When the wind blows Aug. 14, 2025

 

 

The wind glows through the leaves and I imagine my fingers moving through your hair; I paint the image of your face on the landscape, though you are not really here, this stirring of the overheated world we live in, sweat over, and pine about, not able to fell it all for real, the gentle kiss on your moist lips, the imagined press of hips, the slow sway in a dance that can only grow more intense the more we engage in it, the wind scented with your scent, stirs up a need n me I know I cannot satisfy, this late in the season, this so distant in the world.

The wind gusts stir up the leaves as I peek at the previous fruit dangling under the canopy, and I can never pry loose no matter how I try.

The wind glows the leaves and I cannot help but think of you.

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Round and round we go Aug. 4, 2014

 

This late in the game, I still don’t know what the rules are, whether I am winning or losing, or somewhere in-between, living my life by the roll of a die, that tells me how many squares to move, and what I woe when I land on that doesn’t belong to me.

We just go round and round, collecting when we pass Go, losing it almost as soon as we get it, and maybe, if lucky, getting it back when someone else lands on a square we declare as our own, just a game, no real winners or losers, though each morning when I wake up from dreams I feel as if I have lost it all again, this after having not seen or heard from her since that dismal day when the school got renamed and I saw her (over my shoulder) on the stairs, staring down at me as if she’d felt lost in the game as well, neither one of us able to articulate what was at stake, my heart – as they always say – on my sleeve, beating madly, feeling the way I’ve always felt, going round and round, going passed Go, yet getting nowhere, nor even getting stuck for too long in jail where it is far safer than on the rest of the board, her pieces ahead of my piece, and I know I’ll never be able to catch up.

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Birthday sonnet July 27, 2024

 

44 winters come to leave their mark on your brow

But does not dent that beauty  I see in your eyes

for winter’s chill always brings spring and spring allows

to turn a blind eye to all that mean time would demise

 

Your beauty is not a thing that we measure in years

But something grander that we see rise from within

The more you age we see this beauty rise free from tears

and in the end of time we see how youth’s folly thins

 

And the more we realize the bard's error when he proclaimed

That forty or forty four years might cause beauty to dent

And maybe that which was fair in youth may indeed come to change

But time cannot cause what is inside you to tear or rent

 

What you are cannot by time or age be put to waste,

And beauty cannot be lost by urgency of days or haste.

 

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Love is love January 17, 2024

 

 

 I never stop loving

 the people I loved

even when they cease

loving me,

you don’t close a spigot

 once its open,

 the flow just goes

 where it will

all you can do is flow with it,

suffering through the droughts

 when they come,

drowning in the floods,

 the unpredictable nature

of it as varied as weather,

 the need of it outweighs

 the burden you carry

 when loves becomes

 something other than

 you presumed,

 that soul you held

your heart out to

 remains the same,

 even in the varying

 degrees of hot and cold,

 the on and off,

 the rage she might

 express in response,

 love is love,

no matter what.

 

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Neither too big nor small May 9, 2024

  

I’m not a man

Who likes them

Too big.

If I can’t hold them,

One the palm of each hand

Then I have no use for them.

Some men love them so big

They smother themselves

Or pumps their stick between them

Until their stick pops.

I need to breathe

And get my lips around the tips

Just tight enough to fit,

My tongue playing

Pinnacle of each

While I hold on.

I hate them small, to,

Needing something to

Cling to during the ride

Cupping my palms on them,

Feeling the tingle of each tip,

Teasing me as I squeeze,

Not hard, just enough

To make the milk drip out

And into my mouth. 

 

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The Devil makes me do it. April 21, 2015

  

The devil makes me do it, every night, every time I close my eyes, a sinister character sitting on one shoulder while the angel sits on the other telling, as I tell them both to “shut the fuck up,” when they never do.

Every night I close my eyes and think of you, the devil making me do it, there in the dark, sometimes sheets on my lap, this loud voice prompting me, putting all those dirty pictures in my head.

I can’t help it, the devil makes me do it, here in the afternoon all these years later, still seeing it all thrust before me like a feast, waiting for me to plunge in, head first.

Every night, every time, I think of you, the devil voice drowning out the voice of the angel that tells me to refrain, telling me I might go blind. I might wear it out if I do it too much, but the devil makes me do it, and I like it that way.

 

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Does she miss it? july 24, 2024

 

 does she miss it

the attention she got

the faces always in her face

or did it all get old

 too many clutching fingers

 too many arms aching to hold her

 hold her down and yet

 there must be something

about it all she misses

The Men who surrendered

their will to her

 aching to please her

 if she would only please them

 the lips that burn with the need to kiss

the sweet lies men must tell

 she never believes but pretends to

 if only for those few moments

of pleasure and pain

does she miss it

 the army of the ants that surround her

as if she was their Queen

 men willing to do anything in her service

 to service her in any way

 that might please her

does she miss it

 I suspect she misses it

 as much as we do

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Before fall expires Oct. 18, 2025

  

We never went back; at least, not yet, the chill that arrived with the rain lingers on even with the return of sunlight, the hope for an Indian summer fading with each sinking degree, we needing coats, if not yet gloves, to venture out into the world, the dread of what will come next, through I suspect, I will stroll through this at that time when the leaves changes, to feel it down deep in my bones, this end of something that leads to a moment when we can look ahead to new beginnings, with fall tumbling into the cruelest months before we can feel warmth again, this late day in mid-autumn when the world seems strangely at peace, we not quite able to predict exactly what will transpire, only guesses and dreams that might come real.

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ghostly April 20, 2015

 

I di bit see ger save in my mind’s eye; she is a ghost, a spirit, floating over and around me, with ghostly limbs and lips and hips, engaged in ghostly things I cling to in the dark, feeling her over me as I lay prone on my back, as I rise to an occasion that is ghostly, too, her ghost hands grasping me, taking my real self up into her ghostly vacuum, my hands surrounding what I imagine she surrounds as she mounts me. I feel her ghostly kids on my lips and her ghostly hips on my hips; I cling to her ghostly chest, feeling as I felt when they were realo, the plumpness of them all the way to the tips, and in my mind’s eye I bring each to my lips, ghostly motions that force me to get quick, to stroke harder, to imagine her ghostly shape all the way up inside.

 

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What if it was me? Dec. 1, 2012

 

 

What if I had decided to meet her at that hotel, pretending then, a honeymoon couple, and all the smug faces of the staff who knew what we came there for, and what we intended to do, once we gave the bellboy his tip and locked the door.

I dwell on that moment as if it was true, as if we had married rather than mated, as if we made our own vows, banging the bed posts against the wall for all that part of the posh place to hear.

I imagine how it really must have been with that other person on the overheated July, painting a face (among all the possible faces I might imagine had made the trip with her) with my face instead, poised over her, kissed a prelude to what really happened, none of which she revealed in the empty photos she later posted on social media, as if she had made love to a ghost.

I always point in my face in the place of that man’s face, thinking of how it must have felt over her, under her, on either side, banging the bed posts so hard as to leave indentations in those walls, no need for a weeding ring or reception, just this act in that place that I keep dreaming about, even when I am far from it, aching all the more the nearer I get.

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No remedy for it Aug. 15, 2014

  

An impatience stirs within me as I pass this place again, the memory of something I still miss boiling in my breast, the feel of which I seek to rekindle yet can’t, call it love if you must, yet clearly more than lust. How could I forget you when no power on earth could shake from my heart what I remember of you. Not a minute passes when something fails to make me recollect you or recall as beguiled I became around you, as to make me blind, or to remind me of that which I have lost if erringly. All that transpired, which only makes the hurt return, renewed if not quite as intense, I come to the edge of the water seeking relieve and come away with the remnants of grief, know what it is I lost, and knowing that now or in the future I will never have it again, though if there is any remedy, I still see your face as vivid as I did that first time, and I still treasure it.

 

 

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The shrill cries of sea gulls Sept. 26, 2013

 

Of course, I want her

We all want what

 we can never have,

the less she wants me

the more intensely I feel,

though after the ship has sank

we drift apart

each in our own life boat,

floating on this endless sea

we once thought

would bring us bliss.

Only now,

She’s the one stranded

Abandoned

When she could have any

Man she wants

Only the man she wants

Doesn’t want her

And she floats

On the surf

alone

I hear the shrill cry

over the wave caps

thinking I hear gulls

when I hear her,

starving for love,  

only he can feed her,

(and I’m jealous again)

with all the life boats

and all the souls stranded in each,

why does she seek out

the one that moves endlessly

out of reach

and soon out of hearing

maybe he mistakes her cries

for sea gulls, too.

 

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The prize we sought for May 29, 2025

  

Is she thinking what I am, in that limbo times has created, the gap that lies between us, having not seen each other, her face, still familiar even as she claims to embrace middle age,

Having survived for so long as big an accomplishment as any previously she might have boated of, we both over the hump between rowdy youth and supposed wisdom.

Can either of us attest to having become wise? Or is that a thing that still eludes us, the prize we reach for on this merry-go-round of life, when in our foolish youth we assumed the prize as something else?

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Bruises of lust March 31, 2012

Glass broken doesn’t

Cut as deeply

As a shattered heart does,

Worse,

The blunt pangs

Of unresolved desire,

The black and blue bruises

Lust leaves,

After you’ve beaten

Yourself up over

Someone you want.

The ever erect position

You can’t fix,

Stitch up,

The wound too deep

The flesh too damaged,

You have to live with it,

Letting it poke at you,

Continuing to bruise

That part of your insides

Where only you can

See the bleeding,

Knowing that what

You want most won’t last

Even when you get it.

So, you take it for now,

Delaying the pain

You know will come

From it someday,

Telling yourself

It’s all worth it,

Maybe it is

Maybe it will be

Only time will tell.

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Chess master May 2012

She makes me feel

 like a lost dog

she gives a bowl of water to

when she agrees to meet me

 at the bar after all,

I'm just needy enough to lap up the gift

even knowing it is more out

of pity than affection.

These are not the kinds of things

 a person should be grateful for,

 when it is never really real,

 just a show in which I

happen to be the beneficiary,

 though in truth,

 who can say what she gets out of it,

 this chess player many moves ahead

 in a game I am destined to lose,

check mate long before i move my first pawn,

 king trapped in the reflections of her amazing eyes,

 where the real mysteries lie,

her features disguising who she really is

and I can only guess as to what end

the game is,

whether she just plays to keep in practice.

 

The sound of thunder Nov. 14, 2012

 

I missed the warning signs, back then, and even later, thunder rumbling through the valley after those brief flashes on the horizon. I can see her face when I close my eyes: her mouth, her eyes, the tilt of her head, hearing the whole time the snide remark of Mae West: Are you making love or taking an inventory?

I try to keep my eyes wide open, as to keep from seeing a face I miss, which may be how I missed the warning, back then, even now, the flashes of light on the horizon I should have taken more seriously, how at risk it all was, and how I might have run for cover before it all rained down on me.

I hear the thunder now when it is clearly too later, after the story has passed and I’ve already been drenched, my soul drowning in it instead of quicksand.

Do we know when to stop even when we heed the warnings?

Or are we already lost by the time the sounds come? Do we need a lightning strike to tell us we made a mistake?

 

 

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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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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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Which ever way works April 2012

 

She says she goes both ways,

but won't give up one

just to get the other.

"I need to get dick" she says,

 shocking me as she says it,

 her  hands in the air,

 rattling around in the phone static

 the way voices used

to on long distance calls

when I was a kid,

her life spread out

before me like a feast

I'm too scared to touch,

 my imagination filling in

all the blank spaces

 of this erotic paint by number piece,

 she in my head,

the vision I see across the table

from me once a week,

every Tuesday, and not the harlot

she claims when she speaks

 like this in private,

deliberate or maybe not trying to shock me,

and I am shocked to think

she talks like this to sound

more street wise that she is,

 though in truth,

she is already having been

 through the grind of the music scene

and pick up bars,

she needs what she needs

which ever way that is.

 

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