globegypsy4ever Poetry (4)

The maiden of Magadan

The wind rustles in the leaves,
crisp air whispers through the trees carrying
your name to me in delicate spider web dreams.
She becomes the blue sky peeking between angry grey clouds,
a taste of hope in an otherwise cold and bitter day.
Just a moment of her, a glimpse just at the edge of my vision;
there and then gone, so fragile,
she is like the powder on butterfly wings.
I know she is there and yet I am blinded by reality,
a lovely silken shroud.
Yet she becomes just a face in the crowd.
And suddenly, I am back in the forest,
Frantically turning in slow circles searching for a phantom.
And all that remains is a wisp of her perfume and my insanity
Within a cold Siberian forest.

We’re different in the way we speak English.
Differences in accent and attitude...
Yet you know me from somewhere before as time releases its grip on us.…
Everywhere I look I find you, even in a flower petal, washing itself down the gutter on a
swanky address down Fifth Avenue.
Take me as I am; within your arms.
If I had but one ambition in life It would be watching you sleep.…
There doesn’t seem to be just that moment between us but a series of literary commentary
at a silent auction filled with open wallets
[And closed minds]
In a bid to be seen giving to charities
Yet you pass me at the party and I feel the winter’s retreat in your stare.
You struggle to (dis) remember me yet,
I know I am in your blood,
don’t listen to them, [I whisper]
Just be yourself No matter what they think…
Walk with me and tell me you Love me.
I adore you, the way you act speechless when I board that flight. Only to come back to you
meeting you at a Spanish café on a sidewalk covered with sudden snow;
we’re different in the way we speak English
In that gorgeous language all our own.

She is thin and under six feet
Part of the minority of contractor women
On a base full of males
I imagine her catching sight of her body
In a full-length mirror in her dusty, little room
Appraising her nakedness
Under a brutal Afghan sun
within a hard, surgical introspection
The long legs
The vein that pulsates at the very edge of her hipbone
She is reminded of the lean years in Sarajevo
By the shadow of her ribs
When hunger was a constant companion
And the incoming shells, insistent and unwelcome guests
she stares at the years as they show on her hands
The bones roll beneath taut skin as she flexes her fingers
As if they are claws
She imagnes scratching a man's face
Watching in fascination as the blood wells from the wounds
And then this thought
Slithers away like a frightened reptile
Her eyes stare back at her, doe-like, deep brown under long lashes
No make up needed
Her hair, so short, so EUROPEAN
Radiating from chestnut roots out to spiky, lemonade ends
A slightly protruding belly
A protective rubbing with her cat-like hands
Wishing a child resided there, a barren desert
And like a muddy pool of water
The thought evaporates, and conspires to bring her back to her room
She dresses slowly, mechanically, within a massive melancholy
She exits the room
Walking to work past the small group of women huddled together
Speaking in whispers and malicious gossip
And she pretends not to notice
Their barely disguised hostility

A homeless writing set adrift essentially in the middle of the city (the internet) looking like a grizzled old man with an insect ridden beard, dirty clothes and smells like cabbage. This is practice, a light shadow boxing in a dirty alleyway just around the corner from the shabby homeless guy, who is adrift on a spectacular cruise with Captain Rotgut Wine. I practice in this filthy alleyway to get the feel for the craft, to bob and weave my way through a series of drills everyday. Not unlike the working here in a war zone, watching the skies for the tell tale sign of a rocket getting shot on base, or the flinching feeling one gets when there is a big Boom close by. The way I still flinch when I hear a truck backfire back here in the states; hitting the floor of the restaurant to the stares of the other patrons, opposite an empty seat which used to be occupied by my spouse, only now is dead air. So I leave the restaurant, walking back to my little apartment in the city, past the bum in the alleyway, the shadow boxer and finally past the disinterested, tattooed hooker, who always seems to be here and not working, as if she is always waiting on me to walk by, "you want a date, lover?" Wiggling her rear suggestively in her shorts, her long raven hair is teased up in a fancy do on top of her head as if she was recently at an embassy dinner, surrounded by dignitaries, only now just the hair remains, as she is within the orbit of junkies, drunks and dressed in shorts, high heels and a white rabbit fur jacket that compliments her sapphire green eyes and generous mouth.
I incline my head towards my shabby little apartment; she is my muse, a whore with a heart of a lion, within a hot body, soon to be full of sweat, moans and finally as she stands there naked in my room, lit by the neon signs from the streets outside, which casts a reddish glow on her skin, giving her a slightly demonic look. I watch her from the bed within that hateful neon moonlight as she counts the money from the vodka-scented dresser. She turns to me and smiles, flashing rows of white pearly teeth and she is holding a straight razor. I nod slightly as she eases over with that lovely skin suit and her blade. she pauses deliciously above me and then cuts as the red water flows out of me and down to the floor in rivulets of letters and sentences.
She is why I practice, that scurvy, perfume scented whore; she is the surgeon now. I am just a lousy pen on a liquor stained dresser, lying beside a bloody scalpel within a smell of cheap perfume, and an empty apartment.