magic mall lady

almost immediately, I concluded 

she was a storybook character 

who had wandered from

the pages of a wonderful fat tome – 

(or perhaps, she was cast out 

by a dastardly sorcerer)

for though, at first glance, 

she looked as humdrum 

as the rest of the tuesday 

afternoon aging mallsters, 

she wore highly mysterious

– likely magical – little red boots that 

(when she clicked them together)
would dance all through the town

(or so those boots implied)

but, for now, she sat down 

quietly – shyly, even – 

on the mall bench beside me

naturally, I couldn't take my eyes  

off of those little red boots –

as my mind began 

flipping and thumbing 

madly through rhymes: 

searching for boots – little red boots – 

(in those far away lines)

and a broom – a twig broom 

strong enough to hop on 

and fly . . . . . .

loop-the looping

through the sky

backwards through the sky 

and then . . . . . . 

and then . . . . . .

when, after a while, 

she stood up to leave – 

she flashed a smile 

like a bolt of pink petunias . . . . . .

and was gone. 

note:  posted for Poets United.

photo:  Pink Petunias - W. Bourke 

© 2015 Wendy Bourke

catharsis

by half past ...

the whooshing breezes 

that tossed round me 

in cathartic, good-natured gales 

on gusts of exhalation,

had blown out to sea,

and all that was left 

of the buoyant blasts 

that had, exuberantly, swept 

the shore, the dock 

– and all on it – 

into ship shape

was the, occasional, 

flutter ripple remnant: 

stragglers that would 

have to scurry fast to catch 

the great spirit wind ...

that moves with wings of time 

note:  posted for Poets United.

  
photo:  The Spirit Wind - W. Bourke 

© 2015 Wendy Bourke

rainy déjà vu in the city

the canyon walls run with black tears - more dismal now than not.  
sulky bursts - at days end - dreary mood on dreary thought. 
a drenching, steamy alchemy of dirt and slate and smog.
from roof and arch and balcony:  a gauzy, ghostly fog.
tall sheets of streaked cold onyx mirrors - unfurl - in ribbons, wet.

i'm glad i wore a trench coat, to this bleak, soaked film noir set.

against  the looming buildings, gray iconic silhouettes
of smoky alton images - without their cigarettes.
here and there a mushroomed creature beetle-skitters down the block.
all looks to be dank-dour-drab upon the weeping walk.
a lightning bolt, a thunder crash, horns honking in the street.
 
bullets land on my umbrella and erupt around my feet.

the air smells like car fumes and grease and grass and musty mud,
stench of cement, a waterfall and hint of a rosebud.
splashed by a car, shoe puddled full ... now I can't see a thing.
except for street and window lights and blurry neon bling.
every surging byway, pretty much seems filled to brimming.

if i, woke from this déjà vu, i'd think that i was swimming.

Notes:  posted for Poets United.

John Alton: cinematographer on some of the most classic Film Noirs of the 40's and early 50's.

Rosebud: In the movie Citizen Kane - when wealthy media magnate Charles Foster Kane dies, he utters the word "rosebud".  A reporter is asked (by the producer of the newsreel about his life) to find out the meaning behind his last word and as the reporter interviews Kane's friends and associates,  Kane's story unfolds in a series of flashbacks.  Many critics believe that Citizen Kane, with its inventive use of lighting and shadow, is the first film noir, or (with its dark, moody atmosphere to augment  mysterious events) the direct predecessor of film noir. 

photo:  Ink Drawing (& negative) - Shades of Black, White ... and Gray (that are all around us) - W. Bourke

© 2015 Wendy Bourke