a lonely room

[bennie2]

sounds outside:
car engines sound up the hill
the opened window
the vertical slats of the blinds
flutter a flat melody
windchime metal
occasional ring
a bird too sings
the water boiler is old
it gurgles and booms
like a tom waits song
i can almost hear the white clouds
threading their way across the blue sky
it's the sound of an ancient meditation and it's colour is infinite orange

old guitar in the corner:
the old classical guitar in the corner
nylon strings curl around the machine heads
like long hair laid out in grass
chipped varnish reveals a naked fretboard
the genuine wood of age
15 years this guitar has been here
fretboard curved with age (cheap model)
it's tuned to open g
sounds warm with a glass slide
my blues are sort of turquoise though
too green to play the blues

this body:
an external silence
an internal riot
of words and sounds and colours
ideas and dreams (by day)
restless wandering thoughts at night
my head throbs for solitude
my heart pounds for a companion
a river of confusion wets my banks
such a lack of self-knowledge
zarathustra with a snake and eagle
or zarathustra going down?

the wind is picking up now. the slats are rattling harder and i'm aware of a clock ticking in a packed up box at the side of the bed. my hands are cold, my feet are burning up. what's the sound of one clock ticking in the wind? marking time for no one in particular. just ticking. existince of a sound picked up in a breeze and diluted. these last few lines may be the best autobiography i'll never write.

[Lightning Rod]

bennie, your writing goes down like good single malt scotch

this piece makes my ears tingle
it's so wonderfully auditory

so I must be lauditory

[bennie2]

thanks, clay.

we had a few drams of a cracking single malt in work a few weeks ago. jura http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/B-40-Isle_of_Jura.aspx

it's a great tasting whisky. that's the same stuff that we had in the hipflask when we did our men of the mountain thing a few weekends ago.

i'll never be a patriot, swear allegiance to any land, but there are a few things we scots have that no one else can match. countryside and whisky.

[Arcadia]

turquoise blues sounds good!!!!!!!!

& thanks for the whisky but I only can swalow it in Baily´s way!!!!

[jweeble]

The images here are absolutely lovely...especially the guitar.

[sooZen]

Great stuff Bennie, I loved it...like the line, "too green to play the blues"...damn, great stuff!

[mtmynd]

When you write it you right it, Bennie... without a doubt.

Kudos2U!

[constantine]

the lines: my head throbs for solitude
my heart pounds for a companion
are especially nice.

[bennie2]

thank you, all.

I keep meaning to buy Xavier de Maistre's Voyage around my room. I think I'd enjoy that.

that's sort of what this piece started out as. hear and see something as if for the first time. that's all you can do as a poet. see and hear for the first time all the time, yet still manage to offer insight. maybe it's the virgin reckoning that generates insight...

anyway, thank you for your comments.

[westcoast]

your work moves me. i learn from it. and feel refreshed to try again with my own thoughts. thank you.

~westie

[bennie2]

every time I read the name westie I get images of http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en ... a=N&tab=wi

ha. thanks for that comment, westie. glad to refresh you.

[westcoast]

those are cute little doggies much nicer than the Queen's favourite the Corgie

~westie