rust. aug 3, 2024

  

it is not dust

we must mistrust

but rust

the slow painful decay of years

Shakespeare complained that

 virtue retained will someday b

e the purview of worms

and yet we dare not abandon ourselves

 and our wonton desires

that we let fall to rust

when we must trust what is in us

 this need to feed

this polish of meddle we get

from the rub of heavenly bodies

the sweat of it keeping us trim

 it is not dust I mistrust

but the rust of ill use

the need to press on

 in, out, and beyond

 to keep intact that piece

we need most in our lives

email to Al Sullivan

Brave New world

January 13th 2026 

2 weeks into the brand new year and I still reside in the old one and maybe the many years prior to it, when I could still look ahead, while these days I mostly look behind, all a matter of dealing with each day as it comes, counting them off the way an inmate does, I am in no hurry to get over with, 2/3 of my life still residing in a century that has passed, while around me, spring chickens rise, having no recollection of any other century except for the one we're in, they can still look ahead with confidence that life has hope for something better than they have it now, a brave New world I will never experience

climbing rungs to nowhere May 27, 2012

 

May 27, 2012

 I did not come here

 to look for clues 

as to what happened

 back home, 

though as I stride 

through the street of a town 

that gave the name to a generation,

 I feel the vibe, 

the sense that 

while it did not start here,

 it grew here, 

as if this place 

full of aging hippies, 

Tibetan monks, 

and the relics of a time long gone,

 she incubated here,

 a wounded bird 

with an amazing voice 

who ached for something 

more than she was able to get

 using her talents to climb 

the rungs of a ladder

 to which there is no top,

 just rung after pointless rung,

 she clinging to each 

until she can reach the next, 

she assuming there might be 

a place all this leads to,

 a platform somewhere ahead

 in the clouds

 where she can finally stand

 and celebrate achievement, 

yet has not gotten there yet,

 her palms blistering

 from the continued climb 

as if to nowhere.

email to Al Sullivan

i know nothing july 2012

 

he thinks I know

 what I only suspect

perhaps is terrified

 I might expose them

when that's the last thing

 I want to do

 he and she holding

my life hostage

when they think I hold theirs

 yet I am consumed

with the green-eyed monster

and feel the sting when

 I think of them together

my brain manufacturing

wild orgies and exotic trips

they engage in when

that rational part

 the big brain versus

 the small brain

tells me none of that is true

perhaps projecting

the image of their debauchery

 because I ache to do it too

 he thinks I know

when I know nothing

though I catch his glances

 and feel the fear

he is exudes

the what ifs

the dangers I pose

the knowledge he thinks

 I possess

but I don't

email to Al Sullivan

Creaking wheels

 

Her wheel creak, rusted, out of aligned, on a pushcart nearly as ancient as the woman who pushes it is, wheels clacking out ahead of her like a warning, a witch's chat straight out of Shakespeare, filling the gaps left by the passing traffic.

She comes this way twice a day, one way after dawn the other after dusk, a ritual so predictable I need no watch to tell the time of day

 She, almost a ghost, with her straw like hair and her white blouse and pants, creaking almost as much as the wheels of the cart does, and perhaps with the same warning of doom, wheels staring up the broth of her life, back and forth, carrying all she owns, here and there, across this urban universe she knows too well, one creaking wheel at a time

Make me feel it

 August 30th 2014 

There's no easy way out of all this, summer slipping through our fingers like so much sand, as I sit here on the pier where someone put up a Captain Jack doll and American flag, a block away from the hotel with gold trim.
I always pause as if one of the stations of the Cross, not yet the crucifixion, maybe the place where Christ falls and Simon takes up the burden for a Time.
 I sit wishing it all had been different wiser me doing wiser things I didn't think to do when I still could 
I sit here, up the block from the quaint downtown and a religious auditorium so huge the New York Giants might play the super bowl inside of it.
 this day leading up to Labor Day weekend, The heat of Summer sizzling into me as if I am a kettle, and still boiling up inside until I'm ready to burst, 
The sea sending foam to my feet, tickling my toes, water warmer than the air as I search for dolphins and whales, vague shapes on the glittering surface that always brings me hope, here at the edge of the universe 

On the edge of the universe August 30th 2014

There's no easy way out of all this, summer slipping through our fingers like so much sand, as I sit here on the pier where someone put up a Captain Jack doll and American flag, a block away from the hotel with gold trim.

I always pause as if one of the stations of the Cross, not yet the crucifixion, maybe the place where Christ falls and Simon takes up the burden for a Time.

 I sit wishing it all had been different wiser me doing wiser things I didn't think to do when I still could 

I sit here, up the block from the quaint downtown and a religious auditorium so huge the New York Giants might play the super bowl inside of it.

 this day leading up to Labor Day weekend, The heat of Summer sizzling into me as if I am a kettle, and still boiling up inside until I'm ready to burst, 

The sea sending foam to my feet, tickling my toes, water warmer than the air as I search for dolphins and whales, vague shapes on the glittering surface that always brings me hope, here at the edge of the universe