vacuum aug 2012

  

she is not here

as much as she is gone

with no way to predict

if she will be here

 when I arrive seeing

her vacancy as a painful

 as seeing her horrified stare

she is not here even when she is

 not  a hateful stare

 I was wrong

 the blank stare

k that avoids  me

and voids my existence

 and I am here

and I am a ghost in the machine

 that just about functions

rbut which one of us is the cog

 that creates the chaos

the Piece of the mechanism

 that does not function right

does not work with others well

 who needs to leave before

 the whole thing gets fucked up

I am here less often

than I ache to be

in exile elsewhere

 save for this single day

 when I come and go

 and am barely here when I am

 she lurking as if she believes

 the world is her world

when it used to be mine

and I miss being here

 even when I am and she is not

 

 

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Tattoo bracelet January 19, 2024

 

I never noticed the tattoo

On her left wrist

Until I saw it briefly

As she reached down

To shape the number 100

On the ground with feed

For her steed to eat.

Just when she branded herself

I cannot say, maybe as far back

As when I knew her back then,

And I just never noticed,

Too consumed with watching

Her eyes or her mouth.

Maybe it wasn’t there then,

Inscribed since, a string

Of symbols I can’t interpret,

If they have any meaning at all,

There for me to take notice of

Now, a new feature for some one

I thought I knew everything about

(and really know nothing)

Did she do it out of love for someone,

A declaration of possession,,

Signifying her undying affection for,

Or perhaps she just liked

The way they looked

A tattoo bracelet with no

Real meaning at all

 

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back to kansas June 7, 2012

 

 I try not to let it show, t

he impact and yet I suspect, 

I am predisposed to the role 

in this insanity,

 as if marked from birth,

 a sign on my forehead 

or floating over my head

 only someone like her can read,

 selecting me to play out

a part in the passion play

 I never intended to perform,

yet, like the needle in 

a old fashioned record album,

 once inserted into the groove, 

I am doomed to run through 

the whole thing until its natural conclusion,

 too predictable to avoid revealing

 who I am or how I feel, 

knee jerk to each temptation, 

doomed to replace (in my mind at least)

 those who came before me, 

like a man looking at himself 

from deeper inside,

 telling himself not to do this or that, 

and yet compelled by some unseen force 

to do it anyway.

If I close my eyes 

and click my heals,

 maybe I can get back to Kansas.

 

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white sneakers. Feb 20, 2014

  

I find the pair of white sneakers

in the back of my closet

worn once then abandoned

because she said I look like

an old man wearing them

 I am old

old enough to be her father

a real bit of Oedipus in that sense

 I also want to fuck her

and so as Father figure

 full of lust for my would be daughter

 I stash the sneaker in the closet

 and do the best to forget

 they're there

 a haunting presence

 the ghost I imagined in the closet growing up

waiting to leap out at me

full of teeth and claws

Time’s Unwanted Chariot

dragging me to the eventual Doom

 while the sneakers stir under dress shoes

 and old garments that slipped off hangers

a not so elaborate striptease

I always imagined her doing

 those long nights long ago

when we texted each other in the dark

white shoes for an old man

 with pretensions of being young

 lusting after his offspring

the way all men young or old do

 but most of all for he, I think

as I take them the shoes out to the trash bin

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Waking up to smell the roses. July 2024

   

if she wants me to stop I will stop it

I get confused when she turns

the faucet on then off

 a mixed message

when I'm already puzzled

by what she wants

or doesn't want and

with no means to know

which she means

does no mean me no

 or does it sometimes mean yes

the link there less than a week ago

suddenly absent and though

I know where it ends up

I keep from subscribing

just the way I kept out of sight

all those years ago

scared that if I stick my nose in that door

 she might slam the door on it

better clever elusive than sorry

nothing is ever clear with her

so I'll go back to where I started

 that petulant Frat boy who

needs a drink or

 do I dunk my head to wake up

to smell

 if not the roses

then reality

like it or not

 2024 journal menu

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No text this time July 28, 2024

  

I won't make the same mistake

I made back then

no birthday text just a sonnet

which she may or may not read

though if she does she'll understand

how hard life is

and how we all cling to those things

we think will bring us joy

an illusion maybe

and yet not so farfetched

life being more than

an accumulation of candles on the cake

countdown we take part in each year

 to some conclusion we dread

somewhere in the midst of all this

beyond the count of time

we manage to find our bit of joy

what was, what could have been

we celebrate perhaps our survival

 never assuming we could have

made it this far, and we did

and may yet be privileged

 to make it to the next lighting of candles

as we say secret prayers

appreciating the in between

where love resides

beyond just birthday wishes

 

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Just another trophy Aug. 28, 2014

  

I still recall the moment as if it had happened yesterday, she playing her role as a PR professional at an even designed to create political peace, for the mayor she was loyal to, misplaced in retrospect after what they mayor eventually did, ending her career, yet not yet at that moment, the school renamed, as I humbly watched the circus unfold, the arrival of a freeholder from another town who greeted her as an old friend – a freeholder well-known for his womanizing, even in public spaces, and I wondered, had these two connected as he always does with pretty woman like her. I tried to read the tea leaves from their faces and yet now, all these many months later, still do not know if he had added her to his trophy shelf, and whether or not she would have let him, that brief exchange in that brief moment in that school, how friendly they seemed even though he later claimed he’d not met her for that. Just another trophy?

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When she goes she’s gone Feb 7, 2014

 

she did it again

even when she said

she'd die if she did

somehow still survives

 if not thrives

 moving on as

she has been expecting

 one day she was there

doing what she was hired to do

then taken by angels to a safe place

 she says where she can heal

 it was a year ago or so

 when she left us

feels as wrong now

 as it did then

as if the cosmos press against her

fated to repeat this

at least once more

where did she go

 I asked

they don't know

did she quit or was she fired

they still don't know

all this bubbling for some time

till finally it boiled over

 another shell abandoned

 or evicted from

 leaving behind baggage

she lacks strength to carry

 had she wanted to all

what's Left behind must

stay behind

 part of a life she

no longer wishes to live

 or can't bear to

not saying where she is going to

 only that she is gone

 box full of office possessions

carried out the glass doors

 to the cold street

when she goes she is gone

 

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Blue movies on Times Square Aug. 22, 2015

  

I saw my first blue movie in a sanky theater on 42nd Street in 1968, a Times Square dive full of perverts whacking off to either side of me.

I was scared to touch anything, the backs of the seats sticky, and I dared not look too closely at what else went on in that dark, my gaze firmly fixed on the larger than life people doing all they could do on the screen, not completely sure if all the moans and groans came from there, penetrating me with scary wishes, if only I could have been one of them (On the screen I mean), desperate enough, crazy enough to make those theater seats sticky, trying not to think of myself as 17 as one of the many groan men stoking themselves up in the dark, knowing anyone of them, for a moderate fee, would do the same (or more) for me, or maybe would want me on my knees, we all in need to make this little blue movie of our own, for no one to watch.

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Don’t try to save me feb 26, 2014

 Her absence stuns me,

even when I know she hated me

 when she was here

“I don't hate men only some men,”

she said meaning me

 and yet for all

 the slings and arrows of misfortune

 I miss her now that she is gone

the empty space

that vacancy I can't completely explain

 knowing as I know now

 just how much pain he feels

why she needed to do what she did

go where she went

seek the help of angels

when mere mortals could not do

the world here is different without her

 the way night might be without moon or Stars

 where dark is intensely dark

and we have no lantern

 to illuminate it

 and must tolerate this emptiness

even if we feel now empty inside as well as out

she went where she needs to go

 to find something she could

 never find here

 a search for a lost chord

or  Spirit or savior

when she is the one who needs to save herself

“don't try to save me ,”she once wrote

nobody can

 

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down to earth june 18, 2012

 

we can't defy gravity or time

one always keeps us down to earth

and the other wears us out

the perpetual cycle of rising and falling

we thought of when younger as progress

but we never come back to

the exact same place we started

we just think we do

 it is like a decaying orbit

 in which we fall a few degrees lower

 with a cycle

gravity bringing us lower and lower

 and if we are lucky

 we crash softly

 but as time proves

 we all eventually crash

and if we can we get up

walking where we once flew

down to earth

 

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maybe I can fly out aug 4, 2012

  

I really think she meant well for me

 when she told me not to squirm

a man can't swim in quicksand

no matter how strong he is

she preaching not to the choir

but from it

an elevated a songbird

 who has been here before

looking down at those of us

trapped in the pews below

 it takes more than Faith

to survive all this

 and still more to come to understand

how we got this deep into the thick of it

our knees bruised from prayer instead of pleasure

I really think she meant well

 when telling me not to fight it

not to struggle against something

too far beyond me to win against

you can't swim in quicksand

you just sink faster

 words of wisdom perhaps

 from a songbird who has seen others like me

though she doesn't understand

 I'm neck deep already

and helpless to do anything

but flail my arms and hope

 if I can't swim then maybe

I might fly out of the muck I'm stuck in

 

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One of the boys Nov. 24, 2012

 

I still want to be one of the boys, the stiff crowd, pressing up against her in frightful places, faces flushed, waiting our turn at the troth, the privileged all boys club that gets her as first prize, but only if each does what she tells them to do, and maybe, I once was one, now I’m not, pressed against a bedpost instead, working out my pain, the long, lost sheep whose flock as moved on without me, moaning in the meadow but no one hears, getting what satisfaction I can get from being alone, when in fact I would trade it all away for a chance to be part of the flock again, scurrying behind her, baying for her attention, when I know I’ll never get the chance, watching it all transpire from a distance with other boys, living in a limbo, a non-existence, when all the other boys will get what I want, as long as they wait their turn, and gives her whatever she wants.

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crash course aug 2, 2024

  

I know as little now

as I did back then

when I thought I knew more

 but didn't only that

 she hated me then

 and I know not how

 she feels these days

like flying through storm clouds

and not knowing if lightning will strike

a precarious flight

I take and risk crashing again

this blind flight more than a little insane

 no GPS to guide me only instinct

 when I've already proven in the past

how cockeyed instinct sometimes is

misreading altitude and speed

 unaware if my flaps are up or down

 and just how far above the ground I am

needing some other instrument

to warn me if I am on a crash course

to nowhere

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Thunder and Lightning Aug 6 2024

 

Robert Herrick once wrote

"when love speechless is

 she doth Express a depth of love"

an idea I embrace with my whole heart

 even when this may not be true

 silence may be golden

but it can also be cruel

 the not knowing

 of this way or that

what point on the compass she leans

 and what may seem

 like signs of fair weather

a darkness clings

unsuspected storm clouds

 hovering with their full sails

 filled of thunder and lightning

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Begging until it hurts July 15, 2015

 

I always want what I can’t have, like a beggar, staring through the gate to some Beverly Hill mansion, the long legs, the luxurious lashes, the lips to kiss, and miss, this desperation – too intense to satisfy and so much to rely on what I wish could happen – if only in dreams, if maybe I ask nicely, or persistently, if I crawl on hands and knees, maybe she will be pleases, unlocking the gate to her mansion, for a moment, for a life time, just this one time, me wanting what I can’t have, don’t deserve, yet ant’ resist, persistent in begging, palms up, willing to give her what she desires for just a bit of access, and I wonder, if I asked enough times, for long enough, and seem desperate enough, she might give in, give me what I know I shouldn’t have, while I beg until it hurts.

 

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Those grinding gears May 10, 2012

 

It is always possible to grow,

even after you have assumed

 everything has died,

 the promise of spring held out

, yet still denied,

a slow, mournful stroll through

the dismal landscape life becomes

in the dead of winter.

Spring always follows,

yet not always as soon as we need,

 sometimes a false spring,

 like a false dawn,

raising unrealistic hopes,

 stirring up wishes that may never become real.

After so long out in the cold,

 you’d think you’d be stronger,

 the passion of youth sustaining you

 even as youth fades,

 the Disney tale expressed as fraud

when Toto pulls back the curtain

 to show just how the world really works,

 all those ugly gears grinding.

 

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what she is not. aug 4, 2024

 

Shakespeare said her eyes

are not as bright as sunlight

 and coral far more red than her lips

her breast not nearly as white as snow

and her hair is black as wire

and if her cheeks blush

 it is not nearly as comely as a rose

and her breath not nearly as sweet

and her voice does not always music make

and no goddess is she

that floats above the ground

 on what she strides

and yet…

and yet…

this love of his is

is still Divine

more Worthy than precious stones

 more potent than sun, rose or coral

 and for all this he loves her still

so as for him

as go I as well

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altered reality July 25, 2024

  

I don't know

what to make of it

this altered reality

this game of tag

something I can

no longer touch

even though I still feel it

this coming and going

then going again

these visitations

as if by saints who are not saints

or space aliens who abduct us

 and return us to our old reality

 fundamentally changed

not so much for the worst

but utterly different

so it is impossible to go on

 as we were like a Time Warp

we steered into a different track

to a different destination

we never intended to steer for

and now can't stop ourselves from going to only you are no longer part of that ride or it's destination but a site we see

 out the window of this train

 of fading images,  a billboard advertising

a life we might have had

had we've been wise enough

 to get off the train in time

 

email to Al Sullivan

the last duckling. May 2012

 

It is not cold so much as not the same.

You can only rub a coin for so long

before the imprint vanished,

or your thumb runs out of skin.

Maybe the word is remote,

this estranged sense that

 I'm no longer front in the line.

Maybe the clues came even before

 I felt put out,

the question about the other man

 I consider my friend,

 his book on her bed where mine used to be.

Maybe I took down her picture

too often from my page,

 unable to bear looking at it,

 not because she was any less beautiful,

 but because of how it made me feel,

like a duckling following behind

 a flock of duckling, suddenly finding myself last.

The clues there like a detective novel,

 only I was not wise enough

to pick up on them until the damage was done

 and she put me out to pasture,

 and brought someone else in to her barn,

not cold, not hostile, just remote

 as if I longer matter in whatever plans

she had cooking on her stove,

the last duckling.

email to Al Sullivan

Cast out of Eden Feb. 16, 2014

 

I do not know

What is wrong with him,

Except my best guess

That his misses her

(as we all do

And always will),

Having had his taste

Of something so sweet

We can’t imagine

Life without it,

And yet, somethings

Must come to an end,

No matter how good

They may taste,

And the wasteland

We live in

After having been

Cast from Eden

Seems all the worse

For our needing

To navigate it alone.

I can’t say

What he feels

Is love,

Since I don’t always

Know what love is,

And only get

The echoes of what

I think it might be,

He aching the way

I ached,

When she cast me out

Of the  paradise

Of her life,

I suspect he doesn’t

Even know her,

To understand the pain

She endures,

Which has nothing

To do with either of us,

We look in a mirror

And see what

We want to see,

Not what is

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In the dead of night July 20, 2015

There is no way to know what she does in the dead of night, what she allows inside her, what drips from her lips or hips when she is done – the private life, the moan and groans on the privileged gets to hear, though I imagine it all, and know she knows more about it than even I can imagine, having learned it all from some old woman on some cruise, who gobbled up brothers and sisters like candy.

I know she knows more than I do, from how she talks on the phone, from what she askes to be done, what she does on the far end I cannot see, even though I can never know what she does when I’m not on the other end of hear, or who she does it with, or what she demands of those she shares that dark nights with, dripping when done in all the right places

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Years like horseflies July 19, 2015

 

If I knew you would be here soon, I would wait, even when I know you won’t be. I watch the summer rush by the way others have, and other will, and I push aside each day the way I might a house fly, a persistent nuisance I would abandon if I could. I cast aside years now as if they were days, or put them in a drawer the way the poet does mothballs, perverted for no good reason, each drawer overflowing with details and memories I cannot resurrected, each day, week, moth, passing as if a century, quickly and then, not at all, not quickly enough to eradicate the thoughts I had, and wished I hoped would come true, knowing you will not come soon or at all, but like a horsefly or butterfly, you hover just beyond my reach.

 

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The intensity of heat Aug. 21, 2025

 The rain comes followed by a deep chill, an oddity for the end of August, with no groundhog an early arrival of fall, no leaves changing yet, just the shiver and the sense of change, our lives altered in the aftermath of July’s intense heat, this pre-Labor Day modification I welcome yet also resist, not wanting winter to arrive too soon, not wanting to lose the romance summer brings, that potency I cling to, filled with tender memories I stoke up in my dreams at night, stirring up as much sweat as the summer head does. I need it, need to feel it, need to have that aspect in my life, this sweat reminiscent of something sweet that vanishes always when the cold comes, no one to rub again to keep me warm. 

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On the brink feb 17, 2014

 

I'm still on the brink of it

the moment I perpetually live

again and again

 a repetitive dream

 where I feel my way

through the buttons to flesh

 cupping my hands around it

the tremble of it as ruthless in me

 as an earthquake

I live in constant state of anticipation

of longing, of wishing for it

when I know I can't have it,

 feeling flesh I have not felt in years ,

shaping it the way a sculptor

might from a bit of moist clay

 making it this then that

 flat at first then long and thin and potent

reshaping it again and again

from a brief memory of when

it once was real

 I live with the echo of old texts

like the voices of crazy people hear

 telling me to do things I ought not to do

even in private, even in the dark

still I do them, feeling what I imagine I feel

and the feel of real flesh

that happens to be mine

 One vision, one touch

 inspiring me even when

 it's not real I

 am still an interrupting volcano

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