Chess master May 2012

She makes me feel

 like a lost dog

she gives a bowl of water to

when she agrees to meet me

 at the bar after all,

I'm just needy enough to lap up the gift

even knowing it is more out

of pity than affection.

These are not the kinds of things

 a person should be grateful for,

 when it is never really real,

 just a show in which I

happen to be the beneficiary,

 though in truth,

 who can say what she gets out of it,

 this chess player many moves ahead

 in a game I am destined to lose,

check mate long before i move my first pawn,

 king trapped in the reflections of her amazing eyes,

 where the real mysteries lie,

her features disguising who she really is

and I can only guess as to what end

the game is,

whether she just plays to keep in practice.

 

The sound of thunder Nov. 14, 2012

 

I missed the warning signs, back then, and even later, thunder rumbling through the valley after those brief flashes on the horizon. I can see her face when I close my eyes: her mouth, her eyes, the tilt of her head, hearing the whole time the snide remark of Mae West: Are you making love or taking an inventory?

I try to keep my eyes wide open, as to keep from seeing a face I miss, which may be how I missed the warning, back then, even now, the flashes of light on the horizon I should have taken more seriously, how at risk it all was, and how I might have run for cover before it all rained down on me.

I hear the thunder now when it is clearly too later, after the story has passed and I’ve already been drenched, my soul drowning in it instead of quicksand.

Do we know when to stop even when we heed the warnings?

Or are we already lost by the time the sounds come? Do we need a lightning strike to tell us we made a mistake?

 

 

email to Al Sullivan

Faces in the clouds August 3, 2014

 

 

I still see faces in the clouds which float over this wide river, clouds reflected in the rippled surface of water constantly stirred by the ferries and barges, sometimes, a cruise ship, inbound from some foreign place or outbound to find adventure beyond my imagination to see.

I see faces in the sky I want to see, the wide eyes, the perky mouth, the odd tilt of head, clouds looking back at me as if I am the face they see reflected on the surface of the river.

I see her face most often, but not always, one of a parade of faces moving in the upper air like people in search of salvation we cannot find on solid ground, my feel firmly planted on stone that has stood here for a millennium and will still stand long after the city across the river is gone, after all the faces in the clouds and reflections in the water have ceased, long after I am no longe here to see them or paint my wishes on them, all those moments of memory, painted before me, above me or down below, filled with all those things I wish for but cannot have.

I see the face shaped in those clouds, sometimes, even my own.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Every which way April 19, 2015

 

I still imagine you with someone else, and it still hurts, my imagination so vivid I might draw it out, where you engage, the sound of you heard banging against the wall, the moan of a cheap bed in a cheap motel, the roll over, the other approach, I try to keep up, stroking to the beat of it, the number of times it takes you and the mysterious other to come around. I seat over it, trying not to thinking of all the angles, the upside down, the sideways, the able, the chair as if a tradition bed just won’t satisfy the need, this time at night after too many drinks, then again in the morning, where the moaning seems unbearably loud, you, he and me, all arriving at last at the same time, finally.

 

email to Al Sullivan

This life we live Oct. 8, 2025

  

I am at the bottom of the cliffs, churching along on a train I take so regularly I almost sometime forget she used to live up top of it, coming out along the promenade, to jog by day and sometimes night, a long lost memory I keep locked up in my brain, seemingly so long ago, especially when I have longed for so long for it all to go back to when it was, when it never can, this life we lead taking us to other place than we intended, even when I still reside her and she no longer does, this longing so intense it takes me at night in anticipation of a text or call I know will never come, while I keep on chugging along as if still locked in this day dream that often lingering long into dark.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Hook, line and sinker (2015)

  

I’m not the one

 who chooses

You do

Girl picks boys

And he’s lucky

To have her,

The painted lips

The shadowed eyes,

The tight hips

The becoming thighs

Bait to bait me

And I always bite

Taking the hook

So keep inside

I can neve yank it out,

Living with the cut of it

If I move wrong

Or think too much,

Even though you’ve

Cut the line

Returned me to the pond

From which I came,

I will always feel the barbs

Stabbing at my heart,

Each time recalling you

And yet,

I still ache for it,

Hook, line and sinker

 

email to Al Sullivan

Going in the wrong direction May 25, 2025

 

 

The hum of the wheels keeps me awake, if not focused, traveling though time as well as space, no Einstein bent to let me pop put in some other remote place, my thoughts do that, drawing me back, letting me see the faces of people I have not seen in decades, some I will never see again on this mortal coil, the rumble seemingly remove yet a constant reminder that I am still in progress, still moving, going somewhere even if it is the place I intended to go. I live too much in the past and longer for people no longer a part of my life, as if in leaving them I have lost something valuable, something I need, yet cannot retrieve, and I am condemned to keep going forward when all I want is to go back

 

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