Travelwise
Senior Creative Writing Project
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For a Degree Bachelor of Arts with
A Major in Creative Writing at
The University of North Carolina at Asheville
Fall 2006

By Ashley A. Bode

Thesis Director
Richard Chess

Thesis Advisor
Richard Chess
 
Travelwise
Poems by Ashley Bode
36 Wanoca Ave. Asheville, NC 28803
(828)713-3117 aabode@bulldog.unca.edu

Travelwise

Contents
Tour Guide    	1
Anthony	3
Mr. Greenjeans	4
Wedding	5
Virgie Mae Sullen Dances	6
Rush Hour Conversation	8
Cross Country Move	9
Parking Deck Dance	10
Los Cabos	11
The Things You'd Say	13
Passengers	14
Seattle	16
Underwater Poem	18
Vancouver at Night	19
Looking for a Nightclub in NYC	20
Amie's Song	22
The Waltz of 1944	23
Tornado Season	24
Family Ties	25

Tour Guide
Welcome! Glad you're here
in the heart of America—a blueberry muffin,
our stronghold, the nourishing essence of America,
waits for you, secretly waving a sweet hello.
She winks her blueberry eyes, invites you in for a quick bite,
surely worth your while.
Next to her, a maple leaf,
reminds you in soft voice and sunset smile
how lucky we are to have such good friends.
A squirrel will stop to greet you momentarily.
Sweet, flicking tail, nut cracking hands, a sign
of natural survival.
note his sneaky eyes watch you intently as you drop a cracker—
that's not accident.
He's as foreign to you as the nearby smoke of the Appalachians,
and his eyes dart just as wildly.
I'll take you somewhere else, to see more of what awaits you.
An empty beer bottle, torn midnight blue paper label,
brown neck and hollowed belly, perfect for music.
Pick it up, play a note, music is all around you here,
floating through skies and hiding in our trash,
covered by unused paper bags and half eaten greasy fried chicken.
There are weeds here, just northwest of where we stand,
Growing like you've never seen—
six feet tall, thick stalked
like sun burnt corn husks
that sprout up green deliberately
spreading arms and legs across
the soil meant for the more beautiful.
A swarm of malicious mosquitoes, gray like the sky,
Wait thirsty, wings flash franticly hovering
Over your skin as if it were the
Last body left. Invisible eyes
eye your every move
And plot your pox induced demise.

Stay close- I'll show you where to pick the four leaf clover, Hidden beside comrades one short of salvation. Walk slowly, look at your feet and you'll find it, sticking out like a red rose in a spring pastel bouquet. Pick it with your fingers, hold it to the sun, Delicate, simple, a sign of magic. Welcome.

Anthony
The buildings of Times Square spit
colored light on his face.
Lights flash and surround the square
with ceaseless movement
The heart of the city beats a fast,
uneven tempo. Unpredictable.
A flawless scarf rests
on his neck as if a decorative curtain.
His eyes always tightened
and face rigid,
his nose turned up
from the street.
And for the first time,
casually he notes
the span of buildings
that stretch from the ground
to scratch the clouds
that lie loose over the island.
His nose drops, hides deep
beneath the folds of the navy
scarf and he feels
as big as the crumpled
yellow paper that tumbles
by his feet and into the path
of cross traffic.

Mr. Greenjeans
It took nearly ten minutes to recognize him—
An old neighbor.
eight hundred miles away from home.
He stood loose, bendable, almost spineless.
He wore a sandpaper chin, wrinkled jeans and
a Rollingstones T-shirt faded,
untucked.
We called him Mr. Greenjeans. I only ever saw him wear a precisely pressed polo shirt tucked crisply into jeans stiff with a crease from waist to ankle.
I only knew him stern-faced, with a gravel voice, adamant that the property line began with the oak tree and stretched to the azalea bush, reminding me the petals must not wilt across his lawn.
A tunnel of snow ended in a skyscraper built from his plow marking the place where our sidewalks met during winter. His tulips grew strong and pure each spring to torment my flowerbed dotted by weeds and patchy grass.
His wife, a sweet Betty Crocker, watched my birds when I left for vacation, and lent recipes in the fall, She left him after thirty years.
Here he was, before me.
Thick aged eyebrows weighted with disinterest
looking happier than I'd ever seen.

Wedding
Alone, she had reminded people of a cinema billboard
Her cheeks a lurid pink, eyes green as cilantro, hair golden yellow
And fresh with the fragrance of jasmine and lavender.
Together they looked like corpses—
Skin grayed from the heavy burden of displeasure
Of each others company,
Their fingers dry, cracked and joined together
By tarnished gold bands.
He was no more than a hand-cranked machine— A crook with an automatic smile. And a begging tin.
She had lost her balance and was romanced By his art. Watercolors of the French countryside and romantic portraits of her best features, she poured her pockets and energy into his false ambitions.
Now together they hung limply
The first days
Only the knives and forks spoke, peril lingered over supper always waiting for dessert.
A new suitcase was purchased and
three months after all accounts joined,
she was discovered in a coal fireplace,
charred and muddled in pieces
of a forgotten jigsaw puzzle,
a partial payment for her blunder.

Virgie Mae Sullen Dances
Virgie Mae
Sullen, will not budge. She's stubborn like Clydesdales in the barn below the boards of the loft floor where she sulks. The floor is wise and comfortable
In its position, and in no hurry to move like apple trees planted by the wind centuries before the dirt road curved around their bases.
Her linen skirt lies flat and useless as she stands still wasting the only shoes her mother wore. Cold musty leather saddles her lazy feet.
Adults twirl fast as the fiddle whittles song out of harvest air. Men dip and dive drinking Budweiser and swinging wives in squares
Around her. until he scoops his daughter by

the waist, to allemande whee with the August heat across the loft. And Virgie Mae
Sullen, like her Mother, feels Her shoes Leave the ground.

Rush-hour Conversation
I wait until the sun falls just below where your eyes can see
to light up like stars in a calmed winter sky.
My neon signs force themselves upon your windshield.
Streetlights line my middle like buttons on a shirt.
Green, yellow, red are everywhere hiding
among the brassy pink and orange, but still
they draw you in and guide you along.
You flee into me to make your way towards home and I become the last challenge in your day. I am the place you find yourself merging into, lose your patience and hate your life. I barricade you from your happiness, but you keep coming back to me.

8

Cross country move
Three hours till daylight, four hours till warmth,
the sign read "don't blink or you'll miss the time of your life."
He drove the pickup forward through the nighttime dust,
aching for the land ahead
He felt despondent.
The weather watched him with narrowed eyes,
partly angry. The mountains had done the same,
blocked his every turn, commanded he stay put.
No longer knowing if time existed,
shadows of blue and granite fell
like the thin fingers of an ancient woman
who refused to clasp her hands in prayer.
He began to check his reflection
in the rearview mirror as the desert
filled him with its breath.
He finally smiled at the sky understanding^,
much more than understanding^ for at this hour his soul
was like a caged yellow wing with azalea blossoms
and a vivid cloudless sky at its window
beckoning him with warm young air,
promising more with each mile driven.

9

Parking Deck Dance
Twin girls flutter like sugarplums
In puddles of a parking deck After a show at Radio City.
Taps and twirls stumble helplessly
Out of virgin feet, mimicking idols, Smudging paten-leather toes.
Ringleted heads bow with ambition,
Until being scooped from the night And dreams of Rockette stardom.
Jazz music flies to the leather backseat of Daddy's Cadillac
Where new dreams are born of saxophones and poetry, Leaving tulle tutus and pink taffeta behind.

10

Los Cabos
Lorenzillos Live Lobster House claims the harbor as it's own.
Drawn like purposeless
paperclips on an office file cabinet,
tourists come here attracted
to flour tortillas, napkins folded into swans and flowers,
and the English of the white trimmed staff.
Baked from the sun, sprawled out in our vacation,
we dine on the patio in the summer Mexican air
Angel Louis brings shrimp cerviche
Fresh from the dock a
and silver tequila without asking.
His clothes are crisp, white,
Against the blue of the ocean
like the painted buildings of the Greek islands.
His teeth stretch tall and perfect
to make his posture complete.
A bus full of teenagers drives madly
across cobblestone streets, careless smiles
shout IViva los Cabos! Blaring horns
and music through the speakers.
Angel apologizes in happy English,
each letter carefully placed
like the series of forks on my deep red napkin.
My mouth savors the richness of tres leches cake while the most striking blood orange balloon falls slow into the waves as the helium wears out and the facade of beauty collapses.
Chiqule! Chiquile! Quieres gum?
Small hands wave at us, children with faces
And feet covered in aged red dust from the street
and sand from the harbor,
sell gum from their pockets for our leftover pesos.
Early they've learned why my fair skinned
fingers jingle in my pocket
and why it is I stand before them.

11

I come home with skin soft
from the spa and deep brown from a Mexican sun.
Edna and Marite in the apartment
next door, bring books to my porch,
and smirk at the pair of tequila shot glasses
with sombreros and neon cacti plainly painted
that sit on my countertop.
My face burns hot like desert sand.
Ay! Guera they say, Come teach us Ingles and we'll teach you to Salsa

12

The Things You'd Say
Carl doesn't need more pajamas, get him chocolate for his birthday. only to find grandpa's gift again two years later packed in our belongings, by you, insisting we enjoy and he never knew the difference.
We'd visit that house on Pearle Street, cobwebbed since the 70s and stocked with any knick-knack imaginable, and you'd swear the bottle of Ne-Hi soda in the basement cooler dated 1982 was still safe to drink
My memory is ninety years full to get it all right was your excuse when you sent Christmas presents in May with a letter of angry words, demanding to know why we had left you out of this years celebration.
Even sixty years later, your neighbor
Violet, widowed and confined
to a night gown and slippers, who sat on her porch
just feet from yours, was a hussy.
We each were your favorite grandchild
at different times
even though you couldn't tell us apart
or remember our names.
We all were John or Jackie,
names that never belonged in the family.
We'd take you to the nicest restaurant
we could find for your birthday,
they even offered soup d'jour,
and ginger sorbet to cleanse the palette,
but you asked for Bush's baked beans, jalapeno slaw
and fried chicken with the feathers still on.
We let you ramble on about Nixon
running again in the 1996 election
with your TV loud enough for even Violet to hear.
We envied your follies, but seeded our prayers with your name.

13

14
Passengers 1.
Slick-suited man
ready for the job.
Cross-country chores
interfere with a fear
of flying.
White knuckled, knees like a shivering child and, I imagine,
a stomach like a trench of fear-waiting for the enemy to strike.

2.

Her cheeks squeak when she breathes. Lipstick collects in the corner of her lips.
Dressed in her Sunday best, circa 1989,
she says she hasn't flown since Clinton was in office.
Her cats, she has six, are staying next door while she visits her sister.
Her husband died seventeen years ago last week and her children and grandchildren have since moved to Alaska.      And I can't imagine why.
She smells like stale crackers and clutches a pleather handbag filled with butterscotch candies.
She will suck on them as if they were the very last candies in the world.
Her hands are folded. She ignores the pages of my book open wide, and continues to chatter when my eyes close.
I pretend to snore, and she still rattles about the way her geraniums grow.
For a moment, I envy what it must be like to listen to the absent voice of geraniums
at dinner and breakfast and lunch
at bedtime and morning coffee and all the time that fills the day.
Then I ask her, what she has named her cats.

A mouse-eared devil mousketeer
flicks snot rockets across the altar
of the airport chapel.
Head bowed and sinful,
I pray for his finger to catch fire
from the prayer candles
so he can sacrifice himself to God
while his mother finds him a Kleenex.
Please be sure to secure your seat buckle tight
for safety. The seat cushion can be used as a floatation device.
Do not be alarmed if oxygen masks drop overhead
or isle emergency lights illuminate red
guiding you to an exit. We're glad you chose to fly
with us. Please jump feet first into the friendly sky.

15

Seattle
1.
The underground looks like an old photograph
a hidden city in sepia
below the traffic of midafternoon.
Forgotten streets and sidewalks,
tunnel just one story beneath.
Discarded garbage, Depression glass,
toilets, and furniture piles in
storefronts abandoned from human error.
The city above bustles with electric buses architecture lines the streets like misshapen chess pieces, stretched tall and ready to play. History buried by cement and asphalt built on sand and sawdust, sinks more each year. People have forgotten.
2.
Cars float across Lake Washington,
Pockets of oil contaminating the
clear, blue window to the greater below.
3.
Alaskan Salmon soars overhead—
jittery sightseers crowd to see
fish fly in the market.
fresh peppers and soap made of honey and sandalwood
beckon your nose past the rawness
of salty gills and sun-baked shells.
A bargain offers a specialty kite,
rainbow arched for only 15.99. Crowds
carry you up stairs and down malls,
A labyrinth of individual sellers of organic chocolate,
collectable comic books with pristine pages,
antique postcards and scarves
knit by a woman who looks like somebody's Aunt Frieda.
There at the end, you make it back outside
into the crisp northwest air of entrepreneurship.

16

4.
Giants above the city and
Our homes and roads,
These tall trees
Untouched by cement and steel
Look down noses upon it.
They watch and remember
Every yellow-jacket and misplaced stone
Limbs gray like autumn rain
Bodies wide as the wings of a condor,
And an unheard voice,
deeper than the song of a whale.
5.
Mount Rainer guards the city
in the distance.
The gatekeeper falls asleep
while the city awakes,
the silt and lumber
foundation cracks
and the mountain takes slow breaths.

17

Underwater poem
Through the teeth
Of a ferris wheel and bubbled
Music of the arcade,
a carnival laughs above me.
Docked by the water,
a Venus Fly Trap captures its prey
With the appeal of bright colored
petals and the sweet fulfilling
nectar of a good afternoon,
and I've finally found quiet When I settle with the sea dust in this tropical space. Life swims by
careful not to disturb my peace, careful not to reel me in. The queen angelfish circles. Natural vibrant blue and green colors ripple down the body, outline the shape of her against the sandy bed and coral — unique in her place, surpassing the color of life on shore.
She glides with yellow eyes, past my face, close enough To feel her gills beat. Her breaths are silent and careful not to startle me careful not to unravel my escape.
Each breath I feel
is just enough to survive.

18

Vancouver at night
A marble eyed woman
Hides behind
An accent that falters
With validity
and a violin weathered
pale, plays
frivolous tunes of
an Irish gypsy.
A vagabond, waiting.
A tourist trap.
Courteously, she promises
good fortune
to those generous
enough to add to the open hat
of a humbled performer.
A soft arpeggio of coins falls
into the sidewalk.
Scratches from the
strings of her violin
cover the ring her voice
that sings light and heavenly,
the ring of a bell.
Harmonica blues
Flutter from the lips
Of a passing pedestrian.
He slouches in his shoes
Strolls carelessly,
His eyes wander over the waterway
And his arms curl towards the music
That sings out
and into the waterside air.
The two songs marry
As each note dances
Overhead before letting go
of the comfortable air.
The blues saunters downtown
As quickly as it came.

19

Looking for a nightclub in NYC
The city sneaks In around us, while we walk lost and
looking for LOVE a nightclub on the thirty first of October. Yellow cabs have disappeared. Horns have become distant and muted as we creep onto unmapped streets and alleys tucked behind diners and 24 hour food marts, empty buildings with fire escapes that creek with the cold and dangle overhead dark, and ominous like menacing spider webs. A rotten perfume flushes up skirts from the grated squares in the sidewalk, where heels click farther from where we want to be and each night shadow tracks us by our feet
Trash bag heaven
collects leaves,
empty
Macdonald's wrappings,
a lost knit cap and
other orphaned
clothes—
a naked tree
on the fire escape

20

blushes in its pot and the lively wait in line smokey eyed and scuffling.
We find it
too late or early
to feel the speakers
draw us into each other.
Instead we shiver
as we dance, close,
scared and alert
on the street
next to barred
windows of a
convenience store
where bottles of
tonic and gin
reside next to
the loud red pages
of overlooked
gossip magazines,
a collection of
plastic handled
pocket knives,
and keychained
pepper spray
illuminated by
a sign in neon
that reads
I Love New York.

21

Amie's Song
I was supposed to trust you.
Knowledge beyond textbooks You promised to know these bears As if they were family.
All you have to do is hold the camera steady.
My teeth chattered
in my sleep and invisible
hairs stood up on my neck
while you entered their space,
slept in their den and mocked the difference
between nature and humanity.
/ have work to do
and you toted me along
like a backpack or another
diary video camera
no longer your lover
and hidden, like a family secret.
A great grizzly future.
And you didn't mind the danger.
but my eyes were bloodshot and frozen open,
my lip quivered and fingers trembled
while we watched them snatch
wild salmon from the rocks of the river.
Thirteen years experience taught you to treat them like children? Sing in rhyme and baby talk them away from making us dinner?
A family history, volumes long. but I beat her with a frying pan as she, your so-called cousin, ate you alive at my feet— looked at me, panting for more.

22

The Waltz of 1944
Goldilocks parts her lips—
cracked balloons kiss the clouds.
A bloody breeze carries
the sound of the hideous
into the castle where
her sleeping feet flee dreams
of white knights and black veils.
Ashen faces above, watch
while she breathes in mossy air,
leaked from a battlefield
now covered green with guilt.
The hidden memory of
ancient tales—waltzen
through ballrooms before the Reich
put beauty to sleep in still soft graves.

23

Tornado Season
I sleep in the afternoon
beneath the mulberry
while the sky turns yellow, burnt like mustard seeds.
The wind whisks the branches of the tree into a fury.
I smell the storm,
a forest breathing pine down my back.
The clouds form thick stripes of color,
layer the sky above my waking eyes.
Like an opossum when startled.
I hide curled and frozen in the hall closet,
I've smothered myself
with Mothers fine fur coat and Fathers wool scarf
A matchless glove mountain and a tunnel of ski caps
cover my skinny goosebumped legs
I find myself each time
in the depths of this closet, cuddled against
my sister, smelling the prairie in her hair, hearing her whispers,
After the tornado passes, Timid as field mice,
we climb out of the closet and house,
into the yard to look at the clouds
smooth and asleep in the sky,
always waiting for the siren to call us in again.

24

Family ties
Lake Michigan has waited patiently for me to come home, smiling a wide blue smile, unhurt by my lengthy absence. The wind whirls into song, relieved that I've arrived.
The waterside aquarium
is my favorite art museum.
Each small exhibit of sea urchins
and pond life is a square painting
mounted to the wall for me to view.
Hundreds of deep-sea electric jellyfish
bring beauty of the unseen
in neon pink and white
light into a darkened gallery
of curious observers
who stand close enough to see
Their hearts beat.
Detailed dioramas
come to life in green tempera painted
plants and iguanas.
The Kimodo King
hides beside the royal palm tree
watercolors in his scales
shimmer beneath the heat lamp.
He stays still- a perfect portrait.
Dad brought me here
while they built the Oceanarium.
We sat next to the lake, stared at the sailboats
bobbing in the marina like ducks in a bathtub.
In the summer, the grass filled
with grandmother dandelions waiting to be
sent over the water or into the breeze
to follow unknowing bicyclists
as they traveled from north shore to south.
And we'd lay on our backs, shape clouds with our minds, feel the lake breathe mist on our faces and he'd promise to take me to see the belugas

25

when their tank was full.
Three belugas line up beneath a blue Manet seascape, to stare back at me, alone. I've thought of them, since they settled in sixteen years ago, and wondered if their waves were painted just right, if Dad had been to see them, and how home has been without me.
Bellies arched to the top of the water,
they float on their backs, rock
in their bed, their eyes soak me up
with curiosity. White angel faces,
happy to meet a long lost relative.
The echo of a family
unwavering, fills the tank.

26