The secret life of a rock

Situated at the foot of a gutter spout

Rain water washes over it,

Days ago before a desert sun

With its mean streak beat it dry

The gush of summer squall

Utterly forgotten

If not for the spirit of your father

Watching over it and you,

Blessing you with a ghostly sigh

When you most needed it,

His deep down love leaving

Its moist mark on the ground

A whisper from the other side

You can read from the puddle

The way gypsies read tea leaves

Telling you that he is still there

And that he still loves you.

Dream Streets

I walk the same streets

As you do

In my dreams

Unable always

To recall the names or places

Or even the faces

Only the emotional landmarks

The feelings I felt

When those feet stumble

Over stories of past made present

Or present made past,

The loves won or lost

The truces brokered

Then broken

All of them fading

Into a cloud

Of what might have beens

As I walk in the same shoes

I wore,

Hoping they might lead

Somewhere different this time
but they never do.

Morning chill

A stiff breeze

Blows through

My bedroom window

As I wake

Chilled with just

A tease of changing season

I used to fear fall,

Back to School sales

Leading to the dead of winter

Scolding teachers

Painting bleak futures

For those who did not

Follow all the rules

I learned to love it

Seeing passed the changing leaves

Even though my favorite

College professor

Said age would teach me

To fear it again

And the more permanent

Chill later years

Would bring,

but time hasn’t bent me

backwards

filling me with any more

respect for rules,

it’s the change,

the fading away

of one thing for another

and that brief cool time

when old wounds heal

under a crust of snow

all presumptions

like old leaves

turned to earth

from which other things

better things

can spring up from

in the spring

Al Sullivan's webpage

Jungle warfare

"Keeping your head when all about you others are losing theirs" 

My upstairs neighbor when I lived in Haledon used to talk about the traps the Cong would lay for him when he was over seas in Vietnam, how they were always trying to trick him and his men into making some move they could capitalize on.

“I never let them get in my head,” he said. “You would hear them out there, making noise, making you think you were crazy, and trying to get you angry so that you put yourself at risk. We weren’t crazy, and we always knew the truth. They were only trying to hurt us, and as long as we kept our heads, and knew who the enemy was, we were okay. Those who forgot for a minute just how evil those sons of bitches were, didn’t make it back alive. I’m here because I stayed sane and never let them piss me off.”

Never, however, was too strong a word. Once he thought he might befriend locals.

“When they butchered my best friend, I went ape shit,” he said. “That’s how I got shot up the ass. After that, I knew better. Never forget they are always out to get you, and sometimes, they even think they're smarter than you are."

tick tock

She always looks over her shoulder

For things that aren’t there,

Mistaking the click of her heals

For the tick of a watch

That hasn’t worked right for years

Wound too tight when young

So it tells her what she wants

Not what is,

Scared out of his wits

Lightning rips me open

As I sit facing the dark

Each bolt jolting me erect

Shocking me

Inside and out,

Tearing open

My most vulnerable parts

Bringing out

The most primitive

Fears in me

At my core

I remain the same savage

That hid in caves

Painting alternative

Realities on my walls

So I might make up

For the terror real life raises

Each image only making

The terror worse

coming to life

with each flash

my Frankenstein monster

rising from the depths of me

to seize me

as I stumble

a joke of a man

scared out of his wits

by the thunder

Telemarketer

The telephone always rings when I have a mouth full of food,

Some strange voice from some distant part of the planet

Trying to convince me I really need the product they happen to be selling,

Reminding me again just how sometimes I’ve been guilty of the same thing

Mailing letters when I was young I shouldn’t have mailed or misdialing

The wrong four digit extension to get the wrong voice on the telephone,

Trying to sell a product the person on the far end of the line doesn’t want

Or need, their mouths full of a lunch counter sandwich or cold coffee,

“No offense,” I always tell the poor fool on the other end of the line

When I manage to swallow my meal, just as I slam down the receiver,

Sometimes it takes a click for the real message to get through.

Get over it or get out

The old men in the pub look at me

As I climb onto one of the stools.

This is one of those bars where

Strangers are suspect

And if your grandfather

Didn’t drink here

Then you’re a stranger

This isn’t the kind of bar

Where you go to down your sorrows

These eyes have seen it all before

And give no sympathy

Even to their own

Right or wrong

Love sick or not,

You come here to drink

Not to wallow,

Self pity gets scrapped

Off your shoes at the door

Or kicked out with dirty looks

If you drag it in,

They don’t want to hear

Any crap about

How bad you feel

Or how wronged

You think you are,

Each man tells you

To get over it,

Get on with your life

Each man says

Any woman has the right

To tell you to get lost

Even for no better reason

Than being sick of seeing you

Take it outside,

If you can’t take it

The stares say,

We don’t need to hear

About it,

Get over it, or get out.

Flying Solo

It ain’t easy to get back

Control once auto pilot quits

You get so used to other people

Steering you places

Even if they are the wrong places

That you don’t know what to do

When they let you go

They want you to crash and burn

And get more than a little peeved

When you cling to their tail feathers

With the vain hope they won’t

Let both of you fail,

But such desperate moves comes

With a price

A nausea neither one of you

Quiet recover from

As both commit unforgivable sins

In the attempt to force the other

To let go

Eventually you both do,

Learning finally what if feels like

To fly solo.

The blue balloon

I drive the back way home

Lost in thought

Deaf and dumb

Moving through streets

I know so well

I don’t have to hear or see

Alive, but not alive,

Seeing everything

In the rear view mirror

A dull ache of lost things

Propelling me forward

As I search the road side

For omens of what might be

Should be

Or can never be again

Lost on even these familiar streets

A spirit trapped inside my chest

Banging on these walls of flesh
while I am desperate to keep it in

Fearing it might slip out

and vanish

forgiving me for its fleeing

Like that blue balloon

I lost at eight

When the string slipped

From between my fingers,

Me crying pointlessly

At something that could care less

A shrinking figure against

The pale sky

The loss of which I still mourn

An inanimate, pointless,

Inflated piece of plastic

That had no feelings

At all.

The injustice of love

There is no justice in love

Only the injustice of passion

Pushing people to extremes

Of kindness or meanness

Depending on the source

From which it is drawn

Like honey bears the spate

Of the flowers

The bee’s made love to

In gathering its nectar

Bad love always tastes of pain

Like the pain of a bad upbringing

A brutal mother

Taking revenge on her children

For the husband who left her,

Living in a remote place

After being wed to nobility

The father was too noble

To embrace,

Mean love breeding mean love

Leaving only its bad taste behind

And the ache for purity

No longer possible

Except in the rare instance

When God takes mercy

And sends a Savior.

Master of Innuendo

She is a master of innuendo

The suggested phrase

The connotation

As with the description

Of pictures she had

If she dared use them

Or the criticism she titled

An addition to a paragraph

To suggested how illiterate

And ill-informed the author

Of the original was

Polictians call it deniability

To give that innocent shrug

While asking,

“Whatever did you mean?”

When the lightning bolt

Hits you right between the eyes

Daring you to find

As clever a way to strike back,

Staring straight into your eyes

Like a hired gun,

Knowing you can’t draw down

When you use a blunt instrument

Rather than a scalpel

You can’t win a war of words like that

Her sharp shooter already drawing

By the time you reach for yours,

Her rapier sticking away at your vital parts

As your broad sword clatters on the ground

Her look so innocent you even thought

She committed the crime,

You always asking her for forgiveness

Even as she leaves her bloody

Fingerprints on your brow

Tick tock clock in my head

I hear the tick tock of the clock tick in my head

And think I am dead,

Darkness of pre-dawn consuming me

And the room like a grave

There’s even the musty scent of turned earth

And the idea that light might never come
and we might spend an eternity hearing

The tick tocks and seeing the dark,

We who live and breathe between each tick’s stroke

Waiting for that one tick followed by silence

But the ticks never cease only our thoughts

Making us wonder if this is really what life

Is all about, the tick without the tock,

Telling us finally, the clock has stopped.

Femme-fatale

I couldn’t speak

My mind ceased working

Standing there

With bullshit coming

Out of me

As my feet

Ached to flee

Me, the inept Bogart
unable to spit out

My most famous lines

It wasn’t the gun

She had aimed

At my head

I dreaded

I’m used to those

It was the shards of glass
in this femme-fatales’ eyes

And the look of contempt

She kept for those

Too weak to survive

The world in which

She’d survived for so long

Clawing her way to the top

Of every small ant hill,

Like this, taking

What she wanted

But rarely getting

What she needed,
spitting out men like me
like pits

Adding more shards

To a stare

That cut people open

Just to look at

People who always

Crawled away

Bleeding

Innocence

It doesn’t end

with the snap of a gavel

No jangle of keys

to take off the cuffs

Perhaps a crime in itself

In a world where

Every day you strive to survive,

Looking over your shoulder

For the blade aimed

between your shoulder blades

A crappy game
where most days

The dice come up snake eyes

Or sevens and elevens

When you need

To make a point

Can’t be innocent here

Of your get run over, run down

Or used up,

Can’t play dumb either

Or someone marks

you as a narc

You either wise up

and learn the rules

And play this game to win

Or you always lose

Rain drops like pearls

Waiting for the rain

So I can go out

And walk in it,

To feel clean again

Even in this part

Of a dirty planet,

Rain drops

Unlike tear drops

Formed around

Specks of dust

Just the way pearls are

Each irritation in life

An invitation to grow

Each drop drenching

Me with potential,

Soaking me to the core

So I am never the same

When I get back,

The worst part

Is always the waiting

me opened up

and vulnerable

like an oyster
filled with specks of dust

I ache to shape

Into pearls

Al Sullivan's webpage

A simple rule of thumb

My army drill instruction

Once told me

I no longer

Belong to myself

And gave me

A simple rule of thumb:

Speak when I am spoken to,

Do what I’m told to do

When I’m told to do it

No matter what it is

And never, ever

Think for myself

Unless I ask

Permission first,

And then, he added

With a wry smile,

I might just survive

Mocking Bird

Gray dresses the sky

Outside the living room window

A car alarm rips open

The early morning hours

Then goes silent

It’s sputtering leaving room

For the mocking birds

Who now out of mating season

Cease their back flips

And take up the call

Of a cell phone

Ringing but never answered

Lacking even the wisdom

The car alarms have

To turn off when it is clear

No one is paying

Any attention.

Mum

 

To exist or not
is one more tale

Told by an idiot

Whose feet stumbles

Through this neck

Of the woods

Waiting for a tree

To fall so as to know

for sure,

Keeping mum these days

So as to let life foster

Too much chatter

Chases the wild life away

Even my footfall

Over old leaves

Sounds as if I am

Breaking bones

I step with more care now

Hating to leave my mark

On such a sensitive place

Keeping silent

So as to become invisible

Coming and going

Unnoticed

Just one more lost spirit
in a world of insane people
projecting their insanity
on me.

No tears, just rain

The rain dribbles

off the awnings

As I wake

On this gray August morning

Dreams of flowers

And forgotten

Woodland paths

Fading into the cool

Reality of a wet world

A haunted world

Where I still limp

Like a wounded soldier

Lost in the limbo

Of past defeats

Having surrendered my will

To superior forces

My once righteous flags

Unfurled but limp at my side

Dripping not of tears or blood

Merely rain

Old hosts fading into memory

As I dream of peace

Craving for paths

Least trod upon

And the company

Of spirits.

A sip of wine?

Sometimes
a sip is enough
a taste of wine
on the tip of the tongue
to remind you,
no feast needed
for a starving man
no drunken revelry
just a taste
a sip
a memory

The scent of roses

I could always smell the roses

When I was in the kitchen

Oozing up from that near-dead

Plant my grandfather

Put behind the house

Just after the family moved in

After the war

A decade before

I came to live there

A living poem

With withering limbs

And a scant handful

Of blooms sticking out

From the end of mostly

Dead branches

The plant somehow surviving

From season to season

Spouting up again

After each winter’s snow

Always managing

To push out a handful

Of flowers

Whose scent filled the air

And carried into the kitchen

Especially on very warm days,

A plant still there

After my grandfather died

And my grand mother

Moved out,

Still lingering in me

A living memory

Reborn each time I catch

A whiff of rose

On warm summer days,

Me still that little boy

Drenched in the scent

Of my grandparents’ love poem,

Seeing them still

Holding hands on the back porch

As sunset falls into evening

And then into the deepest dark

The scent of roses

All around them

Bucket in the bushes

Where I stand,

I’ve stood before
like a scolded

kid at camp

who got caught

dumping water

on the camp

counselor’s head

feigning innocence

while hiding

the bucket in the bushes

sometimes I’m wrong

even when I’m right

cursing catastrophes

in other people

and pretending

nobody sees the bucket

that isn’t dripping water

but someone’s blood

Past and future

I wait for the text

That says you’re okay

Arrived where you

Said you would arrive

Even if I can’t keep

The same company you do

So distant it is difficult

To see the same landscape

Or feel the same air

The scent of green things

Growing around you

After living in such a barren world

Not hopeless just unproductive

Full of storms and dust

And hazy visions of the future

You now launched

Into some new endeavor

Marrying past and future

And I wait for the text to say

It all came out all right.

The sound of rain

The rain drums

its nervous fingers

On the awning

outside my window

Our lives filled

with mis-opportunities

And unrealized ambitions

But it is the sound of rain

That gives me pleasure

You can’t fake that feeling

As if some primitive

Excitement born

Out of the caves,

Making me shiver

And laugh

I ache to feel safe

Even when others

Tell me how sorry

I’ll be

Safe from the ravages

Of the storm

I know can’t touch me

Where I really live

Full of “sound and fury”

But no real threat

I feel clean

If just a little sad

Hearing the desperate

Whisper of the wind

And the voices

Of those still lost

In the midst of the storm

Holding nothing

But the cold wet air

Feeling nothing

But their own despair.

It wasn’t me this time

 I hate the idea of it

but it wasn’t me this time

The kid the cops caught

On fourth street

Trying to blow up

The mayor’s lawn ornaments

With gun powder

I made from my chemistry set

I spent a life time blowing things up

Just to see what things looked like

Pieces of pottery

Falling down around me

Like so much snow,

Knowing that this one time

I wasn’t the culprit

and hating the idea

that anyone might be,

air thick with the shards
of my unresolved guilt

glad that this one time

I’m not to blame

Sad that anyone is

After all these years

I ache to put

The pieces back together

And just can’t find them all

Or figure out

What order they go in.

Drift wood

Drift woods marks this shore line

Near the foot of this old bridge

The place I come to and think

Each stroke of water on the shore

Filling me up

The steady caress I need

At times like these

Water kissing these stones

And over time, melting away

The most stubborn rock

As it patience alone

Can ear away the mightiest fortress

Or make a man like me into a hero

This place filled with hope

And the scent of green

This time of year,

Sunsets drawing closed the curtains of night

A kiss before I sleep

Stirring up in me forgotten

Passions I feel deep inside

Even as I rise again to go.