A blind man feeling his way April 2012

 

 I was never this giddy even at 16

when I fell in lust with my science teacher

 who was dating the head coach of the football team,

 all I could do then was stare,

,now I post silly things on her Facebook page

 she tells me I should take down

since her whole family

 and her most trusted friends

will see it and know what going on

(if anything really is).

What the hell am I thinking?

Why can't I stop?

This is not natural,

 the way puberty was back then,

 the normal progression of a boy

 entering into his teens rather

re-defining for me what people

mean when they say second childhood,

 this need to feel out my way in a fog

 of my own creation,

 to know if what I see is real,

 to touch it, to know if it is soft or hard,

 hot or cold,

 there or not there,

 like a blind man gauging reality by touch.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Heart and brain Dec. 10, 2012

  

How do I tell my heart to forget her, something my brain can’t even do, unforgiven, unmasked, left without her at last?

How do I forget what I thought she might possess, the warmth in the chill of night?

How do forget her light, alas at last she is rid of me?

How much darker the night becomes without her light?

How do I keep on when all is done, she is gone, when she is shed of me already?

How do I convince my hear all is over, when my brain tells me it is not so, when it is clear she must go, has gone, won’t return, my heart still beating too many beats at the thought of her, my eyes still see her place where she sat, my brain convinced she is no longe there, but my heart does not buy it, defies it, beats madly as if she still is?

How do I convince this miscreant heart to accept it, to forget it, even when my brain already has, brain telling heart to get over it, when my heart sees what it wishes to see and always will.

email to Al Sullivan

Dolphins are angels July 2, 2024

  

The gods ride the waves

On the backs of dolphin,

As I spy them from shore

Coming to me when I

Most need them,

Back then as well as now,

The same thoughts always

Running through my head

As I step into a dream scape

Each time I reach the sea,

The ghosts of the past

Lingering on the sand,

The way foam lingers

With the receding waves,

And I search the choppy

Surface of the sea

For signs from the all mighty.

Looking to distinguish

The rough surface from

The dark shapes,

Gods coming to me on their backs

When ever I plead for relief,

In good times or bad.

Coming up out of the depths

As if just for me.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Chaste and unchaste June 21, 2015

 

Does it always have to come this, chaste or unchaste, rubbing raw this phony sense of holiness, when all we want to do is be wanton, and for no real good reason except that it feels so good?

Can we use our tongues for more than talk, to explore those holes we know are rarely holy, front, back, top, bottom, inside out, words getting us through the door, though it takes much more to convince you to undress, to let me come inside where it always feels the best, this unchaste moment we knew had to come, even when we claimed we would avoid it all, our brains painting it all out, planning it like a military campaign, finding some way to get you to surrender, to give in, to let me find those parts kept most secret, to make unchaste what we might keep chaste if we foolishly kept to the promise we would not go there, knowing the whole time, this is where was always wanted to go

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Silent night Dec. 2013)

  

I keep hearing her sing

Silent night,

Even when I don’t hear it

On the internet,

A song I used to sing

But don’t have the range

Now that I’ve grown old.

I hear the song when

I stroll through the town

I cover,

Or down the streets

Of the town I will

Cover soon,

Twinkle of lights flashing

As I pass bars

And restaurants

And see images in some

I think might be her,

But are not,

The coal rattles in

My stockings as I

Make my way for yet

Another change of year,

And know all of what was

Now fades,

Even if I vaguely remember it,

And she is already moving on

From her role as Santa’s helper,

So, she can get back to

Helping herself.

I stroll the streets

Of Hometown, too,

Where her memory

Is most vivid

And therefore

Most painful,

I am living with

The ghost of Christmas past,

But none of Christmas future,

I hear her singing Silent Night

It is all that I have left.

email to Al Sullivan

Waiting for Groundhog day June. 19, 2026

 

 

I count the days until the groundhog comes, even though I do not believe we will get a reprieve from winter, seeing his shadow or not, we repeating everything over and over until we make things perfect when we could not do so during our first round. We must endure the torture winter inflicts, helpless to make it stop. We have no information to give, northing the inquisition wished to get from us, our lives dictated by fate, not fortune, waiting for when the cold leaves so we can breathe again,, this need for love so acute at times like this when all we have to cling to his a memory of what once was, and even then, an unreliable recollection as we repeat what we did, and can’t stop.

 

email to Al Sullivan

still doing it. 2014

  

do I still do it

when I think of you

 the way I did it back then

with each daily dose of you

 you sent via text?

 Do I still dream the same dream

long after it is impossible

for any such dream to come true

no matter how many times

I click my heels or wish to be back in Kansas?

Of course, I do

 can't keep from doing it

lost in the same fog now

as back then huddled in the basement

waiting for the text I know

will never come

and I must rely on what was

 rather than what is

 the archive of memory and photos

the imaginary flight I take after dark

 which one is not ever you

 looking always wishing for the dream to come true

 

email to Al Sullivan