Amusia

Rounding the Corner

/ thimblewit

Rounding the Corner 

     Away walking away from the cafe heart pumping caffeine.

Blood caught in between her blushing cheeks.

Amusia rounded the corner to find the police harassing a hobo right there on the street.

The month was getting late and quotas aren’t a myth, and no one did nothing until Amusia said,

“Hey Friendly did you guys catch that rapist yet?”

Then hurried away because she knows how “friendlys” get.

 

 

Then crying beneath the live oaks face all soaking wet.

Recalling an anti-war protest arrest. Even behind prison bars her voice she still did raise,

“Say brown skinned jailor you’d still be a slave if the dissidents hadn’t strayed.

Now look at you getting paid to fix me to the chains, “Fix me.”

He opened the cell door demanding she step out.

He said take your best shot and put his fists up near his mouth.

She got on her knees to show that she wouldn’t fight him.

He shoved her to her stomach and pushed his pelvis against her bottom.

When she resisted he cuffed her ankle to wrist and for six hours she was “hog tied” one could say.

Though her back sometimes pains her still it carries her away.

 

Walking away to the wharf both barely standing. There she would bet God she could

write something she didn’t hate before the old pier dropped her in the drink.

The whole thing than swayed as if God heard her and agreed.

She picked up a guitar and opened up her mouth and this is the melody that came climbing out..

The Kingdom of Back

/ thimblewit

The Kingdom of Back 

       I pulled my journal from it’s shelf found in third person you’d written of yourself.

I laughed so hard I couldn’t see! Oh the things you’ll say as me!

But, Father will be taking you away again, taking you far far away.

He’ll parade you before the glutton’s of “more” and curse the horrible pay.

Oh ,but your spirit will be steadfast, yet wasted on those minds . How can those who do not dress

themselves judge one so fine? Meanwhile in our kingdom muses eat their fill and there is no division.

All the subjects do commit to foster each ambition.

Melodies hang on the breeze and collaboration reigns,

and rains no cause for solitude ‘stead cause to celebrate.

Let the orchestra play to the fields of wheat. The clarinets and fiddles chase the timpani, and ,

when it’s our turn to add seasoning to the stew the notes will leap from the belly of a piano built for two.

Above the mountains breech the clouds their peaks pluck the moon.

The hills are lush and forest sway in time to the bassoon..

Cellos charm the doctor and the farmers got the bass.

The seamsters dress our townsfolk in pleats with frills and lace.

The children build wooden boats and give ’em paper sails .

Theatrical violas are announcing fabric whales.

The sousaphone is magic to the toddlers in the isle.

The trumpet races up and down every shade and style.

Twilight Time

/ thimblewit

Twilight Time Adapted from Buck Ram 1944 by Thimblewit 2008

Feeling a sense of accomplishment didn’t hush that moaning belly .

So she walked up to Decatur street to busk for food or money.

Sometimes music lovers come ’round and drop a twenty,

but mostly drunken frat boys think shes funny.

 

Heavenly shades of night are falling it’s twilight time.

Out of the mist your voice is calling it’s twilight time.

When purple colored curtains mark the end of the day I hear you my dear at twilight time.

Deepening shadows gather splendor as day is done.

Fingers of night will soon surrender the setting sun.

I count the moments darling ’till your hear with me, together at last at twilight time.

Here, in the afterglow of day we keep our rendezvous beneath the blue.

Here, in the sweet and same old way, I fall in love again as I did then.

Deep in the dark your kiss will thrill me like days of old ,

lighting the spark of love that fills me with dreams untold.

Each day I pray for evening just to be with you , together at last at twilight time.

“Hey Spot”

/ thimblewit

“Hey Spot” 

     Inside a restaurant behind where Amusia played,

a smirking waiter swore he knew for sure that “It was Ray.”

The hooves of a horse kept the rhythm of her song all along Decatur Street.

They locked eyes and she was certain that he had winked right at her.

 

Inside the waiter had enough and said “I know what to do.”

“Hey spot you howl like a wounded mutt and damn look like one too!”

He palmed his ears than slammed the door and cracked up back inside.

“As sure as I play a mean keyboard, and I do that’s no lie,

Ray Charles wrote “Georgia on my mind.”

Copper

/ thimblewit

Copper 

     A couple placed their “ to go box” at her feet whilst she’d play and moved along.

Etched into the Styrofoam top was the message “this is for a bum.”

 Scoundrel comes by talking up a train track party.

He’s the one who always makes the rounds.

As Amusia was packing up her journal this poem fell out never to be found.

 

Before we part my “Copper” love I wanna tattoo your teeth on my body.

Look you deep into those big eyes and tell of how I love you.

Oh, the next time we meet my doodling doll we ought to roll in the dirt ’till we’re muddy.

Playfully passionate all through the night ’till exhaustion makes us matching spoons.

 

Her insecurities were relentless the moment she stepped over the tracks.

Someone asked her to play a song , said they’d call her up when “Loadstar’s” done,

but, how can she follow a whole band that she had a huge crush on?

She said she had to run , to busk for tomorrow’s lunch.

Funny it didn’t bother her to play for drunks.

 

She sat on the train wall and sang.

Lyrebird

/ thimblewit

Lyrebird

     Lyrebird you can sing any old tune, you take em’ all and make em’ all new.

Some seek to cage you to hear you every evening, even if it turns your melody blue.

Oh the sadness the moping and the madness, I’ve felt it sting like a bee.

I’ll lay in the clover ’till you wanna come over and whistle a tune with me.

 

Lyrebird with your voice sustaining vibrato en-training the day.

Scores like magnolias filled with voices and phrases bearing notes that rise and decay.

Like a Nickelodeon I’m singing your tune it seems it’s all that I do.

I hum it quietly if you come near you’ll hear me Lyrebird your song is true.

I admire you. I do……..

Loosely Swaying

/ thimblewit

Loosely Swaying 

She waves to the conductor and hops down from the wall.

She can smell the Mississippi and she can feel a coming fog.

Drags her feet to her favorite corner where some fox is playing to a group of tourist.

Strumming a mandolin with his eyes closed. The cycle of fifths tattooed on his forearms.

Little eight notes where cheek bones meet lashes and his song, oh his song.

 

    “The day I grew to love her I was in a bow musty and dark. I was shackled ankle to wrist and starving. 

The pain of hunger stronger than the swaying nausea and the stench of my dead kin and the flies at every wound.

Sometimes the crew come down here to beat us or rape one of the women. I find myself watching intensely every single time it happens.

In the flicker of the flame her face remains unchanged, muscles clasp beneath the skin like the chains that bind her hands.

He spits when he is finished on the woman next to her and says see you tomorrow night, How do we breathe? I find myself gasping she finds the breath to sing.

 

Wood beams creaking men are yelling she sings on and on to calm us.

Masts are snapping wind is howling and she combines with it’s moaning. 

 

There was a moment time stood still , no wind did groan, no child did cry.

The cold Atlantic washed my feet I did recede into my mind.

Still, I could hear her voice trilling the notes as she were shivering.

Just after our eyes did meet I felt my own voice quivering.

I know now all of those years gone by had been designed for this meeting.

Our voices ripped a hole in space before her head were loosely swaying. 

Still deep beneath the mighty sea our heads are loosely swaying.”

 

The spectators whistle and applaud and she was fast in love with only a street to cross

but, the smell of her rotting teeth, made her ‘stead choose to flee.

He caught a glimpse of her and waved,

alas she did not see.

Into the Belly of the Beast

/ thimblewit

Into the Belly of the Beast 

“Fuck these putrid teeth, crooked nose leopard face.”

 She stormed back to her van and threw it in to gear.

Where was she going to go? She didn’t know but who would care?

She siphoned gas from an S.U.V, then floored it west cheeks wet

with tears.

She woke up in the parking lot of the Beaumont animalrescue,

said she’d take the next dog they had slated to be put down.

A vision waved like a willow leaf to ease her troubled mind.

She and her companion begged and stole their way west of San Antonio.

There they came to a little dirt road and they ran it ’till the tank went dry.

Clutching a pen she sat to compose her masterpiece entitled ,

“ Goodbye.”