Saturday, October 31, 2026
Friday, October 30, 2026
Mounting a vocano April 6, 2024
You can’t mount a mountain
like you can a
volcano,
each step up one
risks
a perilous fall,
up the other scalding
fingers,
blistering where they grip,
even though the landscape
is much softer,
yielding as I press myself
against it.
This is where mountain goats
go to rut;
I am a goat in
sheep’s clothing,
wishing I was a wolf,
aching to feel the
vibrations
beneath me or as I climb,
stirred up in part by where I am
what I touch,
a firm grip,
a tender grip,
taking me higher
and deeper
with each risky step
unaware of where I am,
on what (or whom) I have mounted,
mountain or volcano
until the fumes appear
the heat to loosen my grip,
I do not know which
until I feel the
whole thing
begin to erupt
by which time
it’s too late to stop.
Summer time ain’t easy either May 22, 2012
“Summer time and the living is easy,”
Only it ain’t, especially if you
Can’t stop and smell the roses,
Poor kids on rusted swings
In the church yard next door,
More free in their simply way
Than the hustlers and bustlers
With heads full of schemes,
If only I could rush out
And feel clean air again,
Cool or hot,
Breathe free when we
Spend our lives desperate
For something to happen;
It never does,
We all live school kids lives
Waiting for the school doors
To open and let us loose
Not to return until
After Labor Day,
I want to live my life
Over again
And I suspect you
Do, too,
Only we’ve both
Forgotten how.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
Is it like I remember it? (2014)
When we close our eyes
And must rely on
Other senses
And our memory
Of what we saw
If it is still there,
Touching the surface
To feel if it still
Feels warm or soft
And does it still vibrate,
Does it taste
As good as I recall,
When my eyes
Still deceived me.
Does she smell as sweet
Or is she so
Out of reach
We can’t feel
Or smell or taste
What we once did,
And linger in that
Surrealistic landscape
Of an untrustworthy
Memory,
Of touching
And being touched,
Of loving
And being loved
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Inside you (2014)
I need to climb inside you,
The way you do a shell,
To look out of your eyes
To taste what you taste
With your tongue
I need to feel out it feels
When I touch your breast
Kiss your nipples
Plunge deep into your abyss
I need to fell what it feels like
To have me kiss you,
To know from inside out,
If you feel the way I do,
I need to wrap myself up
inside your skin
To love what you love
To take warmth from my body
When pressed against your,
Sharing sweat that can only be
Created by rubbing together,
I need to hear what you hear
To know you’ll believe
When I say “love.”
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
The smell of the sea Oct. 24, 2026
I still smell the scent of the sea on her, that summer when
she got back from the shore, sundress and sun glasses, reflecting those night
over that lost weekend in the room of the hotel with gold trim, and I ask
myself, do I think all girls are bad, meaning do they sleep over with whomever
they choose, while men like me crave love and must trust to luck, her and the
sea always drawn together in my brain, even now, even all these years later
when she is not the same person she was back then, having given up her beach
towel for something infinitely more substantial, even though I still see her in
the lobby of our office, hair back, her face mostly hidden by over-sized
sunglasses, which reflect my intense desire to be with her at the sea.
Monday, October 26, 2026
That absence April 15, 2024
It is unavoidable
I can’t cease thinking
About it,
The consequences of it,
What is and what it is not,
How I recall it feeling
When I held it,
And the feeling
When it slipped away,
A memory of softness,
Of something utterly sweet,
And the lack of
Suffered from.
I can’t cease to think
About it,
Remember it,
Feel how lost
I am without it,
Carrying that absence
Around inside me,
Pieces of it,
Tumbling around
Unable to come back
Together
As it once was,
Coming together instead
In odd configurations,
Or what it never was,
And I think about it,
Always,
And always will.