I come to the place where Burr shot Hamilton, and I mourn a
loss that has nothing to do with American history, Hamilton’s bust poised on
the side of a cliff as it is back near the falls where I wandered as a kid, all
if it full of strange pathos I feel each time, but not for his demise, but
rather for what perished since, this place devoid of factory chimneys that
decorated the place of my youth, the remnants of mills my family made their
living out of, no black smoke rising here as if once did there, the leaves of
trees gone from both places as winter makes it inevitable approach, into a
world in which we live, but seldom love, below me here new houses rises like
mushrooms from a landscape once filled with steamships and ferries, a
transformation of our souls as time erases what once was and replaces it with
what is, heartbreak too personal to leave too indelible an imprint here, though
I feel as shot through the chest as Hamilton must have felt, a lost soul,
strolling places of now ancient history, seeing her face where Hamilton’s is,
as if we cannot escape tragedy no matter how far we travel or how much time has
passed.
Friday, October 31, 2025
The place where Burr shot Hamilton Nov. 17, 2012
The sea like silk sheets Aug. 10, 2014
I rarely come here this time of year, the Parkway overloaded
with southbound cars and minivans stocked with beach balls and squawking kids.
Yet this time, this near the end of summer, I feel the sea call, feel the foam
wiggling with tine weaves between my toes, Captain Jack posed on the broken pier
a black up from the gold-trimmed Majestic where I always pause, as if one of
the Stations of the Cross, feeling the way of the moon as if I am part of the
tides.
I come here to bask in the sun on bench slightly above the
beach drenched in sunblock, beach umbrellas and screeching kids, life guard
whistles warning the small tops from getting in too deep, the riptide might eat
them even if the killer sharks don’t.
I come here to watch for dolphin who always remind me of
her, as much as the Majestic does, if for different reasons, her spirit thick
in the surf, which I cannot live without.
I come here as if dragged here by my hair (or some other part
of my anatomy), plopped down to relive something I never actually lived, never
having lain out on the silk sheets the way the gulls do here on the sea.
I come because I can’t help myself.
Would she risk it for love? April 26, 2015
If I asked to tie her arms and legs to the bedposts, would
she let me, risking becoming helpless in order to risk finding joy, and if she
would, would she demand I do the same, expose myself, to allow her to control it
all, make me do what pleases her, she, with invisible scars from others, terrified
at being so weak. Can the promise of love heal wounds others have inflicted on
her, or allow he to change, achieve love at the risk of ripping open those old
scars? Would she fold up inside her claim shell at the thought of it, love just
not enough to allow her inner soul to lay so open, the fantasy evaporating at
the threat of pain?
Have you been good? Dec. 6, 2024
It is not the sound of reindeer hooves I hear on the roof
these las few weeks ahead of Christmas. No Santa will shimmy down my chimney though
I expect coal in the stocking I hang by the fireplace, Springsteen singing Santa
Claus is Coming to Town, and asking if we’ve all be good little boys and girls,
when I never have. We keep secret thoughts contained in our heads, dwelling on
them, as if inspired by slightly spiked eggnog, needing Santa or one of his
helpers to help us stagger home, when we want to go elsewhere and do such naughty
thing, to a place we may never see, and with someone we can never do it with
again, that all too familiar face we take out of the attic this time of year, a
present, a physical memory of what once was.
The rain that wakes me May 15, 2025
The rain came in the dark of night, shaking me out of sleep
with its drumming on the walls, like an earthquake in my dreams. I wake to find
some sense of non-reality, cave paintings I see in my closed eyelids, telling a
story of survival, thick with the memory of good as well as bad, a tale I
relive every night when I slip into sleep again, then forget again after dawn
has risen and I struggled to keep each chapter fresh in m head, the who and
what I’ve done, the need I still need even all these years later when I should
have surrendered it all to history and not dwell on it in dream after dream, night
after night, as if I could control it, could reshape it into something I could
stick in a drawer and forget, and yet, most vivid when woken from sleep by the
rain, when for a brief moment I actually believe it all is real.
Poetry notebook Jully 14, 2013
The stench of it never leaves us, this poporie of old love like old roses, grows stronger as it dies.
Sweet that is really sour though we cling to it as if it still lives, with the desperate hope it might -- like Christ -- resurrect, yet never does, old roses, rotting even as we clutch them, drawing blood from our fingers, red blood as if drained red from the wilting petal we hold to, our nose to breath, sweet, yet not sweet, thick with the odor of foiled romance and the guilt of having neglected something that might have thrived, if we had clutched a little less and loved much more.
Not so soft (2012-13)
There is nothing soft
About it
Except when I get scared,
And you scare me
Down deep
Until my bones rattle
All I can do is hold on to it,
Aching for what I don’t deserved,
Waiting to taste what I can’t reach,
Stiff as a sailor with a pegleg
When it ceases to matter,
Here, alone
In the dark at home,
Recalling
Those whispered moments,
So long, yet not so long ago,
Punished for presuming
I deserved
What I did not.
Poetry Journal Aug. 28, 2013
She flies through the air with the greatest of ease, a goddess, still pricked with the tip of Cupid's arrow, who in the sun of a winter morn, cast her gaze on a man already taken, a potent force, knees bent, arms outstretched, drawing out of me that ache I felt back when she cast her eye on me, she in the air, falling yet not falling flying without wings, mourning the loss of that which she loves but cannot possess, her sinews as stiff with her desperate need to be, suspended in mid-air, her near perfect form unfolding, taunt, teasing, seductive movement she likely hopes will bring him back, movements exposed, moment by moment, with he -- and me and others -- fixated on her, this wounded goddess in mid-air.
Dressing up for Halloween Oct. 31, 2025
What will she dress up at this dark night, if anything at
all, still faced with lust for life I still envy, just as I admire the parade
of munchkins, werewolves, witches and such who all admire her, a regular Rogues
gallery (among which I consider myself one), who march up to her door begging
for treats.
What will she look like on this night of mischief, and how
much mischief will she get into herself. Will she play Lola as she once did
long ago with a whole team of Damned Yankees lined up with their baseball bats
to get at her? Or Dorothy with her ruby slippers stuck with three in adequate
men, one without a brain, another without a heart, a third without courage to
fully appreciate who she really is, and so, she must rely on an equally
inadequate wizard to get her home, if she even knows where that is.
How does she sleep (2015)
How does she sleep at night
I wonder since
I have never stayed
long enough to see it
in the flesh
does she fold up like lotus
when the sun reclines
does she lie on her back
or side or stomach
and if I could I
would have stayed
would she have folded into me
and my arms
letting me wrap
around her
the swell of my attraction
pressed up against
her back
my arms over her
my hands gripping each breast
how might this feel
if we did manage it to spend the night
like an eternity side by side
pressing ourselves
together
to try to get deeper inside
will she still moan
in her sleep
her night fears haunting
and would I be able to
with a touch or a word
keep those fears away
too slip into her
dreams as easily
as I might her bed
Thursday, October 30, 2025
Absolution September 2012
The rain relieves the heat
But little else,
Falls bringing change
Only maybe
Not for the better,
The drips of drops
Off the brim of my hat
As sad as tears,
Exposing those that
Have rained inside me
The whole summer long,
And still,
The west that touches
My cheeks make me
Feel different,
If not whole,
A sense that
I may have moved on
Beyond my intercessions,
I think of the
List of such I brought
To the confessional
As a kid, there with
The sliding door opening
And the sound
Of the priest’s voice,
Asking me to ask for forgiveness
Only none of what I’ve done
Will come out
I feel the rain
Falling inside my head,
Hearing it dribble down
Into the remote places
Where my sins are stored,
Yet unable to wash these away,
Or make them seem cleaner,
Or less severe,
Which my brain tells me
Are severe indeed,
As I wait absolution
I know I don’t deserve
From the imaginary priest
From God
From her,
New boyfriend? aug 14, 2012
she announces that
she has a new boyfriend
at our Tuesday meeting
as if she needs for
all of us to know
she finally has protection
just who this mystery man is
I can not tell nor even who
she considered her old boyfriend
the kind of
announcement
I hear or think of
when I see
the flag with a snake
on it
and a slogan that says
don't tread on me
and this spoils the rest of the day
makes me wonder
who the lucky man is
and where she dug him
up
and is she resurrecting someone
she already knew
because
she's scared and
needs
someone in her life
that will chase the
ghosts away
the ghosts that haunt her each morning
and was her
announcement for me alone
or are we the collective
this group of us who
lay claim to her
she needs to make
clear
we can no longer have access to her
since she now belongs to one man
had she sent a press release via
the company email
we might have gotten
the message better
as I look around at the faces of other men
looking as confused
as I am
A four letter word 2015
a four-letter word
I dare not use when
I am near her
when I feel her breath
against my cheek
her breasts against my chest
her lips pressed
against my lips
hips against hips
a four-letter word
I can't resist
mumbled when we kiss
a word that best describes
the urge when we come
uncomfortably close
and what I want most
a word uttered much
too often
in polite society
and yet describes
what I feel need, want most
a four-letter word
I learned as a kid
yet not completely
what it means
still uttered like an oath
a promise
a commitment yet
so tainted it hurts
when I speak of it
too much
a four-letter word
I think even when I
don't say it
stirring me
Still a river rat April 14, 1981
I’m in awe of this place, where my family got raised, a mysterious
universe I only saw from the other side, recalling the tall tales my family
told, the Tom Sawyer life they managed to live when by the time I arrived, long
gone, the remnants of the old mills like broken brick teeth, exposed best when
the brabble doesn’t disguise them, the smell of hard labor still lingering in
the soil when heavy rain washes down into the river, the paper mills, the dye
mills, the chemical company now the refuge of weeds and stray dogs, hardly
evidence to suggest this place once housed fish people could eat and beaches
where kids could swim.
The space beneath the falls littered with refrigerators, hot
water heaters even the remains of rusted cars.
Still, this is my Middle Earth, my Brandywine River, where I
still wander even as an adult, my cold water flat more home than the one my
uncles raised me in, a land where my uncles were raised, and my grandfather
before him, before it all got spoiled, before the farms vanished, very remote
as a kid when I rarely wandered over the highway bridge, then seeking the
mulberries in June. I still devour them, hands growing purple, a lasting memory
of my own, this land that raised those who raised me, lingering in my blood,
just as the river is, and I know when I eventually wander away, I’ll still
wander back here in my dreams, a regular river rat, just like my uncles.
Playing the cards she has Sept. 4, 2025
She makes do with what she has in these times when having
something, anything, is better than having nothing at all, while she, even now,
at this late date, still has more than most people do, though now as opposed to
thin, she wants less, settling for a life of comfort if not one on top, and she
needs to do less to get it, this is what fate decrees, dealing out cards she
has to play or drop out of the game. This life we lead always leading us to
places we least expect, challenging her in ways she might not feel she knows
how to handle, yet somehow manages to do so nonetheless, solutions engrained in
her, aces up her sleeves she doesn’t even know she has, and another deck of
cards firmly sitting in her back pocket.
Oh, how I still envy her.
12 hens April 8, 2024
I follow a trail my ancestors took, though they were not the
first, the natives once selling this island for 12 hens while mocking the farmers
who though they got the best part of the deal, the natives thinking: how can
anyone own land or sky or water, later puzzled at the settlers who got upset
when the natives took this island back, my family arriving just when the Dutch
though this land would never change, farms as far as the eye could see, as
crooked speculators like my great, great grandfather robbed them blind, cutting
up the fields to build houses for the factory workers to occupy, farm after
farm vanishing so as I stroll here now, I can find no trace, this place I
return to again and again in my dreams, my cold water flat refuge I hide in
when I’ve lost my way in the real world, not so much lately as back when I
thought I had fallen again deeply in love, watching my world fall apart, just
as the Indians did, just as the Dutch did, love never being enough to hold all
the pieces together, even for the price of 12 hens.
Surviving the shipwreck Nov. 16, 2012
Everything is on automatic, on a conveyor like that scene
from I Love Lucy when she worked in the candy factory and could not keep up with
production, stuffing her face with piece she could not wrap, Halloween over,
Thanksgiving looming ahead, after which the rest of the holiday season rolls
on, one event after the next until we plunge into a whole new year and into the
silence of snow.
I wonder if this is the same for you, the rush of days and
then the depths of quiet?
What is there left but the discarded Christmas wrappings and
New Years resolutions she never keep.
What is it we steer for when the old year has run aground
and all our petty ambitions float away from the shipwreck, leaving us lucky to
have survived?
I no longer see you here in my world. Still, you are a
spirit that haunts this place, after you have gone on to rebuild a life you
lost when this ship sank, yet must cling to the driftwood, until you find something more solid to hold
onto, to keep you from drowning in all this.
A theft but not of the heart this time Oct 26, 2025
It happened again.
A different bank, a different credit card, but the same mailbox
on Bergenline Avenue, and the same thief who stole my check the last time and
made it out to herself
Although I’m not the only one, I should have known better,
having felt the stickiness inside the mailbox both times and thought nothing of
it.
Two banks suffering through the same catastrophe, and this
woman robbed me blind, draining one account, almost the other as well
The cops tell me she’s notorious, leaving me cash-strapped
until the mess gets sorted out, and vulnerable, as if I am a born sucker, learning
of the thefts only when the credit card companies informed me they didn’t get
paid, then forced to go through the ritual of convincing the banks and the cops
this was really fraud.
How on earth does anyone steal anything from a mailbox right
in front of the post office?
The postmaster is on my side. He put up a camera to catch
the thieves only for the thieves to steal the camera.
A sad joke, especially for me, having just enough left in my
wallet to pay for a cup of coffee?
Strangely, I admire the woman – just as I admired that other
woman from a decade ago – the gall, the potency, the James Bond-like audacity.
How can you not love someone like that?
Rubbing wings or legs Aug. 9, 2014
Crickets rub their legs or it is their wings as I nod off in the chair of my front porch, a music not quite as soothing as hers is, yet reminiscent , something connects these sounds of summer, even if I can’t quite pin down what, someone, somewhere makes love to her, and she rubs her legs or wings as I hear it all in my head, that most vivid sound, like the banging of the bed board in the motel room behind mine, I do not need to see it to imagine it, the deep plunge that makes her wings rub, the passionate embrace, this man or woman, next in line to bring her pleasure, I envy him or her, wishing I could rub my legs against her legs and generate the sound I hear in the motel room behind mine, the deep plunge to get at the buried treasure, the soft embrace that gets more and more furious as the night goes on, as we rib out legs or wings, as we recreate the big bang that created the universe, what the French call “the little death,” while I – here on this porch – die a little bit the more I imagine it.
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Her life written on the face of a clock aug 16, 2012
she says in her poem
she once bought the
farm
meaning she got
married back then
though I can't remember seeing
any farm in Las Vegas
last time I went
there
this one small piece
of a poem
that lays out her life like a road map
telling all the things she has done
to this point in her not so long life
why she needed to sum it all up now
I can't say though I
might need a calculator
to make sense of it or keep track
or figure out what exactly it all means
not a love poem as much as a confession
though just to whom she speaks I can figure out
wiping her slate
clean maybe
needing someone else to know all she has gone through
to get here when it
seems she might not be here for long
the history of her life written on the face of a clock
ticking loudly full
of innuendo
and to some degree sadness
Gone but not forgotten (elegy for a Facebook page) july 26, 2024
when it's gone it's gone
like a mirror steamed
erasing the face I saw
but not mine
gone but not forgot
erased deliberately
a test of will perhaps
a testament to what
we can't have
when it is gone
it is gone perhaps
forever this time
a message in a bottle
floating away
irretrievable
uncertain if it will ever be read
ever to find a shore to land on
or a person to collect it
from the breaking sand
gone not forgotten lost
in the endless ways
all of which flow the wrong way
away as I stand on this shore
looking out
remembering not to forget
when it's gone
it's gone not
I could not forget
cannot forget
all of it flowing in my head
gone but never forgotten
The same space June 29, 2012
he looks passed me as we speak,
saying something only not to me I think
before he flees back to the office
that is only his office temporarily
and I – still with my back to her –
talk to another colleague
until I hear the frustrated rustle of paper
and the sudden stamp of her feet
as she brushes passed me,
pad and pen in hand,
and into the office that is not his
and slams shut the door,
rage filling the air in her wake
like a rare perfume that hurts to breathe in,
silence a weapon more powerful than words
and aimed at my back with her glares.
This idea we can somehow
share the same space,
breathe the same air,
speak with the same people,
pure folly when all we can ever do
is cling to our sanity
and pray we can survive.
gravity. July 23, 2024
the landscape here
remains unchanged
on the surface
a painting of how
life ought to be
never was
painted in points of color
that freeze time
and make it seem
as if she might walk out
from one side or the other
when all that ceased to exist
long ago
and All that remains is the memory
of it dashed by the feelings
we keep treasured even when
they also ceased to
be real
this train passes
places
she used to walk near
the ferry terminal where
I last saw her from a distance
a ghost then more so
now
tearing the frail fabric
of this thing we live through
time and space
bending
from the gravity of our lives
the weight of the world
on our shoulders
the history that is no more
An itch I can’t scratch Feb 1,2014
I won't pretend I don't miss it
that time in the dark
staring down into a tiny screen
for the icon telling me
you had texted me
this literary romance
this ache in my pants
this thing that itches like ants
and no way to scratch it
or ease it
no calamine lotion to soothe me
no drug I can take to make it go away
I still feel it
still crave it
still wish I could go back
and do it all again differently
not the kisses or the touches
but rather the foolish things
that went through my head
I will always want
what I wanted then
to feel your shape
against the palm of my hands
taste your taste when
my tongue penetrates
you
to have your eyes
swallow me whole
Jonah forever lost in the depths of you
feeling what it feels like
on the inside of you
the press of flesh
the in and out
the hunger I can't satisfy
in any way with anyone
other than you
I won't pretend I don't miss it
I always do
Refuge April 27, 2015
On more than one lonely night, I have taken refuge here, alone
in an oval bar with an oval stage behind it, an oval stage upon which the
dancer mounts, an inner sanctum, pasties strategically place at two points on
her breast, and a triangle of cloth covering almost n nothing below, she shaved
to the point where I need no imagination to see what this tries to hide.
I come here, sip my beer, give the perfunctory wave tip I am
expected to give, perfectly aware of how accessible the dancer can be for the
right price, only this is not the person I want, or need or care about, and
when I look up at the face I imagine seeing the face of the person I do want or
need or care about, only to be disappointed when in a flash I realize it is not,
wishing it was merely a matter of price, when it is much, much more complicated
than that, and ultimately, I can’t afford the toll it would take to be with the
one I want, need, and care about, even if she would have me, and wonder if it
would do any good to take refuge in this woman’s arms, when she could never be
the one I need.