Pictures of Passing Cars

My childhood

a haze of artsy coffee shops

where timeless songs played on

Simon & Garfunkel and the Moody Blues

Folk music that reached deep into you soul and turns you raw

bitter coffee

filling my senses

swooning under the aroma

the smell of coffee if part of the intricate thread that ties together my existance

infused in every memory

the smell of my childhood

the taste of my present

 

My childhoods split in half

my mothers family a blur

oatmeal cookies and Babara Streisand

colors

reaching across the spectrum

horticulturist’s dream

food from heavan

all brilliantly colorful

pulsing through my memories

food and flowers running together

so much family

so much love

so disconnected

breaking the daughter tradition

realm of creating beautiful things

food, flowers

up against her

the other one

my polar opposite

always always lingering

dissaproval of me

smiles for her

and the welcoming arms of coffee solitude and trees

My father the other half

the antonym of my mother

these the early morning trips to coffee houses where art and life riddled the walls

so much diversity

inspiring me

atmosphere of home

I flourished

I learned it.

I loved it.

Daytime trips to the art studios of the paseo

Night life of the same kind

of the same place

transformed.

trips to dark art opening parties

soirées where people drifted in and out the door and their conscious states

where adults smiled vacantly and longingly down

from the clouded window of their eyes gleaming

fogged with fine wine and jazz

speaking from their philosophical minds

and floating hearts

long from universities where the arts echo in the minds of scholars and bipolar law students

artists, hippies, bohemians, and vissionaries

my role models

children of the beats and their protegés

who sat in candlelit restaurant bistros

who poured over screenplays and manuscripts and wine

My recollection of distant rooms

where sunlight beamed in through square windows

no other light to speak of

coffee brewing and poetry book on my lap

My MiMa’s delicate voice in the last days of her life

dipping and spiraling over the music in the background

filling in the blanks as I read to her from her threadbare poetry books

written by love drunk poets

who provided us with windows to their sadness

The music she played flowing through my head as a left

Songs of The Doors

can’t help but realize the truths

This is the end, beautiful friend. This is the end, my only friend the end. Of everything that stnds the end. I’ll never look into your eyes again..

The words of poets

riding atop them

Allen Ginseberg and Sarah Teasedale

my grandmothers poems and notes scribbled in the margins

her delicate calligraphy

launching me into my own.

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our days are numbered
It is what gives them sweetness and purpose.
To those who will see, the world waits