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 

Thee are a rose Aug. 26, 2014

  

Thee are as beautiful as a rose, and just as dangerous.

I’ve pricked my fingers on your thorns and still – after all this time, all that I’ve thought and felt – I still bleed, forced to admire thee from afar, to keep from pricking myself again, to bleed more.

I feel time’s passing as you must, too, these few days ahead of the calendar turning and you get another year to add.

Thou are no less beautiful on that account, younger by far when compared to me, still graceful, still desirable, regardless of how many days on the calendar pass.

I make no comment save for this, which you will never read, springing out of the all too sparce desert in which I live out my life.

You are the rose that grows here, ever present, undiminished by the cruel world in which we all must live, each page, each passing day, adding, not subtracting from they worth, and in these days, wandering this dry place, I yet to fully realize how worthy thou art, even if – when all is said and done, you will never hear these words of praise coming from these lips.

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Her scent in the air Nov. 22, 2012

  

I still smell her, not just her perfume, but her beneath of the mask of scents that accumulated in this space, this place near our office window where she could stare out at the skyline, asking herself why she is here and not over there, a scent so acute I choke on it, and yet, still feel the need to get closer, right up to the space where he scent is strongest, I breathe it in and drown on it, so filled up I can’t take in anything else except her, not a sweet or sour odor, maybe both, a scent that stirs me up inside and forces a scent of my own to pour out of every pore, just from smelling her. I can’t hide it, can’t put it all back into a box, once out, I’m overwhelmed and must deal with it, somewhere private, so that when others who reside here won’t discover how I feel.

I still smell her here, a fragrance lingering on the chair in which she sat, on her desk, on my shoulders just from passing her on their stairs, or when she used to pause at the top and stare down at me, her scent filling up this whole world, still here, as is the echo of her voice when she used to walk and talk, now caught up in the fabric of my universe, even though she has gone, not too sweet, or sour, no, a scent absolutely perfect.

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Still standing October 30, 2013

 

 

 She’s a winner

If she’s still standing

At the end of the bout,

(my brain recalling

Those pictures of her

With boxing gloves on,

And the parade of testosterone

All around her,

As if she would take them all on,

In anyway they wanted,

And I’m still jealous)

She’s a winner,

Even when objectively

She seems not

All the plans of mice and men

 (as Shakespeare put it)

Dashed on the rocks of reality

and out of such wreckage

people must rebuild or move on,

me outside the ring

feeling her pain,

even as I secretly cheer her on,

watching her stagger,

swaying like a punch drunk,

 cringing at the fear someone might strike again

and relieve her of her feet,

too staggered to run and

perhaps with no place to run to.

She must stand where she is

until the fog fades

and she can see a way to win

In a world where everybody betrays everybody else,

it is impossible to know who to trust,

even those she has trusted before.

In the end, she must

 – as she has done in the past –

rely on herself to survive,

 stumbling forwards

but on her own two feet,

wary of those who offer kindness

with one hand and a stab in the back with the other.

In the end, all she can rely on is herself.

 

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On this sea of doubt June 2, 2015

  

She is a siren when she sings, her voice playing on each of us in a different way, shaping us all into an orchestra as she conducts us, stirring us up, weaving us into her songs.

I hear her whenever I close my eyes, and feel her song touch me in ways I never imagined anyone could, even though I know the songs she sings, she wrote, are for someone remote, and yet, I must tie myself to the mast of this ship, to keep from slipping into melancholy, a trance from which I know I cannot escape, her voice seemingly so soothing, I am in her spell, she is the siren who sings and whom we sailors cannot resist, this sea of doubt, this need, this painful remembrance we suffer all this time later, and yet, we never cease to listen

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The illusion of love Sept. 27, 2015

  

I come down to the place where skyscrapers decorate both sides of a river down which cruise ships sail, at a time of day when the sun glistens on the windows like sparks or fire, a moment too short to last as much the way love sometimes is, a suggestion of something grant that always later disappoints, sunset always an illusion that always leads into night, and while I prefer dawn, I can rarely come there to see it, and so must accept this brief glimpse of an unfiltered promise, and then the deep dark that much come after, the sparks on the windows, the end of the day, the parade of steel; and glass, and, of course, the illusion of love.

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