When the hunger comes 2013

  

Sometimes

In the dark of night

You wake to feel

The rumble of it

Inside of you,

Not an earthquake,

Yet the earth still move,

This thing you can’t

eradicate

It has a life of its own,

A passion for survival

A need to be fed,

Stirring at all

The odd hours,

Waking you

With its hunger,

And you, alone,

Maybe scared,

Unable to satisfy it

And must endure

Its pain

Until he feeling fades

Sunlight somehow

Extinguishes

What the night time

Inspires,

And you live

Through daylight

Knowing

Its hunger

Will come again

email to Al Sullivan

Strap on (2012)

 

I hear it in her voice

Over the telephone

Recalling how magical

She felt

When she strapped it on,

Powerful,

In charge,

The one who does

The penetrating,

The one who knows

Where it will all go,

She saying how good it felt,

Being the one to do it

Rather than being the one

Being done to,

Though,

She says,

She likes that, too,

Still aching for

The old fashioned way,

Feeling the feeling

She gets when

She feels it

Up inside her

Like a key

Turning open

A lock

That turns her on,

She needs it

Strap on

Or not.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Black Beer and White Wine April 2012

 

I drink black beer;

 she drinks white wine,

back to the busy street

unable to escape

the racket of the bar,

whispered conversations

to compete with the

secrets she tells me,

while I tell her

whatever this is,

won’t last

I’m twice her age,

And she sips

Her pink lips

Leaving a stain

On the rim of the glass

Telling me not to fret it.

Life is too short

To worry about tomorrow

Today is all we have

I almost believe her.

I am floating in a fog

out of which I can see

nothing clearly,

Not even what

She sees in me

Moment to moment

A scary concept,

When I already know

I want much more

Than that,

Grateful for whatever

Pleases her to give me

She drinks white wine

While I slip black beer

Tasting something that

may not exist,

bitter and sweet,

an ache so deep

it may never expire

telling myself the age old lie

how all this will be

worth the pain,

when I’m not sure it will be.

email to Al Sullivan

New army of the living dead

 

July 2012

 

So many stalkers and so little time

We are the new army of the living dead,

Stumbling around behind her,

Brainless as zombies,

Not completely sure of what has happened To us,

 did the house land on the witch or on us,

and where are the ruby slippers that come

with the privilege of being with her,

or do we get a broomstick to ride rather than a wand,

confused regardless of just how we got here

and if we ever will get back,

still clutching the smart phone at night

for a vibration that will never come,

I am she, and her three company

Entangled as one, the girl, the witch

Who hate lack of brains or heart or courage,

While I wish I could click my heals

And get back to a place of sanity

When I know I can’t.

 

 

email to Al Sullivan

Cinderella on horseback Jan 15, 2024

 

 She changes her face

The way most people

Change their clothing,

A blink of eye

and she’s a little girl again

a wee bit naughty

yet still innocent,

Cinderella,

 who dresses up for the ball,

in search of a Prince Charming

Who never arrives

With her glass slipper,

Though she pretends

He does,

Truth lays in her wide open eyes,

Even as she rides

Even looking a wee bit silly

with camera affixed to her head,

galloping into the future

chest puffed up

as if she’s just won

first prize

 

 Journal 2024

email to Al Sullivan

Butterflies are free to fly Oct. 19, 2013

 

In my mind

 I caress her wings,

After she has emerged from her cocoon,

 the tips of my fingers stroking

 her vibrant color until she glows,

a fantasy I have relive over and over in my dreams,

the memory of how delegate she is,

and soft, and vulnerable,

how she shudders even when blessed,

my fingers tracking the stain glass she displays

as if she is a saint,

 and I too much a sinner

 to deserve such a touch

I paint her in colors I wish

and pretend I can touch,

It can never happen

,this butterfly waiting to take flight,

beyond reach,

 flapping her wings as she warms

reborn into something even more

magnificent than she was,

 and will be even more so,

gone beyond us all.

 

email to Al Sullivan

We three on the yellow brick road

 

Nov. 11, 2013

 

I don’t know which of them I am, if any,

The heartless man of tin, the brainless man of straw,

Or the lion lacking courage.

And is she the good witch or bad,

And do I ach for her broom stick or wand,

Or want her to make use of mine,

This late after the love and ache remains less

A scar than an unhealed wound and unfulfilled fantasy,

I keep locked up in the back of my head,

Knowing it can ever be real regardless of how hard

Or how often I click my heads or how many promises

The wizard makes – maybe all three at once,

Accompanying her down that long, twisted and dangerous

Yellow brick road, wary of flying monkeys when

She should be wary of me, this dream from which I ultimately

Wind up back in Kansas, still aching

Still wishing I was not.

 

email to Al Sullivan