The scent of a woman May 25, 2015

 - 

The scent, so pungent I can nearly taste it, swirls around me the closer I get, not perfume (though that, too), but the essence of what I want, need, must have for each inch I come, the drumbeat of my heart fueled on this smell. I am an old car driving on fumes, I breathe in, swallow, absorb though my skin, so potent I can’t stop myself from reacting, pumped up until I am so bloated I might soon explode, an odor I can’t stir up for myself when I take it in, all yours, all the time, an elixir that drives me insane, yet I can’t stop wanting it, making me ache to get ever closer, to smear it all over me, to spread you open so I can breathe nothing else.

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My Charlie Brown tree April 9, 2025

 

 

I call it my Charlie Brown tree, a frail collection of sticks that poke up in the corner of the yard, too skimpy to accumulate more than a few leaves even in the heat of summer, and yet, at this time of year, first to spout.

I dare not attach a Christmas ornament, for fear it will break a limb, not an old tree – having popped out at some point after our arrival here, yet not as sprite as spring chicken either, somehow managing to exist, reflecting my lack of impact on the wider world, just there, just surviving, just making its bit of green when the seasons change, knowledgeable enough to know what it is supposed to do, even later when the fall comes and it lets its leaves turn, a miniature version of the trees that soar high above in the neighboring yards, me and my tiny tree, somehow managing to carry on as we are expected, giving now too much, just enough.

 

 

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Down the rabbit hole May 30, 2015

  

It is difficult to imagine when enough is too much, or even enough at all, this need to penetrate as deep and hard as possible, those inner realms denied at other times and places, we being drawn along by our nose or some other part of our anatomy, willing, yet resistant, as if we believe we might be consumed in the process, might lose our heads (the way the grasshopper or praying mantis does) and unable to get back what is lost, forced to go along to wherever men go at times like these, lost in the woods, sorting through it, while seeking to find the rabbit hole to leap down into the way the rabbit with his top hat and watch did, knowing that if we descend we may never find out way out again or worse, may not want to.

 

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Hounds in the woods Aug. 27, 2014

 

I hear the howl of dogs baying in woods that are not woods, hunting for fox or cat or coyote, frustrated and their inability to catch, woods that are not woods, running along a ridge behind my house where foxes might come, cats certainly, and the always crafty coyotes I hear but never see. I live my life like a coyote, keeping still when the dogs are near, yet unable to resist calling out when they are afar, hiding in a hollowed log, or under a pile of stones, too crafty to be easily caught, yet scared to death I will be, hoping that the dogs that howl in the woods that are not woods will seek out the fox or cat, as more of their kind reside in this neck of the woods, less likely than I, perhaps too foolish to realize just how easily it is to get caught in the jaws of the hounds, who howl in woods that are woods, their sound echoing, when in fact these hounds are so much nearer than we might believe.

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time’s winged Chariot. aug 18, 2024

  (inspired by an earlier poem)

does she fear

 time’s winged Chariot now

 when she never did before,

having her whole life pulled all into a ball

when other play coy

 does one realize as days go past

how much she had had

 and won't have again

worms of a different sort

seeking not her virginity

 but bringing little of the Joy

she saw it in elder days did

how does she pass her long loves days these days

does she sit in peruse the Ganges

where she draws out rubies from its side

does she wish again for those days

 when she could reach her hand out

 and gather all the joy she wanted

 time pressing now with fewer rubies to find

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tempted again. aug. 16, 2024

  

even all these years later

 the temptation remains

 how to control it

to keep from doing something

 I know I'll regret

 holding back

 keeping myself

from tasting the forbidden fruit

or the illusion of it

drawn in by what I think is

for lack of a written invitation

we always defeat ourselves

pushing into something

because we want it

even when there's no proof it exists

I live my life as a phantom

images of my desire broadcast

on the horizon like a mirage

I am always thirsty

 especially for what I know

I should not have

 resisting the ever

 self imposed temptation

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Night after night May 12, 2015

 

 

I come to this holy place in my mind, wrapping it up in birthday paper I wanted back when she was more than just a memory, instead, solid flesh, still holding her breasts in the palms of my hands, a perfect gift I still feel all the way to the tips where the buttons tighten and I wrap my lips around them.

I come to this spread of legs, and the whole other holy ground I need to make fertile, to pow first, then see, the slow movement of my plow stirring up sacred soil, and then, down deep, to where the seed must penetrate.

I come to this holy place now because it is no longer possible to get there any other way, the need to feel it around me as I press close in, a sacred ceremony I imagine day after day, night after night

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