Dancer in the sand May 31, 2024

 

I can no longer

Come here

And not think

Of you,

Dancing in the sand,

Around a may pole

Even though

It was November

Not may,

A nymph,

A sprite,

Born out of

The incoming waves

The need to move

In order to be moved,

To celebrate

A private moment

With private people

 In order to

Celebrate yourself,

The pole, the sand,

The waves,

All part of this

Ethereal dance

You are destined

To perform

As if dictated by

The gods, long ago,

Who foresaw this place

This time, and you,

And knew if I saw it

I could feel the pangs

Again

Of what once was,

What ceased to be,

What never was,

I can no longer come here

And be free of your spirit,

Layon on the white caps,

That crush against

The gray stones

And pale sand,

Your foot prints

There, then not there,

Replaced my mine

As I ache to follow.

 

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I am a priest May 31 2026

I am a priest 

After all these years, I have become what nuns wanted, to be Beating me into submission with their rosary beads, making me ashamed back of my reactions like the one with that science teacher in junior high, a woman is provocatively dressed as a prostitute and I had to clutch my books in front of me to keep from showing my admiration, scared of it, stroking it away over and over for years, until I became castrated,unable to get a rise even with the bluest of movies or the most provocative of girls, then later denying myself to get back to what I had been in the past. Stirring Myself up inside, whipping myself into a frenzy till I boiled, making myself become with the nuns wanted, an inferno and now, without options, I am back, lacking any relief, a self torture that is sweet as it is sour, my head so filled with it I can think of nothing else, the priest with  unpriestly thoughts and a body that inflates like a balloon, rising and falling, waking me in the middle of night with an emergency I still refuse to relieve, I am priest the nuns always wanted to be, whipped and chained by my imagination 

28 miles March 23, 2024

 

(poetry journal)

 

The sign said, 28 miles to Kingston.

We had not intended to come this far north, taking a trek along River Road that turned into 9W, following signs that said, “Bear Mountain.”

Only when we got there, we kept going, this long and winding thing, and then, we stopped at the sign saying “28 miles” because we had never intended to go there, not yet, not since I took my daughter there before COVID, seeking a bit of the East Village she could no longer find in NYC, we stopped and wet back, leaving the sign and its destination behind, for another time, for our annual overnight stay when we were better prepared to deal with the consequences, 28 miles turning into 30, then more as we made our way home.

 

 

   2024 journal menu 

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Swelling April 27, 2026

 

The swelling goes down a short time after I wake, though on some mornings I have to wait, lying in bed, like the living dead, ahead of the ring of the alarm clock, that part of my awakening in some other time zone the sun has not yet reached, the turning of the planet, tides in my blood, swelling, the throbs of need I feel, inspired by dreams to which I cannot always put a face, though my conscious mind later assembles a line up of suspects, wanted posters on the wall at the post office, leaving me to determine which culprit is to blame, though I already know who it is, who it always is, even with my eyes still closed.

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Sweat on a plum’s skin July 2012

 

I know how sweet you’ll taste

even before I taste you.

From the drip of your lips.

Like the sweat on a plum’s skin,

 so ripe, I ache to pluck you

from that high branch I can’t possibly reach.

I’m always seeking more than I deserve,

desperate to bite deep into the flesh of it,

letting your tender pulp drip down

 into my wide open mouth,

 your essence spilling out

over my lips and chin and onto my chest.

I know how sweet you’ll be

long before the tip of my tongue

 reaches the pit,

your moist presence over all of me,

it is never enough.

 

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A memory that is not a memory June 22, 2024

 

The most painful part

Is when a memory

Is not a memory,

But I wish it was,

What could have been

That never transpired,

The imagined touch

Of fingers on a walk

Along a long familiar street,

Sympathetic caress

On your hair or shoulder

When you come near

To tears, the stirring

Inside me, real,

But unrequited,

Not yet justified,

Yet undeniable,

Like the gravity

Inflicted by

Heavenly bodies,

We can acknowledge,

Resist, but cannot

Keep from colliding,

A memory of what

I wished for,

Yet could not achieve,

The ache unsatisfied

Except in the endless

Reruns of what I

Would do, could do, if

I could or would

But ultimately,

Can’t.

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cling to itJuly 1, 2015

 

I can’t make this sun stand still, delay what ahead of us must lay to not embrace while we still may, leaves us with nothing to celebrate.

I would spend a century praising what I see, and fight off mortality’s inevitable steed, to admire your mouth, your eyes, your breasts wishing for an eternity for each, leaving still all the rest, hurried as the winged chariot hurries at our heals, this fate determined to catch us wherever we go, despite all it is we feel, this need to have now what we won’t have later, to choose love over all, as our fate hovers, threatening to catch what is ageless, love a figment of our fertile imagination, a myth we cling to for to lose it we lose all, and never see love come again, and life without love is not living, so we cling to it now and hope we can hold on, if not for an eternity, then until we can cling no more

 

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