Sunday, 10 August 2014
Saturday, 12 July 2014
Yeah...You!
You look around.
"Yeah, you. Is that so hard to believe? Or is it just distasteful to you?"
You shake your head.
"Don’t worry. I’m not asking you for anything."
You smile.
"Really! I’m not. Nor am I expecting anything. I’m no fool!"
You gaze at me silently.
"You always were the quiet one. And you know what they say, don’t you?"
Your smile is wider this time.
"Yes. Silent rivers run deep. I just wish I knew what you were thinking!"
You raise the drink to your lips and sip.
"I guess it doesn’t matter, though. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not about me."
You throw back your head and laugh.
A bell jangles somewhere, and I blink. Shit! This is getting worse and worse. I cannot keep doing this. Making up one-sided conversations between me and you, the man I’ve been crushing on this whole year is not the way to win friends and influence people. Nor you, for that matter. Especially since you don’t even know I exist. None of those gestures or smiles were even aimed at me, for goodness sake! These people must think I’m crazy! It’s a wonder they haven’t called the insane asylum to come get me already.
I turn my eyes back to where you’re sitting with your friend. He says something to you, and you laugh again and turn your head. Our eyes meet for the first time in recorded history. I gape like a fool, and then you break the contact. You call for the bill. I ease myself out of the booth I am sitting in, and hurry to pay for my own meal. This first real contact has rattled me. Rushing by your table, my head in a whirl, my eyes focused on the cash register, I fail to see you check me out.
Maybe I need to stop coming here for lunch, I think, as I rush out to my car. I can bring a salad or a sandwich with me. Or go to MacDonald’s. I don’t need to eat at a fancy eatery. It’s not like we know each other, and now that you’ve seen me, if I show up tomorrow, it’ll look like I’m stalking you. I ignore the voice that asks “Well, aren’t you?” Shut up, I tell myself. Just shut up!
"You dropped this," it says.
I turn around, startled, to see who is speaking. You’re standing there with a slip of paper in your hand. I look around.
"Yeah…you," you say.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
Sunday, 27 April 2014
Blank Spaces (A Collaboration)
(A collaboration between a friend on Tumblr, Peregrine (http://youreyesblazeout.tumblr.com/) and me.)
It’s not as though there is
a right or wrong way
to fill in this blank space.
It’s not a quiz.
And yet,
it says so much
that I see “lost”,
and you see “luckiest”.
What does it mean?
I see the hole.
You see the donut.
I am yin.
You are yang.
I am the blank space.
You fill me in.
We are interconnected.
It isn’t a question
of what’s right and wrong,
but of the responses
we’ve been trained to live.
In how many ways,
have you been filled with
you’re the “least,”
the “littlest,” the “lowliest.”
But my mouth will fill you
only with the “loftiest” words.
My eyes will only see
the “loveliest” in you.
And always, in all ways,
will I fill the “loneliest” places in you,
the “lustiest” places in you,
the blank spaces in you, with my love.
~ Peregrine and KDB
Copyright 2014
(Peregrine's is in plain text, mine is in italics.)
(Picture Source: prostoslozhno)
It’s not as though there is
a right or wrong way
to fill in this blank space.
It’s not a quiz.
And yet,
it says so much
that I see “lost”,
and you see “luckiest”.
What does it mean?
I see the hole.
You see the donut.
I am yin.
You are yang.
I am the blank space.
You fill me in.
We are interconnected.
It isn’t a question
of what’s right and wrong,
but of the responses
we’ve been trained to live.
In how many ways,
have you been filled with
you’re the “least,”
the “littlest,” the “lowliest.”
But my mouth will fill you
only with the “loftiest” words.
My eyes will only see
the “loveliest” in you.
And always, in all ways,
will I fill the “loneliest” places in you,
the “lustiest” places in you,
the blank spaces in you, with my love.
~ Peregrine and KDB
Copyright 2014
(Peregrine's is in plain text, mine is in italics.)
(Picture Source: prostoslozhno)
Sunday, 13 April 2014
Orwellian, or Right is Wrong
"When"? Say rather
"If"…and my word,
What an “if” that would be!
And then, of course,
There’s that whole
"Right place" thing…
Where IS that, anyway?
Obviously, then,
When the wrong turn
Gets you to
The right place,
It was all
A HUGE mistake!
Surely you see that?
If it were truly
A wrong turn,
The end would be dead…
Like those cul-de-sacs
That take you round
In circles, back
To where you came from.
By this logic,
If you end up
In the right place
From that wrong turn,
Then for you,
Right is wrong, like life
In Orwell’s novel.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
"If"…and my word,
What an “if” that would be!
And then, of course,
There’s that whole
"Right place" thing…
Where IS that, anyway?
Obviously, then,
When the wrong turn
Gets you to
The right place,
It was all
A HUGE mistake!
Surely you see that?
If it were truly
A wrong turn,
The end would be dead…
Like those cul-de-sacs
That take you round
In circles, back
To where you came from.
By this logic,
If you end up
In the right place
From that wrong turn,
Then for you,
Right is wrong, like life
In Orwell’s novel.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
Saturday, 12 April 2014
Shitkicker
I am not that girl
Who does as she is told.
I am not a girl.
Funny how some men
Seem to forget that,
And expect obedience,
Consent, submission
From someone like me.
I may not be in your face
But that isn’t a sign
That I’m downtrodden.
Go ahead,
Raise your boot.
You’ll see…
I’m not under it!
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
Who does as she is told.
I am not a girl.
Funny how some men
Seem to forget that,
And expect obedience,
Consent, submission
From someone like me.
I may not be in your face
But that isn’t a sign
That I’m downtrodden.
Go ahead,
Raise your boot.
You’ll see…
I’m not under it!
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
Friday, 11 April 2014
Source: http://distantpassion.tumblr.com/post/81331711338
Toccata
Everything about this greyscale piano —
from its keys like uneven teeth,
in need of more than brushing
to remove the dust and decay
that years of mistreatment
and neglect have caused —
to the space it occupies,
all bricks and mortar, rough-hewn,
cold and under-used,
bespeak a painful loss.
No music warms the cold places
in that stony room.
No sharps and flats swell round
the empty spaces,
nor wisps of airy tunes
disturb the curled leaves
of the abandoned sheets.
A paradox on legs,
the ancient instrument seems
a statement of fragility and force.
Fortissimo, pianissimo…
no sounds at all
defy the rigid quiet,
or mar the weathered stillness
of this antique…
disregarded, disrespected,
a hushed requiem for a life
lived far too long,
or else too soon discarded…
its death an unvoiced crescendo.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
Toccata
Everything about this greyscale piano —
from its keys like uneven teeth,
in need of more than brushing
to remove the dust and decay
that years of mistreatment
and neglect have caused —
to the space it occupies,
all bricks and mortar, rough-hewn,
cold and under-used,
bespeak a painful loss.
No music warms the cold places
in that stony room.
No sharps and flats swell round
the empty spaces,
nor wisps of airy tunes
disturb the curled leaves
of the abandoned sheets.
A paradox on legs,
the ancient instrument seems
a statement of fragility and force.
Fortissimo, pianissimo…
no sounds at all
defy the rigid quiet,
or mar the weathered stillness
of this antique…
disregarded, disrespected,
a hushed requiem for a life
lived far too long,
or else too soon discarded…
its death an unvoiced crescendo.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
Wednesday, 9 April 2014
Time
Kenny Chesney is one of my favorite country artists. He sings a song titled “Don’t Blink” about the swift and sure passage of time, and the necessity of making the best use of the years you won’t even notice slipping through your fingers. I quote a few phrases from the lyrics for his song, along with a link to it on YouTube.)
Kenny Chesney sang it…
"Don’t blink!" he sang,
his rich, nutty voice
reminding me
that time waits
for no one.
"Just like that",
I’m here,
an over-fifty,
understanding
what my mother
must have felt
watching me.
"You take a nap"
and no one’s left
to share the blues with.
"Your babies growing"
not going,
'cause they can't,
and you in two minds
about that.
"A hundred years"
is likely
no more than
a drop of water
in the ocean
of time.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
Monday, 7 April 2014
Writer
I am a writer.
This is not a “Eureka!” moment by any means. No light bulbs flashed, no lightning forked across the skies inside my mind, no thunder boomers rocked my inner landscape. It came rather more like an inspiration, a wisp of air on a breeze of thought, as I was composing other things, thinking other thoughts, being who I am so often afraid or ashamed to be…a writer.
I became a writer the first time I noticed the way the office assistants in the doctor’s office where my mother also worked wielded their pens with almost artistic efficiency. I liked the way they held those pens, the way they mastered them and subdued them to their wills as they told the papers they inscribed with meaning what was what.
I became a writer the day I noticed how my teachers used words like bullets, forceful and focused, and never spent, even when they were discharged from the weapons that were their lips. I loved the way they made those words roll off their tongues, the way their accents — and there were many in my younger years — massaged and made those words musical, magical, mystical.
I became a writer the first day I interacted with words on my own, in the books that drew me into their very hearts. Words that arrived on the ships of history, or the wings of romance, or the secret passageways of spy drama, or the guns of war, or the wheels of police drama, or the engines of science fiction and fantasy. Words with spokespersons such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Alistair MacLean, Agatha Christie, Ellis Peters, John le CarrĂ©, Betty Neels, Barbara Cartland, Dorothy L. Sayers, P. G. Wodehouse, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein stole me away from my teenaged world and took me into theirs — the drama, the poetry, the fiction — and showed me how writers negotiate a space for us to be who we are, and to be more than we can ever imagine ourselves as being. They showed me how writers create a world at once true, flawed, and filled with potential. They stole my heart and mind, invaded my spirit, turned me inside out, and remade me into what I have become…a writer.
I became a writer the first time I wrote something that was not meant for red ink or criticism. The first letters to penpals, when I had to sell myself as someone interesting enough that they would want to keep the correspondence; the long letters to my older sister, away in England training to be a nurse; the poems of teenage angst about my size (weight and height), my race, my hair, my dislocation, my loneliness, my fear.
I became a writer at the kitchen sink, re-enacting for an invisible radio audience, and for myself, the dramas I listened to on air (their names escape me now), soap operas for the ears alone. I wrote all the parts, acted in each role, directed and produced my drama as I washed the plates and pots and pans, and slid the knives and forks and spoons under the water. I lowered my voice to be the male lead, and raised it to be his love interest as I scoured the pots till they shined. (I hated drying dishes — it never took as long, and my stories always got interrupted by the last pot dried. And there are no stories in a clean plate!)
I am a writer each morning as I contemplate the sky, and my messed up nails. I am a writer each mid-morning, as I make pronouncements about life and learning that my students wish me to repeat so they can write them down. I am a writer each afternoon as my friends share their vision of me with me, in ways that bring tears and smiles and inspiration to go further. I am a writer as I go home and observe the flow of humanity along the highway. I am a writer as I read the works of those other writers who inspire me with their imagination and creativity and brilliance on here. I am a writer when I chat with friends, on the phone, in text messages, and online. I am a writer when I compose my sexual fantasies, my dreams and wishes, and plant them in the hearts, minds and bodies of the men and women I create.
I have accepted the challenge of writing for pay — VERY SMALL pay, but money is money — based on prompts given to me by my “handler”, and with word limits, and it’s as if someone has poured an elixir directly into my veins. I am energized, excited. It’s like an adventure for my brain. I imagine this might be something like what an adrenalin junkie feels just before he jumps off the cliff, or the bridge, or out of the aircraft, or over the side of the boat into shark-infested waters.
I am always composing. It’s what I am doing as I write this, looking for the next good word, the better metaphor, the best idea. It’s what I do when I watch my Britcoms or Top Gear (the British one), or when I am reading my vampire erotica. It’s what I do in cabinet meetings when the Chief Cretin is spouting the ghastly stuff that putrefies the air and chokes the system. It’s what I am always doing. I think, therefore I am…
…I am a writer.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
This is not a “Eureka!” moment by any means. No light bulbs flashed, no lightning forked across the skies inside my mind, no thunder boomers rocked my inner landscape. It came rather more like an inspiration, a wisp of air on a breeze of thought, as I was composing other things, thinking other thoughts, being who I am so often afraid or ashamed to be…a writer.
I became a writer the first time I noticed the way the office assistants in the doctor’s office where my mother also worked wielded their pens with almost artistic efficiency. I liked the way they held those pens, the way they mastered them and subdued them to their wills as they told the papers they inscribed with meaning what was what.
I became a writer the day I noticed how my teachers used words like bullets, forceful and focused, and never spent, even when they were discharged from the weapons that were their lips. I loved the way they made those words roll off their tongues, the way their accents — and there were many in my younger years — massaged and made those words musical, magical, mystical.
I became a writer the first day I interacted with words on my own, in the books that drew me into their very hearts. Words that arrived on the ships of history, or the wings of romance, or the secret passageways of spy drama, or the guns of war, or the wheels of police drama, or the engines of science fiction and fantasy. Words with spokespersons such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Alistair MacLean, Agatha Christie, Ellis Peters, John le CarrĂ©, Betty Neels, Barbara Cartland, Dorothy L. Sayers, P. G. Wodehouse, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein stole me away from my teenaged world and took me into theirs — the drama, the poetry, the fiction — and showed me how writers negotiate a space for us to be who we are, and to be more than we can ever imagine ourselves as being. They showed me how writers create a world at once true, flawed, and filled with potential. They stole my heart and mind, invaded my spirit, turned me inside out, and remade me into what I have become…a writer.
I became a writer the first time I wrote something that was not meant for red ink or criticism. The first letters to penpals, when I had to sell myself as someone interesting enough that they would want to keep the correspondence; the long letters to my older sister, away in England training to be a nurse; the poems of teenage angst about my size (weight and height), my race, my hair, my dislocation, my loneliness, my fear.
I became a writer at the kitchen sink, re-enacting for an invisible radio audience, and for myself, the dramas I listened to on air (their names escape me now), soap operas for the ears alone. I wrote all the parts, acted in each role, directed and produced my drama as I washed the plates and pots and pans, and slid the knives and forks and spoons under the water. I lowered my voice to be the male lead, and raised it to be his love interest as I scoured the pots till they shined. (I hated drying dishes — it never took as long, and my stories always got interrupted by the last pot dried. And there are no stories in a clean plate!)
I am a writer each morning as I contemplate the sky, and my messed up nails. I am a writer each mid-morning, as I make pronouncements about life and learning that my students wish me to repeat so they can write them down. I am a writer each afternoon as my friends share their vision of me with me, in ways that bring tears and smiles and inspiration to go further. I am a writer as I go home and observe the flow of humanity along the highway. I am a writer as I read the works of those other writers who inspire me with their imagination and creativity and brilliance on here. I am a writer when I chat with friends, on the phone, in text messages, and online. I am a writer when I compose my sexual fantasies, my dreams and wishes, and plant them in the hearts, minds and bodies of the men and women I create.
I have accepted the challenge of writing for pay — VERY SMALL pay, but money is money — based on prompts given to me by my “handler”, and with word limits, and it’s as if someone has poured an elixir directly into my veins. I am energized, excited. It’s like an adventure for my brain. I imagine this might be something like what an adrenalin junkie feels just before he jumps off the cliff, or the bridge, or out of the aircraft, or over the side of the boat into shark-infested waters.
I am always composing. It’s what I am doing as I write this, looking for the next good word, the better metaphor, the best idea. It’s what I do when I watch my Britcoms or Top Gear (the British one), or when I am reading my vampire erotica. It’s what I do in cabinet meetings when the Chief Cretin is spouting the ghastly stuff that putrefies the air and chokes the system. It’s what I am always doing. I think, therefore I am…
…I am a writer.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
Tuesday, 7 January 2014
Pieces of Me
I let myself care
Too much,
And little pieces of my heart
Lay scattered,
Like broken shards of glass
Across the world.
For every one I’ve shared
My love with,
Small or large,
They take me with them
When they go,
And I am less
For their departing.
When will I
Finally
Disappear?
When there is no more
Heart left
To share.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
Too much,
And little pieces of my heart
Lay scattered,
Like broken shards of glass
Across the world.
For every one I’ve shared
My love with,
Small or large,
They take me with them
When they go,
And I am less
For their departing.
When will I
Finally
Disappear?
When there is no more
Heart left
To share.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
Saturday, 4 January 2014
She-Devil
She spoils the men —
young and old —
with whispered words
of want and need,
blown in through their ears
into the blood
that flows direct
to where they cannot
keep themselves aloof.
She rips away
their feigning calm,
their raging ego,
their raw machismo,
and shows them the real,
open wounds of lust
that fester with desire
for her ravenous mouth
for her flaming touch.
She steals their souls —
empty of will —
and fills them with
a feral craving
for a riotous, rollercoaster
voyage of discovery
inside the gluttonous,
scorching folds of
her welcoming cradle.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
young and old —
with whispered words
of want and need,
blown in through their ears
into the blood
that flows direct
to where they cannot
keep themselves aloof.
She rips away
their feigning calm,
their raging ego,
their raw machismo,
and shows them the real,
open wounds of lust
that fester with desire
for her ravenous mouth
for her flaming touch.
She steals their souls —
empty of will —
and fills them with
a feral craving
for a riotous, rollercoaster
voyage of discovery
inside the gluttonous,
scorching folds of
her welcoming cradle.
~ KDB
Copyright 2014
Wednesday, 1 January 2014
Happy New Year!
Love and hugs,
K
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