Thursday, September 10, 2015

 

Island Life


Islands of a certain size sort themselves
as to conveniences and sin. Thus the
small hotel.
 

Plus the restaurant, the pharmacy, hardware,
etc. Where the longer relationships build
to climaxes boring or fatal.
 

The rare body found, native anyway. For some
reason the tourists kill themselves more often.
The last one covered with snails.

A new teacher comes from the mainland and the
gossips assign her to a married man.

The bachelors without the staying power required.

At any rate, a buzzing during the day of the energy
of moderate money and immoderate sex.

It quiets at latest night, fires banked. Except for the
baker who rises at three and walks a block to his tables
and ovens.

The first stirrings of the rest of the village prompted
by the aromas of his loaves and rolls.

The more acrid one of brewing coffee adds in
from separate, lighted, places.

His pretty wife opens the shop at six. At eight he’s
home drinking gallons of water, followed by whiskey.
Then, cursing at the newspaper to sleeping like
a redolent brick.

She closes the shop at twilight. Taking long
walks in sturdy boots before facing his snoring.

The gossips leave her alone, understanding her
function completely.

The affairs of the village provide them enough.
It’s almost as if they arrange them.

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Sunday, July 28, 2013

 

Nautical but small



Sending Codes

Jenny chose the fancy pub-hotel online but didn't estimate the travel time well. She was pretty beat when she pulled in with her rental Jaguar.

Roger at the desk intuited her state, and got the room card to her quickly. "But there’s one thing. Your room’s a bit too cozy, but I can give you the adjoining too--for additional twenty?

She accepted, Quite a bargain from the other Roger--a label she whimsically applied since it was her boyfriend's name.

Speaking of...  "I hope it’s all right I signed for this.” Roger produced a small brown envelope with a distinct bulge.

Jenny assured him it was. Headed for her suite as the other Roger sent the code for her card to the extra room, and unlocked the door between.

"Waste of a woman!" she overheard drifting from the bar,
but didn't know if it was referring to her or not.

Her initial room was nautical, but small. The additional one was plush, English whore-housey with Belgium soaps.

She showered in the new place, smelling quite 

agreeable after.

That slutty half was for lounging in tshirt and shorty
pajama pants. The tshirt was her design she never liked,
so wore it inside out.

But, business. Amid replicate ship’s clock and assorted salty bric-a-brac, she opened the envelope to a box that might have held a bracelet, but contained a flash drive nestled in cotton.

Her Roger had been too exuberantly weird for too long,
so she had employed Mr Dartmerth with his lovely cameras.
 

The laptop got into the slide show quite expeditiously.
Roger and "Conchita-Rosita" striding hand in hand midst the apes of the Royal Zoo. The name she chose came from a song her father sang.

Another ended “Senoritas with dark and flashing eyes."
Her own filled with tears, which, she reassured herself,
is to be expected.

She went through the remaining ones in shock.
But the last two propelled her into more terminal
despair. Another Jenny. At tennis with him.

Then at an outdoor cafe, her hair seizing the light.
Light itself! Lovely! Another Jenny, a younger...

Had she ordered the scotch? She mused even
in her pain as to how prettily the ice cubes
would turn in the liquor...seeming to turn the liquor...

She hadn't, and now wouldn't. Her Dad would never
say anything like waste of a woman. A cutting thing
like that! He often pronounced “You and your mother,
my two pale English beauties!”

She went to bed under the ship prints, too exhausted
to fear dreaming.

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Thursday, July 25, 2013

 

Palm Beach Story



Magnet

-There’s a boutiquey hotel in Palm Beach–I won’t mention the name–where you walk by and look 

into the bar and it’s all red leather and mahogany.

-And it talks. It says MONEY.

-Indeed. Any new slut in town’d be wise to...

-You mean both male and female of course?

-I do. Add persons of business while we’re so parsing.


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