To Hell with Edgar Allen Poe, Sylvia Plath and Mark Rothko! & The Real Culprit in the Matter of Love

To Hell with Edgar Allen Poe, Sylvia Plath and Mark Rothko!



Awaking from a delicious dream I turn in my bed

to face the sea window and peer through quiet eyes
towards a fresh orange sunrise that looks painted
in oils, as it emerges from the inky depths
into slivers of sirrus clouds spread against the clean
baby blues of a canvassed
Caribbean day and my dog and I bounce outside,
only to see a blooming green pair of parrots who have noisily

flirted in the animated foilage above for weeks. 
Today they finally

kiss, rub heads, chatter and make plans to
Carpe Diem!- as they feast on
purple grapes.


They
are
getting
down

like James Brown dancing 
on my radio and me driving,
top down, even the stop signs with cheery red faces
seem to hold up a hand and say HEY! - and traffic lights playfully
wink at me along the way.

It is Friday and half day at work. The fire alarm abbreviates
this day perfectly, and soon the phone buzzes my thigh with

messages of , "We R here!" and "Hurry up!!" - and I drive
along with the

sun kissing my left shoulder. The sea to my right sparkles
with diamond caps, and the waves
kiss and pull away in the cove with white water thrusts of eternal
pleasure.
Soon I pull under the cool green leaves of
almond tree shade and
enter the pub aside the sea and there is that
moment:
I spot
my table,

friends,

one potential lover, and
they smile and
wave me over to perfect pints of beer,

giant glasses of
red wine, and a jug of red sangria. I feel

settled. A coolant of content
flows through me.

I will just stay here.





The Real Culprit in the Matter of Love 

Walking alone one windless June night
fear looked at the clock and asked,
"So, was there love or no love,
and what or who is to blame?"

Ah - Indifference. Though born of love,
it has no lover, circling slowly,
patiently with dull eyes,
peering below at the growing
empty spaces between words,
then plunging down

scattering swirls of feathers,
leaving hope bewildered and blinking back
a million tears of rain falling on the
upturned face of the sea.

But so you emerge with quiet eyes and
draw the curtains to a rain fresh morning and
the surf smooths out the new pages of white sands.
And the soft roar of the day
begins.

Punching the Moon

There are delving days when the ink blue sea whispers to me
in a sexy voice, "Come over here boy, and give me a kiss."
"Hell no girl! I am not easy like that! Anyway, I have
too much to do."

I want to get cashy and swagger with America,
drunk with England on cool draft lager,
dine with France on her clean white linens with shining silver,
then turn to Italy, her eyes of tawny pools, and say,
"You and I are going dancing with Brazil.
We'll splash across the Atlantic and
samba all night!"

Some days I feel like punching the moon out of sight,
swatting down the stars,
pouring the oceans down the drain,
and switching off the sun.

There are nights when the skies thunder with revelry and streak
with disco lightning and the rain drinks champagne
and mother nature, with her thousand Arabic pleasures,
sways over to me slow thighed...

But I've got to finish the laundry now - I've got a ton of it to do.

Tony Walton




FALL 2013

Tony Walton lives in the Cayman Islands and has been published most recently in Whisperings, Mountain Tales Press ,Burningword Literary, Out of Our Magazine and other magazines

http://poetrybay.com/fall13/TonyWalton.html

Carabosse's Library: Dawn by Valentina Cano

Carabosse's Library: Dawn by Valentina Cano: Dawn is a pulsing light behind the pale suburban homes. The woman sits on her bed, her comforter and sheets in knots behind her, flotsa...

A letter to my Ancestors in 1607

I realize you are busy planting crops, fighting
typhoid, dysentery and various fevers, 
not to mention Indians (they control gambling now!) 

But I've got troubles too: The internet is 
slow today and this message will take forever 
to get to you (5 minutes, maybe more) .

I read that you are great farmers.I can't say 
that I have any farming abilities, as instead
I order Chinese food and other take out
food delights. I am ordering a pizza now.
I think you would like pizza.

I understand that you spend days with
Indian guides looking for new sources of fresh water. 
We buy that in bottles now but I couldn't tell you
where it's from.

Sorry, you're probably busy now keeping up 
with 12 children and don't have the luxury of time.
In the future you'll have much more time and 
you will find yourself thinking a lot, too much
so much you'd probably need therapy
We do

I went to your gravesite today, 
well, kind of: it's now a strip mall with
a Walgreens, Foot Locker, a nail salon and
a Smoothy King- you would be happy to 
know they have the best raspberry-beet 
smoothie (I think you'd like smoothies) 

this is what it all came to

imagine that. 

Rooster: "Fuck You peace dove - it's over!" :)

Sam the Corgi waiting (and confused) in the front window for me (I used the backdoor).

Street

Haitian Market Lady #8

Man by River

A Blink

It can take years to get things sorted out,
whatever it is or was that keeps you static.
Sitting there waiting with only your self doubt,
while all around you life moves on, you're stuck
in a slow motion scream.

We're all moving towards a conclusion,
it's something that our dance with destiny
cannot escape.  Sure, there you go trying to reconfigure
life's illusions.

All I'm trying to do is advise you-
a problem shared is a problem solved. So look in the mirror
and tell me what you see - and be honest.

These Questions we have and
Answers we want
they are like an Ocean and we are just floating on the surface,
fearing that we get drowned.  Can I tell you my friend - this life,
it's flying by in perpetual motion.  And what could be -
well, that can pass you by in a blink.

Thai Girl in Hat

Taken by Tony Walton.  Grand Cayman 2013

Dog selling plants and fruits!

Zenaida Dove - Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

Nite Writers International Journal

 http://nitewritersinternational.webs.com/poetry.htm

I'm not familiar with this publication, but I'm half way down.

After a confidential word with the concierge

Sam the Welsh Corgi

                                                               

                                                     57 cents a day

                                                    There will never be another value for coin

                                                     as my super furry friend.

                                                     

         
                                                    

                                                      

The surprising accomplishments of beauty

 

I hit harder in schoolyard fights when girls
were watching.
I tackled harder in rugby matches when girls
were watching.
I ran faster in races when girls
were watching.
Sure, sometimes they assumed relaxed positions (literally)
while others paid the cost, but all the same I still
watch them walk by on summer days and know damn well,
for all they care I could go to hell.
(and regarding schoolyard fights, they did watch).

All PHOTOS TAKEN IN CARIBBEAN ISLANDS and a few other places

by Tony Walton

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15939419@N03/with/9739030028/

WRITING

TONY WALTON

https://twitter.com/caymanchess

Using Phallic Shadow in taking pictures with a girl from Ukraine

2 Brothers on the sidewalk

Port-au-Prince, Haitian Market Stall 7:56 AM

Photograph by Tony Walton
https://twitter.com/caymanchess

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15939419@N03/

INDUSTRIAL BEAUTY LEGS IT

photograph by Tony Walton

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15939419@N03/

Indentations in the Female Psyche

There has been an empty space to the
left of her for some time.
All that remains is an
indentation.

Those who slept on that side were
kind,
some she will not forget,
others are
          forgotten.
Some stayed for just one night
faithless arms and legs entwined,
others for years and years.

Once
a wanting voice flailed against his
gated silence, until exhausted and left there
in the empty spaces between words,
for the less loving one was
rarely her.

The corners of her disobedient
dreams flash images
in which the empty space grows,
like a stain and
she is awakened
drenched in silence, her breath pooling
around her. Some time ago there was

a lamp on the left side, mens fitness magazines,
and a watch of some rugged wear,

now the leaves of the trees tremble on
windless days and their circling rings
advance into evening. We must ask:
What will become of this left side?

Ah! But stop!- and not overanalyze!
Rationally there is a tantalizing thing that
she declines to see:

Through those curtained windows
under these same stars that we sleep
down winding streets
humming with air conditioners
behind the manicured lawns with
cool sprinklers,
each night,
there are many such
indentations.


(Boston Poetry Magazine)

http://bostonpoetry.wordpress.com/?s=tony+Walton

Tony Walton
caymanchess@yahoo.com
1 345 927 2359
Po box 30439
Grand Cayman,
Ky1-1202
Cayman Islands

(please respond by email or telephone)

Coloring inside the Lines

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”

Coco Chanel

 

Childrens's crayons, a clustered

pack,

little desks in tidy rows,

conforming to the lines.

Lines drawn for them

by others - don't they know?

"He followed orders to a Tee,"

is no Epitaph for me.

The jacket of convention-

avoiding this fate is quite

the art.

So:

You of dewy bloom! Of aesthetics! Of

Imagination!

Silence the mourners,

muffle the bagpipes,

push back the coffin out for sail,

inhale back that sigh!

Blast through the lines

like Pollock into a

hard driving rain, for

what they think of you -

does not come from thought.

Tony Walton

 

(Boston Poetry Magazine August edition )

http://bostonpoetry.wordpress.com/?s=tony+walton

Punching the Moon

There are delving days when the ink blue sea whispers to me
in a sexy voice, "Come over here boy, and give me a kiss."

"Hell no girl! I am not easy like that! Anyway, I have
too much to do."

I want to get cashy and swagger with America,
drunk with England on cool draft lager,
dine with France on her clean white linens with shining silver,
then turn to Italy, her eyes of tawny pools, and say,
"You and I are going dancing with Brazil.
We'll splash across the Atlantic and
samba all night!"

Some days I feel like punching the moon out of sight,
swatting down the stars,
pouring the oceans down the drain,
and switching off the sun.

There are nights when the skies thunder with revelry and streak
with disco lightening and the rain drinks champagne
and mother nature, with her thousand Arabic pleasures,
sways over to me slow thighed...

But before I explode across this page-

I've got to finish the laundry- I've got a ton of it to do.



Tony Walton

 http://bostonpoetry.wordpress.com/?s=tony+walton

A Couple on a Sunday Drive

There are no disagreements as we drive along,

encased safely in the car, a road
split by the center line.
Practiced vowels, consonants and syllables
roll predictably with the hum of tires. Each topic
measured as the roadside poles,
the conversation's selected tone
mirrors the
ca-thump ca-thump ca-thump
of the the paved highway joints.

We stare at the windshield and

think of things that must be said - instead,
the words shift, twist, and turn
in our mouths
like worms, then sit angrily,
before we
brood them out of separate windows in
silence and

continue down the road
somewhere,
the receding light of the sun
searching through glass then
fading
in the rear window,
frame by frame
until the light is
gone.

http://bostonpoetry.wordpress.com/?s=tony+walton

After a confidential word with the concierge

As I step down from the chicken fluttered bus
I'm hit with a blast of popcorn bag heat
opened directly into my face and I glide through
the cheek and jowl streets with
tangled knots of aromas from street market stalls
I feel life flow back into me(!) as I
grow nearer and remove my aviator shades
perching them on my head with my left hand while
my right hand confirms a lump of faded colonial pointed nose men
aiming towards the bar recommended by the fuzzy diced
1995 caprice classic taxi driver with a broken air conditioner and
I see fleshy tropical shirted gringos appearing uncommonly popular
at Las Diablo.

She holds eye contact for 5 glorious seconds
and slides through perfumed air towards me
and I rewind to a time of
cars and lakes and
cascading hair
and beery mirth and
soft touches and the freshly packaged
newness of youth that the counsel of
my years will not surrender
and I become intoxicated by the whole
damn thing and soon we are  

stumbling into the sharp edge of the city
through dying light
past corrugated iron and angry graffiti.
We are sniped by well aimed stares of
lost possibilities from women whose
arms are thick from lifting children.
Their eyes have no flicker.
These things cause
our buzz to fade a little
and we become less tactile as

we reach a concrete squared house with a
sleepy hammock and mongrels and dusty children kicking a ball
and a grandmother slowly and silently lifts her face
towards my mumbled greeting
but her hands continue their soapy toil.

I find myself in a bare bulb room with a
picture of Jesus that I remember from childhood Catechism
on the wall and an old iron post bed with thin sheets and soon
I see this:

The symmetry of her face, close up, is melting.
Her lip curves slightly up on the left side as
does the right. Matching almond eyes
with a brow of gentle waves and laughter that
occasionally breaks into flashes of
sadness.

A child is conversing in the
next room in animated tones playing with
a (formerly) blonde one armed doll who is
competing with a tube tv
broadcasting a Brazilian soap opera.
A rooster crows, a reggaeton
car thumps by and the
street noises converge
into a disquieting hum. 

We shift from grip to grip to grip as
a tired oscillating fan moves slowly
left and right and left, as if
in disapproval.


(Reprinted with the permission of Burningword Literary Magazine with the permission of the author)

http://burningword.com/2013/04/tony-walton/

Tony M Walton

Dear Lady

I brought you everywhere
heart racing beauty and your
razor wit, ravaging you in
dark places seen only by mirrors

But
Now we go nowhere
goldfish in an unquenchable bowl
looking at the spinning clock
through a furtive window and

raging until the angry shafts of light
cut through blinds scorching
regrets and sworn goodbyes
too deep, too fast
a damn mistake for

you are shallow as dust
on a table railing against reason
taking gold with your straw man soul

What pressure you put my blood under!
Buy my heart has charged and
I have cut your credit cards.


Tony Walton

(Reprinted by permission of Whisperings Magazine, Mountain Tales Press and the Author)
http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/530982

GIVE ME TREATS!

Photograph by Tony Walton

After a confidential word with the concierge

As I step down from the chicken fluttered bus
I’m hit with a blast of popcorn bag heat
opened directly into my face and I glide through
the cheek and jowl streets with
tangled knots of aromas from street market stalls
I feel life flow back into me(!) as I
grow nearer and remove my aviatar shades
perching them on my head with my left hand while
my right hand confirms a lump of faded colonial pointed nose men
aiming towards the bar recommended by the fuzzy diced
1995 caprice classic taxi driver with a broken air conditioner and
I see fleshy tropical shirted gringos appearing uncommonly popular
at Las Diablo.

She holds eye contact for 5 glorious seconds
and slides through perfumed air towards me
and I rewind to a time of
cars and lakes and
cascading hair
and beery mirth and
soft touches and the freshly packaged
newness of youth that the counsel of
my years will not surrender
and I become intoxicated by the whole
damn thing and soon we are

stumbling into the sharp edge of the city
through dying light
past corrugated iron and angry graffiti.
We are sniped by well aimed stares of
lost possibilities from women whose
arms are thick from lifting children.
Their eyes have no flicker.
These things cause
our buzz to fade a little
and we become less tactile as

we reach a concrete squared house with a
sleepy hammock and mongrels and dusty children kicking a ball
and a grandmother slowly and silently lifts her face
towards my mumbled greeting
but her hands continue their soapy toil.

I find myself in a bare bulb room with a
picture of Jesus that I remember from childhood Catechism
on the wall and an old iron post bed with thin sheets and soon
I see this:

The symmetry of her face, close up, is melting.
Her lip curves slightly up on the left side as
does the right. Matching almond eyes
with a brow of gentle waves and laughter that
occasionally breaks into flashes of
sadness.

A child is conversing in the
next room in animated tones playing with
a (formerly) blonde one armed doll who is
competing with a tube tv
broadcasting a Brazilian soap opera.
A rooster crows, a reggaeton
car thumps by and the
street noises converge
into a disquieting hum.

We shift from grip to grip to grip as
a tired oscillating fan moves slowly
left and right and left, as if
in disapproval.


Tony Walton

(Reprinted with the permission of Burningword Literary Magazine with the permission of the author)
http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/530982

Cayman Blue Iguana

Photograph by Tony Walton

5:07 pm at Coconut Joes Bar

Perched on the stool with my feet
hooked into the rounded footstep
I
am
Preened
eyes scanning quest
who suddenly appear
and I lock onto them in the cool Revo
shade of the liquored watering hole
displaying bleached fangs
at striking distance as
skweeking noisy groups
of twos and fours engage
in skittish gossip

I am base and knuckled and
primal – no affectation of
enlightenment, evolution, religion
or Gloria Steinem
technology ancient in
gelled hunt of perfect
savagery with a
denim cloaked tool
seeking prey
before closing time.

Tony Walton

(Reprinted with the permission of Burningword Literary Magazine and the author)

Tony M Walton

tonywaltoncayman@gmail.com

Zenaida Dove in Cayman at 12:34 pm cayman islands

Photograph by Tony Walton

After they left

We roam your steel towers
scavenging the tired relics,
fanged strolls down the wide avenues
delicious slabbed plates went
first devoured hours after,
we reconciled quick with the dogs
(even the impractical little ones - your
design) their sinful ancient collaboration
                forgotten,
cats are still aloof as ever
well they used to be tigers,
homes and  sewers echo
their lonely calls,
unaccompanied subways we
learned to use,
a razored fox lives
on a skyscraper - by himself
cracked molars of a construction site with
an earthdigger teethy smile frozen
never again to strike terra!
and we don't miss you.

Tony M Walton

(Reprinted with the permission of the author, Whisperings Magazine, and Mountain Tales Press)

After a confidential word with the concierge

As I step down from the chicken fluttered bus
I’m hit with a blast of popcorn bag heat
opened directly into my face and I glide through
the cheek and jowl streets with
tangled knots of aromas from street market stalls
I feel life flow back into me(!) as I
grow nearer and remove my aviatar shades
perching them on my head with my left hand while
my right hand confirms a lump of faded colonial pointed nose men
aiming towards the bar recommended by the fuzzy diced
1995 caprice classic taxi driver with a broken air conditioner and
I see fleshy tropical shirted gringos appearing uncommonly popular
at Las Diablo.

She holds eye contact for 5 glorious seconds
and slides through perfumed air towards me
and I rewind to a time of
cars and lakes and
cascading hair
and beery mirth and
soft touches and the freshly packaged
newness of youth that the counsel of
my years will not surrender
and I become intoxicated by the whole
damn thing and soon we are

stumbling into the sharp edge of the city
through dying light
past corrugated iron and angry graffiti.
We are sniped by well aimed stares of
lost possibilities from women whose
arms are thick from lifting children.
Their eyes have no flicker.
These things cause
our buzz to fade a little
and we become less tactile as

we reach a concrete squared house with a
sleepy hammock and mongrels and dusty children kicking a ball
and a grandmother slowly and silently lifts her face
towards my mumbled greeting
but her hands continue their soapy toil.

I find myself in a bare bulb room with a
picture of Jesus that I remember from childhood Catechism
on the wall and an old iron post bed with thin sheets and soon
I see this:

The symmetry of her face, close up, is melting.
Her lip curves slightly up on the left side as
does the right. Matching almond eyes
with a brow of gentle waves and laughter that
occasionally breaks into flashes of
sadness.

A child is conversing in the
next room in animated tones playing with
a (formerly) blonde one armed doll who is
competing with a tube tv
broadcasting a Brazilian soap opera.
A rooster crows, a reggaeton
car thumps by and the
street noises converge
into a disquieting hum.

We shift from grip to grip to grip as
a tired oscillating fan moves slowly
left and right and left, as if
in disapproval.

(Reprinted with the permission of Burningword Literary Magazine with the permission of the author)
Tony M Walton

tonywaltoncayman@gmail.com