The void inside November 01, 2014

Saturday, November 01, 2014

I dress up each time in my mind

A carved out face with fixed smile

I don’t always believe

The sawed teeth of the carving knife

Still evident on each deep slice

A candle lit inside of me

Making my eyes glow

Filling the empty space inside

I hope each time to fill

With something more substantial

To replace the substance removed

Not love or lust, but existence

The day to day of it,

That face that is a real face

The heart that does more than tick

A life that is more than a jack a lantern

Propped up to scare kids

As they come to my door for trick or treat

We living our lives with fixed expressions

Actually believing there is nothing else

When there is always so much more

Out there just beyond our finger tips

Something to fill the void inside

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Astray October 26, 2014

The soft air kissed my cheeks

As I stroll here this cold morning

In late October, the end of season

As haunting as Halloween,

Filled with ghosts and goblins

Of a life I never meant to lead

The misdirection of misplaced steps

We take when we meant to go

In another direction, and yet

No so misguided as we believe

As we are shaken from those

Early morning dreams when we

Imagine the worst and come to realize

That our steps lead us not so much

Astray but rather where

We were meant to be,

And accepting the path

We find ourselves on

Is the hardest part of being alive

And yet, the most fulfilling.

In the silence Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Rain drips down the wooden fence

Leaving dark scars on its face

As the trees lean over waiting to change

This pre-color time of year

When we ache for change to come

Cool air swirling around us

With just enough hint of summer

To remember it

I hear the voice of winter

In the distant rumble of surf

And in the altered sound of traffic

And the sudden quiet

Of end of season brings to the seashore,

These things stand out against

The usually hectic soundscape

So that they seem loud

When they are not,

Our lives are like that,

Loudest in the lulls,

When we can hear ourselves thinking

The way we hear the tick of a clock

Always there, but never obvious

As we search for meaning,

No more nor less than they ever were,

The ghost in the machine

The moving parts

We do not wish to know about

But get consumed with

When all else falls silent.

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Echoes October 25, 2014

History repeats itself inside my head

Like echoes in a canyon

Long after the initial shout

Losing at last what the shout was about

And so we read into what we hear

Imagining what it is we felt

When we let the fell words fall,

And translate that which we thought

We said into what we need said now

Feeling from it what we need to feel,

Not exactly what we felt at the start,

Thinking the whole time

How nothing has changed

When everything always does,

And when we shout again

Our new shout falls on ears

We know might never hear

What is we actually said.

email to Al Sullivan

The right combination

August 10, 2014

He puts two hands on her

And feels her tremble

Like a flower with each

Delicate leaf vibrating

And wet with morning dew

He can taste just by touching

His fingers reaching deep

To places the rest of him

Aches to go

And she is all eyes and mouth

Beneath his face

So his breath breathes

Her breath,

And his gaze sees only

What she wishes him to see

And like a boy trying to find

The right combination to a puzzle

He works his fingers to see

What he can unlock

And make those eyes

Open up to him,

So he might reach into her place

He cannot reach now

Without her permission

Oozing April 30, 2014

April 30, 2014

The chill rain covers my face like a cold sweat

As I struggle to make my way through the park

Named after the man who made the city of my birth,

Limbs just alive with buds ready to burst

Sagging overhead, the tip of each dripping

Bits of clear liquid and reflect some deep

Drip going on inside of me

This is always the best and worst of the year

For me, a time when change intrudes

And forces itself on me, consuming me

Making me ache inside and out,

Pressing itself against me, chest to chest

So that I breathe in what it breathes out

And so that we linger in a perpetual dance

Neither of us can escape, nor want to,

Regardless of how we penetrate each other,

My breath steaming by the time I reach

The gap at the other end, and my hips

Aching from the effort, leaving me

As if I have been stung by bees

That have yet not emerged for the season

With the stinger still deep inside

Of me – oozing.

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Fotomat

June 20, 1982

Chrome and steel

Shine in the sun

Bright pages

Of the photo album’s

Tender spots

I stand

The heat passing

Through me

The camera is my eye

Light

Confused

Defused

Transposed

This is a picture

For some future

Day when we

As elders

Look

Infused with memory

Lines squiggle

Baby on the lawn

Black & white

Always lines

Linear

Horizontal

Vertical

The pattern

Of this existence

Is beyond all words

I paint it

With camera

Letting the baby

Make the strokes

The sun hotter

As I crawl inside

This black box

And press myself

Upon the film

Shaping the liens

Like a sculptor

Easting away

The darkness

With light and illusion

There is no baby now

No Portland

Just this image

Which imagines me

The shutter swished

Like a guillotine

Slicing away reality

Like a slice of bread

In elder years

The illusion is strange

We forget the journey

The nail scrapings

On the walls of this box

The way out

We wee

The lines

That linger

On the reprint