Thursday, July 31, 2014

Echoes of doubt



July 31, 2014

History repeats itself inside my head,
Like an echo in a canyon,
Long after the initial shout
Losing at last that which
The shout was about
And so we read into
What we hear,
Imagining what it is
We felt when we let
the fell words fall,
And translate that which
We thought we said
Into what we need said
Feeling from it
What we need to feel
Not exactly what
We felt at the start
Thinking the whole time
How nothing has changed
When everything always does
And when we shout again
Our new shout falls
Onto ears we know might
Never hear what it is
We actually said.


Sunday, July 27, 2014

Hamlet’s lament



Sunday, July 27, 2014

Hamlet worried much to much
About loss of beauty to time’s cold touch
Where it hides when winters come
To deepen the troth on this aging mug
When what we thought as tried and true
Dries up at last like morning dew
And we must live with what we can’t hide
Where then does our beauty lie,
What then do we do for praise
When all we were starts to fade away,
And have we finally made the trade,
For what wisdom’s fingers may have made
How do we become what was new
And resurrect our morning dew?


Saturday, July 26, 2014

Bound






Her hair glistens as if made of gold
Not colored gold or as hard
But precious to touch or taste
She tastes bitter like perfume,
But I drink all of her in,
Weaving myself in her stands
Tying myself up with her so tight
I can’t escape, subject to whatever
whim she wears,
unable to taste anything
But what she feeds me,
Unable to breathe but what
She breathes into me
I wear her like a wig
Each strand binding me
Head, hip, lip and loin,
So I can move only when she moves
With each shimmering thread
Biting into me until I bleed her,
Each orifice oozing
As the bonds grew tight.



Rain tastes like wine




July 22, 2014


The rain tastes like wine
After so long without,
The bitter sip
At the tip of my tongue,
Less bitter
The more I lick
Until it all turns sweet,
I am a honey bee
Sipping from moist pedals
Or humming bird
With extended beak
To reach deep
Where the sweetest
Nectar lurks,
Wings flapping so fast
Even the rain
Can’t weigh me down
Yet satisfy what I ache for most
Lust for wine
Leaving me thirsty
For wine I can get
No place else
But here.



Whispering




Saturday, July 26, 2014


Voices whisper in the dark,
A park bench,
Two shadows,
His arm around her shoulders,
Heads learning towards each other’s,
Faces and inch,
And then connected,
Lip to lip,
Both rising from some other place
Easing into this new space,
Into each other,
Sharing more than just
Each other’s air,
Fingers feeling their way
In the dark
Over elevated landscape,
Tenderly at first
Then inflexible,
Exploding inside like
An over inflated balloon,
Hissing its slow release
In the dark,
She whispering
Lost words
Neither needs to remember
In the morning,
Only that it had been said,
And acknowledged
Whispering



Friday, July 25, 2014

Willy’s sonnet: 120



Willy Shakespeare said it best
And not even a bit of jest
To whom he thought it was unkind
And how it changed over time
How need under transgression bows
No nerve of brass or steel somehow
Bear the burden of unkindness shaken
Through the hell of time reawakens
That what was before the tyrant’s crime
The one long time once lost in time
And now how deeply sorrow comes,
After so much hurt and so many suns,
Each side bearing its burden of pain
Each side wearing its garment of shame,
And all as a result was lost
Not seeing what the other cost



Monday, July 21, 2014

What is real?



Monday, July 21, 2014

I keep looking across the river
From my office window
At the hazy skyline
The pin prick of skyscrapers
Poking through the clouds
And think: “this isn’t real,”
This feel for real lost in the haze
I carry inside and out,
Like fog on the windshield
I can’t clear with the windshield wipers
Or even the heated defrost,
Fog growing thicker
As time goes on,
Muddling up what goes on inside
While the world goes on without,
I’m always trying to pierce this fog
I see on the skyline
Trying to learn what transpires
Inside each spire,
Not so much the internal circulation
But how it all works,
What is real or unreal,
What shifts the fog inside
And what can clear it away
So we can all see what is
Really there,.


Sunday, July 20, 2014

Voyeur




Sunday, July 20, 2014

I watch the bumble bee
Ease onto the flower,
So heavy the pedals shudder
Each pink lip flashing
With the liquid light of sun
I sweat just to watch
A helpless voyeur
Taking in each move
The bee makes
So I can later
Get it right
The exposed surface
Glistening with
The bee’s attraction
Each projected point
Kissing the bee
As he plunges deep
To collect the plunger
He knows waits
For his busy fingers
To collect,
His face painted pale,
Tasting if not honey
Then something
Just as sweet
In a fumbling, bumbling
Ritual he must
Take part in,
Drawn in,
Sucked in whole,
Unable to escape
Until he has had it all,
And like me

It is never enough.


Saturday, July 19, 2014

Night Wings


(After an evening at WFMU’s performance space)

Saturday, July 19, 2014

My ears go numb
With the ache of it
Rage roaring out of each speaker
At full volume
This dark room filled
With these bright people
A flash back to a past
When I lived my life by night
Like a bat or a vampire
My leather wings still squeaky
As I spread them,
Loud to me but lost
In the extreme sounds
That make the walls
And floors vibrate,
Each inch of me exploding
Inside under the assault of sound,
Just as I exploded then
Aching for flight
My night wings could not take
Aching for something always
Just beyond reach of hearing,
The heavy breath, the heavy sigh
The intense touch
Of someone’s fingers
Helping me to try and fly


Thursday, July 17, 2014

Points of stone



Thursday, July 17, 2014


We press against the cold stone
Two trolls under
The drip, drip, drip
Of this old stone bridge
Each edge of the
hewn stone
pressing in us
as we press together
soft against soft
until even that
gets hard,
the drip, drive drip
as potent as a
Chinese water torture
Only this is not China
And this is not water,
And the bridge is not
Refuge against the storm
We feel rising inside,
Our lives
Circumscribed
By this arch above us
And the rushing water
At our feet,
The swish of traffic
Rushing overhead
Unaware of our haunting,
We not so much
Fearing sunlight
As preferring the mood of gray
Twilight shares,
Needing no shades of it
To enhance the ache,
No artificial inducements
To increase the edge
Of what bookies out of us
Like points of stone


Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Consumpion



Tuesday, July 15, 2014

A forefinger rubbed along the lip of a glass makes it moan;
My fingers stained and sticky from dipping inside;
This wine makes me whine from inside out;
Finger to tongue to test this vintage
Before I lift the lip of glass to my lips to sip,
My finger on this rim seeking soft edge
Into which I ache to plunge,
Tongue first and then the rest of me

A sip, and then, alas, consumption

Sunday, July 13, 2014

First loaf




Sunday, July 13, 2014

She bakes bread
Each fall
After the first frost,
Clutching the long thin
Handle of the wooden spoon
So hard her knuckles
Go red
Veins thick along each
Finger as she stirs,
Working up the batter
Into a fitful froth
Until it is too thick
To beat,
Taking it out with
Both hands,
She molds it into
A long thick loaf,
Her hands are strong hands,
Gripping it tight as she kneads
Each finger pressing deep
Into the soft dough
Until she makes it hard,
Too tough to knead,
She stuffs it into her oven,
Where the deep heat
Makes it rise,
Makes it perfect.


Love never stops



Sunday, July 13, 2014

Love never stops,
A lost penny rolling
Between the cracks of pavement
Or over the stones and sand,
Aching always
For a place to land,
Clinging to the fingers
That last held it,
Caressed it,
The imprint of love
Lingering on all
Touched by it,
Even ever rolling
To some unforeseen crevice
It never intended to go
A constant memory
Of that one moment
When love
Like a brand new penny
still shone bright,
It remembers
It never ends
It always renews itself.



Saturday, July 12, 2014

It tastes fine




Saturday, July 12, 2014


I touch the tip of it with my life
And it tastes fine,
I trace the curve of your lips
With the tips of my fingers
Feeling the shudder
Quivering in both of us,
The quake of earth
The shake we make
With each spark
Our hearts start
When flesh touches flesh
And we slide into a place
We never expected to arrive,
The tips of fingers or tongue
Pressing into you,
Seeking some pleasure
The taste of you
Linger inside of me
A never fading memory
I would not shake
Even if I could
Bound to it,
As if to the earth itself
no quake can shake from me
Tasted your taste,
Smelling your scent,
Touching all of you
With all of me,
I touch the tip of it with my lips
And it tastes fine.



Life’s choices




Saturday, July 12, 2014

I sip from the lip
Of this cup
I curl my fingers around
Round, warm, spilling
Its sweet juice into
My ever hungry mouth
The harder I squeeze,

I am a honey bee
Hovering with
Stinger and nimble fingers
Choosing which to use when
To sip each drip
From the lip of this cup
Or to plunge deep
To seek sweeter juices
In the depths of this flower.

Ah! Life’s choices
Never so sweet


Glowing



July 11, 2014

Sunset dances
Through my rear window
Like pixies dancing,
On dust particles
with promises
Of magical things
I live my life
On the edge
Of outstretched
Fairy wings,
A perpetual Peter Pan
Dreaming of being
Taken off to
Never never land,
Settling for the whisper
Of wind and
The stirring of dust,
And the glint of
Sunset decorating
The edges of my life
When I can find
No better illumination
Perhaps knowing
Deep down
Nothing is better than this,
Flying on this trail
Of pixie dust
That leaves me
glowing



Thursday, July 10, 2014

This heat inside



Thursday, July 10, 2014

The humid air
Presses against my skin
Like a long, wet kiss,
Each step I take
Pumped up my blood
So I boil
Inside and out,
The wet tongue
Of the July heat
Moving over
Each curve of me,
Stirring me up,
Making me feel
Naked walking
Under the beat of sun,
As I make the most
Of the tenderness
And tension,
Struggling to rise
And finally feeling
The intense release
When I reach
The top,
The green world
Exposing its rich interior,
The fallen petals
Violated by
The recent unslaught
Of rain,
Though it would take
Noah’s flood
To fully release
This heat
Inside.



Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Over and around




Tuesday, July 01, 2014

The sweat dribbles down
My cheeks as I walk
Up the stiff incline of
The viaduct connecting
Hoboken with Union City,
And Union City with beyond
The rub of cloth
Against my chest and thighs
The heavy breathing,
The rhythm of movement
In this overheated air
And the taste of salt
Sweet with sweat
That drips onto my lips
And into my mouth,
This life journey,
Up and down
In and out,
Over and around,
Pressing me firmly
Against powerful urges
I cannot resist,
Nature I cannot overcome,
Though ache to surrender to,
But must keep moving
Or fall in on myself
Like an overheated sun
Twisted into a black hole
Of smoldering desire