Wednesday, October 15, 2025

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.

 


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Tuesday, October 14, 2025

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.

 


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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.

 


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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

 


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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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All Dressed up Sept. 25, 2013

 


 What goes through her head

when she dressed up like this,

 the way she did for that party

 I did not attend or that one

along the waterside where

all eyes were on her,

 different from when she

wanted to perform

all those years ago

 and a time and place

 now so far, far away,

 living proof of what

Shakespeare claimed,

she treating the whole

world as her stage,

 desperate to have

 her moment in

the spot light or sunlight,

where all eyes are fixed.

What goes on in her head?

Is she aware of what

her movements cause,

if not quite an earthquake,

 certainly a shudder through each room.

Does she know?

Can she sense the vibrations

she causes as those

who watched her in court felt,

 she the focus of attention

with each shift of her hips.



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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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