Our Shangri-La

"As long as I know that you understand," he whispered. "But of  course you do.  It's a great satisfaction to have got somebody to understand.  You seem to have been there on purpose."  And in the same whisper, as if we two whenever we talked had to say things to each other which were not for for the world to hear, he added, "it's very wonderful."  - Joseph Conrad - "The Secret Sharer"

***
Prelude to Poetry; I bought you a cherry ice cream at the Kwik Stop - extra cherry, and I drove you to the mountains.

I like driving.
I like you sitting in the passenger seat.

I like when people look at us in my shiny car.  The car you call a car only "car snobs" would drive.

I turned "The Stranglers" CD very, very loud and took you to an exclusive area where all the very, very rich people live.

"Liberation for women
That's what I preach
Preacher man
Walking on the beaches looking at the peaches"

It was blaring out of the speakers, the windows were down.  My long hair was blowing all over the place.

The temperature was a perfect 75 degrees and it was 10pm on a Saturday night.

It wasn't so long ago in the grande scheme of things.

I touched your cheek at one point during our drive and it was wet.  You were crying. I knew you were happy, though. I was very happy myself.  I licked your tears from my fingers and carried on eating my own ice cream with one hand while driving with the other.

The homes were massive with great big windows and the ceilings were so high. Looking in the windows from the winding roads, we didn't see anything.  You couldn't see anything unless you had binoculars.  And we might be voyeurs, but we didn't have any binoculars on us that night.

We didn't speak, except for one time.

You said, "Shouldn't you turn the music down?"

I asked, "Why?"

You said, "Well, because of the fancy neighborhood we are driving through."

I answered, "We are rebels."  I leaned forward and cranked the volume higher and fixed my shirt where "The Girls" could breathe the fresh mountain air and then I howled like a great big ol' she-wolf.


***


Our Shangri-La
© aladreth

I bought you
a book
that would appeal
to your hippie
light on money
heavy on love
sense of style

We laid in bed
reading about
the haunted
Catskill Mountains

Woodstock, way before
the music appeared
there were arts,
crafts,
handmade houses
from hemlocks,
creek rock,
bluestone,
chestnut,
scavenged pieces
from barns, dumps, cabins,
schoolhouses, churches

we learned an astrologer
high on the mountainside
always knew
where her stars were

Queen Basil gate greeted us,
autumn leaves used
for insulation

you traced your finger
over photographs
of carved doors,
skylights with seashells,
round windows,
crooked brick pavers,
painted karma
oak sanctuary,
shelves sagging
with books,

"Yes, that does look like
Mary Jane in those porcelain pots."
"And there's the home of
our favourite
hippie priest."

I wrote on the cover page,
just for you, my lover,
"Choose my favourite bedroom"

Turn yourself inside, mister,
be straight, be gay, say
you'll be
everything for me

and you do, oh, boy
do you,
as you lean
over me
everything forgiven,
accepted
still bearing same scars
but soaring freedom inside

your lips against my forehead
then my voice in your ear
calling you horrid, dirty names
all these words
for many months

all of you
all inside

all death and life
breaking forth

our Woodstock,
our Shangri-la

breathing
areas of previous
occupants
garments
hung ready
for settlers
boon boom

strangely expecting
hung clung
corporeal presences
to reanimate them

your breath
almost to climax now
yes, almost there,

the page
laid open
to where
our Bob Dylan
used to sleep

and falling now,
halcyon times
recite those Shakespeare lines
by reams,

in the seams of
tight lace and leather tied,
tongues from a Pentecostal invasion

Oh, my God,
Thanks for warning me,
you nearly skulled me

"Fancy that."
"I wasn't even aiming."

previously published 

copyright 2007-2013