Rick Leddy

The Call

The ocean called today

Sand squished through toes salt-stung eyes

Heebie-jeebie ankle-wrapped kelp

Jelly fish sting Rip-tide flailing

Shore break neck-snapping wipeout

Coconut oiled jerky pre-UV burn till we bled

SoCal DNA awakened

Before melanoma 

When the California Dream

Was reality

Oh, I missed you 

But you waited for me

I could feel you in the air

Just west of the 405

Smelled the thickness of off shore 

As I approached

My mind's eye half a century past

Squinting in the diffused light

My brother and sister 

Digging deep into you

Us riding your pounding heartbeat

Then resting face down, exhausted where the flat dark smooth

bordered the dry white 

A million microscopic hot coals

Yearning to be walked on with curled toes

The evaporation of you 

Dry and salty on our lips

These were the best of times

But I had forgotten them

Until you called me

Today

A reminder

That we were once lovers

Embracing the cold rhythm together

I dove into you and felt your power

Dipped my toe into your boundary

Listening to your drumbeat

I miss you, I thought

As I stood marveling your vastness

I know, you replied quietly 

Your gravitational pull beckoning me home

I know

Won’t Give In

We kissed in the sun-drenched room

As Neil Finn played Won't Give In

Suddenly Winter warmed to hot Summer days

Even as our seasons multiply in the mirror

Too late to say let's grow old together

Because we already have

Sharing a life of dreams that died

To let the new ones live

You and I chasing memories into dusk like children

Holding hands until the last light fades away

I can't imagine the world without you

Your lips soft like we are young and forever

Immortal in each other's arms

Together In this sun-drenched room

Kissing to Neil Finn

Because we won't give in

Summer Vacation in Spain

This dress is like a Summer Vacation in Spain!

You’ll Love it!

The email header announced

So, I clicked on it

Having been to Spain

Having heaved my guts from food poisoning 

in the Madrid train station

In front of the caged and off-limits lockers

closed for fear of Basque bombs

Until nothing was left but fevered dry gags

And a fervent wish for death 

Having survived a Tamborrada drum parade 

in San Sebastián on San Sebastián Day 

Hungover residents in white chef's uniforms

and vintage military regalia staggering down 

cobblestoned boulevards banging drums with spoons 

The insistent tide of spectators crushing in

Until the boulevard was a diseased artery clogged

with the plaque of Basques and tourists

Having almost been arrested outside of a Barcelona Tiki Bar at 4 am

A Disneyesque room filled with fake grass skirts 

and dark-haired beauties slinking in painted on dresses

While dangerous dark-eyed boys dressed to the hilt 

disappeared and reappeared in Polynesian strobe

We met a red-haired English girl whose bleeding innocence 

belied a heart filled with larceny and mischief 

“Souvenirs,” she whispered as she put our Tiki head 

drink mugs in her purse

And we didn't disagree with the decision

Until the bouncers chased us down a block away

Their thick, meaty hands outstretched

Demanding the mugs or they would call the police

And she did 

As she laughed

In the pre-dawn light

Having drunk two pitchers of sweet, red poisonous Sangria

At a dark restaurant in Madrid

Where an ancient half-blind man wearing a 

straw fedora and checkered coat played slow, scraping organ

We Staggered into the Spanish night

Screaming at each other

Me, because I thought we had paid too much

You, because you were tired of me complaining

Both of us because we had traveled together 

for months and had bred 24/7 familiarity contempt

Just leave me alone you shouted

But I wouldn't

Yelling at each other near the Prado 

Until even the hot-blooded Iberians 

Rushed away in shock

Having been chased by a madman

Handing out leaflets

After seeing Picasso's Guernica 

Much larger than I had thought

Its grey twisted and contorted features

Matching the umbraged man

Screaming in a language I could not fathom

For a reason I did not comprehend

Angered for some reason either leftist or fascist or republican

I could not tell

The flash of Guernica burned in noir horror

As I fled the insistent and forever dog of war

Having stayed in a Rascafria monastery

Scaled the castellated walls of Avila 

Roamed beneath the crumbling aqueducts of Segovia

Sizzled among the topless leather-skinned old women

on windy Barcelona beaches 

Gotten lost in the never-ending marbled Prado halls 

pockmarked with martyred, bleeding and aerated San Sebastians

The dress looked nothing like

A Summer Vacation in Spain

I decided

And deleted the email 

With a simple swipe