No roach motel Feb 25, 2014

 

this ain't like roach motel

 check-in and you don't check out

the place is run by angels

and she didn't have

to die to get there

 salvation perhaps with bed pans

and a sense of purpose

she knew she needed to come here

or someplace like it for years

 but was scared to do so

to let go. to give up control

to someone else only

if she didn't do it this time

she might not have survived

 long enough to get another chance

 Angels greeting her at the door

with a list of rules by which she must live by

 or risk not being able to live

 this isn't judgment nor punishment

 but a cure and she has to grip

this life preserver  tightly.

she either holds it or drowns

and she come has come

so close to drowning already

 she knows what it that feels like

and doesn't want to feel that way again

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On the street where you live

 

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Dawn over the ocean Oct. 5, 2024

  

dawn stretches her pink fingers

across the sand

 painting all she touches and me

 like a spell cast I cannot resist

 toes deep in the cool sand

the only anchor I have

 to keep me from being

 drawn into the waves

and permanently lost

 the lust lingers still on my lips

 and hips, most of all in my heart

 where her fingers still grip

and where my heart beats faster

 most acute in the places like this

 at these times when the dawn has broken

 when I wander alone

waiting for a sunrise I know

must come yet without

t the satisfaction of what I need for most

for her pink fingers to paint me

 all over

 inside and out

 

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An echo of an echo oct. 15, 2024

  

I still hear the echo

 of what once came to me by night

not the whole sound

 only bits and pieces

 memory rescues from

the refuse of the past

dim now with the shards

 of what once clung to memory

 causing a cringe if not a howl

but here the voice

in the dead of night

when at the darkest hour

 I wake shaking

left to ponder what it meant

 and if it still means anything now

an echo of an echo

I cannot pin down

to its source

 or even gauge its true intent

though as I toss and turn

I feel the burn again

 the tender flesh

scalded and soothing

a touch from a time prior to that

an echo of an echo of an echo

I cling to

 hold on to

when I have nothing else

 

 

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a Love affair of a different kind Oct, 13, 2024

  

She speaks of them

 as if old friends

they are the uncomplicated

 unquestioning equine lovers

she can trust never to betray her

 even when she lacks

The experience they might need from her

those who have been forced to surrender

 to some ailment caused by others

not all of them thoroughbreds

some nearly as flawed as she

 wounded by life and yet

she finding a way to carry on

 magical in their nature

if not quite the unicorn

she wanted to be

 to recount each

recalls good times and bad

 then physical feelings

as well as her own

feeling their lack of judgment

 in a world where no human

or at best very few

 could be nearly as so generous

a Love affair of a different kind

 

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for want of rain sept 2012

 this used to be a weekend

 of Jerry Lewis and the telethon

 first New York then Las Vegas

then not at all

 the vacancy I feel now acutely

 now after a long hot dry summer

 though it is not the heat I hate

the mirage I see is not of an oasis

 rather a memory of feeling

 a touch or kiss and more

 as distant, an illusion

 as any man dying of thirst might see

 Greener pastures,

 bubbling brooks

swaying palm trees

 and coconuts

a paint by numbers vision

I fill in with thoughts of you

that odd lingering landscape

that is somewhere beyond lust

 but has not yet reached

the word love

a passion to find the passion

 among the dry Stones I mistaken for water

 a man can die of thirst for wishing

 and yet it lost in the fog

 that only he can create

 this day when summer ends

 and fall looms ahead

leaves still green yet

 tinged around the edges

 for want of rain

like me and how I feel

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No smooth edges Sept 8, 2012

  

There are no smooth edges

 just the crazy surface

to which my fingers cling

fly like and full of terrified vertigo

knowing that sooner or later

I will fall no net below to catch me

 only the dismal gray landscape

as remote and inhospitable

as the surface of the Moon

I used to bask in moonlight

 back when waiting for her to text

 I can't even look up these days

 scared the Moon by fall down on me

I see her face; her dark eyes

her slanted smile

I am a fly on the wall

waiting for the Earthquake

to loosen my grip

cause me to slip

turn me into a blip

or a smudge on the floor

for her to step over

not even as dignified

as one of her stepping stones

 there are no smooth edges

to any of it just

sharp points I keep pricking myself on

bad birthday wishes I wish I never wished

 and can't take back

 can't repair

 can't fly away to get around

 I cling here to survive

when I know survival might not be possible

 

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