Sunday 7 August 2011

Boulevard Blackbird (Breakfast for One)

The angels smashed all of my windows
In an attempt to out-do the sky,
Then sat obtuse as gargoyles on the side of the city
And poked around the sleeping stone
That rattled with dream-dealers
And rubble addicts, inhaling pieces of fallen sky
And injecting politics at Café de Paris socials,
Where society girls sold characters in the powder room
And patched up vogue wounds with dollar tattoos.
The city welcomes all they say;
It doesn’t care who it swallows and breaks,
Its mouth-waves consuming country dowries 
And spitting out broken lego-men and plastic dolls
On rain-shattered gravel.
Some get a bone to hang on their wall
When they crawl back to their shells with a beat face,
But others find solace in the shade of a tenement slum fire-escape;
Singing moon river to a crisp-packet puppet
And melting into the cataleptic landscape
That plays tin-can melismas on cobbled floors.
Not Her though.
She was bored of picking up the sky,
And was on the road to disprove the ground,
A boulevard blackbird
Rocking around to a city jingle of coins and keys,
Her eyes filled with ocean and left-over sun.
She preferred to live as a ghost on windows,
With a back to front reflection that let her drift
Around the city on glass without getting trapped,
Her feet kept firmly off of the pavement slabs
That snarled with cracked, soil-laced lips.
She drank her coffee in a haze of diamond smoke,
Before sipping at champagne shadows 
Under hollywood billboards and
Strumming guitar strings on a self-made window-ledge.
To toast the aftershock of a double-dip recession,
She traced galaxies on her carpet and
Painted the walls red with fingerprints and lips.
But her eyes were always fixed.
With one on the highest tree,
And the other on the rain bird, plucking its own feathers
In an ashtray as its soul was lost in city lights
And it'd forgotten how to fly.
I only met her once, when the city was embalmed in dust,
And the angels'd decided it was open-window season again,
Throwing bricks through the panes so we’d all know 
How it felt to live in the sky.
She'd packed her bags and was skipping down the stairs 
When she stopped and whispered:
‘Some know themselves too well...
And some learn too late to leave a crumb trail to find
Everything they’ve thrown away.’
She sighed then, exhaling a little heart,
Before having breakfast with herself one last time in the big window,
And flying away to get lost in the sky
With all the other things people would never be able to love.


19 comments:

  1. What a gorgeous write.

    Mooooon river...

    ReplyDelete
  2. The set-up of urban disenchantment is a perfect foil to your Holly Golightly character - a person who stands apart, refuses to conform to the soul-biting paralysis of the streets.

    Great work, OT.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is incredible...rich with visual imagery and meaning! Loved it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. OT, this is am amazing story. Captivated me from beginning to end!

    ReplyDelete
  5. "with eyes full of ocean and left-over sun" - what a gorgeous line. Wonderful poem. I read it with awe and admiration for your talent.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I loved this! So much amazing imagery, I was hooked! :-)

    'She was bored of picking up the sky,
    And was on the road to disprove the ground,
    A boulevard blackbird
    Rocking around to a city jingle of coins and keys,
    Her eyes filled with ocean and left-over sun.
    She preferred to live as a ghost on windows,
    With a back to front reflection that let her drift
    Around the city on glass without getting trapped'

    Wonderful writing!

    ReplyDelete
  7. goodness...great write...hope the angels replace all the windows...but making a home in the sky sounds awesome...vivid and great imagery...could picture her strumming in the next to last verse....

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wonderful story atmosphere with this piece, very engaging write, nicely done.

    ReplyDelete
  9. ...you have used everyday terms and even slang words in here yet came up with a very powerful piece... ah, almost Wystan Hugh Auden... great writing here!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lovely take on Holly Golightly and Capote. The right edge, the right ledge, the right tone. Wonderful. Thanks, Amy
    http://sharplittlepencil.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/i-heard-the-news-today-oh-boy/

    ReplyDelete
  11. ARRON SHILLING - FORMERLY TOM ELIOT:

    Your writing is an electric tooth pick experience. An insane thrill ride.

    This is a genuine dream for me to read.
    The writing in this is superb,
    the whole thing unfolds like a dead dogs tongue
    with a nice scent of lemon curd razors

    ReplyDelete
  12. ugh, whoever said "an insane thrill ride" about your work is right! i'm hooked... :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. I hope this is worth the wait sweet :)

    First I'd like to suggest you change it from angels, so cliche! Banshees on the other hand...
    Sorry, couldn't resist, ahem, onto the real thing here :P

    That is such a great opening line, you're setting the scene and grabbing the reader from the very start. To go further, people gaze out of windows, dreaming, wondering. Angels could be taken as many things, bringers of news, christianity, fantasy beings. So for them to smash through your windows, shattering your peace and quiet bringing some message and a sharp shock to you.

    Aaahhh, angels with attitude! It wasn't good enough for them to be angels, the servants to the gods, they had to try and out do the sky! This however relates back to the idea of the angels being envious of god choosing humanity over them and Lucifer's fall. I love the idea of them kinda sulking, sitting on the edge of the city in almost guardian like stances just watching. They couldn't resist the mischief and mayhem though as they go and annoy the dream dealers. Which relates back to them smashing those windows. Dream dealers and rubble addicts - damn you and your fantastic twists on words and view on the world! lol The idea of the fallen sky, the rubble and politics, the cracks and shrapnel which forms this broken and shattered world. Now, they're nothing more than the latest drug, addictions, giving people the new twisted view of the world.

    More little quips of the stale, flat, and shallow world we live in. Vogue and it's fashions, worthless dreams shattering people around the world, patched up with more weak, worthless money. Not just any money though - dollar tattoos. Dollars are to me an expression of self however different people have different views. They're s statement on some level, inflicting pain upon yourself to carry some form of art on your skin. So patching up the scars with more pain, wearing the shallow, money driven outlook on the world with a nice big neon sign and statement to the world.

    The city has a life and personality of it's own. Everyone's welcome there, it's not fussy who and what it eats alive. People get broken, twisted, re-formed into plastic models, nothing like their original form. You draw on the very bottom of the city, the dark images of those huddled beneath fire escapes, beaten, broken, nothing more than fodder for the cityscape.

    Then, there was her.

    She was unbreakable, a completely different creature. Where others begged for fragments of something, anything, she had nature shining from within her. A strength, passion and understanding. She didn't want to be found, or remain without motion. To drift as though on the wind, exploring, finding, see what happened. There was no hiding for her, she formed her environment around her. Creating what she wished, needed, wanted and desired.

    She was free. She had this incredible understanding, knowledge that allowed her to spread her wings and fly. Somehow she found herself and the lighter side to everything, almost a ghost in this world as she stepped between the worlds, taking on as she pleased.

    I love the mischief of the angels and the fantastic woman! Awesome work (as always).

    ReplyDelete
  14. I love this, enough said (I'm awfully picky).

    ReplyDelete
  15. This is still buzzing bubbles up my arse - u have a magnifcentmindmachine!

    IllBbAK

    Arron

    ReplyDelete
  16. Greetings,

    How are you?

    Jingle Poetry has moved, we are doing poetry picnic now, our week 1 theme is

    “Adam and Eve” ,


    Please feel free to join us, all are very welcome!
    Blessings fly your way!
    xoxox

    ReplyDelete
  17. thank you all!! and to Shen for that huge review, always appreciated :) :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. She was bored of picking up the sky,
    And was on the road to disprove the ground,
    A boulevard blackbird
    Rocking around to a city jingle of coins and keys,
    Her eyes filled with ocean and left-over sun.
    She preferred to live as a ghost on windows,
    With a back to front reflection that let her drift
    Around the city on glass without getting trapped,
    Her feet kept firmly off of the pavement slabs
    That snarled with cracked, soil-laced lips.

    This is a gem, it is beautifully written, the lines I've pasted into my comment will stay with me for a long time...took my breath away. Thank you for commenting on my poem, the luck would lie in that it led me to your blog and to this piece. :)

    ReplyDelete