 Photograph by Reka Jellema. October 27, 2014. Untitled. Veil
my eyes play tricks the little girl with the whisper voice between the trees my friend passing a bride in the wind her dandelion kisses whispering the empty banquet room two chairs dance the first dance the last vapors white lace netting the dead leaves in the wake of the gauzy bridal veil an oak threw twigs like chicken bones the flower children gnawed them to the quick shorter days light shifts lingering on mums the undertaker works overtime eternal rest the weeds remember her tenderness the way she let them live October chill her touch in the garden long dead Written with Jennifer Savage Copyright By Reka Jellema & Jennifer Savage October 27, 2014
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Photo art by Reka Jellema. October 24, 2014. Untitled.
When We Talk About Trains: A Conversation up and down the depot, just folks a girl with a peacock hat skirts clinging to her thighs the heat of the passenger train in the lonesome quilted prairie the train runs a line of stitches vietnam tunnel a hole in the eyes of the boxcar men the lullaby of the night train rocking, rocking the way home when the train was a cradle that rocked me slow … and when you did the same between stations longing for downhome fiddling, the blur of corn, the open door of the boxcar and a mandolin postcard towns every train cut down to size one place or another it’s all the same on the orphan train today, the city, tomorrow, arkansas all of the straw plucked from the scarecrow Idling at the railway crossing the train drowns out the velvet underground remember that cautionary tale the headphones that kept him from hearing the train the day came nothing was enough no more gin, not one drop of comfort: all I knew I could count railroad ties I knew the times of the trains by heart head on, headlights, goodnight bars of light and noise apartment by the el train life train living low tide a flat horizon glisten from sand to sea the train roars through not stopping in every other life she was a ladybug reductive, red & spotted sometimes reincarnation works that way, father said, pointing at the train -- her face kept chugging creosote soaks our noses skipping from rail to rail shiny on top waiting for the ride to end the bleary drone of horn one man one guitar and a long blue grass song about trains the stop before the last stop hop on watch the rush of the Dakotas a harmonica grows teeth blows holes in my soul a harmonica chainsaws and the train rolls on bends around the hills seeing our own end and the prisoners below the golden grass just before the tunnel All her stories connect like boxcars mexico singapore delta oil it’s all the same hollow rain sound of an empty freight blowing horn sudden gray this always train Written with Jennifer Savage Copyright Reka Jellema & Jennifer Savage October 24, 2014 
Photograph by Reka Jellema. September 2014. Untitled.
under the heading
blossom I find shotgun shells hollyhock parasols wads of juicy fruit ammo combat boots (don't shoot) I find the places I almost took you and I almost let you go hands up hands all the way up I find peace in the cracks in the tarmac a white butterfly dandelions cattails in the muck of the train yard crushed geraniums baby napes Your hands grew up long thumbed I find you still slay me One petal ripped at a time Written with Jennifer Savage By Jennifer Savage and Reka Jellema September 2014 |
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