Salesman at the door? Aug 16, 2014

 

I’m so glad we don’t have milk men these days or door to door salesmen selling vacuum cleaners or encyclopedias.

I’m glad she is not my wife, the housewife who stays at home with apron on, but nothing else, who calls for pizza delivery with an unexpected tip.

It could be worse. She could be fucking the mailmen, too, or the Prime driver, or even the man in the mustard green UPS uniform, getting her afternoon delight as prelude to an evening with me, the perfect housewife who brings herself to me naked on a half shell, where I suck her up along with the remnants of all who came before me, never knowing of their visit, grateful for the lack of milkman or salesman when there are so many more modern me she can engage with.

If she was my wife, I could not work, my mind pondering all the possible combinations, her visit to the shopping mall with other housewives, the livid luncheons, the cocktails afterwards, the afternoon gigolos who wait for women like these to prey one, no milkmen, no salesmen, just pizza for two – with me coming home to give her an afterwork cocktail, drinking her up with all those who came before me, while I wonder who will have her after I fall asleep.

 

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Dream Oct. 22, 2025

 

 

I did not dream of her, that last and vivid dream before morning brings consciousness, stark as sunlight, and yet edged with the lingering mists dreams always contain.

I did not dream of her, although I could have, recalling a place we both shared for a time, a bank that was not a bank when we inhabited it, and has since ceased being what we shared after we abandoned it.

The dream thick with the remembrance of those final days, hers, and later mine, as we closed the door on that place, and recall the people who shared that space with us, heavy with regret, and wishes things might have gone better, and now, this late in the day, too late to do anything but look back, my character sponging off free giveaways of food banks used to give when I was a kid, then shifting out on the streets – where the water tower stands – and some maniac driving a Datzun B210 backwards off the pier into the river, desperate to be rid of that rattling piece of junk, with me, bearing witness to the end of us, watching him ride off (with a girl who might be her) into the sunset, while I fumbled with my camera phone, unable to take a picture, aching to find a face beyond the glare of the windshield, later, waking, believing it was her, gone, but not gone.

 

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Each step we take Aug 15, 2024

 

We stumble through

The dessert of our lives

In search of an oasis

That may not exist,

Desperate to reach

The far side before

We die of thirst,

Our only real hope

Is to keep moving,

One step after the next

Knowing if we can

Take the next step

And the next after that,

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We might achieve our goal,

It is never easy,

There are always

Obstacles that get

In the way,

Not mountains or

Even quick sand

But pitfalls nonetheless,,

Any wrong step

Possibly becoming our last,

It is difficult to avoid these

And still look to where

We must go,

And yet we need

To keep our feet

On solid ground

The whole way through

 

Testing the limit Aug. 14, 2014

 

Is there any limit to those who keep her company, by day or night, rolling around  in wrinkled bedsheets, seeking to do what she likes best or what she might like to do next, the parade of those who stumble, love-drunk through her otherwise locked doors, married or unmarried, none certain what exactly to expect, perhaps even shocked at what transpires when they leave.

What is the limit, if there is one, to the idea of joy, not just the physical presence (though that is amazing in itself), but the feel of what we feel when we come too near, the promise of something so utterly intense we’re never certain we can survive it, yet are drawn to it – moth to the flame—to test our mettle, and learn the ropes even if it means being tied to her bedposts, to let her have her way.

Is there a limit to her joy? Does this come with a number on it? Or is the whole universe hers to explore, she needing to go as far as she can so she can learn what is enough, and how can anyone keep up with that, clinging to the pillows as she stretches it all out and asks, “Are you coming yet?”

 

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your river and mine sept. 8, 2024

  

this River and that river

are the same river

even if we are miles apart

 reflect the same sky

for the moods may swing

 a different way

 your river bank with trees

 mine with skyscrapers

 yours rich with the scent of pine

mine with the heavy exhaust

 of barges and computer trains

 your river flows into my River

though it takes some time

 your water kissing my water

 and it is divine

 your River mingling with mine

 for those few miles where

 both Rivers reach for the sea

limbs entwined perhaps overheated

as they rub

your River and my River pressed together

 chest to chest in an endless caress

your River and mine becoming one

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Twinge before the bite July 1, 2025

  

They found it difficult to put it in, doctor and nurse, me on my side, knees to my chest, it poking at me here and there before finding the gap it needed to reach.

I only cried out once before the real pain came, the twinge and then the bite, with the doctor giving me the countdown to how many more I needed to endure, always more than I thought I could stand, the twinge and then the bite, another piece of my flesh, put into a jar for posterity, bits of me already foreign, like spit as a kid that got cold in the palm of my hand, good for somethings, but never to reingest, something alien, not of this earth, the nurse clutching the monitor to tell the doctor where to strike next, twinge before the bite, as I bit my lips against it, with only a few more to go, before it is over, if it ever is, jus a few more, twinge before the bite, if I can hold out.

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A witch’s brew Aug. 21, 2025

 

Heat, inside and out, this scalding month we must endure before fall brings cool again, and winter offers its deep freeze, this sad cycle of life we also must live with, bits and pieces of day to day we lose track of as time goes by, the taste of sweetness we thought of when young, almost – but not quite – forgotten, the people to whom we cling, and wish for, but cannot recapture, except in dreams.

I still wake sweating, just not the kind I cherish, and still see the face to whom I fell so strongly, even if I’ve not met her in the flesh for some time, all the small details lost, even if still clinging to me, and in my dreams, the heat of the day translated in the one of night, into a passion I can no longer regain, lost but not lost, there but only in the vaguest way, stirred up like a witch’s brew in the rem of sleep, dream up dream, steaming me up inside, and still lingering long after I am awake.

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