don't stare Aug. 2012

rule number one

don't stare at her at the office

 don't even pretend you are not staring

don't stare in some other direction

to make her think you are staring in stealth

just stay down behind your computer

 in your tiny Harry Potter cubicle

under the stairs

and pretend to work

when you are doing your best not to stare

 not to exist

 not to breathe too deeply

and make any sound

 don't stare at the meeting either

 especially because you still sit

with back to the windows

when she sits across the table

 illuminated, beautiful, powerful,

arrogant, victorious and deadly

 if you hold your breath long enough

you might be reprieved by fainting

 though she might think

this is a faint to get attention

so you grip your pen

 poised to take notes

on your yellow pad

and wait out the tick of the clock

 like a countdown to that point

 when it is safe again to breathe

again

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Which ever way works April 2012

 

She says she goes both ways,

but won't give up one

just to get the other.

"I need to get dick" she says,

 shocking me as she says it,

 her  hands in the air,

 rattling around in the phone static

 the way voices used

to on long distance calls

when I was a kid,

her life spread out

before me like a feast

I'm too scared to touch,

 my imagination filling in

all the blank spaces

 of this erotic paint by number piece,

 she in my head,

the vision I see across the table

from me once a week,

every Tuesday, and not the harlot

she claims when she speaks

 like this in private,

deliberate or maybe not trying to shock me,

and I am shocked to think

she talks like this to sound

more street wise that she is,

 though in truth,

she is already having been

 through the grind of the music scene

and pick up bars,

she needs what she needs

which ever way that is.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Chopping wood March 28, 2012

 

I chop wood

Left from that

Halloween storm

When snow settled

On the limbs

Still thick with leaves,

Whole halves of trees

Fell into the yard

Left entangled

Until I could risk

Blindness to cut

Them up.

I chop wood

And think of

The strange voice

On the telephone,

As if there is a connection,

Seeing her slanted lips

In my one good eye,

Each sawed limb

Breaking between

My already calloused

Fingers,

Yet with no inspiration

As to why I’m on

Her weather map,

Whether or not

She is a brewing storm,

Or merely a cloud burst,

Clouds in my coffee.

I saw wood

And try not to

Think of her,

Her slanted lips,

Or the weight of snow

And green leaves

That brought these

Limbs to my knees.

I chop wood.

br>email to Al Sullivan

Other plans? May 26, 2025

 

 

What she is doing and where she is, remains one big mystery am unable to resolve, too distant, too out of touch with her environment, too few people I can trust who still keep connected.

Is she happy or sad, lonely or in love, or simply getting on with what life has given her, as she claims to embrace middle age, the way she embraced those events of life she endured before all this?

Did life ripped her off, deny her her dreams or has she come to realize the old John Lennon maxim of life being what happens when she’s business making other plans.

In the end we all tread the path our feet set us on, and I sit here, she there, two paths too remote to reconnection as they briefly once did, long ago, even though I will always want to.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Happy birthday a few days late Aug. 2, 2014

  

No birthday cards, nor well-meaning emails or texts.

I let the day pass unremarked on except in the back of my brain where I struggle to recall how many candles I should put on a cake I know you will never eat, though I know somewhere on that special day you celebrated, the clock ticks for both of us, through mind has marked much more considerable passage.

Still, I mark my birthday on my calendar if only to acknowledge its annual coming, then trying not to remind myself of what it means, while with you, surrounded by friends and family, times moves much more slowly, something hold up the sand in the hour glass – it always runs quicker later when there is less time to count, my worry, not yours, though on this day, this year, you have to ponder fate and if the new year will grant you what you ache for in the year that has passed, and I wonder, do you expect me to remark again as I foolishly once did, if so, here it is, though I don’t believe you will ever get to read it.

email to Al Sullivan

Worth it April 7, 2012

 

 I know

This will all end

Badly

Yet, I tell

Myself

It will be worth it,

Pain being the price

Tomorrow

For the delight

I get today,

When in fact

I know,

It will get

Really, really bad

Before it’s over,

Yet, I cling to

What it is

In this moment,

And hope it won’t

Became as bad

As it is great today,

Though I know

My world will crash,

Mostly because

I don’t deserve

What is happening,

Pleasure or pain,

I have always lived

My life in safety,

Choosing not to

Take risks,

While she is not safe

And that’s the thrill of it,

Like looking over

The edge of a cliff,

Inching as close to

The brink as possible

Before I fall off,

Presuming that when

I land at the bottom

It will have been worth

The fall.

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I can’t see the stars April 18, 2015

 

I can’t see the stars for the skyline, the night time blaze I’m sure you can see where you are, from the vantage point far above the place where Burr murdered Hamilton, just not out of love, old poems filling my head about you being the brightest of these stars, only I am blinded by the brilliance of the city that never sleeps and can’t see passed it to see you, even at this late date, even when I know where you shine and when, it is not for me, and I settle for the illusion that you light up my sky just for me, and that if I try hard enough I can see you, even when I know I can’t, your light reflecting on this river that keeps me company when you are no longer here, a river we share, the pattern on the water taking your shape if I stare hard enough.

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