6.3.2012

4.29.12 | Journaling

i'm writing this from my tiny phone screen in the back of a truck somewhere in the pacific northwest to the sound of eastern storm on western ground and irish folk music being sung by men with soft souls but rough faces. my friend is asleep on my lap. we are wrapped in Icelandic wool, heading north and the wind is very cold. I need a good meal but all we have is a bar of chocolate. I can sometimes see mt. hood in my view. what I really want is a bag of kettle chips and warmer hands. there is a man speaking about jealousy to a woman relating it, somehow, to democracy. he is sure, she is sure... and all i know is that it's good for my writing. 
I notice this, these little things and also that my hair is wind torn.

4.15.12 | 3 A.M., to say the least.

creature person, 

today was like ingot & hung in ochre by noontime. it left as an ingot again for the other piece of sky that blows westward. I napped with my eyes shut & palms in fresh water during the beginning to night with heavy handed light & looming thunder, under an awning. they were both like lullabies and spoke some ancient language my dreams know. in the woods, morels were hunted in the maze of brown & gloom. it was a vertical thicket where ground mud grew to bark that grew to vine until it was in branch form. all were disheveled like sleeping monsters in mammoth shapes. amidst that wyeth palette, a cardinal sat like a needle prick of red and fluttered like a pulse to the scenery - a breathing signature. there was no sound but hail in the high branches.

a poem a day for four days | day 3

1.25.2012

-----

What direction are you now from this Nordic mountain house?

dusty, vacant

chipping beamwork,

capsized cabin.

No matter the route -

Just follow me down,

to the boat that needs an anchor,

though she floats

bold balloon

only just above the ground.

siphoned death weight,

midday waverin

black eyed crater.

that parallel: my closest cousin

folded me ‘round

and slit the moon into her mouth

that lofty spectator.

decadent dreamer, with cinder feet

and breath of soot

would you concede?

It signed and swore our oaths in flames

to palms of water.

four gloaming basins

carved us there

2 marionettes where, once, a tree.

cold vine bushels

past-prime fruits

scarlet guilt upon our cheeks.

Same sorta ghosts, we.

those limber

linden grove

dream thieves.

----

ash xo

a poem a day, for four days | day 2

written 12.18.2011 @ 38,000 ft. without a pen, on a red eye plane strolling west.

i repeated it to myself for 3 hours until we landed and i ran for a pen finally getting it down on the last page of a book i had, my only paper. the employees on the flight would not allow me to borrow a pen from them. :p

the following is © Ashley Lebedev | Bottle Bell ™

please enjoy, but please don't swipe. | xo

----

i watched the sun rise,

for three hours

bursting from the sky

like a swollen tidal wave

unfolding itself across my waking americana.

a castle of mirages

rose up

3000 mile billow of

lit bonfire

two honey eyed bobbers like

cathedral beacons

those fleeting arches

were traces of zion.

i saw an avalanche there,

in her kettle below

lead-bellied curves

rolling from the hands

of mineral giants,

rousing from her clouds

and evergreen terrain

like a frozen breath of chalk dust.

i felt the youth of virtue

revisiting me in her strange pace

as we plunged from blue

to the milky white,

stirred quilt,

concoction of fog.

prism of patchwork

underbelly of rainbows.

a soft child's hand

treaded my face

in all the weight of ghosts

pondering along

a game of remembrance,

shaky hopscotch.

her permanent mirror,

chisel of

spooky craters

or course cloak,

descendent of oceans,

two orphans coming home.

---

ash

"untitled" | poem a day for 4 days.

i've decided to post a poem a day, through thursday. long or short.

first one, long. ;)

this was written in the teens of this january, one very early mornin'.

ps. please don't swipe.

ashtree. x

------

we slept, ten days too tired

under the perfect hum of your winter hymnal

ghosts of seattle snow,

still mourning itself through your speakers

seeding the bed

and resting you.

the youth of men - eternal and wounded

where every pore remembers

that thing you didn't choose.

tears beaded along, the both of us

martyrs of conditioning

and brought me into the blue hour.

where the loan bird called to me

with it's diamond throat and shifty, opiate knowings.

such things.

and, for a time, our eyes met - lawless.

different souls, same wings.

through your low slung, level window

to that branchy, branchy tree

a harbinger or angel

where i took in it's mutterings of utter, gutting truth

drawing me with shadows, speaking:

2 reflections now

1 fading...

and the light treaded me even closer than the cradle of you - my silhouetted stranger.

who i met too late or too soon.

who i knew without knowing.

patient lover

badge of danger

flask of ginger spit water

delayed traveler.

hey pretty baby

i'm catching my plane, it seems, just a little too soon.

to the ghost of warmer seasons

affixing me to memories

of dresses

that gathered leaves with hemline hands

spinning little filly

pheasant feather gypsy.

so, i paused in your pocket sized space

tucking in to itself, custom tailored to you.

between microphone, that condom, and a waning moon

ever present, ever fleeting.

and time stood for what it was:

it's own pinnacle

it's own culmination.

where it became, not irreverent but irrelevant.

and you stirred in heavy pleasure breaths

brother bear across your toes

from that other place where we dream without rules

and don't fence our fields.

i watched you,

time of pause,

for an era.

the elegant romance

nixing out

this task of absence.

learning everything and memorizing you.

this what i saw, with my cat eyes:

i saw your

summer lashes, light as sandy ocracoke - those beaches i wandered

the both of you.

she, with shells

and you with braille bumps

ink blots

maps for pleading dart fingers.

flitting lids like restless southern summers.

thick neck, briny skin

tiny chain upon it

with the saint you trust to keep you. (and so he does)

your fuzzy blanket of late season wheat grasses

sun faded, wild and winding to your briary chest

chock full

to the root of you.

part serpent, part man

where your laughs are held

gathered in their boney bed of ivory rafters

dripping with pulse.

lone echoes and

whispers -

those stowaway stockpiles

with renegade lineage

your call of honor

prone to surrender

self perpetuating.

the symphony, pretty foreground to

to the day that followed:

her timelapsed, flaking, pastry snows

my last midwestern day

beckoned me to stay

from a cinematic terminal.

where the tremors hushed

silent

resigning to deaf ears

a world orchestra and snow globe

of busy mannequins

toasting the morning w/ a shot glass

2 parts leaving

1 part you

heart bursting with dreams

of a far away willow grove and a

heavy mellow chaser of freedom.