Testing the limit Aug. 14, 2014

 

Is there any limit to those who keep her company, by day or night, rolling around  in wrinkled bedsheets, seeking to do what she likes best or what she might like to do next, the parade of those who stumble, love-drunk through her otherwise locked doors, married or unmarried, none certain what exactly to expect, perhaps even shocked at what transpires when they leave.

What is the limit, if there is one, to the idea of joy, not just the physical presence (though that is amazing in itself), but the feel of what we feel when we come too near, the promise of something so utterly intense we’re never certain we can survive it, yet are drawn to it – moth to the flame—to test our mettle, and learn the ropes even if it means being tied to her bedposts, to let her have her way.

Is there a limit to her joy? Does this come with a number on it? Or is the whole universe hers to explore, she needing to go as far as she can so she can learn what is enough, and how can anyone keep up with that, clinging to the pillows as she stretches it all out and asks, “Are you coming yet?”

 

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your river and mine sept. 8, 2024

  

this River and that river

are the same river

even if we are miles apart

 reflect the same sky

for the moods may swing

 a different way

 your river bank with trees

 mine with skyscrapers

 yours rich with the scent of pine

mine with the heavy exhaust

 of barges and computer trains

 your river flows into my River

though it takes some time

 your water kissing my water

 and it is divine

 your River mingling with mine

 for those few miles where

 both Rivers reach for the sea

limbs entwined perhaps overheated

as they rub

your River and my River pressed together

 chest to chest in an endless caress

your River and mine becoming one

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Twinge before the bite July 1, 2025

  

They found it difficult to put it in, doctor and nurse, me on my side, knees to my chest, it poking at me here and there before finding the gap it needed to reach.

I only cried out once before the real pain came, the twinge and then the bite, with the doctor giving me the countdown to how many more I needed to endure, always more than I thought I could stand, the twinge and then the bite, another piece of my flesh, put into a jar for posterity, bits of me already foreign, like spit as a kid that got cold in the palm of my hand, good for somethings, but never to reingest, something alien, not of this earth, the nurse clutching the monitor to tell the doctor where to strike next, twinge before the bite, as I bit my lips against it, with only a few more to go, before it is over, if it ever is, jus a few more, twinge before the bite, if I can hold out.

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A witch’s brew Aug. 21, 2025

 

Heat, inside and out, this scalding month we must endure before fall brings cool again, and winter offers its deep freeze, this sad cycle of life we also must live with, bits and pieces of day to day we lose track of as time goes by, the taste of sweetness we thought of when young, almost – but not quite – forgotten, the people to whom we cling, and wish for, but cannot recapture, except in dreams.

I still wake sweating, just not the kind I cherish, and still see the face to whom I fell so strongly, even if I’ve not met her in the flesh for some time, all the small details lost, even if still clinging to me, and in my dreams, the heat of the day translated in the one of night, into a passion I can no longer regain, lost but not lost, there but only in the vaguest way, stirred up like a witch’s brew in the rem of sleep, dream up dream, steaming me up inside, and still lingering long after I am awake.

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A view of stars through a break of clouds Aug. 13, 2014

 

Through a break of clouds and yet dampened landscape, I spy stars, the tinny twinkling that hints of a universe much larger than our imaginations dare create, this walk along this stone wall beyond which and below shows the cragged face of the Palisades I can see better near the short yet cling here to this place like the heroine of an old silent move, thinking of her – a few blocks westward, yet lightyears distant. I cannot reach that star regardless of how potent my rocket is nor see her shape too clearly beyond the mists. She twinkles in my mind and imagination, star so bright her light cannot be diminished even by the outrageous tempest of the skyline across this river from where I stand, yet I get mere glimpses of her, the fading in and out as the clouds come and go, her face, her shape, lost in the mists, the covering and uncovering, a perpetual tease I bring on myself, yet cannot resist, and so, I sit here on this promenade, waiting for a shift in breeze to whip the clouds away, for a moment, for a glimpse of heavy I can never reach, a tease I must endure, a peek at perfection, I accept as a gift of gods I know I can never attain.

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don’t struggle aug 3, 2012

 the more I think about it

the less sure I am about

what she meant

when she told me

 not to fight the inevitable

do I feel the bottom

of this pit of quicksand

if I stretch my toes down

as far as I can

 or is she right in saying

 if I fight it it only makes it worse

 if quick death is worse

 than slow sinking

I can't be sure

maybe she's being merciful

and I misread her intent

telling me not to inflict

 more injury on myself

 and let it happen

not arrogant perhaps

an act of kindness

since she sees men like me

go from knee deep to Chin deep

by struggling

when if I surrender

 I might at least

have a few more hours of breath

 before I drown

I have brought it all down on myself

 and for that matter she is right

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Leaves turn to brown Nov 19, 2025

 Nearly all the leaves are gone and those few still clinging to the branches flick with flex of snow between The raindrops,  

What was once vibrant is now gone, not quite Brown but on the verge of it,  most littering the ground around my feet as I walked to the yard to collect dishes to feed the cats,
Knowing all things must pass, hope still lingering in my brain as I feel the cold bite of rain and snow against my cheek, 
This pattern of coming and going, of love and then lack of it, still puzzles me when I know it can never last, 
Not quite winter yet but near enough,
We still needing to suffer through the holidays before we get to the depths of it, when the risk of snow is more acute, and all these leaves we see now are scattered and diffuse, locked in the embrace of freezing that makes me think love will not return and yet I wait patiently for spring to come, hoping upon hope that green will replace Brown and the limbs will once again be fille, for for now I endure

The woman in the model room next door Sept 10, 2024

  

I book a room in the same motel

I’ve booked year in and year out

For decades, though now, I recall

That one night, that one year

When I lay down listening

To the bed in the room next door

Pounding against the wall

And the loud moans of lovers

One of whom I dreamed

Back then was her,

Wondering as I drifted

In and out of sleep,

In and out of dream,

What sounds she might make

And so I make them up

Myself, shaping her

In my mind

As the woman whose moaning

Oozes through the thin walls

And aggravates what I already feel,

I book the room again

All this time later,

Thinking, what if it really was her

(though I know it wasn’t)

And still sometimes dream

As if it was

 

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A fantasy life May 16, 2015

 

No one is immune.

You keep on keeping on for a long as you can until you can’t, and then give up, going through the motions other tell you to go though like those half naked mannequins in department store windows where someone manipulates the arms and legs, and positions the head to be the most appealing to those looking in from the sidewalk.

None of it is real or authentic as she seems to believe, locked into a fantasy beyond which she thinks she sells to the public, a kind of kids game when she dresses up to be someone new each time, putting on adult clothing in an effort to feel grown up, when none of us really are.

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Morning wood 2015

  

I wish she would

but no she won't

 I dream of her on her knees

 as I stand in the shower

warm water dripping

 off my head and shoulders

as she takes my morning wood

into her mouth

 it is just not something she does

and as much as I might ache for it

I do not blame her

 one does not ask royalty

to kneel when it should be

the other way around

I dream of that too

 pressing that button between her legs

until it vibrates

my tongue teasing it

tip going round and round

as my mouth drinks her broth

 I am the witch that

kneels before The cauldron

casting spells that might

 bring us both to our knees

me taking in her morning wood

as she does mine

 

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worm in a green apple June 23, 2012

 

There is no such thing as a secret 

in a world so tiny as this one is, 

we all rub elbows constantly

 and something spills out 

when we least expect, 

what I suspect is general knowledge,

 with me the one out of touch 

because I spend so little time in this world, 

when I live in another, somewhat remote

 which is why when E says 

she knows all about the owner and the poet,

 I’m the one that’s shocked 

and I shouldn’t be, 

since I believe it was going on early on

 and tried not to let on, not even to myself 

(painting myself green with envy over it,

 thinking maybe it really isn’t going on, 

hoping it is my vivid imagination,

 hating E for seeming to confirm 

something I want to deny,

 this apple pie vision of a world

 that otherwise is rotten to the core, 

with me green when the apple isn’t.

I am the worm that crawls out of it, 

and I hate myself for thinking 

what I am thinking,

 if it is really true.

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Hidden aug. 2012

 

the ritual is always the same

 the long ride South

 to hide out in an office

 where nobody sees me

trying to escape the heat of summer

in which there is no cheer

 Labor Day looming ahead

bringing only promise of cold

and rain and falling leaves

 a time I used to find comfort in

a time when I tried to embrace change

but find nothing beyond it

but a void

 a question of what might happen

 could happen

I wait for to happen

 but do not know what it is

 I wait for

caught up in a poetic web

 I can only translate

I do not understand

war waged weekly

now ancient history

 she, me, they

moving to something else

something uncertain

maybe even something unreal

I don't believe

I rely on the rituals

 the morning coffee

the long drive to the fortress of a desk

 she has never seen or touched

and so unlike my Harry Potter Hive up north

has no stain of memory

her touch has never touched this

 so there is no lingering memory

of good or bad

 

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the slightest flame (2015)

 

the Russian poet said it best

 the embers of old love

should not cause distress

 not let love became sad  again

 even when we all know

 we cannot still be friends

he like me plagued with jealousy

 that put the stake in the heart

of what might have been Bliss

 but is now lost and left both

 to pay the cost

one cannot renew

 the embers of a fire gone

but this does not stop me

from feeling fond

for what might have been once

and yet never was

the tenderness felt now

after all this time

is not the same flame

it was when first stirred

but not ignited

yet little stirs

the slightest flame

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Phone connect Nov. 24. 2024

  

The poet's name popped up on my telegram account a few days ago.

 the alert said that her number had just logged in

It startled me to say the least, making me wonder if this was yet another effort to ferret me out all these years later.

though in fact she could not have known I had an account because I had changed numbers more than once since those days when we texted

I had kept her number in my contacts along with that of her brother, her stepmother and others who had bushwhacked me during her birthday exchange in July 2012 but I made a point never to call it

When her name popped up on my screen as a new telegram subscriber I was tempted to delete it but was puzzled by the fact that the photo associated with the account was not of her but rather some Korean woman

I contacted the person just to check

 she confirmed she was not the poet, yet immediately directed me to another account and shortly after this the account with the poet’s number was deleted-- something that also startled me.

It's not that the Korean woman was annoyed by my contact. in fact she continued the conversation at the new link but when I asked her later how long she had had the number associated with the poet she said not long

this led me to assume the poet had given up the number, possibly because she got sick of getting texts from her stalkers or perhaps gave it up in connection with her most recent move north from where she lived

still there are several unanswered questions such as how his Korean woman currently living in Miami got a cell phone with a 201 area code

This leaves me to wonder was the number still the poet’s after all and my contact freaked her out

 the Korean woman continues to text me, seeming to verify that she who is who she is

yet the whole exchange comes off at an odd moment a bit of synchronicity perhaps or perhaps just a coincidence, making me wonder if I am actually talking to the poet after all, even though the Korean woman does not come across the way I remember the poet doing so.

Maybe I’m just being paranoid

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Ever burning. May 18, 2025

 I breathe deeply in my sleep, puffed up like a graduation balloon, long out of touch with the touch that inspires it, not quite certain what I feel his real or what I still ache for, even all these years later, even after all the connection has gone 

I breathe deep in my sleep dreaming of what I want rather than what I know is real, still sneaking glimpses, imaginary kisses touches too geographically remote to be at all possible, each breath stirring me up on the inside, giving fuel to what I imagine possible but cannot be possible, the dream more real than what I wake to when it expires, the fires still burning even when I think I want them extinguished, night after night, still burning, never quite able to stamp it all out before it flares up again 

The small man speaks Nov. 16, 2025

  

The small man offers me a job I don’t want or need, too old and weary to live a life in this back-slapping, back-stabbing world, where most people have to make it on their backs.

She, now distant, perhaps content, is lucky to be out of this mess, where nobody can be trusted except to betray you, where those who survive learn how to betray the best.

Love doesn’t thrive here, only lust to get ahead, needing leverage to keep on top when few ever manage to keep up the balancing at, I have no love of power, but lust after love, and always will, trying not to mistake one for the other, and wonder, after all this time, is this a lesson she’s learned as well.

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Tipping point (from Beat Mountain poems) Oct. 17, 2024

 

I know the leaves have

Already changed

Where she resides,

The tipping point of

When gold and red turn brown

And yet as I drive north

On a road that hugs a river

I cling to their aspect of beauty,

Taking in the painted tips

Remembering the tender lips,

the tree crowns

bulging out, making me ache

to touch, as I cling

to memory as these remaining

leaves cling,

the colors seeping into me

along with the growing chill

as the world changes

and I know I will have to

live with the barren world

when they are gone,

until spring brings green again,

yet it is not the same,

this image of leaves,

the color of the sky

the darkness in her eyes,

the setting sun peeking

perpetually through,

always drawing me back

always making me

think far too much

about what I miss,

when I miss her

most

 

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Heckel and Jeckle Aug 14, 2014

 

She is a different person during love-making than she is during the everyday world, the thrust of the knife causing her to change, a Heckle-Jeckel I do not recognize as one turns into the other beneath me or above me as I ride her or she rides me, more than just the moans and groans, the squeak of the bed springs, her face transformed into someone else, flushed with blood, especially during the build up when I pump her up the way I might a balloon, each thrust pushed into her fabric,, risking that point when it all will explode, this desire we need to work it all out, pushing and shoving, risking everything on the outcome, how much will it take to make her burst, to alter her, to recreate her into that other people who is not this being I know when I engage her elsewhere, the push and shove, the in and out, magically converting her into someone I don’t know, someone I ache to know, and I wonder, does she see all this in me as well as I swell up to fill up the infinite universe that is contained between her legs, do I change as much as she does, and what do we change into when we do.

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The woman in the night gown May 3, 2015

  

In my dreams, she is the woman in the night gown that greets me at the arch door, her hands clutching the candle stick as hot wax drips down onto her long fingers, her dark hair framing her serious face, the almost evil twist of her lips, the night gown barely covering the swell of her breasts as she request me to wait just inside the door, when I am anxious to go all the way in, the candle already half gone, clutched by trembling hands, she telling me to wait, not to come inside, not yet as the wax drips, leaving a trail of tear across her knuckles, not yet, she tells me, but soon, very soon, yet only if I behave.

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Life love June 30, 2025

 

This is not a life love I cling to, just a trail of breadcrumbs I still follow, even though these no longer lead anywhere except deeper into the woods, this imaginary trail, this one in a lifetime track I keep on because of what it once meant, even though it no longer does. Even with my eyes closed I stroll along it, unerringly, clinging to the memory that is no longer real, no longer tangible, yet necessary for survival, this need to follow something somewhere even when it leads nowhere, bread crumbs along this dark forest floor we call life, a forest filled with wolves and other beasts we choose not to see, looking for the best outcome when we are never sure of any outcome at all, not a life love, just a foolish hope held together by you

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Diverse Nov. 18, 2024

 

Sometimes,

Diverse is perverse

When the sign says

 Closed to those

Who don’t believe

Like we believe,

Diverse meant

To stretch the walls

Of our little world

To fit everybody inside,

But only if you accept

What is expected,

University admitting

Brown or black

But rarely yellow or white,

While the local library

Hosts show time for kids

Too young to understand

The man dressed up as

He/she/it,

Diverse being perverse

If you sign says

You can’t come in,

Unless,

We all stereotypes

Brown, black, yellow, white,

Perverse diversity meaning

You’re welcome

As long as you don’t think

Too differently,

Like we all tend to do.

 

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The forbidden fruit May 2, 2015

  

It is not a snake that whispers in eve's ear, tempting her to take down a piece of forbidden fruit, to bite into it, then offer it to Adam to devour as well, but a worm she needs to put it up inside her, to feel the fruit from inside, to taste the juice that's spills out of her, and with our open mouths, knowing the whole time we will be banished, knowing that even if we did not know what would have happened, we still would have done what we did, because we need the worm that pokes its head out of the forbidden apple, breaking the skin of it, ruining it for anybody else, the worm that crawls even deeper within, until it finds the real fruit deep, deep down inside.

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No roach motel Feb 25, 2014

 

this ain't like roach motel

 check-in and you don't check out

the place is run by angels

and she didn't have

to die to get there

 salvation perhaps with bed pans

and a sense of purpose

she knew she needed to come here

or someplace like it for years

 but was scared to do so

to let go. to give up control

to someone else only

if she didn't do it this time

she might not have survived

 long enough to get another chance

 Angels greeting her at the door

with a list of rules by which she must live by

 or risk not being able to live

 this isn't judgment nor punishment

 but a cure and she has to grip

this life preserver  tightly.

she either holds it or drowns

and she come has come

so close to drowning already

 she knows what it that feels like

and doesn't want to feel that way again

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On the street where you live

 

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Dawn over the ocean Oct. 5, 2024

  

dawn stretches her pink fingers

across the sand

 painting all she touches and me

 like a spell cast I cannot resist

 toes deep in the cool sand

the only anchor I have

 to keep me from being

 drawn into the waves

and permanently lost

 the lust lingers still on my lips

 and hips, most of all in my heart

 where her fingers still grip

and where my heart beats faster

 most acute in the places like this

 at these times when the dawn has broken

 when I wander alone

waiting for a sunrise I know

must come yet without

t the satisfaction of what I need for most

for her pink fingers to paint me

 all over

 inside and out

 

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An echo of an echo oct. 15, 2024

  

I still hear the echo

 of what once came to me by night

not the whole sound

 only bits and pieces

 memory rescues from

the refuse of the past

dim now with the shards

 of what once clung to memory

 causing a cringe if not a howl

but here the voice

in the dead of night

when at the darkest hour

 I wake shaking

left to ponder what it meant

 and if it still means anything now

an echo of an echo

I cannot pin down

to its source

 or even gauge its true intent

though as I toss and turn

I feel the burn again

 the tender flesh

scalded and soothing

a touch from a time prior to that

an echo of an echo of an echo

I cling to

 hold on to

when I have nothing else

 

 

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