Jelly fish or rock? March 30, 2015

  

I feel each crease

In the palm of your hand

As it moves over me,

Soft always leading to hard,

As life’s calluses

Wears me away

I am the stone

The sea waves wash over,

Thinking I am so permanent

Or powerful yet

Gets consumed over time

Each wave’s rhythm

Stripping from me

Layers of my invulnerability,

Until I am raw

And naked

With nothing to protect me

And still it goes on,

A ceaseless stroke of salt

That leaves me

Drowning in foam,

A sand crab seeking holes

Into which to bury myself,

Seeking warmth

Seeking to leave the waves pass

Flowing over me

And through me,

Each tide turning me

Into a quivering mass

Of transparent flesh,

I am jelly fish

After all,

Shivering with the subtlest touch

Pretending I am a stone

Or crab or anything other

Than what I am,

Pretending this salty kiss

Does not affect me

When it shake

At the mere thought.

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The guilty one Oct 5, 2012

No good deed goes unpunished, if there are good deeds indeed, laying her life out like a well-worn carpet, over which people continue to walk, confessing to crimes for which she has no guilt, someone needs to read her her rights, what she ought to already know by heart, she's been through this so often, and for so long, a career criminal, confessing to crime she blames herself for, when no one else does, or if we do, if we love her as we claim to do, the end of an era or error, or a period populated with mistakes she can never make amends for, while we wait and watch for the inevitable conclusion, her need to flee, we caught the dust, confused, never once imagining it would conclude like this, a confession posted first as a poem, a public announcement she can't possibly take back now that itsis done, what is it that goes through her head, who does she blame, why do I think at the end of the day I'm really the guilty one not her

 

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Solace March 20, 2015

I put it all in your mouth

Ever sacred word

Or secret thought

Until it spills out

At your lips

My madness dripping

Down your chin,

And you, savagely

Hungrily licking

To catch each drip

This pursuit of knowledge

This intense ache

For the sweet fruit

A passion for mystery

We cannot contain,

Me, pumping you full

Of my misconceptions

You taking in ever bit of it,

In a fit of love,

We rock over

This smooth landscape,

Seeking solace

In what we spill

And cannot catch,

Both of us consumed

By it all,

Both of us needing

It to keep going

Even as it drips out

Through our outstretched

Fingers.

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This side of the looking glass May 10, 2014

  

Warmth comes in waves with wind, the sent of the season floating over me, intoxicating, making it nearly impossible to contain the stem of thoughts winter brought, or keep hold of the fading hopes she's born year in and year out, needing now to find some new venue to begin again, perhaps too depressed to appreciate the fresh air this season brings, her world suddenly silent, and I cannot fantom why, what ticks on in her head, plans reinvented, schemes to be redone, or does her silence signify something else, some aspect of life I cannot comprehend from this side of the looking glass, has she gone down into the rabbit hole, taking the pill that makes her taller, smaller or does nothing at all, the silence of what was rather than what will be, this wind, this change, blowing less sweet than I first believed, carrying hope to her, or away, or perhaps to nowhere at all

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A cold kiss February 7, 2015

The snow falls on an already frozen earth

A kiss of winter I cannot avoid

So soft I ache to embrace it

Though we know it only lengthens

And makes the ache worse

As we make our way through it,

This is no great storm

I will tell my grandkids about

Just a huff of winter’s breath

I will soon forget,

A brief embrace I cling to

A frigid touch that burns inside

So gentle on my upturned lips

I can barely feel its kiss

Or believe that the same hard winter

That brought on the ice

Brought this through the haze of cloud

And the brief glimpses of sunlight

That sneak through the veil

Chill fingers seeking softness

And making me melt

I walk in a dream of falling flakes,

My hands working through

This frail fabric searching

My fingers seeking warmth

I struggle to find,

Needing to feel real warmth,

Teased by this cool temptation,

This promise for more,

Needing it to fill me up,

Touch me from the inside out,

Needing to move as it moves

To feel as it feels,

Kissing it as it kisses me,

Needing to know it all

Before it fades away,

A kiss that comes from another

Warmer time and place,

Dancing before me

Like an illusion

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The girl with purple hair Jan 25, 2025

 

 

The girl across from me has purple hair, and gold rings through her nose and lips, and The telltale edges of tats which are mostly hidden by long arms of her winter coat, she can't be more than 20, though at my age I can't tell at all what people younger than I look like, and hardly remember what being like them felt like when I was their age, she rides alone but has baggage enough for two or three companions, and I wonder where she is going, carrying so much on her shoulders, a female Atlas forced to bear the burdens of the world, still too young, too naïve, to know exactly where she is going, and unable to predict if she will have to stop off before her intended destination, even though her ticket says she is going the whole way

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Valentine February 14, 2015

We want it to be sweet

But it rarely is,

At least, not completely,

Like a not yet ripe cherry

We are anxious to devour,

We bite through the skin

To learn the truth,

Sometimes we get what we need

From not yet ripe or too ripe

The juices dripping

Down inside us to fill us up

Too bitter or two sweet

It is always hard to choose

Though we soon learn

Unripe ripens over time

While too sweet is the last lap

Before the last gasp

And in this we are engaged

In a life and death struggle

We know as love

Bursting out of us,

Dripping down our chins

Sweet and sour at some time

Leaving us to wonder

How we can endure

The hot and cold of it,

When in truth, the best part

Is the first bite, when we do not know

If it will be sweet or not,

Part of what makes it so perfect

Is its imperfections

The off center rose,

The different colored pearl

The slanted lips we kiss

And know we’ve kissed

For the shape they take

Around our lips,

Not too sweet or too sour

Not too hot or cold

Fast or slow,

Soft or hard,

But just right

This trust we accept as truth

No more solid than

The ever changing universe

We live in, real only because

We make it real,

Solid only because we take the chance

To bite the fruit in the first place

Sour to sweet we take it all in.

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Counting down the days Dec 14, 2024

 

I count down the last days until the end of the year, like a jailbird crossing off days on a calendar, only I'm not in a hurry for my life sentence to end

 I used to count the days the other way, calculating just how long I could expect to be here, even a little anxious to reach this age or that, when I could drive or drink, when the draft could claim me, looking ahead even to the holidays, full of cheer, even when I knew they might not be, now my calendar is bulging with pages full of xs and fewer days ahead to mark off, this assumption I have control of it, can count on days ahead, when I might not yet meet my maker, hit by a Mack truck or counting on luck to keep me from getting robbed, or when I might find love again

 

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Orange marmalade February 02, 2015

The tang of it stings my tongue

As I lick the curved inside of the spoon,

Lumps of rind still cool from the refrigerator

Clinging to my mouth as I lust for more

The kiss of sweet saddled with the lash of bitter

Lapped up and consumed

Unable for me to tell which is which

If indeed there is a difference,

And in hungering for sweet we must accept the bitter

I rarely spread across bread instead consume it

Straight out of the depths of the jar

Rattling my spoon at its bottom,

Licking as deep as my tongue will go

First around the grooves near where the lid screws on

And then into the deep of it, each inch

A painful reach that makes me ache the deeper I go

I can never get it all, as deep a reach as my tongue has –

Even my fingers, scraping the bottom

Can’t get at all the fruit, hidden in the crevices

And I settle to licking off what my fingers have found,

And still not in the least satisfied.

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Music of moans March 13, 2015

  

Every day, or maybe every night, I dream of her,  of her tender delicate body, floating against mine like a freshly Blooming flower, waiting for my mouth to consume it, the vision of her whole body convulsing, when I manage to touch the right place, the right combination that thrusts open that place, where the pink rose blooms, the intimate dance of my tongue on her lips and between her hips, drawing out of her music made of moans, the more I do, the louder the music becomes, and I need to do more to take part in this dance, too close to perform on any of the public dance floor, the in and out, up and down, the need never completely satisfied, merely sated until the next ritual, at which point we do it all again, pressing against each other, seeking to fill up empty spaces we can't seem to fill, again and again, forever and forever

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The scent of flowers February 01, 2015

I part the pedals with my fingers

To feel what is inside

Flushed red and moist with dew

That I taste with the tip of my tongue,

This humming bird existence

Of near invisibility

Cloaked but not immune,

Caught up in the quicksand

Of my own desire,

In need of compassion

To ease me out

When I delve too deep,

Buzzing wings to keep me hovering

Until the moment I can again plunge in

I hear the moan of the pedals parting

And the groan when I ease out

My back heavy with sap from the middle.

They say honey tastes like the flower

From which it comes,

Yet none tastes so sweet as this

Or rich or thick,

Poured over me with nectar too heavy

For me to fly far

So I sink again, and again,

Sinking into the froth I am too drunk to drink,

Covered head to toe

With the scent of flowers.

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In the quiet May 7, 2014

In the quiet between the roar of the city,

birds chirp news

 amid the cacophony we barely hear it

 and cannot fully appreciate it

chirping of language we cannot translate

and must guess about

 not seemingly annoyed

 as to them we hardly exist

 despite the grumbling of our overpowered machines

and the screech of our overloaded voices

understanding us better than we do them,

 knowing to avoid us, ignore us, or fly away

 when we venture to near,

 the chirping we hear clear

 about something other than our world

 talk of Love perhaps or hunger

or some measure of gossip we

might not think them capable of

 their lives seemingly so petty

 as compared to ours,

 less significant in the scheme of things

 and I wonder are they at all like us

 filled with the same petty jealousy

 the same outrage

 do they comment on their world condition

 the way we do about ours

or are they beyond all that

 accepting what occurs without blame

taking for granted life comes and goes

 just as the seasons do

 when we cannot

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You taste me; I taste you 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.

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Mars or the Moon May 8, 2014

 

 

Living in the moment, without past or future, only now, is difficult when her world hangs on a thread which a good wind might detach, a thread she can’t catch again if set loose, and which always does, all too aware of that moment of separation, the way an astronaut knows the stages of a rocket detach, and knows there is no going back.

Sometimes going is all you know, not where you’ll end up, the sheer motion, the rub against the hill, the weakening pull of gravity that holds her to earth, each shed until she floats in space, weightless, wondering where if she will ultimately land, on Mars or The Moon, or maybe a crash and burn on the planet from which she started, not back to the past but into the wreckage of the ever present, though even that she can’t predict, the moment, and must love win or not, living in that moment, imprisoned by it, condemned to accept whatever fate has instore for her, heaven or hell, mars or the moon, or back on he same planet. She never knows.

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Drip on the edge of memory 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

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public announcement via poem Oct. 4, 2012

 

  

It is not something you believe until it happens, like the vague memory of a bad dream, the details of which unfold from a poem before the official announcement later tells you it is true, the man weeping on the far side of the telephone, who clearly had not read the same poem she posted and so got no warning about it until it kicked him in the teeth, love never enough, especially when unrequited, maybe later, feeling betrayed about not having heard it first from here, and she believing she was not good enough, strong enough, wise enough or whatever, the world conspiring against here when she assumed she was on the right road to the right place, when she never was, not yellow brick road, no Wizard of Oz, no helpful companion with our without brain or heart or courage, but plenty of evil witches which diver her. Bringing her down, and she has no way to defeat them, so she must endure, moving on as she had done so many times before

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Fire eaters 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.

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