I am in bed during an afternoon nap,  I see abstractions of figures:  dancers, faces,  gods, and gorillas.  The Thinker noticed the abstraction. I think he said, ” Wow, this is incredible. Do you see the legs? And there is the face.”  He took everything in and profited  from imagination.  He had a thousand virtues, that regrettably did not serve him.  dsc01740.jpgI don’t know why.  You know I want answers, that is why I write.

THE THINKER & THE PUPPET

~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

After I  published this last story,  I spoke with White Zen, my palgal in Santa Fe.  She said the last paragraph of the story made her cry.  Juxtaposed between the writers Zen of exporting such feeling, and the sadness we both shared. White Zen had a Thinker too. I guess there are more of them than I knew.

Having had six true loves in my life, who impregnated me with knowledge generosity, and loyalty is what made me so unprepared for the Thinker.  He does resemble Macedonio;  the first man to peel off the woman in me. They both have charisma, mystery, and good dark looks,  Macedonio is dead now, and the memories of him still glisten;  like the day in Golden Gate Park under the cherry blossom tree.

What I miss most, is the giggling, dancing, folly-maker that the Thinker pulled out of me as If I were a puppet. He called me Puppet because that’s how he saw me.  I’ve got to get my Jojo by tomorrow. I love Thanksgiving as a day with admissions of selfishness and greed. I need to be washed away into thanks that I am here with a mouthful full of food, and a napkin.

THE THINKER ON MY TRAIN

~ LouLou ~ 3 Comments

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I asked the Thinker why the universe brought him to me. ‘To guide you through Santa Fe and teach patience. Without it you will find yourself where you are now.’
‘Where am I now?’ I snapped. He clasped my arms around his neck and we swam to the center of the Plaza. There he opened a porthole and asked me to look through it. Historical images emerged like a kaleidoscope and the Thinker told me stories of Santa Fe. Some were humorous; like the bank robbers who dragged a safe down Palace Avenue and left cracks in the stone sidewalk. Other stories pointed to the feuds, violence, and mysticism surrounding the Vortex. He whisked me away to a mirror, floating sideways, and asked me to look into it. The reflection was me curled up with my knees to the chin, while a school of fish surrounded me. They were talking about my mermaid skin and long fins. I was touched. Then the Thinker took me to another mirror and there I was poised on a chair; reserved and grave. I looked like I was somewhere else.
He tossed me in a circle, waved his arms in conductor fashion and said, ‘Get rid of her. She’s not liked.’
The image troubled me and so I jumped off his back and crawled behind a sunken wooden door. I was there a few days before I noticed a figure darting from one sea lion to another. He gestured for me to follow but I couldn’t catch him.

ADVENTURES WITH THE TIDE OF THE THINKER

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

Audrey. Photograph By Edward Quinn

I asked the sky to send the Thinker.  Then it  rained in southwest furry,  small 22A65Ca5ndFhXTcktfb98jnckTJl4rZP0060[1]white knots of hail and dark feuding winds. The thinker heard and whistled to me. It was a sweet flutist tone, and he appeared in black and grey, the silver lining of his head like a crown of light. Flashing the boyish grin, he opened his wrestling toned-warm fins to my goose bumpy arms, and I swam along side tentatively. Even though it was my chime, I was unsteady, unwilling to climb on his back, so we swam on our toes, around my house, and the Plaza. We battled sharks from Beverly Hills, whose fins were frozen from love and kindness; we faced one of our own school, who would not lend a dollar on good faith and loyalty for their Merlot Cabernet fish oil, and we strung pearls around each other necks, with a clasp that is easily unhooked. The current drove us through three more days of rowing backward, sleeping quietly without intertwinement, and meeting as friends instead of lovers.
The absence of touch, struck like a lightning storm. I didn’t see it coming, and I may be wrong. To read the Thinker is to understand his language; a circumcision of predictability, logic, or reasoning. Like a tsunami, uncharitable waves of enlightenment he doesn’t even understand drown his soul.
I understood that he airbrushed my appearance, and dropped deep into my eyes as they widened for him. I blushed before he engulfed me, and pressed my undertow.
If tonight was the last swim because of a storm I didn’t see coming, or understand. It is because my eyes blurred by his presence.
The tide goes out, but it always come back. Sometimes it touches where we left off.

PART TWO OF ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS

~ LouLou ~ 5 Comments

 

On shore the land felt liquefied and unfamiliar without the sensual spark swimming along side me.  The leaves glistened above my head, like golden gems you’d wear on a necklace. The Santa Fe river sang its song over rocks, branches and brush, while white butterflies and birds fluttered an awakening.  I passed cafes, watched couples and families luxuriating in the sunlight, Canyon road art hawkers snapped photos, gallery owners chatted on the courtyards.

20141021_150953_resizedThe stage of comfort as picturesque as a postcard.  I was outside the activity.  I rushed home, passing people who walked as if lost, and shoes stuck in tar.  Thoughts trotted like ponies all going in different directions. No path had an answer, or a reason, or an understanding of our endearment. 

The Thinker swims close by. Sometimes I feel him soaring past me, glancing for a moment, then he’s gone. The house is quiet, doors and shades closed. My nakedness is wrapped in blankets and the aroma of pumpkin spice from a candle.  My stage is empty, no audience of  any sort. These are  the moments when examination of behavior, discipline, and self-honesty rise above  the solitude.  A woman of lovers rather than husbands, beckons my heart to open to the odyssey of  love.

I appreciate all the new followers from the THE THINKER story. Thank you for

your comments and hope you return for more. 

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Thank you for your response. ✨

 

 

 

ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS

~ LouLou ~ 1 Comment

The throw of the dice this week lands on the tip of the diving board. The pool was serene and powdery blue and I was enticed by the sensual shift of waves and sunlight.   I took a leaping dive off and swam for eight weeks.

Beneath the surface glaze I held my breath and when I opened my eyes there was a man sitting on a rock, posed as The thinker. I asked him what he was thinking and he said, ‘the universe brought me to you.

 

 

https://i0.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Le_penseur_de_la_Porte_de_lEnfer_%28mus%C3%A9e_Rodin%29_%284528252054%29.jpg

I shimmied at this rhetoric of mysticism and then suddenly, he swam towards me and wrapped me around his back. I held on to strong neck and ran my fingers through his mane of hair. We floated away beneath the weight of reality,  beyond limits and caution.  We  swam towards the underbelly of Santa Fe. All kinds of sharks, sweet dolphins, brainy lobsters, wondrous whales  and tasty little shrimps.  We swam with them in a pack and chided their gossip and questions.   Swimming with the underworld fascinated me and I hung on as we passed through darkness and luring beasts of prey.

Soon we were alone again and fondling; almost one  from head to toe. My breath sieged into his and we swam through layers of fantasia.   Suddenly he leaped forward and  couldn’t hold on.  I was dropped off on a rock that splintered my skin. I watched as he soared above me and waited for his return.  I was so cold that my eyes blurred and shut.  When I opened them a lazer like light appeared in the distance and pulled me up to the surface. My arms wrapped around the raft and familiar hands took hold of mine. Friends paddled me to the shore. I can’t see  the Thinker anymore but I see him in the memory; swimming towards  uncertain adventures in livingness.

I S

RUMINATING ON RELATIONSHIPS

~ LouLou ~ 3 Comments

Bob and Baez-JIM MARSHALL
Bob and Baez-JIM MARSHALL

 

Bob and Baez-JIM MARSHALL

He was going to keep me warm this winter. Toggle behind me in his overcoat and boots, making  sure I didn’t slip on ice, or chop my hair when my anger meets my self destructiveness. He would plow the snow, keep the fire going, trim the roses that bloomed when we met, and hatch chilies in the kitchen. A boy, a man, and a girlfriend. He’s wrapped in primitive sensuality, gifted with athletic stamina, viscerally intelligent. There is the other side; a squadron of pointy fingers, family feuds, gossip, and the spark of emotional self-contentedness. He admits to it; and studies masters of consciousness every day. He strives for breath unscented, unencumbered childlike weightlessness. My star is dropping, the dream girl of adventures in livingness. Taking men in that hold impossible odds, the long shot that shoot you to the moon or dump you on a dirty bench.
I found someone once who held up all the right que cards; now we are best friends thirty years later. If
lovers are true friends than I don’t lock them out when they stumble on the script. Relationships between men and woman are unsolvable allegory poems. I read them over and over and never understand the meaning if I hold on to the wound. If I let the abrasion heal, I am still in love with them.