“If” is not a blade of grass

I guess there’s something wrong in me,

Some distorted bit, an ugly flaw

That bites both you and painfully me

In different ways, a bit you’ve caught

And I have not, that’s my fault

I’m afraid. The blindness of a lover

Who has missed the glaring signs to halt,

I see them now, too late, and you’ve another

Way of living set in your mind.

I can’t blame you, I can only sit

And wonder if I’d been in time

Would fate have changed that little bit?

But bits and ifs are not enough

To turn you back to feeling love.

If I was only a wide pine tree

With needles jutting from my finger tips

I could stab myself and remove from me

This terrible, ugly, frightening bit.

I could grow new bark to heal the wound

That flames now from my chest

Where once a heart like a flower bloomed

Out of sorrow and loneliness.

But I have neither limb nor bough

That can stiffly stand your leaving

I have no roots that I swiftly grow

To seal this gap that’s bleeding.

I’m just a simple man, it seems

Who burnt his wood to light his dreams

If I was but a crow that sounds

Harsh and bitter and brooding life

There would be no heartless flame around

To ponder you and crave your like

A blind man must crave his sight,

I would never had you

Near me, touching here, and there, a knife

Cutting with pleasure, cutting me through.

But I am not a crow that caws

Or a bird that can fly away,

I’m hooked upon your feline claws

With words not wings to sway.

But you who once had a softer side

Have hardened into another’s bride.

If I was but the yellow sky

Glowing with a pre-dawn light

Growing into an ocean wide

Of love and warm and smiles bright,

Maybe that would change that mind

Which thinks long thoughts with short replies,

Maybe I could scorch and blind
and melt the frosting from your eyes.

But I am only a flickering flame,
a short match’s light that forever longs
for you to help me ease the pain

That comes with being forever wrong.

But the flame that flickers learns to die

Without much warmth, without much pride.

And I am, too, the sprouting grass

Not a lawn, mind you, but a ragged

Bit of green that grows and wiggle past

The granite blocks and crags, it

Doesn’t matter. I’ll still grow

Though yellow with you the light

And part of me will always show

Your passage, your blinding bright.

I am not crushed or greatly damaged

But bent again in my old ways,

Hurt and lonely yet able to manage

A future filled with dull dark days.
For you, my love, are the only ray

Left to raise this humbled blade.

Poetic salvation

I know Poe

Life’s love lost in Tarot

Faith’s fate traded away

Like bubble gum cards

But without super stars

Or God or jest

Symbols need systems to exist

I need a new religion

Not Christian or Jew

Buddhist or Muslim

One without flying saucers

Or desert temples

One that praises

Enlightenment

Over entanglement

Purpose over pain,

One that says

There are reasons

For everything

Even if I can’t

Figure out

What they are

Santa’s sleigh

The trees are dark and empty

Their branches slim and bare

The frost has caught the sparrow’s next

And lingers in the air

The horse trodden path is icy

And snow fills up its cracks

The soft brown doe from the frozen lake

Has hit the southern track

The golden wheat fields have gone to sleep

Beneath a clear white frozen crust

The old pump handle is trimmed with ice

And must surely turn to rust

By breath is warm and steady now

As I breathe upon this pane

I draw a picture of Santa’s sleigh

With Santa at the reigns

He’s short and round like a circus clown

With a red and wintered face

His full white bear like a snow man’s ear

Is slightly out of place

He totes a bag of red and gold

Which he carries inside his sleigh

And he struggles down like a chimney sweep

With bag getting in his way

The small reindeer with their reigns and gear

Stand ready in the snow

For when Santa’s sleigh makes its getaway

Before anyone can know

B's

The buzz in my head

Like bees in a jar

Wings flap trapped

Against the glass

I think

Therefore I must be

But am I really?

And how many am I?

Trees falling

In a silent woods

A mute madman

With a scream

He cannot release

Forever buzzing

Forever waiting

For the glass

To break

In what do you believe, if not in me?

Am I a ghost, a set of bones, that rattled

With words, their unions, an accident

A matter of chance?

Or am I something other

Than what I am?

A dull professor profession truths

For a bid-weekly check

A cold, hard, forgotten dreams

Who has no dream left to dream?

Who am I ?
What is the worth of love?

Am I to be transformed, realigned,

By the mallets of reality,

The less than perfect accomplishment

Of practicality?

The failed dreamer

Who gives up the dream?

That isn’t me,
nor will death itself stay me

When the dreams still stirs,

No more than exhaustion or that sick

Perverted life of labor which I must endure

What is to love when the dream is gone?

Who do you see in my shoes,

But an empty being with empty eyes

And nothing left to live for,

Working at nothing but empty phrases

For doctors or lawyers
or judges or fools?

It is those that can’t believe

That don’t believe

I will not be turned into a statue

I will not be turned like a car

I have my lived life very clearly

A pool of unmoving water

Out of which words spout.

Do not turn me into bread and butter

Do not demand what I cannot give

Do you dance with a poet

While wanting a banker,

Reading about us in books

But never really knowing

Who we are.

Motel magic

Oct. 6, 2012

The bed groans

And so does she,

Pounding fists or feet

Against the wall

My sleeping head

Rests against

In the room next door

Each exaggerated

Breathe like a monsoon wind

Blowing straight through

The cracks as

My imagination

Paints in all the details

The heap of clothing

The entwined limbs

Woman astride the man

in an expression

so intense I ache

just thinking about it,

aching to be there,

dreaming later

I was,

Lost in the limbo

Of that early morning

Magic

A gift of the magi

I never expected

Checking in

email to Al Sullivan

Real Fortunes

I read my life

In weekly fortunes

The grinning Chinese lady

Issues me

Each Friday night

Cookies crumbling

Beneath my thumb

Leaving fragments

On my dirty plate

Telling me big truths

In small bites

“Take no shortcuts

To success,” one says,

While another warns me,

“In order to take,

You must give first,”

and a third

telling me what we

all need to know,

“Whatever your

Life’s work is,

Do it well,”

And I try,

As in the fourth

Cookie I eat to feed

My need for sweet,

“Including others in

Your life’s work

Will bring great

Happiness,”

Perhaps the wisest

Of all

In this me-first

At all costs

World

In which

We all live

These days.