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version 2.2
...self indulgence...
...livejournal...
...poetry & artwork...
...friends...
...randomalia...
...rpg excursions...
...leave me alone...
...back where you started...
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...Swatchell...
I remember trying one, when I was seven, at my uncle's
red-faced insistence.
....................(he swung me through the air too fast)
That thick of cotton and cold of tin
........bite underneath my tongue-- too big.
But there it was, that voice, harsh....squawking squeaking.
.............THAT'S the way to do it!
Professors filled the room, and it seemed to me
...they each spoke with that shrill.
~
My uncle threw the baby too hard one day.
It landed at my feet,
.............still squalling, crimson-cheeked.
I wanted to touch it, wanted to see if the paint was still wet
..but the bottler snatched it away.
~
I was terribly afraid of bottlers,
...fifteen sixteen all blemish and grease.
There was something obscene in them,
....................(you've been very naughty and i shan't
....................give you kisses any more)
......in the way they scuffed their feet along the shore
and dipped their fingers
.into the long necks of the bottles
.......left with one sticky swallow of beer.
~
Those beaches were gray, their sand cold
....................and damp between my toes,
white grit on my sandcastle fingers.
The moats I dug would not fill. The waves chilled
......my ankles, stole my seashells
like the slither of a crocodile.
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