The Obesiance of the World

I imagine you as Creation's child
formed from every unsung song my heart has held.
All the secret words I have never spoken
become form and matter
and shape themselves into you.

And the Universe awaits my voice
to bring you into being,
only breath and pressure
and the curve of my tongue
can call you hence.

I will be mute no longer.
This night I will speak the word,
the Name of you,
and the world will obey.

and pimento

I sat careful and controlled at the table in the deli where we would meet. A whole world swirled and pitched around me. It was the metered pace of lunchtime and waiting lines and the little dance customers did as they sidled along the case of meat to get to the registers. I sat apart and altogether too still in comparison. Reaching my hand up to push my hair behind my ear, I saw him out of the corner of my eye. He moved down the street towards the deli with a quick measured pace. His grey suit was tailored just shy of obscene - all smooth lines across lean thighs and perfectly tight fabric stretched over broad shoulders. A moss green tie flapped once in the breeze before he smoothed it against his chest with long, slim fingers that belied their own strength. In my mind I saw a flash of those hands curled around a sniper rifle on the day of my first qualification. He had been cool and condescending then but only until the first round exploded from my SIG-Sauer P229, slamming into the center of the target 100 yards away. Today his face showed nothing. What I had been hoping for I could not say.

The first chill of winter air followed him in and to our table. He sat without preamble and trained his eyes on mine.

“Margaret,” he said tersely in greeting.
“Nicholas.”

The waitress stopped quickly at our table, pen in hand and waiting for our orders. Nicholas glanced at me, asking with his eyes if this was going to be an eating conversation or not. My head shook slightly.

“Just coffee for me,” he said. As he glanced up to meet the waitresses eyes, his hand reached across his torso in a move made to look as if he was keeping his suit coat from touching the table. I saw the tip of his middle finger touch the expertly concealed weapon on his side. He was worried. Or he just wanted me to know what the stakes were. Maybe both.

“I’ll have a turkey sandwich on sourdough. And some pimentos, please. To go.” No need to let the conversation run long.

“What can I do for you, Margaret? I assume your travel plans are in order,” he said as the waitress went to get his coffee.

“Yes, everything’s scheduled.” I hesitated. “About my pick up. . .”

“Ah, yes. Parker said she would be there when you arrive.” He noted the slight eye roll I barely contained. “Is there a problem?”

Parker was nice enough, I supposed. She could talk the ear off the Energizer bunny, but other than that she seemed fairly competent. I didn’t know how eager I was to have her along on this mission but I could endure almost anything for three months. I figured a short, lethal sidekick wasn’t too bad to have around.

“It’s fine.” I lowered my hands to the table and made three short gestures in sign language, about last night. . .

His green eyes flared quickly and he took a slow breath in, trying to control his response. He looked at me with barely controlled menace. I guess that was my answer.

In my head I imagined how my fist would feel as it connected with his face. I imagined all the ways in which I could make his heart stop beating and believe me, I know quite a few. It’s my job. I let myself feel the rage for half a second before clamping down on the pain of rejection and closing up shop. I looked away from his face, letting my eyes drift past the window for just a second. When I looked back he paled noticeably at my expression. I’d seen the look before, mostly on the faces of the people on the other end of my gun.

“Well, I guess that’s all then,” I said evenly.

Nicholas realized his slip and put the professional mask back on. “Have a good trip, Margaret.”

I watched his head slowly disappear in the crowd of the street.

The waitress came with my order.

“Turkey on sourdough. And pimentos.”

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Another prompt pulled from my blog reader verification box. I gave myself a 700 word target today at ended up with 707. Not bad.

1962 Arthur

In 1962, Arthur Rumeros began his job at the United Pen Company. Up until this point in his life, he had lived what most would call a benign existence. Arthur had gone to school, graduated, attended college, had a girlfriend or two, and moved into his own second story apartment in very ordinary part of town. His parents were still married to each other, living in the same house they had bought as newlyweds and in which they had raised their only son.
He eventually began his career in salesmanship on an unremarkable Monday morning. His desk was just a standard office desk, his attaché case was the same black leather variety mirrored back to him by almost all of his co-workers. Up until this normal Monday morning, Arthur expected nothing extraordinary out of his life. He was completely ill fitted to even imagine what lay in wait for him in that brown and beige office on the corner of Houston and 5th.

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You'll be seeing more of these freewriting bits as I try to get back into the swing of writing some fiction again. I'm trying out giving myself time limits (10 minutes) or length limits (700 words) and just play around a bit so some will be long, some short. Feel free to comment, critique, question, etc. My blog reader has added a word verification feature for every time you log in. This prompt was pulled from there (see title of post: 1962, Arthur)

We Are the Public

We are the public
We are the public
gathered here like wind in hollows
gathered
we are the masses
the forces that mass and roil
and move the smaller suns
we will turn and roll and
break off in solitary turns
and become again a sun
we'll be the sun again
to ignite
and join
the base chemicals
who make light
who make hope
who make the line between
you and me and them
visible again
to turn us into public
We are the public

Where the Ley Lines Meet

I am where the ley lines meet
in a flash and sparkle of soul
just one point in a thousand crossings
that will never happen again.

I am the dust of the temples
and the grass upon which the starlight falls.
I am the eyes that consume the lights last journey.

I am the symbiosis of man
that only erring thought can make caustic.
When turned to the light I am milk and honey
and all sweet things
blended into the morning dew of new thought.

I am experience and time made manifest.
I am dream and reality
and made of nothing solid or still.
I am change
and I become the next moment
in a creation burst of light and electron
so dense that gravity obeys.

I am the only whisper
and the voiceless drone.
I am where all points meet.
I am focus.
I am the light that will never die.

Blueprint

I did not know how to pull strength from nothingness,
how to construct endurance from sand and wind.
I only saw the small parts of myself, nuts and bolts,
not the sympathy of beams that make up
a vastness that reaches to starstruck heights and beyond.

And if you had told me to look skyward, to see myself,
I could not have seen with these eyes the glittering tower of my soul.
I would have only seen the fragile links that crumbled at my gaze.

But I am learning every day now.
I am an infant in this mother world who sees magic at every turn.
Unknowingly, I weave courage and resilience from the strands of life
that surround,
steel cables twisted and growing into the cement moorings of me.

And I see you with my new eyes, your Babylon tower,
and our shared foundations - the catwalks and sky bridges
that link us in looming light and stalwart days.
I hold the blueprint now in shaking hands, terrified of losing the map of myself,
not wanting to be blind again.

Holy Pilgrimage

That part of me
which no longer remembers
the touch of another,
that part is lifting off my skin
and rising towards your hands,
finding holy pilgrimage
in the distance between us.
I would pray to you
if I could remember how
but all my words are lost in want,
obscured by anticipation
and have settled,
stones in the depths
of my need for you.