THE LOST TAPES Vol.22

   Today a new kind of lily bloomed.
   The little bud I left this morning with a kiss
   Is now a beautiful flower
   Unlike everything around it.
   Unlike all the hot colors Summer brought along,
   And the yellow dirt and the yellow Sun;
   Also different from the blue sky around the world.
   It's purple. Better yet, lilac. The color I hold dearest to my heart.
   I wonder what freakish accident of nature gave birth to such abnormality.
   Wonder if the disease will spread,
   If a new color is still to show, and then another,
   And then another
   And this way incessantly until I'm not there anymore to blow a breath of existence to their reality.
   Orange, lilac, brown.
   The beautiful garden of a poor man...
   — Not even mine —
   An unknown existence with a good taste for cheap flowers. 

***

bald lady at the window
this time I am the one to catch the other staring
she waves
I wave back 

***

   “Papa hits mama from time to time. Yesterday he gave her a black eye right in front of me,” says woman #1, in a french accent. “I don’t know what to do about it.”
   “Oh, that’s normal. My man also slaps me sometimes,” responds woman #2, in unsettling tone. “Ask mom if she wants you to do anything before you bother about it.”
   This was not the answer woman #1 wanted to hear, and just kept silent for the remainder of the trip, despite the last effort by woman #2 of repairing what she had said,
   “I’m not saying it’s good. Mom is miserable, but that’s just her life, you know?...” 

***

   Today the café closed a little earlier, even though we were all inside.
   Last night a friend died, the Allison Reynolds of our Breakfast Club, with no rhyme or reason, just like that, just died, out of nowhere.
   We all knew very well that she would never want the café to close because of her, so we came. Always afraid of being an inconvenience, she would spend the whole day sat in the corner, doing puzzles from this thousands of pages puzzle book that looked like two cinder blocks stacked together, and stayed here overnight because of the weight. But the book wasn’t over her table when I got here, Mme. Antoinette probably realized how bad it would feel for the rest of us to be constantly reminded of her absence like that, and tucked it under the counter.
   The rest of the day was of mourning. Little words said, many coffees drunk; people coming to look through the windows if anyone was inside, quickly giving up on the morning brew after witnessing the dark tone of our meeting.
   No one bothered to turn on the lights after sundown, and even Mme. Antoinette stopped polishing the china. The darkness on the outside was now the same color as inside our hearts, and it felt comforting at last[...]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Untitled 04

Hi Hello How are you feeling today? Not much. What about you? I’m here. Yes, you are. Yep. I am. Why are you here? Do I need a reason? (How does one fill the silence that follows?) ***    I remember that afternoon. That strange afternoon when you told me to shut up, to not be a bitch, and I was too overwhelmed by my own feelings to see that you were crying too. To be fair, you were doing the dishes, I could only see your back every time I opened my eyes, through the blurry haze of painful tears. The sweat got into my eyes, and you know how it hurts when you just finish a coat of sunscreen and sweat get into your eyes, right? Double-pain, mourn on the necrotic-narcotic, you knew my friend had died just last night. I know you know that ‘cause he was your friend too. You got his cool Merzbow collection, and said it’s ours, you said I could take the first run 1996 Pulse Demon used CD with me after we listened to it together. You know how to cheer me up, how to make me smile t...
Read more

home at last

   We arrive, finally, at the building’s front door. Out of the car and barely able to stay on my feet I sit on the sidewalk, back to the wall, waiting for Priscilla to find the keys amongst the mess in her backpack.     “You know what just came to mind?” I ask.     “That you are way too hungry to be spending this much time looking for keys and we should just crash at the dumpster tonight for christ’s sake? Maybe order some pizza?” She replied, clearly fed up to give a shit but doing her best not to break my heart.    But I was too numb to care, and responded,     “No, I was thinking about Bovary. Did you feed her this week?”     “Of course I did, what? If I didn’t papa would come back to life and beat my ass. He loves these fucking cats more than me.”     She finds the keys after a while, but not before the manager comes down to check what was going on and open the door for us.      Today was one ...
Read more

an "ode" to all my friends

old friends everywhere, waves, nods, ‘mornings to sit down at the empty café and hear the latest gossip or even feel the sweat pooling on my back for I still insist in wearing these heavy clothes even mid-summer this time sat on one of my benches, in one of my parks looking at all the city pricks passing by at all the traffic outside the gate at all the gray in this world wild concrete world, house to all that’s modern, to all that’s me even me not being all that modern a den made to fit me like a buff man’s pinky ring and also all of my friends, mineral, vegetal, animal like that big rock you find driving out of town for a bit or the pothead homeless that knows my name, rocking a 100$ bong or even, and would you look at that, the handful of people with an active role in my life chatters, lovers, friends and foes the kids, the teens, the adults, the olds a cheer from the poor homeless at the shelter a group hug from the children at the orphanage a couple handshakes and smiles at the nu...
Read more