Burying it in tissue paper June 14, 2013

  

I look at her photos on my phone the way I used to look at the Playboy centerfold when I was a kid, too old to be pinning over such stuff, unable to help myself from doing to, needing to, undressing her in my mind, the way I needed to do when looking at the already naked ladies that porn brought later, the result always the same, the self-satisfaction required to ease the pain those pictures bring, sometimes, taking longer tan other times, always ending up with the small mess I must burying in tissue paper, some nights letting me drift off into a firmer reality of dreams, while other nights, I cling to it all, as if it was real, feeling the throb of what those pictures cause deep inside me.

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All I want for Christmas November 25, 2012

 

I tune in too late to catch the start but get enough of the broadcast to know I have no yet missed Santa, and imagine what he might say if I got onto his lap (the say I did at 3 or 4 or 5) and told him what I really want in my Christmas stocking, the image of long legs in nylon too intense, as I sit in front of the TV set and watch, wading through the parade of bands and floats and character blimps, my brain painting obscene scenes with Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend, and wonder what Santa’s helpers (dressed in tights so tight I need on imagination to imagine what’s under it all) do in that workshop up north, keeping themselves warm through the winter months in ways Santa would not approve, the announcer telling me the tiny details, such as where this particular participant comes from, yet nothing intimate enough to keep off my craving for when the big man comes and I get to confess my deepest desires, needing to get warm the way his elves do, with the one person I know Santa won’t leave under my tree, stockings or not, choosing to give me coal instead.

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Fire in her eyes (2014)

 

I light the tapered candles

The flames flicker in her eyes

As if the fire came out of her,

The warmth of it stinging

My fingers as I touch her hair

Or cup her chin with the

Palm of my hand,

As I bend to give her a kiss,

All this a fleeting fantasy

In my mind,

As the flames at the tips

Of the candles flicker,

Showing me what I want

To see, what it might be

Like, alone, together,

In the moment,

Across a table laden

With treats

While I believe

She is dessert

I don’t deserve,

And yet

Still hunger for.

 

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Wishes that won’t come true Jan. 15, 2026

 

The chill returns, a reminder that we still reside in the heart of winter, even on days of bright sunlight and the absence of snow or rain, the countdown already started towards days that are longer than night, less dark time to get haunted by, dreams thick with wish fulfillment, for dreams never fulfilled, all the more reason to stay awake or to wake before the cock crows, to get up, drink coffee, await the return of sun, dreams too thick with remembrances, of all that could have been, a life lived without mist and shadow, melting clocks, the timelessness of our most acute desires, when we need warmth again, of spring, still too many days in the future to have faith in.

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Abandoned dog aug 2012

  

I know how an abandoned dog feels

cast out after nipping his master

too many times

 love tolerates only so much

 before it wears out

and ceases to mean anything

 if it meant anything at all

when it started

dog days of summer

 taking on a whole new meaning

the drudgery of daily routine

 the heat that keeps sleep away

 along with worry

 this fear that doom might descend

 at any moment

like an unexpected thunderstorm

against which there is no shelter

all going on as if normal

 when it is all but that

 and she offering compassion

as a belated birthday gift

hers recently mine now so long ago

 compassion that feels like pity

which in itself is a gift of God'

something being better than nothing

 in a world where all that once was

or might have been evaporates

under too much hot sun

breathing impossible to take in

too deeply the loss

to severe .

to accept too easily

dog Days

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Swan song? April 19, 2026

 I didn't hear the song until today

 though for more than a decade it is something that I craved

 The missing Link in a story untold

why she needed to come back to her old world

 a song about her one true love from when she was very young

 and here each time he left her again she felt so alone

 and how when she began to sing

she felt the light of joy her song could bring

 and how at a time now two years past.

 she has come back at home at last

 A song for a love she always craved

 and I wonder now was she finally saved

 the voice as vivid as it was back when

 I turned her in again and again

A song I missed along the way

 and maybe how she was finally saved 

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Private sign language (2014)

  

I remember

Looking down at her fingers

When she forbade me

To look into her eyes,

Ringed fingers

Some of the time.

Animated with

A life of their own,

Gestures telling tales

I struggled to read

As private sign language

Not so much dedicated

To the deaf,

But for those gifted enough

To understand these

Messages she would

Share with no one else,

Tales of adventure,

Of woe, of hunger,

Or of lust,

Fingers sometimes poised

Into a temple

Before her face,

The tips touching

The edge of her lips,

Seductive, teasing,

Unbridled when moving

About, a billboard

To her soul, about her life

Her aspirations

Carving art out of the air,

Fingers touching

And aching to be touched,

Only not by me.

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