Author: Pleasant Street

Pleasant Street appears to be stuck in 1948, via a time-machine of her own design

recipe for sleep

~ Pleasant Street ~ 2 Comments

Spreading peanut butter
a satisfying aroma of toasted bread
spreading the marmalade
then cutting it into corners
the crunch sounding good to my ears
with Lana Del Rey in the background
telling the neighborhood she’s up
the feel of warm socks on feet
that have been in a/c all night long
sun rays through the window on port side
don’t my legs look good against this carpet
food abandoned for now, and all the senses
trying to block out the temptations
with battery by the senses
but it’s no good I can’t be swayed
by a bit of toast and sympathy
comfort isn’t comforting me anymore
I need to feel the pain of running hard
and fast until my body gives up
then perhaps I will sleep the night

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Last words

~ Pleasant Street ~ 2 Comments

Too many sips loosens up the will
more than the intellect
I am either going to
ruin your day
or rock your stuff

Either way this is going
to play out to the finish
I already pressed the button
and I am no slacker

Do you forgive me–
because I felt myself
fading
and I had to do
something

Pre-threnody (before you go)

~ Pleasant Street ~ 5 Comments

I don’t want anything of his when he is gone. Not a damned thing.
We didn’t talk for 20 years, and now he tells me stories. He tells me things about my mother I never knew, and I tuck them away like perfumed handkerchiefs in small drawers. I may never open them again, but they are there, preserved for posterity. Someone will want them and treasure them. Or someone careless will throw them in the trash.

Every day

~ Pleasant Street ~ 13 Comments

I open a vein here
I said I wouldn’t, I promised that
I could write in public, and give you much of me, and
show you my heart–but there is a line, was a line, a supposéd line
over which you can have all of it except my blood

When the words begin, I only intend to give you a peek at my insides
an x-ray of what I’ve been up to, and how life’s pommels
perturb my organs, my inner workings, the processes of the body;
so how come I woke up in a puddle of blood after a night of quill driving?
I didn’t mean to, and like a moment where one’s pants fall down in a crowd

I would be obliged if you would turn your head for a moment
while I clean this up. No one else will know, or will see
they were not looking, they have their circus tents
their center ring features, the lion tamer is spectacular
so they will not notice the movement among the freaks in the shadows

Again, these rules, more like guidelines, a peek only, into my psyche
enough to pacify the ego, too little to shock the masses, but only to touch
one or two, someone in need of a buddy, a mate, to know
that they are not alone in this;
and I hurt too and I laugh too and I have joy
when the hurt abates for the time being

But the blood is not on the menu. and when you look away,
I take my handkerchief and wipe the corner of my mouth

dreaming, he says

~ Pleasant Street ~ 3 Comments

dreaming
he lays
strangers’ steps’ echoes
through the sad city
where mansions
keep vigil
from the sea
to the rocky mount

life and death
is none to him
not breathless, nor feverish
his only occupation
a mover of shadows

his angel
an English rose
wooed
by the threshold of time
and his soul
that has slept away
the evening hours