STILL NO RAIN

Still No Rain


"Still no rain." she said
Looking out the back door
At brown barren fields
And acres full of bitter dust.

The crops lay like skeletons
Of their former selves
Brittle, petrified, inedible straws
Dead of exhaustion in their sad quest for growth.

It was a long hot summer
Hotter than most........
Longer than most......
That summer from hell.

We didn't know then
What we shouldn't know now
We were young and innocent
And too full of youth.

Life is more noticeable on a farm
It winds itself around you like kudzu on a hillside
Winds and chokes you half too death
Before you even see it's hand.

My mama, Anne, worked while Daddy slept
His angry fingers 'round a glass of tea
There in the shade of a shadeless tree
And all us children digging rows for the corn.

The sun was not our friend
It hated us and tried to kill us
It took away our swimming hole
It took away our wishing well.

And the skies refused to rain
And the soul felt only pain
Days on end and nights so thin
That they only seemed like shadows.

And he left us there in search of greener pastures
Packing up his Chevrolet with every dime he had
He couldn't meet my mama's eyes but I stared a hole clean through  him
And Mama said, "Don't hate him, girl, cause he is still your dad."

And still the rains didn't come
Though we prayed with all of our hearts
Living on polk, watercresses and hope
While the days buzzed around us like bees.

My baby brother passed away
And there were only six
Five of us and one of her
And we soon learned she was sick.

She hid it very well
Until the day she fell
In the hot noon sun with a handful of seeds
That she'd bought with her last dollar.

I was a little girl, I didn't know
But I soon learned real fast
That little girls to women grow
When their futures turn to pasts.

And I raised them up and I did my job
And the summer turned to summer
With no fall or spring or anything
To mark the change of seasons.

One by one, the children went off
To find their way without me
And left me on that dead dirt farm
Where no seedless thing can grow.

I loved someone and he loved me
For the space of a dream and an eclipse of the sun
He planted things in me that he never would harvest
Then he ran down the road with the moon at his back.

One day my daddy showed up on the porch
Old and gray and full of mean
Pointing to a patch of earth,
He asked me how I kept it green.

"That's where Mama sleeps." I said to him
"And every morning, I find things to eat.
Potatoes and squash and beans and there's roses
Blooming at her head and Queen Anne's Lace at her feet."

He didn't say another word
Just turned and left without looking back
I picked up a rock to throw at his head
But was still standing there frozen when he faded from sight.

"Mama?" she said in her little girl voice
And I turned to the door at the sound of her smile
"It's alright, just a stranger out looking for water
But there's still no rain except on your grandmama's grave."


©By Voo
September 29, 2012
7:21 p.m.

AND WE HAD SECRETS

And We Had Secrets

(And we had secrets

Like diamonds wrapped in newspapers

Carried under eager arms,

As we ran through our lives,

Hampered not by sun or storm,

To shadows full of bliss.

For it was there

In shadows, gray

That nothing cruel could find us,

Nothing cold could touch our souls

Nor quench the hungry kiss.)

There, in shadow,

The dark unseen,

No illumination shown

Our hands, our eyes

Would find the prize

Our hearts had never known.

Concrete jungles,

Asphalt gardens,

And no bed in which to sleep,

You stole the stars

Out of the sky

And gave to me to keep.

Love letters written,

In graffiti sprayed

On cars and bars and walls,

Two runaways

With no where to stay,

Answering no other calls.

Two wild hearts beating

Like crippled birds

That don't know that they're lame

We soared and flew,

Just me and you,

So different, yet the same.

We vowed to stay forever

On the streets where we ran free

Hiding from schools and rules and homes

Where we did not want to be.

Homes, where your father

And my father and us

Lived in our lies

Full of hate and mistrust.

But you grew weary

And I grew up

And made my way back home

I left the anarchy of my youth,

And you, I left alone.

Rebellion has an emptiness

And it's voids that you can't fill

But the future calls us from the past

Where the memories live on, still.

I sit behind a law firm's desk

With employees all around me

And I look up and see your face

For once again, you've found me.

A business man

In Armani suit,

With a woman and a child

There in your wallet,

And in your past,

And my heart goes running wild.

My eyes can't seem 

To look away

And yours can't seem to meet

For if they do, I know it's true

They'll sweep me off my feet.

"So nice to see you."

I hear you say

"Just wanted to say hello,

I've just made partner

And I've got the office

Across from yours, you know."

I turn and look out

Of the glass

Rain splashed, bereft of sun,

I don't know what to do or say

And I don't know where to run.

For running's all 

I've ever done,

For many lonely years

Away from you, away from me

Rebelling back the tears.

They say that you cannot go home

No matter how many tries,

But the only home I've ever known

Lies hiding in your eyes.

And I know that

And you know that

As I turn and try to smile

"So kind of you to think of me,

Won't you visit for a while?"

But you shake your head

And back away

And make a quick retreat

"I've got to move all my things in."

A mistake then:  Our eyes meet.

Slow motion waves

Of memory,

Of days and nights in love,

Running hand in hand

With naught

But Heaven up above.

We drown in loss

And deep regret

In pain and passion's lure

We sink in sickness, knowing, both,

That passion is the cure.

And people stare,

Until we blink

And pull our eyes away

As decades pass before our eyes

Like they only were a day.

No one could know the history,

No one could guess the truth,

That the two of us had ever been

Punkrockgothic, reckless youth.

Now days have flown

Since you've moved in

And caused my life such bother

You're moving up and doing well

Working for my father.

It's funny how our lives turn out

It's strange how things can change

How in one moment all our plans

Come undone and rearranged.

We are so careful with one another

When we meet, we do not touch

We look away and try not to say

What our hearts still say so much.

Today, I came back 

In from lunch

To find my desk, askew

A  graffiti note lay in the mess

Spray painted, neon blue.

And only I

And only you

Could know what that note meant

And only I could know the one

From whom that note was sent.

(And we have secrets

Like diamonds wrapped in newspapers

Carried under eager arms,

As we run through our lives,

Hampered not by sun or storm,

To shadows full of bliss.

For it is there

In shadows, gray

That nothing cruel can find us,

Nothing cold can touch our souls

Nor quench the hungry kiss.)

And we have secrets

And they have us

And at the end of every day,

From my father's eyes,

And to our surprise,

We still run away.

©by Voo

Jan 22, 2012

1:42 a.m.

Run Away...Jefferson Starship

Finding My Wings

Finding My Wings

The night reaches it's darkened fingers

Out to touch my face

And in a flash of lightning I see

The great expanse of nothingness there

Beckoning me to join it

But I will not.

I am a rose petal caught in a breeze

Softly swirling down to a sun baked earth

That gives no nurture, no sustenance

And still I cling to life without my roots

But I cling in hope.

I am a poet without a poem

A singer without a song

A lover without a love

And what is that in the scheme of things?

A beautiful bird that's lost it's wings?

I will fly on in my heart without them

For I will never forget how the current feels

How the clouds taste, how the sky curves

How high I flew when love lifted me.

The night will not take me down

I will fight it with the memory of day

Full moon madness will I ignore

Face thunderstorms with my fists raised high.

I was born for gossamer and grace

Fragrance of flowers and laughing in the sun

A man's arms around me, twirling me in the dance

Not this emptiness that follows me like a shadow.

I will have none of it!

I will regain what has been stolen

I will walk in beauty with my soul intact

With unfelt smiles decorating my face

I will reach my hand out to tomorrow

Where love lies hiding

And I shall fly again.

©by Voo

August 18, 07

ALL EIGHT EPISODES OF AACHOO VOO, PRIVATE EYE with new ones coming SOON

ALL EIGHT EPISODES OF AACHOO VOO, PRIVATE EYE

With NEW episodes coming SOON!!!!!!!!




Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode Qne


Aachoo Voo, Episode TWO


Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode THREE


Aachoo Voo ,Private Eye Episode FOUR


Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode FIVE


Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode SIX


AaCHOO VOO< PRIVATE EYE EPISODE SEVEN


AaCHOO VOO< PRIVATE EYE EPISODE EIGHT

AACHOO VOO, PRIVATE EYE EPISODE EIGHT

Peter Gunn Theme

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode Eight

       I remember waking up on a Thursday morning and the whole damned world was in black and white. Black and white, as in a black and white movie. As dark and morbid and strange as Peter Lorre in “Mad Love.” I remember stretching my arms and looking toward my usually yellow striped bedroom curtains and thinking that it was still dark and that the moon was shining outside and that I had awakened much too early for my afternoonish tastes. I switched on the lamp that stood on the bedside table piled high with Raymond Chandler paperbacks and cat toys and phone numbers written on odd pieces of anything and everything. Manny the mouse peeked his little head out of his matchbox and looked at me sleepily, (he was a late sleeper too, as he stayed up half the night playing hide and seek with Weiner, his beloved arch nemesis) and looked at me,  whiskers twitching.

I eyeballed the yellow room and noticed it wasn’t eyeballing me back. I knew something was off but so much of my life was off that a new kind of “off” couldn’t be immediately determined. I threw back the covers, hurried to the window and looked out at the neighborhood. Way down below I noticed Fred Meck the mailman delivering mail and I thought that was a funny thing to do in the middle of the night. Then I saw people rushing into Clapsaddle's carrying newspapers and men in suits jaywalking in traffic and women with shopping bags and cops arresting the usual suspects down on the corner and I said to myself, “What the h…..?!” So I pulled the window back down and went to the bathroom, rubbing my eyes as I stumbled down the hallway, tripping over various animals along the way.

I stared at myself in the mirror for a good three minutes before I realized that my face looked different. Then I turned round and stared at the room and then I scowled at Weiner who was standing there purring in the doorway with a puzzled look on his face. I also noticed that he was no longer bright orange but a darkish gray. The wallpaper was no longer pink with little red rosettes and gold champagne glasses. The towels were colorless. The floor was colorless. I was colorless. Heck, the whole apartment was colorless!! The only thing that looked normal to me was the parrot and he had never looked normal to me. I ran into the kitchen and slung the cover off his cage and he yawned at me and said in a menacing tone, “Yeah, whatdaya want? You askin’ for trouble, I’ll give ya trouble!” “What time is it?” I asked him stupidly and he shrugged and turned his back to me. “How should I know? I can’t see the clock from here.”

I ran to the living room and turned on the television set and waited for the tubes to heat up. I clicked on the radio and the news was starting. I listened nervously, wondering if there had been a Martian invasion or a new German threat or if God had suddenly decided to suck all the color out of the planet. Nothing. Just the usual. Stick ups and hold ups and blow ups and show ups. Crime in the streets and movie stars on the marquees. Governmental bores and glamorous gangsters. Death and taxes. Taxes and death. Nothing about the world going black and white and the sun hanging as pale as a Harvest moon over New York City at noon.

There was a tidbit that I almost missed about Si, the Shellac salesman on the TV but it was nearly drowned out by the radio. I was staring out the window at a blue bird singing on the window sill who was no longer blue, (the bird, that is) and barely heard it but caught the tail end of the story. Said there had been new developments in the case and showed a big blowzy blonde covering her face and being ushered away by cops. She looked vaguely familiar. Distinctly vaguely familiar. Like the dame-down-the hallway-familiar. “What gives?” I said and shook my head. Then I saw my own face flashed for a moment across the screen but the sounds of Glenn Miller came blasting out of the radio and I couldn’t hear what they said about me. I snapped off the thing but it was too late. The newscast was over. And I had looked as black and white on the television as I had in my bathroom mirror moments before.

I turned off all the lights, pulled down the shades and jumped back into bed. I snuggled so far down under the covers that my long legs stuck out of the bed about two feet but I refused to pull myself back up on the pillows. I wasn’t about to believe that this wasn’t just a bad dream. Or a fever. I wasn’t buying this reality. No sir! This was merely the result of eating my mother’s week old caviar on month old soda crackers and that was all there was to it! I had cleaned out the Frigidaire in the middle of the night last night on a whim and what I hadn’t eaten, Weiner, Toulouse and the ferret had scarfed down. We had turned it into quite the little party.

Music was playing, the mouse flickered the light switch up and down, up and down, we finished off several half-full bottles of MiMi’s home made wine, we wore old New Year’s Eve party hats, at one point someone started a conga line, we ate unidentifiable bowls of leftover food, laughed a lot and generally made fools of ourselves while having a high ole time. The parrot kept threatening to call the cops but we ignored him and taped his beak closed and covered his cage with a Mexican serape and a pair of my old pajamas. But then, we usually did that on Wednesday nights.

I kept hoping that Lance would show up as he sometimes did at unexpected moments but he didn’t. I hadn’t seen him in quite a while, not since the zipper incident. He was always going off on trips, sometimes for weeks on end and hinting that he was working for the government. (Of what country, I had no idea) but I didn’t believe him. He was too, I don’t know, devil-may-care-ladies-mannish-come-hitherish-too-lazy-to-do-his-own-laundryish-ish, to me. He drank my coffee by the gallon, ate my bacon by the skillet full, borrowed my shampoo by the……..but I didn’t care. He entertained me and irritated the heck out of the parrot. He was always joking that the parrot acted like a jealous lover when he was around but I told him that the parrot was just a sorehead and had never gotten over being dispatched from my mother’s mansion.

 He found my apartment beneath his dignity and my various pets not worth his scorn. I did not consider him a pet. I considered him a pest and an intellectual snob. I didn’t want him and he didn’t want me. He worked for my mother and I aimed to prove it but so far, I was only armed with my suspicions. My mother insisted that she’d given him to me out of love (for me) and concern for (his) safety as her high bred Persian kitty cat kept trying to eat him but I had never seen that chubby little fur ball eat anything but filet mignon and catnip so I wasn’t buying that falderal. (One of my father’s words.) He was a spy, plain and simple. But he kept me on my toes.

I think the Si murder mystery was bothering me more than I cared to admit. I didn’t like the fact that those two cops kept hanging around outside watching my apartment while pretending to be badly dressed tourists from China. Who were they fooling? They didn’t even look Chinese. And the tall one with the white beard certainly looked nothing like a Chinese woman. I didn’t like the mysterious phone calls I kept getting either where no one said anything but I could hear them breathing. Of course, a couple of times, I knew it was the parrot calling my office because I recognized his snicker. But they were coming at all hours of the day and night now and only half of them were from my mother. I was worried. I smelled a frame up. I hadn’t killed that salesman and didn’t know who did but I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. Things didn’t add up. They never had. Mainly, because I had never been good in math but that was just the way it was.

 Not good at modeling, though I had given it a shot to please my mother, not good at dancing on stage (because I usually ended up falling off stage) not good at singing (except along with Larry, Curly and Moe) not good at being an obedient and respectful daughter, not good with high or low society, terrible at keeping boyfriends and driving. I didn’t know what I was good at, but I darned sure gave it my all! Nobody could say I didn’t give it my all! I guess private-eyeing was about the only thing I was good at but Lord knows, half of that success just turned out to be dumb luck. I did have plenty of luck, I couldn’t deny that. Good, bad or worse, I did have luck. I got that from MiMi and Poppi Voo, I think. They were full of it............ and I was their heir.

To be continued in Episode 9
somewhere, sometime......
( BEG ME....OH, PLEASE BEG ME!!!)

Detective Yettiman in disguise
as an unconvincing Chinese lady

                                      

                                                                                                                             

Detective John Coyote (with disguise in the background)

(Actually Mickey Rooney in his role in Breakfast At Tiffany's)

                                                                   
                                                                        Fred Mecklenburg as 

                                                                               Fred Meck the mailman

MiMi and Poppi Voo

And Voo as Aachoo Voo