Picture is: 'Paradise Sunset' Artist is: Diane Romanello art print from allposters.co.uk The Real Housewives of Paradise Beach “The chairs are from Georgio’s, you know- frightfully expensive but just right. They help block anyone who might think of coming up the path to our patio. We had Adzio’s do the patio, you know.” “I know. Don’t you just hate it-- that the beach is free, and all? I love the pricey chairs though. You’ll need side tables or something for drinks and all, won’t you?” “Too much bother, Dear, and we never leave the patio-- drags sand in you know. We’re only down for July anyway. Isn’t the sunset pretty, and all?” “Gracious it had better be! It was so expensive and all, you know?” © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell __________________________________________________________ I Can Remember a Kind of Silence If I think hard enough and long enough I can remember a kind of silence, when nothing unnatural interrupted the ear: the break of small waves on the beach of Point Lookout; the rustle of the tobacco leaves outside the propped up window; the eagle’s call atop Old Rag Mountain; woodland walks with no where particular to go accompanied by noises so natural the walk was mistaken for some silent retreat. As the year’s went by I did not notice the gradual creeping of unnatural noises seeping into my consciousness. The heart beat and blood pressure were rarely a concern in youth, and I was hell bent on making the artificial noises that surrounding me. I had not yet learned the prudence of moderation or the consideration of solitude. Wars came and went and came again. Technology burst upon the world with the insistence of “You’ve got mail!” Noise became more and more artificially generated and I learned to multi-task it, weave those elements in and out like the music mixer in a noisy night club. My patience grew shorter and shorter to match the allotted time I could give to any poem to read. Today, I’m in a race against all the noise about me: Trying to get the words out in-between noisy children in the background; timing my time alone to compose my poetry before Doo wop intrudes upon my mind; trying to meditate over the noise of the plane above. How I miss that kind of silence I hear so little of in my world today; a kind of silence of noises natural to the harmony of things primary. I feel frantic and nervous and the doctor prescribes pill upon pill for my nerves and the heightening pressure. Reading ‘War and Peace’ again is unthinkable-that summer long ago is rent and but a memory. Caffeine sustains me and heightens the pulse of everything around me, banging and slamming, pounding and ringing, screaming and screeching… © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell	Similes and Symbols It was a hot day that day at The Battery. We waited so long to be screened buckle-less before passing over to that Island the simile of another we proudly passed. The towers were still freshly fallen in both memory and the mind’s eye. We needed buckling up- a reminder of just what we symbolized. There she stood torch in hand, Mother of Exiles reminding us “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free…” Her’s was a world wide welcome Alike yet unlike the place beside her; sunset gates held ajar with a doorstop. She had always been firmly rooted, never tempest’tost was she. With silent lips she seemed to ask; “Who is an immigrant who does not come to us an alien- wary, unsure and frightened? How do we welcome them?” We enfold them into our arms; feed and clothe them, nurse them to health, and, yes, we educate them all to the abundant degree of our blessed largesse. "Whatever you neglected to do unto one of these least of these, you neglected to do unto Me!" ... We invite them into our ranks, immigrants everyone of us before. They are our lifeblood. They are our soul. They are our folk. Speak not to me of minor things, forms and registrations. Rather attend to their needs and foster their cries for citizenship. Do not seek to divide us by fires stoked before- smoke screens for your war. Hear this: “Mr Bush, tear down this wall!” © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell
Remembrances of a Cottontail I remember Cotton, Sittin’ up tall the other side a pickup cab’s, ring-stained seat, cuddlin’ a cold beer to his crotch. He was a hotrod man when he took to teasin’ me, cause he knew, just cause he knew. I was a special boy to him. He told me so, on a sweet moonlit driven night; my best friend ‘nd buddy, somebody bigger to look up to. He nicked me his Cottontail, ‘nd he ne’er told me any lies. He ne’er told me any lies. He’d been runnin’ Racine raw. It weren’t fittin’, her bein’ married ‘nd all. Everybody knew though ‘cept that there cock-hold, ‘nd he weren’t half of Cott. I figured, too, Racine know’d that Cotton ne’er told her any lies. He ne’er told her any lies. Cott’d got something awful foxed, ‘nd fearless too, in those days when you drove unfeathered ‘nd free, ‘customed as you were to liberty. He flipped o’er into a causeway ditch. It ‘bout broke everybody’s heart. I bored the beatin’ weight; heavy ‘n taut in pain, that toted a void, the hole that couldn’t be filled. I reckon I’ll mostly remember though, Cotton ne’er told me any lies. He ne’er told me any lies. Scoot on o’er here a little closer. Do ya wanna ‘nother beer? Don’t be such a shyaway on a sweaty-driven moonlit-night. We’ll fill up if ya wanna, and sate the void again, in a bright night; taut, light-weighted ‘nd chased to that upper right handed, canton-liked corner of pain, I hike to a my mind’s eye, cause I know, just cause I know. You can call me Cottontail, ‘nd I won’t be tell’in ya any lies; I won’t be tell’in ya any lies. © 2006 by E.D. Ridgell	Val-kill Industries My owner was irreverently rye, liberal about more things than not after the Age of Reason. Shift about my foundations and you’ll find this is no sand but hard granite indeed. I am done settling; A stately house. I have become so forgotten, they skip me after Springwood- it’s closer to the Park. Today, the unfashionable is often the mode tomorrow- There is hope. Change is inevitable and a circle has no breaks. It is well designed. Society is always owed a debt. Pay it with the proceeds of craftsmanship-yes, statesmanship made, here, within this place. She lies but a little bit away. Please, pay her her due! © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell
The Dying Bluebird The nest grown silent absent the sound of beats recently grown irregular, I sensed the pact broken and flew into freedom leaving the old drunk dead the decay already beginning. Where does a bluebird go when on the wing? What song does she sing when the silence is over; the pity prison of a beaten boy, ugly, gloomy and rudely reserved, his gated heart at last flown open. I flew high into the sky in search of that first sweet song I’d wished to sing all along, but no. There was no soft song within me. I and the old poet were both victims of a lifelong delirium. The sounds that flew forth were not soft and sweet on the ear but hard notes written to even a score, screeches in search of some meaning. To that purpose they served the music of both our souls all the better and gave the world songs in poems that sought to be more true than sweet. =========================== ‘See my little wing quiver so as I lie here atop the snow! Water is surely free I think. I only wanted a tiny drink. Something is broke within I know. I can not lift and rise to go. So happy was I on the brink eager at a dawn’s sky of pink; very frightened left alone, lamenting others who have flown- fled they so high into a sky never more into will I fly’. © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell	The Old Buddha begins the Forty Fifth Day You die for interrupting the song of the canary! We have no ear now for distant discords or the echoing rumors common to the court. These are as to silent flights of hummingbirds. You are but one of a host of brown-headed sparrows while this one, yellow canary sings with celestial purpose, lightening Our morning’s jealous solitude, a pretty prelude ‘fore the tedious rituals of tending mortals. Away! Behead him without delay, this fowl, indigenous sparrow heckling the lovely canary. Commonplace no matter its elegant competition, its airs cannot forestay Our boredom, or equal these lovely songs floating on the morning. With the breaking of winging sounds most pure comes this kowtowing herald of a general, too egalitarian for Our liking. Go! We begin the migration on the day rudely used! How now, tell Us, fairs Our Boxer’s? © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell