Once a private eye I fled for my life.
I hid in Bridgeport, wanting Ann to wife.
But out of the past Whit’s thug Joe found me,
“Whit wants your snoop skills. Jeff it has to be.”
To save my own life, I gave it a whirl
On a bloody trail to retrieve his girl.
Down Mexico way at La Mer Azul
The sight of his Kate made me lose my cool.
When our eyes got locked, I felt love had docked.
She proved a gun moll; and I had been mocked.
Through Frisco, Big Bear, and Walker Rivers
Kate brought on death like long Winter shivers.
To Tahoe we went. She and Whit died fast.
I torched them for Ann and left my mob past.
12/29/2018
Movie Magic Poetry Contest
Gregory R. Barden
Out of the Past – Jeff Bailey
Listen with that, hear the words bounce back,
Listen to the Boogeyman, play the jumping jacks,
G's trading war stories smoking on the fattie that,
Got them loud joking about the old day's,
With the shorties that they knew up in Bridgeport,
Wow who knew that two connections be tangle in the maze,
To realize with that;
Listen.
Listen the boundaries breaching while we reaching to hundred man,
Listen wisely for I'm battling the odds twice,
That I holding the rose tight,
Think twice for I have away the demon's man,
Truest I say,
Listen;
Spacing lines are in line of the thoughts I see for some reason there's a chance I missed the meaning,
Between the Truth I seek and the truth we speak,
Savannah from Havana went to altana,
To be a star you seek the limelight got them again,
Listen man I got the budda on hand,
Listen I'm going loud to have the opportunity hand,
Amity the status for the heart ain't easy to comprehend,
Express the fire in the muse you have,
Listen.
Five years later I still think about:
sitting on the wooden steps
of your backyard
in a heatwave
summer wind bangs the screen door shut
your hair against your face, sticky heat
gravel between our toes
sun burned rocks
sweating through my shirt
I can smell your deodorant
damp baby powder
you peel grapefruit into centimeters
and slip it between my teeth
just for heartbeat I can taste
your fingertips your skin
against my tongue
you taste like graprefruit with splenda on top
tart and left-handed sweet
and soap from the kitchen sink
a shield of clothesline towels
girls kissing girls under grey Bridgeport skies
The images plucked from a full soft drive like over blown berries
threatening to fall……blasted to the humus. Swing chains creak.
The high-backed, heart carved, chalk white, front porch swing sways;
to the kicking of your feet. Beside me, you sit in spankin’ new school clothes singing.
Together wrapped like pretzel dough, we warble, annoying the sparrows.
The bumble bee yellow and black stripped school bus is late.
The dreamy cottage bungalows’ screen porch perches like a tree house ledge
over the four story drop off. Hundred year old sentinel pines tower still above us,
limbs house hug. The occasional cone drop ricochets down the trunk
to a soft needle landing, and a bouncing roll before falling off the retaining wall
We own the world. King and Queen of the Mountain are we. I sing “Ducky Duddle” to you.
You laugh. All the joy in the world in such a small sound. Oh, how I loved to make you happy.
Two short years before, even your name was new to you..my boy, Jamie.