An American tale of the estranged, on Labor Day weekend
By surreal writer Eric Lastick
JOHN’S SIDE
Lose yourself and your shirt, this one sunny day. Close eye to the summer ocean waves…and the overcast dream. Burgundy fall atilt in the shallows of a coastal red tinted cracked glass wines. Magma, the tare of the sky, you look upon.. A thunder under you holds in anger…as family set a boat, a yacht…a strong current—leaving you behind. Now, your job…and workload is a melted ice-bar strapped snow-cones and Popsicle, you walk the sands and sells of the lax, and the frays of beachcombers—stretched like built-on microphones and miles—as the day is long. Seabird lose folly in the cornered shadows of the moon—while crackling vanity. Peanuts and jelly breads of the goes and twists—enter my shelled mind’s eye. Positive vibrations sways my attentiveness—too the bottom of the ocean’s basin…and wash me of sighted change for the good!
BEHOLD, THE ICECREAM MAN FROM RICHES TO RAGS: I am the cold-box, strap-on server of ice cream goodies—all along the sandy beach sides…and all up and down the rows and throws of volleyball …and lounge chair towels. Big visor hats…salty water days out in the burn of the sun. Lifeguard to the refresh of thirsts of vacationers—like a Haitian holiday…as now alimony and bankruptcy has cleaned my pockets dry’s ”She got it all!’ And there i go selling my MG and Indian motorcycle..my stamp collections–outta rare gems. Yes…as here i go out on the dunes with no buggy, yet a wish to re-enter an old life of money and wealth, but i am just to damn old. My new girl friend is a swindler…and no less a full deck of cards. A whiskey hard drinking buddy of sorts. Bukowski style! She squashes bar flies…as silly drunks with the meanness in her eyes. Fall and capture to her fast karate legs…her dancer skills of yesteryear. Today, a can’t miss an attempt to join the french foreign legion…out of a time machine—along with a drunk-in bath of salty air,and an even uglier good humor man, on the sunny beaches, this labor day weekend!
‘You see, i swore off liquor and crab-claws, the late hour…and poker faces that don’t buy my bluffs. I even gave up Poole sharking, although i have this bad habit of getting my teeth rearranged …and knocked in, after a bad game—and lesser pockets. Yet the one good thing i do have are my writing skills…as my pen to paper…and as i open my mail along my walkway apartment where i used to live, now my 2000 model Subaru which is alive with a plus sign as a new published novelist on the uptick! What do you know, they loved it…and of great expectations…a large advance…and mostly a thankful of gas…and I’m on my way!
(JANE’S SIDE)
She is the sea, the black and white wave of it…and nearest the sunrise, she sits by her table…and actually submerged in the shallow waves—- looking out at to the sea.—with gulls in free-form motion, as the forces of tide roll on in…though it does not stop her…as the bright of the sun is a morning love affair with a solitary time to mind, and to gift the minutes away. Water weight image of all her yesterdays…corporate lies…businessmen deceptions—and the very holds on her life. Her ex husband on the wayside of the starve…and her kids grown and angry…as the clock strikes the AM’S of all our labors, this labor day. Tuition like a tailwind that rip and gather to no end, yet her chair and table edges of the sandy background, hover of the sea. She sees freedom in the clearing…as the low tides subsides and she lowers her eye-where…and eye-weight of her every storm. Draws of metaphors…and waves lift at a surfer fall. The pipeline is what she views from her table and chair. Wet hair, blouse and shorts…as she envisions, the free-flowing ocean water. Salts and water taffy on the boardwalk strip…and the empty out of the Alawishes of old school tastes and events, in the movements and memory of solitary. Salty air…and the rows of fishes—dilly dally the waters long. The wide of a pipeline, encircle as if a new born spirit in her. She, the ex…and how one now know that her own peace of mind by the shore, this labor day; as her life by the ocean, is her solitary happiness too this new day.