Dainty Demons

Soft, lush memories scream to life
Sleep a mellow cradle to their rebirth
Scars of joy so deep few would understand
Beauty and love and freedom and sentiment as pain.

Looking glass recollections delivered to the heart’s front door
Never reminded of what we were looking for
Joys and smiles and camaraderie bare
Life’s story splayed naked, diamond needle of playback deep in the soul’s grooves…

Wanton dreams of emotions and women
Traversing the white-water thrills from imagination’s core
Ghosts now. Undefined. General. Wisps of recollections.
Faded as the sun-stained remnants of decades passed into oblivion

Of games and thrills and timeless joy
No times ever recapture the life of the boy
Baseballs, hoops and rivers to swim
Age never dreamt to chase and catch him…

He lived in our house
He walked in my fears
He ruined too much of my manhood
With his follies and fears…

Last of days
Last of life
Disenfranchised children and wife
We strolled the day
We slinked the night
We stand unable to distinguish wrong from right

IRippled blue pool coddling many swimmers
No one racing, everyone winners
Summer days pass like the most pleasnt breeze
No one to worry you, no one to please

Wonder touches our hearts and our minds
Each though each sight, each touch each smell, each sound
Wait patient four our attention to slow and relax
Yet we go, go go go go go go

Your breath
Just now
Special
Another moment of life
Another chance
Speak its name
Acknowledge its power
Allow it to roll through your softened hear
Live
Now

What follows is writing inspiring poetry and vis versa. The poem above was contrived from the text below. Why? Why does any writer write anything? The simple answer is “because.” Because a dream woke me one night. Because the compulsion to write gnaws at me day and night. I love writing. Writing is my peace. My refuge. My joy. My sorrow. I copied each stanza from the paragraphs below and combined them into one unit. I hope there is something in this for you…

Awakened at five o’clock in the morning, ten hours past London midnight (for those who may be interested) my emotional throat lay bare and constricted by memory’s powerful, demanding hands, both of which felt destined to wring all the tears from my preteen and early teen experiences at the “police pool” as we called it. Long chiseled into my psyche that incredible experiences deliver pain as well as the evil happenings in life, I chose not to breathe and allowed the hands to focus my attention on those incredible summer days.

JB. Me. The “police pool” named so because it was funded by the FOP (Fraternal Order of Police) of which my father was a member, he being a police officer. The pool itself was nothing too spectacular. I learned to swim there as a young boy. There was the “deep end” with the two diving boards – one a spring loaded “low board” that regardless of its name, intimidated me with its height over the water. The “high dive” stood as diving’s Everest in my eyes, just as fearful and loaded with potential death as the mountain itself.

There was the concession stand, a magical place for a kid if he had some money. No eating in the pool area, but picnic tables and “The Deck” were surreal slices of escape for the tongue and eyes. Chocolate Black Cows or stringy taffy, Milk Duds and other childhood delights slipped hand in glove with preteen, ravenous eyes scouring girls in bikinis.

The Deck was located on the roof of the concession stand/changing rooms, a long, rectangular flat area peppered with young women working their tans. Most lay face down with the straps of their bikini tops tantalizingly draped careless by their sides. We filled our eyes with what squished underneath them, imaginations wild and begging in silence. Even the music, which was current to the times, fell in step with this favorite focus of our day. “I’m a Girl Watcher” played from the speakers strategically placed around the pool and deck area at a volume easily able to overcome the noise of children squealing and people talking.

“What are you doing?” I queried JB as he sat on a bench staring underneath the high dive.
“I’m checking out a BT.”
“BT?”
“Yeah. Big Titties. She’s right over there,” he pointed, “and when she bends over, you can see nipple!”

Yes, call it base. Call it many things. But this was a time of growing and learning and exploring and many other young experiences. We created different code names from that point on. BT always got attention when one of us uttered the magic letters.

Of games and thrills and timeless joy
No times ever recapture the life of the boy
Baseballs, hoops and rivers to swim
Age never dreamt to chase and catch him…

The pool felt great, with its lure of water, girls (we did not think of them as women or even young women) and challenges as to who could seim further, faster, longer under water. Yet, there were other thrills like the ever dangerous, life and limb-threatening merry-go-round. We would whirl that sucker to near the speed of light. I’m amazed no one died or suffered life-altering injuries. We knew we were on the edge. The edge of life and death. This did not matter. We lived to be young. The thrill ran our veins like electricity through high conductive metal. No stopping us. No parental pleading for our safety could slow our brushes with fate.

He lived in our house
He walked in my fears
He ruined too much of my manhood
With his follies and fears…

In later years, they built an indoor basketball court. I discovered it one day at the Policeman’s Annual Picnic. No one was there. Just me, a basketball and a nice, fresh court. As I shot, my father walked in. My first reaction was that he would chase me out. I was in seventh grade and had made the junior varsity basketball team. To my surprise, he grabbed on of my rebounds and actually shot the ball.

Not just any lame, clumsy sort of shot, but one which spoke of knowledge and experience on the court. Up until this point, he had not paid much attention to my basketball exploits, nor had he acknowledged my passion for the game. But this one day stands as a pinnacle or a deep dark well, depending upon my ability to focus on the positive or negative. It would be the only time he would show interest in my love of sports.

I don’t mean talking sports, I mean actively participating. I do cherish that short period of time that day, but mostly, I am saddened by the father who could not bond with his only son. Many years of sadness and separation followed us like ominous storm clouds that would not veer away.

Last of days
Last of life
Disenfranchised children and wife
We strolled the day
We slinked the night
We stand unable to distinguish wrong from right

The Police Pool, despite the close association with my father, is a joy I count in my life. I am glad he shared this with us. I am glad he shared that one day with me. I suppose, in the sparsity of days, this one day has become incredibly memorable and etched into my heart.

Rippled blue pool coddling many swimmers
No one racing, everyone winners
Summer days pass like the most pleasant breeze
No one to worry you, no one to please

Wonder touches our hearts and our minds
Each though each sight, each touch each smell, each sound
Wait patient four our attention to slow and relax
Yet we go, go go go go go go

Your breath
Just now
Special
Another moment of life
Another chance
Speak its name
Acknowledge its power
Allow it to roll through your softened hear
Live
Now

Epilogue

Now that I’m at the end of this lengthy post, my original thought was to call attention to the pains of joy and happiness and glee. Make no mistake. All of these positive, wonderful experiences possess levels of pain. Sweet pain. Dainty Demons.

Memory calls them to the fore at time. I miss and long for the joys and happinesses and glees of days gone by. That kiss with Vicky where I felt, at a minimum, the entire galaxy coalesce into ecstatic wonder. The thrill of one dance, one song, with Dawna in 7th grade. Incredible smells and sights of youth like hot dogs on a campfire or dew glistening on morning grasses.

The pangs of loss, not of memory, but the loss of feeling that original intensity. Not so much the loss, but the TRUTH that Vicky’s kiss will never ride my lips and entire nervous system through the universe again. While dew remains pretty and a minor joy, back then the water droplets barely restrained magic bursting from their precarious and bulbous grasp of a blade of grass.

Stephen King said, “All you need to be a writer is the ability to remember every scar.” I would add that those scars may be positive as well as negative. Beautiful scars pepper my life. Each one a treasured memory. Many of them I rediscover when something triggers a long-lost beautiful experience. Writing about negativity is easy. I do this all the time. Writing about the positive scars, those incredible memories which breathe life into words like melancholy, reverie, and hopeless romantic, should become part of every writer’s repertoire.

Or not. I hope my writing captures the good and the bad. The grays and the yellows as well as the black and whites. Some darkness is good. Healing. Like midnight moons and love through heart-revealing words. Some light is damaging like sunburns and mistake revelations to the world. All deserve our attention. All comprise their space in life.