THE STONEY MILE.

[dadio]

You have made out it's a picnic, have told Milly a deliberate lie. She holds a handful of the red dress you wear, as you both walk toward the beach, along the cliff. You touch her hand gently; sense the pulse in her small hand, the life gently thumping through veins. She speaks in her childish voice, the excitement overflowing in the words, the silly jokes, the flutters of laughter.


The sky is grey, not blue, and the clouds are a different shade of grey, not white; a slight wind touches you and your daughter, but neither of you care, you walk on. Soon it will be over, the heartache, the torment; the constant images of what he did and said will be gone for good, lost with your joint deaths over the cliff edge.

You never realised just how much Kennedy meant to you, how much his presence in your life made the difference between life and death, as if he had equalled you and Milly on those scales of existence, and what he did has undone that balance and you and Milly are about to fall from those scales of existence into a welcoming death and numbness of non-being.

Seagulls swoop overhead, caught in the slight breeze they drift across the nearby sky. You sense that Milly wants to run to the beach and find a place for the picnic, wants to be the first to empty their picnic basket and unload the goodies.

Her bare feet skip excitedly along the stony path, her hair bouncing up and down as she skips. This annoys you; you want her to feel as you do, to feel the emptiness, sense the void within, but she doesn't, she's in love with life and her being, excited with the fullness of her now.

The cliff edge is near now, the beach below a long drop to a certain death. You hold her hand, grip it tightly, feel the pulse race through her like an electric current sizzling her with life through every limb, brain and thought.

You pause, look down, sense her hand grip tighter in yours. Her head turns, her eyes gaze up at you, a sudden knowing ignites there in her blue eyes, as you pull her with you over the top, and take off like two birds in flight to a defining death on the beach and rocks below.

[.Lucy.]

Unexpected and surprising.

Great stuff.

[dadio]

Thank you, Lucy.

[Lightning Rod]

nicely done

this is a retelling of the same story as Morrison's Moonlight Ride

(only two valid themes for poetry being love and death)

[dadio]

Thank you, Lightning Rod. Never read MORRISON'S MOONLIGHT RIDE, though.

[Lightning Rod]

my mistake, that's Moonlight Drive

Moonlight Drive lyrics

Let's swim to the moon, uh huh
Let's climb through the tide
Penetrate the evenin' that the
City sleeps to hide
Let's swim out tonight, love
It's our turn to try
Parked beside the ocean
On our moonlight drive

Let's swim to the moon, uh huh
Let's climb through the tide
Surrender to the waiting worlds
That lap against our side

Nothin' left open
And no time to decide
We've stepped into a river
On our moonlight drive


Let's swim to the moon
Let's climb through the tide
You reach your hand to hold me
But I can't be your guide

Easy, I love you
As I watch you glide
Falling through wet forests
On our moonlight drive, baby
Moonlight drive

Come on, baby, gonna take a little ride
Down, down by the ocean side
Gonna get real close
Get real tight
Baby gonna drown tonight
Goin' down, down, down

[dadio]

Thank you, Lightning Rod.