Saturday, January 31, 2015

You taste me; I taste you



Saturday, January 31, 2015


I let you put your fingers in my mouth
So I can taste where you have been,
Fingers wrapped around me like a shawl,
To rub against me
To rise and fall, come in and out like waves
You taste like the salty sea that comes
And goes, we rocking in this lifeboat
With no hope for or expectation to survive
Living only with the bliss of escaping steam.
You let me stick my fingers in your mouth
For you to taste where I have been,
With my tongue tasting your tongue
Until we both taste it all
This not so sweet existence that comes
With so much strain, this which draws
From us sweat and steals each
Breath we breathe
This which we press into each other
And then withdraw,
Like fresh water from a deep well,
I let you taste me as I taste you
And we come
To taste each other,
And you let me inside you so you can
Feel where I come
From and come
To understand where I need to go,
With this mouthful of honey covered fingers,
This bedspread into which I bury my head.



Friday, January 30, 2015

Moonlight through willows



June 2, 2013

Moon light stretches her thin fingers
Through the gold willow leaves
With a touch so soft it stiffens them
No wind tonight to whip the limps
This way or that,
Just bent shapes in the dim night
And the shake of some internal shudder
Again, then again, and again,
The kiss of the air when it comes
Lingers on the upturned tips
The quiver of anticipation
And then release
All nights are lonely nights
Filled with the ache
For the company it can keep
Wine sipped but rarely consumed
Red lips lusted after
But barely assumed,
This night of all night
Struck with prickly edges
 Of need with a moon teasing
Full of promises before it fades
Living limp what it so excited
Casting into dark
The upturned protrusions
It once made quiver
And near the willow’s roots
The all-knowing river flows
Having reflected on moon light
For so long, and its suggestive promises,
It accepts in the end

Whatever gifts the moon will give 

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Drip on the edge of memory



Thursday, January 29, 2015

I feel the curve of the river
Press against me as I walk
This lonely walk along the Hudson
In not-so-desolate Hoboken,
The chill wind kissing my cheeks
When I ache for more,
The trembling last leaves
Of last fall’s harvest clinging
To barren limbs,
Tender brown fingers
Rubbing the bark with the same
Affection I feel in memory,
This breath of air stinging me
And yet making me ache for more
As if pleasure and pain
Cannot be subdivided in a town
Where everything gets boxed up,
My limbs like tree limbs
Waiting for the coming of spring
To burst again into hard buds
That bloom and drip with a spring
Time due, the taste of the air,
Lingering at the tip of my tongue
As I swallow and feel the chill
Go down deep into my bones,
Where all things reside,
Like an unresolved remembrance
that drips off each edge of me,
Filled with the promise of satisfaction
I never feel



Sunday, January 25, 2015

Fire eaters



Sunday, January 25, 2015

Breathing fire isn’t tricky
We eat fire from the day we are born,
Taking it in from our first breath
So others think we might be dragons,
Undefeatable except by a lucky lance,
While inside we bide our time
Fearing the pin pick that will deflate us,
We need to believe we are destined for greatness,
Waiting on a train that just hasn’t yet arrived,
As we huff and puff and know we can
Do anything we want,
Faith moves the mountains in us,
Lets us stroll over hot coals
rise into highs we get dizzy from,
Lets us breathe in fire and not incinerate,
Faith must propel us even when hot winds won’t,
The jealous small-minded pin prickers
Too scared to breathe fire themselves
And so insist we don’t either,
Faith that we take deep breaths
And remain un-singed,
Faith in knowing that we are what we believe
And without faith, we don’t breathe at all.


Thursday, January 1, 2015

The pirate of Ocean Grove





Thursday, January 01, 2015

I come to the end of the walkway
To the edge of the sea
Where the old pirate sat
gone
The way all things go
When the sea calls them home,
Gone like the pack
Of stuffed animals from
The boardwalk memorial
For some long gone person
Who I know nothing of,
Cheerful faces to mark
A less than cheerful passing,
The frog gone first
And then the other two,
And now the pirate
That had clung to this remote
Edge of Ocean Grove
As if to the edge of the world
Why he vanished less important
Than his going,
Though I’d like to believe
Some ship came to collect him
As we all must be collected
When our time comes,
His job done
Telling us where reality ends
And beckoning us
To step off the land
We so cling to
To discover something more
Beyond the usual boundaries
Of our otherwise mundane lives
He, sailing into eternity,
With sails fully inflated