Baby Snakes
A
grass
snake
slid across
the path
in our back
garden
one summer
when I
was a kid.
My cousin
was with me
and saw it too
but none
of the adults
believed us.
My cousin was
older than me
and used to
sun bathe
on the step
in a blue
bikini.
Years later
she married
her Romany cousin.
I had a kundalini
awakening
when I was 25
which I suppose
is the
esoteric
equivalent
of a grass
snake
winding across
your path.
Sometimes
I lie on
the grass
in the sun
to soothe
my spine
when
it's sore.
Coffee also
soothes me.
I drank
milky coffee
as kid
and my cousin
made fun
of me
cos milk
was for babies.
That's ok
I liked her
anyway.
She had
dark
hair and
thick lips.
Maybe it's the
memory of
milky coffee
that soothes me
because
let's face it
coffee gets
you wired af
and batshit
crazy.
Today I'm
going to shop
for a new
jacket
and notebooks
to write in
then go to
Starbucks
although
it's raining
heavily
and the rain
is falling
like baby snakes
which is
a song
by Frank Zappa.
Kundalini
makes you
crazy too -
either that or
enlightened
or something.
Some days
I can't
tell which.
Jokes
My friend
and I
hitched
up north
and climbed
Ben Nevis
and sailed
to Skye
where we
met a beautiful
Spanish girl
in a youth
hostel
on a rainy
island night.
I was
too shy
to talk
to her
but I listened
to her
crack jokes
in Spanish
about
William Wordsworth
and the
Lake District
that made
her mum and sisters
laugh.
How cool
is that,
I thought,
to be so
funny and
good looking!
When I
got
home I
listened to
Bob Dylan
sing about
Italian girls
and lounged
about dreaming
about the
beautiful girl
I'd met
on the
Isle of Skye,
imagining
I was a singer
and a solitary
island traveller.
My sister
heard the song
and developed
a crush
on Bob Dylan.
Romance
is contagious
but generally
impractical
at that age.
A few years
later I was
in a gallery
in Jerusalem
looking at ceramics
and the girl
serving was Armenian
and quite possibly
the most beautiful
woman I'd ever seen.
She was olive skinned
and the ceramics
were pink and grey
and there were
Israeli soldiers
outside
with guns loaded
pointed at
the Arab Quarter.
I was still too shy
to talk to foreign girls
or perhaps
I didn't
feel worthy
of such
overwhelming
beauty.
At any rate
I didn't have
the words
back then
and was
quite incapable
of cracking
jokes about
Israeli poets
or wandering
Jewish
holy men.
I went back
to the
youth hostel
next to
the King David
hotel
and read
the Bible
after failing
to procure
some Lebanese
hashish
from a quick talking
Palestinian
market stall owner
whose jokes
about my height
made me
feel like shit.
No wonder
Armenian girls
are so fucking
beautiful
in the olive groves
beneath the
hot Israeli sun.
_________
Stephen Nelson is the author of several books of poetry, including Arcturian Punctuation (Xexoxial Editions) and Lunar Poems for New Religions (KFS Press). He has exhibited vispo and asemic writing internationally, and published in numerous journals, including 3am, Posit, Big Bridge, BlazeVox Journal and The Adirondack Review. He is currently working on a YA sci-fi/fantasy novel. Find him online at www.afterlights-vispo.tumblr.com and www.afterlights.blogspot.com.
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