Writing For G.O.T

Ancient Fashion -- for Black and White #57--Florent

Free verse (as stream of consciousness)
425 words 38 lines
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The past wrapped in wet handkerchiefs is on the catwalk
in bacchanalian stilettos and bee-hive hairdo.
I crave to avert my eyes but I can’t for it sends
bemused kisses my way with a side-splitting sway,

and she offers ancient sunlight out of ice-age to rise
through the mist and fog—first, adults alleged grownups…
like dogs chasing a single squirrel, I am a child punished,
put down, or spoiled with affection; either way feeling numb,
and looking dumb, in the city I once adored--rich in excesses

where I first erected my insomnia, cross-hatching it with
a lost love at a storefront stoop’s recesses, while he stared at
the sidewalk, as if it held my blood. Then, he lifted his eyes
to the red-skirt swooshing by. Was he worth it any? Not at all!
Yet, the pains passed, beauty stayed in the sad songs of old days

when dreams more powerful than sense showed the way in
the pages of books and what was of value, elegance, grace
and kindness, too. Still, “Love begins easy, ends so hard, like a war
and all change is transformative.” That’s what my Granny said,
the one whose caress I trusted, since the days she combed my waves

or I was busted with cigarettes in a closet or scraped knees
when tipped off balance or the times I struck words like sparks,
lacing my fingers through my cat’s fur or sat in the corner lost
in The Little Prince, Pecos Bill, and the banquet of the archaic,
while radios sang Hound Dog, Beyond the Sea, On top of old Smoky.

Old poets walk backwards, stumbling on stone paths, parting
a cosmos of flowers, in the wee hours and mismatched timelines
thick with dirt and good intentions, mourning those belongings
like the grape jelly over peanut butter and my nanny’s cuddles
visions of windows deep under the roof, ashes in fireplace, smell of hay,

falling into the pond in the yard, chasing through the dunes at the beach
after my cousins who were my partners in crime and afternoon naps
and art of the crayoned patterns on the walls…Today our footprints
are erased and the worms in buckets eased away, and I have to say
this frail memory has been jumping up down, a perfect clown.

And now, pitching another kiss with a wave, the one on the catwalk
--in bacchanalian stilettos, bee-hive hairdo, infinite confidence
and famous for unearthing long-held stuff in locked boxes--
smirks at my words and flits off in a fit of bliss like a swallowtail.

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Prompt: Old memories.