Water Fairies

I walk out to the river

Where the old piers lay

Like the exposed bones

Of some ancient predator

Life streaming by it

Sending waves to lick

At its dilapidated sides

Sunlight playing over it

A strangely silent place

For this part of the world,

Hoboken, New York, Weehawken

All leaning in to stare

At its broken top

Taking pity on it, perhaps

Even offering it comfort

Like kindly gods

As the ferries rush by

Headed to the hubbub

In other parts of this famous harbor,

Me and this pier fast friends

After so many encounters such as this,

Me coming to it like a pilgrim

Seeking its indulgence

As we both somehow endure

The ravages of time and circumstance

And maybe our own folly,

Seeking forgiveness

From the water fairies

Who play upon the glittering surface,

Each bearing a soft smile

As if to say,

All will be well

If we let it

Bad air

I hear the river even in my dreams

The rush of its fast water giving up its steam

On hot days like these

I used to sit near the foot

Of the Dundee falls

Letting the spray cool my face

Fish feeding on the bottom

With their cris-cross patterned backs

Like crossword puzzles to fill in

Their lives defined by feed or die,

So they keep moving,

No sharks this far up river to worry over

Just the greedy fishermen

Who constantly cast, hooking the same fish

Again and again, fish they don’t want

And can’t eat because of the polluted water,

The same fish suffering through the hook

Over and over until they get used to the pain

Or dig deep in the muck in an attempt

To ignore the constantly dangling bait,

On hot days like this, old man Ben

Always brings out his cooler full of water

Handing me something to drink

And telling me to calm down,

Dig deep and wait for the wind

To blow all the bad air out

So we can all breathe free again.

The trouble with omens

The signs along this road

Makes no sense to me

Pointing this way and that

My road map no longer valid

Since none of these highways

Are on it.

We live in a world filled

With portends and omens

A crow’s cry from a high branch

Warning me of some danger

I can never see

A fish flop on the river top

Telling of some good event

I must attend

But never the address

Or as time I should arrive

I’m always arriving too soon

Or too late

The uncomfortable guest

Standing on the front stoop

Before any of the other guests

Have arrived,

Struggling to make up

Conversation to fill the time

Or too late when all the good talk

Has been expired

And I am left alone in the corner

An unacknowledged wall flower

Trying to pick out new omens

Off the wall paper

Or make out where the back door is

So I can make my escape,

I ache to read the signs

Before they ceased

To mean anything meaningful.

Dream trains

I wake up to the sound of trains

Moving through the valley below

Horns sounding off the low cliffs

Like the distant voices

Lingering from my dreams,

Urgent messages from that other world

Urging me to return,

Knowing the real danger

Isn’t in a sweat-filled dreamscape

But in the day to day living

Where snakes and spiders crawl,

I ache for the touch of spirits

Whose soft kisses still linger

On my tear-streaked cheeks,

Their breath clinging to me

Like a protective cloak,

Guarding me against those things

I know I must face upon waking,

Like a slick second skin

I wear beneath my clothing,

The train moves on

Lost in the ether of the real world

My ticket stuff expired

Until sleep greets me again.

One foot in each world

I can’t believe I have a bum leg

In the world of magic, too,

A man ought to get a break

When he steps over into the other side
me being the bearer of light

Shouldn’t I be able to walk straight?

And not constantly trip over

Things I don’t see in the dark

One foot in each world

And I’m still deaf, dumb and blind,

Searching for the glow I know

You must have in that world, too,

I have to wonder at what other flaws

I have dragged with me over the brink,

Am I as moody over there?

As self righteous

As pig headed,

Do I still blow my top each time

Someone spreads a lie about me?

Am I the same muddle-headed fool

I am on this side

Knee-jerking with a bad knee
When all I want out of life on either side

Is to feel good about myself,

To find real live that hasn’t been tainted

By real life.

Saved

You know when the bad ones cut you

You never bleed

The poison goes too deep

You get to thinking it’s you

When common sense
tells you the mad person

Leaning off the roof is to blame

The person who is so forgiving

But never sorry,

Locking doors against

Imaginary threats

Invented as an excuse

To hurt people.

Me, I just got out with my life

Because you were there

Stretching out your arms

When dark shadows

And false claims tried

To consume me.

Your life line

Brought me back

From that edge of that insanity

And keeps me from falling back

Leaving that demon

To suck somebody else’s blood

To cut deep into somebody else’s chest,

Leaving no trail of blood

Only poison.

Old foot steps

I still walk these old streets

Though I’ve not been here in decades

My life branded on those sidewalks

As permanently as the names of starts

My sweat dripping between the splotches

Of dried up chewing gum

And the tiny coffins of old cigarettes

My voice raised to hawk the paper

Nobody wants after the first day

And lately, I wander here more often

Than before because of you,

My steps tracing your steps

Though I have not seen them until now

Steps I would have run after

Seeking you out, begging you to know me

As I know you now

That world colliding with mine

Over uncertain connections

So that after all this time we meet

If only in between the beats

And beeps of some

Temperamental electronic beast

But I still walk these streets

In my dreams

Seeking those steps from long ago.

The last reprieve

Do echoes speak the truth?

Of empty stages

And fingers clutching broken strings,

Or clutching crack keys

The empty sockets

Where bulbs won’t sin

Souls that play like ghosts

To empty chairs

With only the memory

Of faces once there

Sad creaking wood

Swaying to worn melodies?

Do the echoes still ring clear

Or are they muddle phrasing

Over done,

Never certain

Of their last repeat

Markers

The ancient building tops

Stand against the pale sky

Like icons of gods

No mortal hands intended

When constructing these

The blue highways are filled

With markers such as these

Leaving us something

To guide our lives by

Towards something

That is true,

Avoiding wrong turns

That lead to dead ends

There are no wrong turns

Along roads filled

With markers such as these

Even though

We do not always know

Where it is we’re going

When we start,

Only when we get there.

The small details

I always think

I leave something on

Back home half way

To where ever it is

I’m going

Knowing I’ll be

Gone days,

The water running,

The coffee pot on

Did I even remember

To lock the door

Thoughts haunting me

The whole time

I am away,

The ghost of a past life

I can’t shed

Clinging to my heals

As I walk,

I wake with it

The first night

And each night after

More terrified over it

Than any real disaster

It’s always the small details

That get to me

Always that last thing

I forgot to do

Or say on my way

From this place to that,

When after all

There’s no damned thing

I can do about it

Anyway.

Sacred ground

I come onto sacred ground

And feel my world shake

The emptiness of existence

Spread with drifting leaves

Never landing anywhere for long

Cast up by each new gust

To land again and again

Until age makes ruins of them

No romantic castles to linger

No ivy to grow over stones

Just these crumbling bits

Of memory

Slowly fading to dust.

The reason they live

The reason they live

Those heart broken poets

Who have settled for less

For less fertile ground

That they might some day

Help the artist find art

The poet a poem

They continue simply

Because they must

The tangible and intangible

Sometimes, you have to go home

To pick up the pieces of your life

Those strands strewn across

A memory landscape

That never seemed so sweet

As they do now

Sand blasted by into sleek visions

You could never see growing up

Each piece, driftwood of life

Washed up on this beach

In the middle of nowhere

For you to find and treasure

And bring back with you

To those places

To which you have drifted

A memory carried

Outside and in

Tangible and intangible

A feeling you could find

No place else on earth

And won’t ever

Find again.

Happy landings

Last word before your flight

Reaches me with no time

Left to respond,

To wish you luck
or to take care.

So much gets left

Unsaid at moments

Like these

Too many miles

Up and out

To say anything

But to wait

For the outcome

And hope you land

As well as possible

And then find time

To let me know

All or nothing – or nothing at all

Qualities in people do not come ala cart

You can’t pick and choose which parts

You like and leave the rest for someone else

Picking the writer over the social butterfly

The singer over the late night host

Explaining perhaps why old lovers

Just can’t become friend

Always getting bogged down by the bad parts

Nothing person, they tell you, when

It is personal you crave,

Only not the “too personal” that got in the way

Ion the first place

That stuff that always takes you back to that

Turn in the road when all went south

But you do need a road map to get

To the turn you wanted in the first place

When a smile and nod meant nothing more

Than what they were

A road map to direct you passed all
the wrong turns that always end up in dead ends

Even the right turn is risky

With no real guarantee you’ll get where

You want, you can only hope for the best

And keep driving.

The voice on the voice mail

I hear her voice on my voice mail

Saying I said things I didn’t say

The pain so real I know she means it

And hates me all the more

For what I couldn’t say

Or never said right

Each time I tried to explain

I only made it worse

Stirring up a caldron of anguish

For which I can never find a cure

Playing the message over and over

In my head

Trying to untangle the misinformation

Knowing it can never be undone

Knowing that the more often I try

The more tangled it gets

Knowing she will never forgive me

Or forget those things

I never said.

Ode to truth

We met in the park

He and I,
me sharing the deepest

Secrets of my life

With a man I thought

Was my friend

Because I had no one

Else to tell

And I trusted him,

Desperate to get his advice

On how I could ease

The pain

Trying not to let on

To anybody else

What I felt or knew

As not to hurt you

His voice always

The voice of reason

And calm,

Who turned out

A lip licking sneak

Who snuck back

Out of your sight

Content to know

My secrets

Without telling you

He knew,

And me,
carrying inside me

This new secret of his deceit

Without even

A park bench tell to you on

Knowing how much you trusted

This man

Knowing how I would

Get the blame

When I let his secret lie out,

Knowing that

I would be branded a gossip

When I trusted the same

Untrustworthy man

You trusted

And had to somehow

Warn you

And risked my life

Telling you.

Boundaries

Every time my best friend Dave and I

Ran away from home as kids

He always marked the same spot

As making our escape official

Everything scared us back then

Especially the people who raised us

His old man beating him for backtalk

When it was the bottle in his old man’s pocket

That did all the talking

Me, I was always pissing off somebody

In my house, my boy-crazy uncle

Once chased me around my house with a hammer

Though we both knew it wasn’t the hammer

He intended to hit me with if I got caught.

Dave always stopped at the end of our street

And said, ‘this is it, this makes it official,”

And I always believed him, more scared of what

Lay ahead after that, than the beatings or the abuse

Back at our houses,

Even though we had run away so often

As to know every inch of that terrain.

We always expected something horrible to happen

Because we violated some sacred trust

To be beaten or raped, to love the people who did it

Dave and I always bickered most at these times

About which way to go, and which one of us

Wanted to turn back, and why,

With me or he calling him or me a coward

He even said I wasn’t being his friend any more

Because I was scared and said stupid things,

Both of us knowing that we loved each other

To ever stop being friends,

Even all these years later when we both managed

To get away – finally.

Too much to ask?

The man in the dark suit

Always thinks I’m out to get him

When I’m not

I just don’t want him to hurt me

I rather like the guy

For all the dark looks he gives me

But every time I try

To shake his hand

He pulls out a knife

Telling me to keep my distance or else

It’s all or nothing with him.

He either loves you to death

And sticks you in his broom closet

Or he keeps you out of reach

Across the street,

Always eyeing me as if I hate him

When I don’t.

I just don’t like close, dark spaces

And want a warm hand to shake

And encouraging word

And maybe a pat on the back

With a hand that isn’t holding a knife

Is that too much to ask?

Letting things go too far

I always push things too far

Like an acupuncturist with a long needle

Poking and poking until he hits a nerve

And always getting kicked when I do

The pain, a strange reward for somehow

Getting a reaction from a stone

But not a stone

Just bone and flesh so cold,

Global warming couldn’t thaw them

Fresh filled with untapped rage

The needle probes and finds, and lets gush

The questions remain which

Is to blame for the pain

The needle or the stone,

And when will I ever learn to stop

Pushing? and if the stone will

Ever cease to cause human misery?

Do not touch the glass

The sign said it all,

The glorious-feathered bird

With its blazing colors

Perched inside
Twisting its head

This way, then that,

Trying to figure out

Who I am

On this side of the glass

The keeper telling us

“Look, don’t touch,

don’t smudge the glass,”

and we can’t,

hands pinned to our sides

by the keeper’s glare,
hapless, helpless

in the presence of

nature’s wonders,

bound by rules of order

we dare not break,

“Do not touch the class,”

the sign says,

and we don’t,

no matter how close

the bird gets

or how much its stare

twists inside of us.

After glow

I hobbled up the walkway

From Hoboken

Leaning so heavily on my cane

I nearly fell

Wounded in some conflict

I never intended to fight

But refused to wave

A white flag

“Concede but never surrender,”

an old Viet Vet once told me,

“Retreat, regroup, even move on

if you have to, but never give in.”

In the breeze off the harbor

All this seemed moot

Golden flowers licking their lips

As I passed,

Fishermen casting their lines

Near where the walkway turned

On the Weehawken side

Sail boats with lowered sails

Floating in a cove so peaceful

I could not help but catch their drive

Though I could still see across the cove

The building where I should have been

And the meeting I was supposed to attend

Too far away to hurry back for,

If there was anything to hurry to

When peace and flowers

Showered me here in their after glow

Telling me just how great life can be.

Another breathing lesson

Nobody but fish, whales

And dark things from the deep

Can breathe under water

I know I can’t

Each time I open my mouth

I nearly drown

Lesson #1

Keep my mouth shut

When over my head

Lesson #2

Don’t swim in water

So deep

My toes can’t touch

The bottom.

Being true by default

Mostly I can’t remember,

Faces pressed upon steamy mirror glass

Eyes buried in folds of flesh

I try to reason it out

As I watch trains go by me

With mannequins in each window

They must sit them there when the train starts

And let them find their own way back

It must be hard being no one at all

Two trains pass here every single day

One going up, one coming down

The same flaccid faces looking out of both

Newspaper neatly wrinkled like drapes

As if they could read or would want to

Yet it’s something to do, staring at print

Sometimes, they can’t see me

The trees at thick as pine with the speed of the train

I am an illusion, created by distance

I am one of those who have been left behind

The impact of the default button automatically pushed

All faces look the same in the blur

Sometimes, I sit and count the train cars

and how over time they seem to dwindle

fewer blank faces to choose from

All a blur of motion, all faces becoming invisible

Until only one face remains, by default

Staring out at the constant blur, free forever.

Escaped only with my life

I realize that after months

Of crazy midnight messages

Of that rooftop maniac

Who stares down into the gulf

I just escaped with my life

This person locking and unlocking

Doors against imagined threats

Manufactured in that person’s own head

All of them leading to the roof

Where it is documented on

In cell phone photographs

Sent out like press releases

Ten days before the actual event

Or the “I should not tell you

What I did last night,”

Then lays out a layout

So perverse it twists

Inside me like a knife

Always forgiving

But never sorry

Always shifting blame

Onto the backs of other people

Always saying “I never lie,”

When that itself is a lie.

Sometimes,

You’re just lucky

To have real friends

Who help you get out

Helping me to escape

With my life

And that friend

Is you.

A twist of gold

It isn’t the wedding ring

She twists when she twists

The man around her finger

Gold glittering at intervals

Like the lash of a whip strike

Each twist tormenting him

Tightening him from inside out

Grinding flesh and bone

Until he resembles a taunt

Rubber band

How far can she twist him

Before he breaks?

How much pain will he endure

While still crying out for more?

Gold turning to fire until

He burns out, and she, yawning

Reaches for another man

Smashing Watches

You never really know what the truth is

When you take a hammer to a watch

You want to know what’s inside so bad

You smash and never learn how it works

A man might look you straight in your eyes

And say what he claims is true

When everything but his eyes

Tells you he’s lying

And you have no way to prove it

So you smash the watch

And watch the springs slither across

The table top between you,

Reading no more truth at all

Just ruined metal

You can never know how much

A man knows unless you ask him

And must somehow have faith

In what he says is true

Even when you know it might not be

Even when the tock ticks tell you

Something else is true

And you know if you want to keep

The world in balance

You let the watch tick

And let his lie lay where it is

On his lips

But some men like me always

Smashes watched,

Even when in the end

Nothing good comes of it.

Never free of guilt

You can’t ever escape guilt

When you’re always

At least half wrong

Guilt clings to you

Like a wet rag

And no matter how

You shake your feet

To get free of it

You never do.

Nor can you make up

For the disasters you cause

Such as the man

Whose cigar ignites

A brush fire

Turn forest fire

Even though he

Rescues his neighbor’s dog

Even provoked

You can’t claim innocence

Knowing that deep inside

You always had this

Particular button

The wrong people

Could always push,

And you always let

The wrong people push it,

Just to see what happens

Then crying foul

At the ill feelings

If what you feel

Are real feelings at all

Sometimes, it’s just a roar

You hear in your ears,

Or a hiss of escaping steam

The source of which

You can never find,

But you know the heat

Because it scalds your fingers

And rarely does the person

Who pushed the button

In the first place

Ever get burned.

Pictures like popcorn

The pictures pop up

like popcorn on the screen

a slide show of passing images

of things I’ve never seen

each grander than the last,

a regular parade of pleasure

I get to watch from the comfort

Of my computer,

Aching over each for hours seated,

For the need to be there

And see it all for myself,

Shedding the pain of isolation

And the leaves of a calendar

That shed as fast

As each photograph fades

Life always passes too fast

And I hobble too slowly

To ever keep up,

these pictures

a memory of things

I’ve never actually seen.

Dark side of this moon

The egrets leave their mark in the mud

As if on the dark side of the moon

With me alone to witness their foot prints

Before the tides erase them

We are not allowed to leave

Anything behind

The silent stalkers in this remote existence

Struggling to find identity

Striding ever so carefully as to not

Upset the delicate balance of nature

Or show others of our kind

Where we might have strode

We stumble constantly over unforeseen things

The stones protruding from the mud

The carved hearts of strangers left

But we can not leave

If we are to remain invisible

Egrets strutting with long legs

And long memories

Seeking substance among

The debris

Fearful to eat too much

Always aware that the incoming tide

Can take it all away

At any moment.

Rain on tiger lilies

The drops come in spurts

Leaving their golden dew

On each elongated tip

No bees to violate

The tiger lilies this morning

Not even the distant

Rumble of thunder

That had brought this storm

The lightning that had

Ripped open the sky

Gone to a more gentle touch

As each drop gently kisses

And cools these sharp lips

Making the erect pistil shudder

Rain that flows clean

From the tip of each petal

To moisten the rich brown

Soil at their feet,

The flock of them,

Shifting slowly to the impact

In a ritual I know

Must end with the rain,

Each waiting for that moment

When the sun tears

Through the veil of clouds

And exposes them again.

Peace treaty

The Indian tonic

Smacks of dusty trails

Corn cobs,

Long weary miles

Of wavering wheat

Swallowed in two hard gulps

The product of years

Gestating

Waiting just for you

And they stare at you

Wet eyes unbelieving

Long faces struck with shock

The chief coughs

Into a yellow scarf

Worn thin with faded design

Stained with tears

At its center

Grim reminders of

Remembered pain

Then he takes his swig

Wincing slightly

He coughs again

Looking again at you

in disbelief

behind his eyes

he’s thinking

you are laughing

at him.

Pizza man

I’m the pizza delivery guy

Who got run over by his own truck

Before he got a chance to get to your door,

The working out violence he could

Have expected once he got there

The surprise tip he didn’t know

About waiting inside

The pizza growing cold and limp

In the box while you got what he

Really came for

Making up for society’s unfairness

Night after night

The boxes piling up outside the door

The pizza men stumbling away

Confused by what just happened

Powerless to stop it

Not sure they want to

Me, still working to jack up the back

Of my delivery van

To inflate the tire

That went flat on the way

The pizza growing cold

Even without the tip

I might have otherwise

Gotten

email to Al Sullivan

Wish waters

I always come to the water to heal,

Even when my wounds are self-inflicted

Me, seeking the cool wet to soothe

That ache I cannot soothe myself

The idea of living my life

As an after thought,

Some bit of detritus that

Washes up to shore from

Time to time,

Remembered briefly

Then forgotten as the tide

Washes me away again

The idea of living that you can

Live your life

Collecting bits of junk from the shore

All that come and go from your life

Never able to keep

The one that matters most,

That one treasure always slipping

From your grasp just as you reach it.

There is an illusion to freedom,

Our lives always governed

By ebbs and flows,

Moon and sun,

Live and dead water,

Some pools in which we

Get stuck and stagnate,

While other seas drag us

Far from those things we want

I never know which is worse,

To never see the same place twice

Or to see the same place

Over and over,

And know there is no escape,

Caught there by obligations

You just can’t break free of,

While on the other side

No anchor can keep you secure

From the tides that tear you adrift

Always seeing distance shores

As they fade from view.

Witness

These things always come

At the time I need them most

Like my cousin’s wedding

In 1987 when I was down and out

Just when I think love doesn’t exist

Someone comes along to prove me wrong
a hastily thrown-together ceremony

Contemplated for years

Then plunge into in slightly over a week

Meant to last a life time,

And most likely will

With me a not-so-innocent bystander

Called up to commemorate the moment

with camera and flash

and when a witnessed failed to arrive

stepping up into that role, too

To sign my name to a document

Meant to last forever

Feeling like a father giving away

His only daughter

And scared about her fate

When love explodes out of them

With a radiance

I need sunblock to endure

Proving once again

Love does prevail

For those who know how to wait

And what do look for

And me, the ever skeptical witness

Blinded by their passion

And their persistence

A lesson in life

I have to learn again and again and again

But always coming back to this same place

Knowing that it can be real after all.