The place with gold trim Nov. 2, 2024

 I checked too late to make a reservation for the for a day when most people stay home to have turkey, looking at the gay motel in one town and a bed and breakfast with gold trim in the other. finding no vacancy in either, thought too scared to actually do the bed and breakfast anyway since I would feel haunted if I did, even a dozen years after the fact, when she posted pictures of her stay there, her mark indelibly placed there forever even if nobody sees it but me

 even walking by it, looking into its dark Windows as if her eyes, catching a glimpse of the soul I still barely understand, like walking on clamshells

 does she feels it when I pass so close to places where she's been or is it really my imagination, wish fulfillment, those dreams I still dream when I know I shouldn't,  dare I step over the threshold scared I will turn into something odd if I do

Back to the Majestic again July 3, 2014

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Chalk marks 2015

 I still hear its whisper even now, long after it has ceased being there, the voice I hear in my head, the echo of something once real, now merely the remnants of a memory I can’t quite shed, like the hum of a generator that vibrates through me, stiffens me up and down, raising expectations that can never be, the stiff wood I wake up to that can only be accepted as dream, the lips I kissed that exist in a world that vanishes at waking, a hypnotic trance magically and most definitely sinful. I keep my eyes shut even as it dissipates, clinging to the fail clouds of it as long as I can before my conscious mind erases it, leaving vague impressions of what was, like chalk marks on a black board whose tale I can barely read after time.

 

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Same old songs Dec. 4, 2024

 Snow came and went in a blink, not even a dusting here, while there, where she resides, strange pellet pelted her city like an attack from Mars. We all ache for winter until it actually arrives, aware then just how lonely life gets with no one to keep us warm.

Once again, I stroll these paths near the river, feeling the chill deep down in my bones, not merely from the sudden drop of temperature, from inside instead, this life we must lead, together yet apart, my ear buds buzzing with her songs decades old, her versions of other people’s song, some her own, all sung as if to someone long gone, someone other than me, and yet, as I listen, I seek meaning that isn’t really there.

 

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Beauty denied 2014

 

it is folly to believe

 beauty such as hers

should be hid away

unspied upon

unwitnessed

when even the worst of us

would admire it this potency

even if we can but scan

from a distance

and wish we could

praise it more closely

yet she seems to determine

 to keep it in a box

or in a shell

to divy out only to those

 she seems worthy

when like a rose

or rare piece of art

 such should not be given

 only to those few

 when a world waits to glimpse it

even when we know

no man can possess

it save in passing

 

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Cloak of invisibility Nov. 3, 2024

  

I don’t know what to dream for, all those dreams I used to dram are all used up, discarded tissues with the resident of a past I miss – yet dare not relive.

The story always has an unhappy ending, at least, for me, while I think she fares better, having survived for so long on her wits.

She may even thrive. I don’t dare check on her progress because I still need to retain my cloak of invisibility, this thing that shields me, yet also isolates me, so I can no longer feel what I once felt, touch what I thought of as soft, the kiss I miss from a place that has ceased to exist, as if I have also ceased to exist, this dream the only one I have and so cling to that, even when I know it can  never become reality.

 

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A kiss a sip of wine 2014

 

if she would put a kiss in a glass of wine

 I would join it there with one of mine

no draft could I ever drink

 would cause me to stagger over the brink

I look at her eyes above that rim

and leaves me floating to sink or swim

I see how your fingers ensnare the stem

 and feel them creep up my hem

 lost an I a hapless soul

who aches to have all of you whole

 

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Fingers in the candy jar 2015

  

Be careful of what you lust for on the chance you might get it.

I am a kid in the proverbial candy shop, thrusting my sticky fingers into every jar, needing to taste what I know I should not, still hungry to have what I know will spoil my dinner at home, and still having been caught with my fingers in too far, I still want more, to taste lips I ought not to kiss, to press my hips to hips I know I will miss when gone, wishing then and now and always for it, pretending I am wish or honest or fair, pretending to take the perpetual high road I know I can’t possibly keep my feet on, stumbling off the path, suffering the aftermath, wishing I ought not have, a wish for a kiss or a press of hips or just a bid of cady that leaves my fingers sticky and my lips dripping for wanting more.

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Splinter march 2014

  

we are what we ingest

 the spirit of what died for us

 to survive becoming part of us

 there inside as little splinter

 too deep beneath the surface

 to easily remove

it changes us

 molding us from the inside

filling us with notions

 we might not have otherwise

 have conceived

 the rumble of hooves I hear in my head

 when I order cheeseburger at the diner

 the clatter of leaves from the salad

 yet most disturbing are the sounds

I hear after I have ingested you

how changed by having you inside of me

I feel neither good nor bad

 just different an altered universe

a shift in orbit

 unpredictable

like the way I changed

 that first time on LSD

knowing both then and now

 nothing will ever be the as it once was

 knowing I am not the same person

after I took you inside me

 a splinter that makes its way

slowly and steadily

into the center of my heart

 

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All the leaves are brown Jan. 20, 2025

 

All the leaves are brown now, even though I don’t wish them to be, needing to cling to something green that has ceased to exist, this wasteland that lies between what once was and what may swoon be again, a time when it was, a time when it is easy to give up, to surrender to the dark days and not believe the days will bright and the world will return to greet – this lack of faith, this lost soul, this in-between time when all seems beyond hope and yet, I cling to it, to the hope of green if not the green that was, this belief it will come again, as it always has in the past and this is what I live for.

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This sea of madness

Sunday, December 06, 2015

I always come back to this same place

Where the shores of oppression are awash

With the scattered empty shells of the sea’s most hapless,

Beings snatched up by the savage jaws

Of the ever-devouring winged beast that dominate the air,

Each justifying its existence in this strong over weak world

Where any thing can be rationalized as long as one side wins,

Right and wrong, good and bad, mere labels to post on flags

So that one might explain and moralize the slaughter

As something other than eat or be eaten,

When the weak are most often the least able to eat

And are most often eaten to bloat bellies and inflate egos

Of those powerful enough to do what they wish

Without consequence or conscience.

I have spent most of my life wrongfully enamored with this sea,

Seeing justice and fair play where there is only chaos and greed,

Once believing that everything evens out amid the ebb and flow of waves

When all we get are the washed up bodies of those unable to compete.

Lost at sea (2015)

 It is never real, still it feels real when I carve it out in my mind, not quite a memory of how soft her breasts felt when I brushed against them, how tender her lips tasted when I snuck a kiss, a memory popping up at those moments of most need, the depths of night, the half dreams, dreaming of her around me as I go deep to feel her from the inside out, rocking the boat until – a memory or wish – we come to the edge of sinking.

I have no life preserver to keep me/she/we from drowning. Perhaps I don’t want one, needing to immerse myself in her warmth until I can’t come up again, my brain lost in a fog with no lighthouse to guide me back to solid ground.

Maybe, I want to drown, to lose my way, to no longer be able to catch my breath. Maybe all I ever wanted was to get lost at sea with no way of finding myself, with no desire to be anywhere else.

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Genie in a bottle Feb. 4, 2025

 

The ache of it; the throb and pangs, comes most acutely late in the dark, before sleep; then later just prior to dawn, the pale blue of sky, coming and going, with the promise of sleep, kept or not kept, dark then later light.

I never get over it, the lingering as if fragments of dream I can recall only bits and pieces of, never the complete picture.

I feel it down deep in my bones, the tingle at first, evolving – if not into pain, then into pressure like a bruise I can’t repair regardless of how hard or long I massage, rubbing it the way I might the neck of a bottle, waiting for the genie to emerge, popping out of nowhere if not with relief, then at least with a moment’s pleasure.

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Twenty days to Christmas Dec. 5, 2024

  

It’s 20 days to Christmas and all through the house, the cats are a stirring, and I feel like a mouse, huddled under covers with my nose in the cold, no Santa expected, not even to bring me coal, a haze in my head I can’t seem to clear, no Xmas cards to send, no hope of good cheer, no temptation to send well-wishes, no address find, no presents to wrap save for the ones in my mind, the heater in the living room doing nothing at all, to warm me the way she did as I recall, a kitten for company flat at my feet, while the distance between us is to vast to reach, and I wonder if Santa will ever find a way to deliver his greetings on this coldest of days, no card will I send her if ever knew how, no text message to deliver, no tiding for now, just chill of the season as I ponder her fate, the coming of Santa bringing his cheer way too late.

 

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When the snow comes Jan. 19, 2025

 

Snow comes and melts, even though it is still cold, like magic, there then not there, my life evaporating before my eyes, a rabbit in the hat trick, the card I pick the magician predicts, all things – as George Harrison said – must pass, and I miss them, even the painful stuff, stirring up in me that other adage of “better to have…” which I do not believe down deep, where the pangs still reside, and I dredge up, things that also come and go, or as she said once, mostly go, the snow fall at dusk that vanished by dawn, the clutched memory that slips through my fingers as snow turns to ice then to water, dripping away, I love the snow, but hate to see it go

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His Annabel lee oct 8, 2024

   

whenever I come to the Sea

 I think of his Hannibal Lee

 the love of his life

who got snatched away

as if drawn out by the endless waves

 I think of how he longed his whole life for her

Never getting to see her again

though each wave only making him crave

longing to find a way to save her

when if she still could be

 she lost  it in the sea

for regardless how many times

he dives for into the waves

he can’t save her,

though he sees her in each wave

as they come up and with reluctant clinging

 to that prayer he cites

 she is the sea

his Annabel lee

just as she is mine

 

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with apologies to baudelaire 2015

   

are my eyes blue

as she thinks

or gray or green or somewhere in between

fogged over as if with dream

as I stare into hers

that are so brown or black

I see my reflection there

we living our lives with overcast skies

 always with the promise of rain

 and perhaps pain

rain dripping down her cheeks

 blurring her vision

 my eyes are as blue as my mood

when I wear blue

Green when my shirt is green

a camouflage as I ache to hide with

 or as gray as the sky

or in this season the sullen landscape

 of falling leaves none nearly

as brown as her eyes

 nor as deep

 nor as full of promise

drawing me in

my blue green gray eyes

 searching out the depths of hers

 to dig up what treasure

 I might find there

are my eyes blue or green or gray or something in between?

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