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Barmaid










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jazzriff








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Blue Moods

submitted by:
Castlewood in Chicago  email
 

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Arrangement for Upright Bass


My calloused hands wrap
about your narrow neck.

Astraddle your broad hips
I caress you teasingly
as you arch your back.

Fingering you
about the f holes
extracts
the most ecstatic notes
from the lower clef.

You are my spruce and maple valentine.


submitted by:
David Blaine

 

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Archangel Plays


Blackened smoldering harp
etude’ d minor dearth
death desolation on earth

For peace he plays,

Louder resolute, metal wrapped
gut strings vibrate heaven and hell
wrath sparked light shards
set both on fire.
Clouds writhe in agony, blood tinged.
Dying guilty souls caught
between, continually beseech.
Have mercy, open heaven’s gates

He plays visions.

Man on man violence
Mother raped desecrated
deluge falls, acid rain blinds,
dissolves tongues. She
roils, heaves seas, splits asunder.

Determined, he leans into pillar.

glissando howls across
lowlands, highlands
east to west stream. Cymbals
clash, eternities’ whirl wind
sweeps land desolate.
Wraiths left alone directionless
Wait.

Imploring, he plays; Man Repent.

submitted by:
Karen Jenson
email Karen Jenson        karenjenson@msn.com

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When He Was Golden

He was eighteen and he was golden
The older musicians recognized this treasure
treated him gently, with guarded tenderness

He followed them to street corners
Played with them in hotel rooms, corner bars
In clubs, he took his first solos
blowing them all off the stage

The women loved this golden man
Who played them soft, hard
like notes he never missed

The drugs were as easy as the women
Dissolving together in his golden light
Fading, fading
slowly into tarnished beauty

Three prison sentences later
His trumpet long gone
Like most, but not all, of the women

Thirty years have passed
His arms bleed with tattoos
Hiding years of scarred dreams
Teeth replaced with pieces of dead enamel
The drugs are gone, the women have returned

He wakes at four each morning
Tries to catch lost dreams that
melt quickly in the first light
Vanishing like lost or forgotten secrets

In darkness, he plays the first note
Warms up the spaces that close around him
Muted, a still, sacred resonance
Like Muslims called to the mosque
or Jews breaking a fast

In the golden light of mornings he plays
In the silver evenings after work he plays
During those few sleeping hours
His fingers move
His lips form
the notes he plays

The first note would wake me
As he played I would fall back into sleep
on the white bed behind the blue screen in his studio
or in my own room, concrete walls surrounding me

Sometimes now, waking up alone
I hear his first note
Always the same in length and tone
Breaking through those last golden dreams
Blessed by silence and sanctified memories of sound


submitted by:
Puma (aka Ruby)
email Puma         topaz11195@aol.com

studio break



 

Break Time


I set it down
to take a breath
each color squeezed itself into
the heated amber
I saw beaches and women
I didn't need to finish the whiskey
but did
anyway

submitted by:
DRG - Dena Rash Guzman
dguzer@hotmail.com

Mindful

I'll keep my distance
from waters edge
though these words
desire to spill there
and beyond.

I am mindful ;
my mouth full of pebbles
would only ripple
across the surface
then be lost,
beneath the rising tide.

today I shall not drown
in search of redemption
for what I let slip
past these lips

submitted by:
Alana B.Lampron
2007
 

januarybeach












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Serendipitous

The serendipitous blue sky
Awakened my senses
Engulfing me with the newness of the day.

The powdery sand
Covered me in a blanket
Of serene warmth, and security.

The endless horizon exposed
The multifarious possibilities
That is within my reach.

submitted by:
Castlewood in Chicago  email

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We Three

After eggs,
we floated.
We three.

The water shivered our bones
dreamed dry,
the reason we had come:

There was no more room for
growing out like tomato vines
at home

and so we took that house
for that week
and after eggs
each day
we floated.
We three.

submitted by:
DRG - Dena Rash Guzman
dguzer@hotmail.com

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The Lady Is Cool

The lady sits sublimely cool
As jazzy notes from stroked cords imbue
The room with mood.

She sits in rhapsody of silken sounds
Grooving to the sweet successive tones
Of improvised rhythmic tunes.

She snaps her fingers to the feel of the
Smooth, jazz-like beat of melodies
That flavors like a Miles or a Django,
And the ambiance of the room is dark and warm.

submitted by:
Castlewood in Chicago  email


 

errol's










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Third Time's the Charm

Try it
and you may.

If the latch opens
let it.

If the latch is rusted
let it.

Two fine nightingales
have tried their hands

but the latch was rusted.
(Let it.)

I'd give her a bit of oil
and let her sit a spell.

This room's atmosphere
is conducive
to openings
so

try it
and you may.

submitted by:
David Blaine
 

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nursing sweet sin On a night drenched in rain, I heard a tap on my door and let sin come into my house. Thin boned and starving, I dried her with fine linen and served her warm milk in my finest china bowl. She folded herself up in my favorite chair, the one right next to the fire. She fell asleep, pacified.  In the morning, she cried to be let out. I watched her from my window stalk her prey. She always returns home at dusk. She grew larger and sleek: no longer the sweet bundle I had nursed. A jump on the counter sends fine china flying, shattering on hard tile floor. She is eating me out of house and home.		return to painting At night she now sleeps in my bed. Her watchful, yellow eyes bind me to her each night. Like a lover, she kneads my body with large paws, lightly claws skin off my back. In the morning, I cry to be let out. Curled up in her window, she smugly watches me escape down the street. Knowing, I always return home to her house at dusk. submitted by: 11/2006 rdg red dirt girl
twomoms return to painting     Once a child Once a child, my child You played in sandboxes Made paper dolls At five I braided Your red hair and Sent you off to school Years between five and Twenty one flew By a multi-colored blur Twenty one in white You married , left Home, I wept, watched Three children grow, One red haired daughter Two broad shouldered boys. Now-- you’re forty-four And I? Much older. Now my dear friend You check on me, Pat my hand, hug me tight. Smooth my hair back. submitted by: Karen Jenson email        karenjenson@msn.com   return to painting     The Essence of One My arms reached out to you in the misty blue terrain of dreams, and at the wake of dawn I could see that we were one. The essence of me ceased. I became you, and you me. I felt an exquisite comfort wrapped in your arms. submitted by: Castlewood in Chicago  email
return to painting		Where We Sat Those were our benches Surrounding the sandbox Facing all entrances Vigilant In tight jeans denim jackets Platforms high heeled boots Sunglasses and make-up First one there Searched the sandbox For stray syringes forgotten bottle caps Broken glass empty bags Whoever had food stamps Brought lunch traded what was left The most hung-over slept on the bench While we watched her kids And listened to the most heartbroken Whisper her story sipping beer through a straw The men formed small groups On the benches outside the east entrance Venturing in occasionally Asking for a dollar or a cigarette Retreating quickly to their corners The comfort of loud talk brown bags Followed by narrowed eyes Tossed hair Long nailed accusations Abandonment The kids raced through the playground Games with random runs hid strict rules Known only to them Fearless wild-haired unruly Socks falling down Shirts off shoulders Juice boxes and pretzels Smashed under red blue yellow sneakers We picked them up when they fell Everybody’s children precious Safely cherished In the afternoon sun submitted by: Puma (aka Ruby) email Puma         topaz11195@aol.com
wonderin'		Paradise  I come to you barefooted,  breasts cupped in pink spandex                  eyes wide open-- like  a baby's at midnight           a rogue cloud        a hapless teen's eager yearning.  The sky has turned turquoise   & I breathe in the fire  of a fast-falling angel,  melt my chakras into a brew for your potion.  I am the first hallelujah,  the last rebel rousing amen.  The first swan to leave the lake,  the last blink of innocence.  I'm a girl again when with you,  a woman, a thorn-in-the-side, a healer.  Your head lowers, hurt, to deny me,  but my lantern carries enough light for two. Pris Campbell  ©2007

yellow lagoon








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two

 



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keysI
















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detail from 1929 Plaza Theatre

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skateboard II









skateboard II




























 

max adams/celluloid blonde