Breadcrumbs Jan. 14, 2026

 

She leaves no breadcrumbs as she once did, nothing for me to follow, leaving me to fend for myself, no clues as to what life is like for her now, in the wilderness where she resides,

no evidence to suggest she does well or not, nor great plans she might have devised for the remainder of her life, choosing perhaps to adopt to a much more laid back lifestyle, free of badges of distinction, nor the glory she seemed to need so desperately in the past, as if she’s thrown all that baggage off the train she travels on, needing none of it in the new life she’s chosen for herself, true or not true, who can say, I just stare down at the tracks here, looking for breadcrumbs that do not exist, as she fades in the distance.

 

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Oh that black dress Sept. 1, 2014

 

 

She sings like an angel, but oh, that black dress, just enough at the top to keep my attention, even as she sings about Metropole, bobbing up and down on stage like a cork, the band playing on behind her, beside her, more than just eye candy, and I think maybe she did not tell the whole truth about the role she played, giving the band leader a peck on the cheek before slipping into another song, Papa won’t you dance with me, he playing the role of papa as he takes her into his arms, but oh, that black dress, as vibrant as a rare jewel, all this years before I knew her, although I watch over and over, hearing her voice in my head long after the film clip expires, seeing her in that black dress deep into my dreams.

 

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a joker May 29, 2012

 

 

I know I am doing wrong 

the moment I snap the picture 

of the sign hanging over the sidewalk

 along that part of Tinker Street, 

and I tell myself I will 

never post it anywhere 

she can see it,

 but I do, I am a tease, 

an imp, a practical joker 

whose humor causes grief

 I do not intend.

I always think other people

 will get the joke. 

They never do, 

and perhaps it isn’t a joke at all,

 that sign symbolic of a past

 that is not my own,

even though I have 

passed beneath long before 

I ever heard word of her, 

an unnoticed bit of history

 she alone might get 

and would get angry over, 

the way people get upset 

when someone walks 

on the graves of loved one,

 I plant no flowers here,

 I merely pass on 

captured bits of things I see 

and with the vague idea 

I can see what these things mean.

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Burying it in tissue paper June 14, 2013

  

I look at her photos on my phone the way I used to look at the Playboy centerfold when I was a kid, too old to be pinning over such stuff, unable to help myself from doing to, needing to, undressing her in my mind, the way I needed to do when looking at the already naked ladies that porn brought later, the result always the same, the self-satisfaction required to ease the pain those pictures bring, sometimes, taking longer tan other times, always ending up with the small mess I must burying in tissue paper, some nights letting me drift off into a firmer reality of dreams, while other nights, I cling to it all, as if it was real, feeling the throb of what those pictures cause deep inside me.

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All I want for Christmas November 25, 2012

 

I tune in too late to catch the start but get enough of the broadcast to know I have no yet missed Santa, and imagine what he might say if I got onto his lap (the say I did at 3 or 4 or 5) and told him what I really want in my Christmas stocking, the image of long legs in nylon too intense, as I sit in front of the TV set and watch, wading through the parade of bands and floats and character blimps, my brain painting obscene scenes with Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend, and wonder what Santa’s helpers (dressed in tights so tight I need on imagination to imagine what’s under it all) do in that workshop up north, keeping themselves warm through the winter months in ways Santa would not approve, the announcer telling me the tiny details, such as where this particular participant comes from, yet nothing intimate enough to keep off my craving for when the big man comes and I get to confess my deepest desires, needing to get warm the way his elves do, with the one person I know Santa won’t leave under my tree, stockings or not, choosing to give me coal instead.

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Fire in her eyes (2014)

 

I light the tapered candles

The flames flicker in her eyes

As if the fire came out of her,

The warmth of it stinging

My fingers as I touch her hair

Or cup her chin with the

Palm of my hand,

As I bend to give her a kiss,

All this a fleeting fantasy

In my mind,

As the flames at the tips

Of the candles flicker,

Showing me what I want

To see, what it might be

Like, alone, together,

In the moment,

Across a table laden

With treats

While I believe

She is dessert

I don’t deserve,

And yet

Still hunger for.

 

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Wishes that won’t come true Jan. 15, 2026

 

The chill returns, a reminder that we still reside in the heart of winter, even on days of bright sunlight and the absence of snow or rain, the countdown already started towards days that are longer than night, less dark time to get haunted by, dreams thick with wish fulfillment, for dreams never fulfilled, all the more reason to stay awake or to wake before the cock crows, to get up, drink coffee, await the return of sun, dreams too thick with remembrances, of all that could have been, a life lived without mist and shadow, melting clocks, the timelessness of our most acute desires, when we need warmth again, of spring, still too many days in the future to have faith in.

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Abandoned dog aug 2012

  

I know how an abandoned dog feels

cast out after nipping his master

too many times

 love tolerates only so much

 before it wears out

and ceases to mean anything

 if it meant anything at all

when it started

dog days of summer

 taking on a whole new meaning

the drudgery of daily routine

 the heat that keeps sleep away

 along with worry

 this fear that doom might descend

 at any moment

like an unexpected thunderstorm

against which there is no shelter

all going on as if normal

 when it is all but that

 and she offering compassion

as a belated birthday gift

hers recently mine now so long ago

 compassion that feels like pity

which in itself is a gift of God'

something being better than nothing

 in a world where all that once was

or might have been evaporates

under too much hot sun

breathing impossible to take in

too deeply the loss

to severe .

to accept too easily

dog Days

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Swan song? April 19, 2026

 I didn't hear the song until today

 though for more than a decade it is something that I craved

 The missing Link in a story untold

why she needed to come back to her old world

 a song about her one true love from when she was very young

 and here each time he left her again she felt so alone

 and how when she began to sing

she felt the light of joy her song could bring

 and how at a time now two years past.

 she has come back at home at last

 A song for a love she always craved

 and I wonder now was she finally saved

 the voice as vivid as it was back when

 I turned her in again and again

A song I missed along the way

 and maybe how she was finally saved 

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Private sign language (2014)

  

I remember

Looking down at her fingers

When she forbade me

To look into her eyes,

Ringed fingers

Some of the time.

Animated with

A life of their own,

Gestures telling tales

I struggled to read

As private sign language

Not so much dedicated

To the deaf,

But for those gifted enough

To understand these

Messages she would

Share with no one else,

Tales of adventure,

Of woe, of hunger,

Or of lust,

Fingers sometimes poised

Into a temple

Before her face,

The tips touching

The edge of her lips,

Seductive, teasing,

Unbridled when moving

About, a billboard

To her soul, about her life

Her aspirations

Carving art out of the air,

Fingers touching

And aching to be touched,

Only not by me.

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Up to my chin July 30, 2012

I’m up to my chin

In this shit

She tells me

It’s easier if I

Don’t resist,

You can’t stop

The inevitable,

I might as well

Surrender.

Words of wisdom

Cast to me like

A life line

After I tried to

Sink her boat

On her birthday,

She has the upper hand,

Knows I’m helpless

To do anything other

Than give up,

The qualify of mercy

Unstained,

Not nearly as bitter

As when she

Forgave me,

I think she means it

This time,

Knows she has won,

Only she just doesn’t

Know me,

I never surrender,

And so, push my toes

Down into this muck

Feeling for the bottom,

While I still have

Breath to breathe,

Thinking the whole time

How pointless it is,

Even if I find the bottom,

Standing on tip toes

As I bask in the fucking

Muck I’ve made.

 

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I put my hand on it

I put my hand on it, slip
between the buttons, they
tremble like jello too
warm but stiff at
the peak -- the drip of it
like milk on the tip of
my finger and then by
tongue -- the feel of it
like all I ever imagined
my mouth on your mouth
seated in the dark where
I wait for permission
to take the next step,
move up or down
or more like in or
out, the scent of something
in me overheating
so I hold on, quivering
like it quivers
stiffing like it stiffens
waiting for you to grab
hold and shake it up,
quivering inside and out

Forgive me father (mother, goddess) I have sinned July 23, 2012

  

I read the poem

I react,

I can’t help it

Dismissed as if

I never mattered,

Outraged at my own stupidity,

Having said foolish things

Committed foolish acts,

Thought foolish thoughts,

Still, feeling the stink of being

Hit in the face with truth

I know is true

I read the poem

And I want to unread it,

How she dismisses me,

How little I matter,

Or ever will,

Lies might shock me

Less than truth does,

I have become as brittle

As peanut brittle,

Feeling myself breaking up

One small piece at a time,

A once-sweet puzzle

That has turned to bitter fruit,

A cluster-fuck puzzle

The chunks of which

I’ll never put back together

I read the poem

Over and over

Like a fanatic religious supplicant,

Beating myself up over sins

I know I’ve committed,

Slapped in the face with each

Until I can long longer feel

Anything but pain.

I read the poem

And ache to cry,

Only I lack any tears to shed,

Truth is truth,

Bitter as it is,

I can’t dispute.

 

AD's Journal

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I am poem and poet May 17, 2012

 

 

(in response to one of her poems)

 I am not the poems I write,

all I do serves a purpose,

to inspire love or faith,

a scrounger, a miser,

a pathetic man

too scared to admit

what I feel

passing judgement

as other pass

judgement on me.

The art is in the sleight of hand,

The devious shell game

Under which cub

Does my real feelings fall.

All is lost in translation,

the real meaning,

 the sense of faith,

 the last fatal stumbling step

heavy cross on my back,

sentenced and condemned,

but not at all innocent

I am a poem and poet.

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St. Valentine’s Day February 14, 2014

  

This is the day my heart

 stops beating

A wounded cupid

Who suffers

The slings and arrows

Of his own misjudgment

Self inflicted from which

There is no cure

A gift of gods gone awry

Gone sour

Like win left out

Too long to rot.

I envy everybody I see

Carrying their hearts

On their sleeves

Or in the brown paper bags

They carry from the CVS

Where they have purchased

Cards or candy

Or the overly ripe

Places full of roses

Of every color,

All hold out these things

To lure the girls

They claim to love,

But what gift do you bring

For a soul who despises

Such gesture,

Who demands some other

Deeper demonstraton

A more significant sign of love

We cannot carry

In paper bags

Or purchase them from

The store on the corner

Nor can we know exactly

The right gift to give

She must tell us,

But won’t,

Leaving us to learn

This for ourselves,

And there lies the dilemma,

Needing to know her more

Than we do,

To learn without words

Something more than

Mere gestures,

And on this day of all days

To know better than to

Wear of hearts on our sleeves.

 

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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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