Ruby

Milk thistle quartz
your sun silhouette thwarts
off my enmity, peril
and pestilent supports

"EXIST", O they sprayed
on that viaduct slab;
we perch on the cornerstone
and we gab.

I am glee by the gulley,
where the loam land is sully.

A row boat goes
where the arroyo flows;
our shadows juxtapose
on the graffiti prose.

Under this bridge wrought with rust,
we find our new sky.
The swamp's horizon is freckled with
clouds that float by.

Euphoria and bleak winged monarchs
are in flight.
A marmelade motif flutters nigh,
to my right.

We tread on
a port path in decay,
then rest on
the pier's precipice gray.

O we are too true friends, I do say,
and I see a ruby at the edge of the bay.

Reviews

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

And EXIST you did, lived a moment that is burned into memory forever. I really don't feel that I'm that old; but I long for those simpler days, of just being in a moment and not thinking beyond. As times goes by, you can look back with fondness and wish you were there once again. The nostalgia actually takes you back to a pleasant moment in time that somehow lives forever.

This is such a poetical rendering, a painting to be seen and heard.

[Dalton]

I wrote this piece, at night, the same day it happened. Such an invigorating, electric, subtle and yet intensely charged experience left me wanting to commit it to the page, lest it faded from memory-- even slightly. The residue of that day is still present every time, "ruby" the person, and I are together. Curious.
I too know your longing for the simpler days. Now and then, this longing is sufficed with that rare type of person. Living in the present is difficult, especially given the speed of contemporary life. I try all the time to exist in the moment. Sustained effort to the latter task seems to increase, at least glimpses of, a satisfying existence.
With gratitude,
D

[barleygirl]

Your story is deceptively simple, expressed in multi-layered & vivid word choices. I love the way "Milk thistle quartz" at the beginning, resonates with the ruby (setting sun, I presume) ending. I love that you pick unusual ways to show us colors & graffiti & bridges, etc. Your rhymes are some of the most startling & sophisticated ever. Great alliteration: "marmelade motif" as well as being a fresh & delightful way to paint that. Just chock full of fanciful word crafting!

[Dalton]

Thank you kindly. I've taken your review in, for it's very insightful.
Dalton

[Nisreen]

Stunning
I cant help but notice
this could be you simply recollecting
so much you left behind through a season

Yet somehow like a ruby
A friend just doesnt disappear into night or day

[Dalton]

Thank you very much.
Salute,
D

[wolfshrew]

The nostalgia I feel through out, but especially in the second stanza, has again warmed me.
I long to see poems that make me feel the heat of summer on my back, I've felt that here.
I'd read this happily on any porch and think as if I were remembering the one time I was there.

[Dalton]

I wrote this the same night I experienced what was discussed in the poem. It's curious that you also feel nostalgia when reading this piece. I suppose that this is due to the high degree of passion that went into writing it. I'm glad that you feel the warmth.
Thank you.
Salute,
D

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i picture an old bridge no longer used...a place where friends meet to talk away the hours as the water watches like a voyeur ....there is a bleakness to the picture, and yet there is substantial pride in a friendship that has lasted as long as the life of that bridge...the friendship does not rust...

love the "graffiti pose"

we write our names on the wall of friendship...the bond.

in the one line i read "clouds that float by"---plural...

but yes, such feeling here...a feeling to "rest on."

[Dalton]

Thanks Jacob for your enlightening review. In your own work, and indeed in your analysis of my writing, you go deep.
Thank you so much for spotting that typo! It was not present on the typewritten version, though my thumbs missed it on the WC version haha.
In short, I like what you had to say.
Salute,
D