I still dream of it 2015

 

I still dream of it

that ache to get it all back

when I wake the swell of it

slowly fading like a morning glory

 wilting under the intense blaze of the sun

left with only the memory of a memory

until dusk brings me back

and I can dream of it again

pumping myself up for an affair

 I can only grasp and sleep

trying to satisfy what I lusted for all day

the touch of flesh

 then the in and out

and the eventual expiration

I recall in a fog

when down  t comes again

a day in and day out ritual

my brain struggling to contain

 unrequited except when I sleep

and never ever enough to satisfy me

 when I am awake

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Like it or not sept 27, 2024

  

the rain came with the promise to come again

 gray sky suiting me better than the bright one

my mood not completely blue

just haunted after having stirred up

 the coals of the past

the smoldering I realize will always be there

 rain or shine

a permanence I cannot accept yet have to live with

 because there is no way to exorcise it

 without losing part of myself

like cutting out a piece of my heart

 I need this to remain in order for my heart to beat

even when each beat brings twinges of regret

 the rain doesn't wash everything away

only the surface dust

the bits we pick up on our trek

 missing the deeper pieces

 that have become part of us

like it or not

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Body memory 2015

  

The tips of fingers

Still feel it

Long after

My brain has

Gone numb,

The body retaining

What the mind forgets

The softness of it,

Pliable as a sponge

Giving but not

Too much,

Most as the tips

Just a drip

My lips sip,

Yet tongue

Can no longer taste,

Time rubs

The essence out of it,

We have only

The lingering desire,

Not the thing itself,

Remembering

The meeting of lips,

Not the tenderness,

The haze of it,

Though like a tinder box

It might spark to life again,

Igniting the old attraction,

When it is just beyond reach,

Finger tips dusting its edge,

Recalling where

When, why

When the brain

Lingers in a fog

Of forgetting

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all dressed up June 30, 2012

 

We come to the bar after the movie 

because I promised the salesman 

who works part time there as a bartender,

 and lucky for him we did,

 since the dingy place 

only has a couple of drunks

 clinging to their drinks

 to keep them from falling off their stools, 

and he, bored enough to fill us in 

about what happened at the magazine party 

a couple of days ago, 

how good she looked, though oddly enough

 (our) owner (who) I assume is involved with her ,

 drooled over the bartender’s girl instead,

 clinging to her like the drunks here

 cling to their drinks, 

and drunk then as he gets 

at the office Christmas parties, 

we laughing about it now,

in this dingy place, 

though I don’t laugh inside,

wondering how the poet felt,

 dressed to kill with nobody there to kill for, 

and maybe (a fantasy of mine) just a bit

 disappointed I didn’t show up 

so she could kill me with looks,

 showing off what I’m missing,

 and I do miss it.

 

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up to me eyeballs aug 2012

  

this is the wrong time

to be thinking that

I just can't help it

perhaps because

I've never stopped

still thinking what

 I thought back then

when she shook me up

 and shocked me

 now I am thinking of nothing else

 even when I see the rage in her eyes

 across the table from me

I'm caught up with

 the tilt of her lips

or how she sits

 or how she fills the room with her presence

her scent; her sense of being

 something in this small, small fish bowl

in which I swim

 all that I think

 what I thrive on

nothing short of world ending catastrophe

 will stop me

still this is the wrong time

this aftermath with me

 still sinking in quicksand

now nearly up to my eyes

why do I stare at empty space

 and imagine how she might fill it

 if she had the mind to

 the curves she possesses

which I can't help but notice

 even when I'm an uninvited outcast

the man up to his eyes and sand

and still sinking

still thinking this

 I should not think when

 I ought to be thinking how to survive

yet how does anyone me or the man on the moon

survive without her

 

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Along these paths in the park Dec. 17, 2024

 

They walk away along asphalt paths, hands in pockets against the sudden chill, some with silver hair and deep wrinkles, other still too young to even drink, this morning ritual in the par each need to take part in, most alone, slightly bewilders, taking these strides before the real chill season comes, their lives, our lives, part of an endless routine, of pointless movement they/we feel compelled to respect, if not from tearing the pages off a calendar, then from simply putting another day behind, each step another day.

I watch them pass the place where I sit in this park, the bench I have adopted, an audience of one, watching this play of life on a stage we do not recognize as such, all playing out 

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Groupie Sept 20, 2012

 I look at the video of her with the band years out of date and I think I might have fallen for her even then, become a groupie, offering her anything for just one look or even a pat on the head

 black top orange skirt in one film, other outfits and others, she always the same, the center of my attention, a fixation I might have had long before I fixated on her for real, before I even knew who she was, not a rockstar yet a bright spot on the stage, thick with old men playing old songs, none of which mean anything to me without her on stage with them

 maybe it's hindsight, me thinking this and attraction that might not have been any attraction at all

 I later felt attracted to her and maybe in the depths of night listening to her other songs I still imagine myself as her groupie and maybe I always will

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