Knickers and Stickers

She said I was the only
mercenary soul as
she sulked in a corner
like a forgotten goddess.
I found her there
head all wrapped in gauze
smoky haze greeting
my gaze
and somehow, somewhere
I lost it,
the scent of man,
and wished for another
sweeter breeze
but it wasn't for me
Hello, kitty--
and then she was gone
and I knew I had lost
the source of the pantomime
and I nicked my shins
and licked my lips
and tore my dress to shreds
searching for the source
of my own petty numbness.

in the garden of words

monday. bringing rain. and reflections on water and words. on the thing that delivers water in the bathroom. in English, it's called a sink faucet, i learn. also it's called hose bibb, when it is outside. here in Germany, it is called Wasserhahn - water cock. or, for the deluxe version: Wasserarmatur.

more word reflections, in the web, on a page that i came across through Photo Friday. a page that is called: Inspire me Thursday. their theme of the week: word art.

"use words in your art or create a piece of art using words alone," it said. and made me sit and think about words. made me wonder who invents all those words, all those neat combinations of letters: some plain like grey or fact or tool, some fancy like hippopotamus or rigmarole or - lexicographer. what a job that would be, to work as gatherer of words. as the one who looks for the new words in the gardens of paper and makes them official by adding them to the a-z of language.

write it down and it exists.

like magic, almost. and now that i think of it i wish there was a lexicon that would include for each word the story how it came into being. the moment it was said for the first time.

and mostly i wish this for this one word:

word.
.

visual haiku

Where did we go?

We’d been trekking up the side of the hill, through the dense green trees and rich black soil on Easter morning, while I struggled to keep the pancakes and maple syrup down. But he’d taken my hand and stayed with me while the rest of them had hurried ahead, and when we all reached the top he nuzzled a chin into my shoulder and together we’d watched the outgoing tide hitting the curved yellow sandbanks and like aqua ribbons flowing out to a deep blue sea.
It’d always been like this.
We walked down the sandy steps, meeting hard compacted sand and the lapping edges of the river. We walked, the others already ahead, his hand in mine. We made our way along the thinning edges of sand till we found ourselves in knee deep water, wading to the edges of the sand bar and crossing the rocks. Once around we found ourselves on sand again, and dodging blue bottles we picked up shells and wrote our names in the sand. I wondered as he scribed my name besides his on the sea shore why the waves swept over them and took it away.
The weather was different today. My toes were wet by the white wash of waves and my pockets felt heavy with the seashells I’d collected. My pale blue sarong flapped around my shins and my sandcastle sunk into the sea. Raindrops dinted the beach, and alone, I made my way to the hill. The spot where we’d written our names was well and truly gone. The sand wasn’t even familiar.

mirage

sky and water
moving into each other
through the window seat
of a homebound flight
miraging the symmetry
of a day named 05 / 05

(back home. just downloaded the photos, while the salty sandy Spanish laundry tumbles in the washing machine. this photo is really just like i took it, through the plane window. now the moment is 10 hours ago in time. and still feeling like a skybound daydream.)
.

relativity

On Saturday, I had an exceptional bicycle ride, for once fighting the wind on my way out. Then on the way back, it was amazing. Sometimes when you ride with the wind, it is like one of those Einstein relativity thought puzzles. Imagine a woman traveling to Kenya on a train; she drops a book of poetry out the window. To her, the book appears to fall straight down. But to a boy herding goats by the tracks, the book (which he is about to own) seems to fall at an angle, carried forward by the motion of the train. And when abandoned rails are pulled out to make a bike path, and when a person is riding on it in the same direction as the wind and at about the same speed, to him there is no wind. To an old woman standing at a wooden bridge dangling a fishing line into a small river, there is a strong wind blowing, so she ties her hair up in a scarf as the cyclist speeds past her, exchanging hellos with her as he passes. But to the rider, there isn’t even the usual resistance of pushing against still air. He cannot feel wind in his face or on his back. It feels more like a vacuum is drawing him, pulling him forward. So exhilarating, Einstein would whoop!