The immortal touch

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

We touch shoulders in the dark

But I want more

Like a luckless down and out beggar

Rubbing his hands on his lucky stone

Desperate to make something come of it,

A boy scout with stick firmly gripped

Between his sweaty palms

Stroking with the hope he can make fire

Only I am no boy scout,

And the first I ache to make

Won’t keep me warm, but will consume me

And I don’t care, desperate to turn

This tiny smoldering bit of smoke

all my strokes have caused

for something more intense

something I can throw myself into,

a mortal sacrifice for a chance

at the immortal this touch leads to than

until we rub together so hard,

we cannot help but explode

On the tip of your tongue

Saturday, December 20, 2014

You feel it first

On the tip of your tongue

Before you taste it

Yielding then unyielding,

And as moist as a ripe mushroom

Making you ache to sink

All your teeth into it

But you plunge your tongue

Deep into it instead,

Circling the place

That makes you ache the most,

Lost in the depths of the forest

With no yearning to escape,

Waiting for the wolves to devour you

When you are the wolf

With the world on the tip of your tongue,

Doing all you can to ease the ache

To prepare this holy ground

For more of you to enter,

Your unyielding core plunging

Deep into that abyss

Rubbing more than just sticks together

With the hope of making a fire

That will consume you

Even as you burst,

So that you can no longer feel or taste

Or think, but merely keep on.

Going deep

Sunday, December 14, 2014

I fall into your eyes

With arms outstretched

A deep sea dive

Into an abyss I know

I can never escape from

The dark depths of it

So filled with doubt

I’m sure I’ll drown

And do not care

Feeling the warmth

Of it as I break the surface

The press of it against

My flesh as I struggle to swim,

No break this deep in,

And yet, I try,

Breathing in something

Far richer and thicker

Than air, heat

Searing my lungs

With each gap,

I am scalded

Head to toe,

And even then

As a drowning man

I do not despair

Fingers feeling for the soft of it

As I reach, and reach again

Outstretched and vulnerable

Exposed to it all

The chill of not being here

More terrifying than even sinking

Too far down to know

I can’t possibly survive

If I do not dive

So I dive all the deeper

Seeking what I know is

Really there,

Something I need

Far more than I need air.

Hot Wax

Hot Wax

Warning: this is a link to a series of erotic poems

Daylight savings

Nov. 2, 2014

The cold touches the morning

For the first time since spring,

Coming a full day after a heavy rain

The chill of wet still lingers in me

Even after the streets have dried

And so I stumble into the new day

With an extra hour, limbs stiff

And an acute sense of feeling old,

Each season decreasing

The time left on this mortal coil

And paints my consciousness

With a dim shroud extra daylight

Cannot possibly illuminate,

For a time when what I do

And changing seasons will cease to matter

We bundle up against a chill

For which a coming spring cannot cure

And we prepare for an afterlife

We know nothing about, only guesses,

If only we could turn those clocks back

As easily as we did today, live backwards

The way Merlin reportedly did,

To know the exact measure of our existence

So we might parcel out its pieces better

Letting far less of it go to waste,

I have already outlived most I thought of as dear

The curse that comes with survival, if not old age,

And how lonely it becomes when one

Has seen the last of those who have come before

And have no one left to comfort me

When my time comes.

Free bird

Thursday, November 13, 2014

I hold it up in both my hands

This trembling, feathered creature

I can identify only as a bird

Because it has wings,

Broken wings on which it

Cannot fly away,

But will the moment I mend them,

The way it must

Its soft touch lingering

On the tips of my fingers

And on my lips as I wish it well,

Aching to touch it again,

And again feels its softness

Against my calloused palms,

Feeling its warmth against

My warmth,

It breathing my breath

This precious moment

Caught in an instant

And release, this heart break,

This lasting gift that

Must be given away,

Real and unreal,

Previous, but not possessed,

A dream dreamed

But not forgotten,

A memory so vivid

It always seems real,

My wings broken like its are,

My heart throbbing

With the same need,

My gaze fixed upon it

As it sails into the sky,

A bird with wings

Then just a dot

Against the brightness

And then gone.

Sugar and Salt

Friday, November 07, 2014

When they take you over

It is never for good purpose

An iron fist hidden

In the velvet glove of love

Nor is the salt spread

As sweet as sugar

But rather like Rome did

To Carthage under Manius Manilius

Designed as conquest

And to spoil the landscape

For future growth,

They needing you to need them,

Shackling you with mind-game chains,

Shaping lies into images of truth

Until you can’t tell the difference,

Turning love on its heads

And loved ones into enemies

We are not,

So that you have no one else

to turn to except for them,

no one who can help

when the fish finally shows

from under the glove

and you realize that this is not love

but something mean and evil,

by which time, it is all you have

and cling to it drowning

in Sugar and salt

convinced that

bitter is sweet

until you learn to like it.

The void inside

Saturday, November 01, 2014

I dress up each time in my mind

A carved out face with fixed smile

I don’t always believe

The sawed teeth of the carving knife

Still evident on each deep slice

A candle lit inside of me

Making my eyes glow

Filling the empty space inside

I hope each time to fill

With something more substantial

To replace the substance removed

Not love or lust, but existence

The day to day of it,

That face that is a real face

The heart that does more than tick

A life that is more than a jack a lantern

Propped up to scare kids

As they come to my door for trick or treat

We living our lives with fixed expressions

Actually believing there is nothing else

When there is always so much more

Out there just beyond our finger tips

Something to fill the void inside

Astray

October 26, 2014

The soft air kissed my cheeks

As I stroll here this cold morning

In late October, the end of season

As haunting as Halloween,

Filled with ghosts and goblins

Of a life I never meant to lead

The misdirection of misplaced steps

We take when we meant to go

In another direction, and yet

No so misguided as we believe

As we are shaken from those

Early morning dreams when we

Imagine the worst and come to realize

That our steps lead us not so much

Astray but rather where

We were meant to be,

And accepting the path

We find ourselves on

Is the hardest part of being alive

And yet, the most fulfilling.

In the silence

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Rain drips down the wooden fence

Leaving dark scars on its face

As the trees lean over waiting to change

This pre-color time of year

When we ache for change to come

Cool air swirling around us

With just enough hint of summer

To remember it

I hear the voice of winter

In the distant rumble of surf

And in the altered sound of traffic

And the sudden quiet

Of end of season brings to the seashore,

These things stand out against

The usually hectic soundscape

So that they seem loud

When they are not,

Our lives are like that,

Loudest in the lulls,

When we can hear ourselves thinking

The way we hear the tick of a clock

Always there, but never obvious

As we search for meaning,

No more nor less than they ever were,

The ghost in the machine

The moving parts

We do not wish to know about

But get consumed with

When all else falls silent.

Echoes

Saturday, October 25, 2014

History repeats itself inside my head

Like echoes in a canyon

Long after the initial shout

Losing at last what the shout was about

And so we read into what we hear

Imagining what it is we felt

When we let the fell words fall,

And translate that which we thought

We said into what we need said now

Feeling from it what we need to feel,

Not exactly what we felt at the start,

Thinking the whole time

How nothing has changed

When everything always does,

And when we shout again

Our new shout falls on ears

We know might never hear

What is we actually said.

Sea Side Asbury Park

Sunday, October 19, 2014

I dip my fingers in this salty foam,

This sea side slick water beach

Stretched out before m

Timeless until I glimpse

Over my shoulder at the shore

And the grin of a boardwalk

With its missing teeth

And the sense that it

Can never smile again

Air thick with the recalled screeches

Of kids on rides long gone,

The tilt-a-whirl with caught shirt

And the kid who never thought

The ride would vanish

Before the people did,

Or that the decay

Would strike so deep
or leave holes no one could fill

With only the sea itself the same

Coming and going,

In and out,

With perpetual sighs

And the salty residue

Of some love vanquished

The end of the world

As we know it,

The roar of engines

Mere echoes of a past

We can barely hear

Over the snores of the tides

And we caught

In the mists wondering

Where to dip our fingers next.

The life that never was

Tuesday, September 23, 2014 (Asbury Park)

We cast characters in our heads

as we walk this walk that Springsteen walked,

these institutions that linger at the edge of darkness,

the artist offering portraits for passers-by,

whose civil war era Union army hat

covers his eyes against the sinking sun,

his previous work stretched out

over two sea-side benches like a rogue’s gallery,

if not quite life-like then like life

in that we cannot duplicate ourselves

or those times we ache to repeat

regardless of how many times we stroll

these old boards and seek the images

we have only come to know in song,

Perhaps we can get help from the magician

Who sets up shop near Madam Marie’s,

Telling no fortune but apologizing

To the crowd when some of his tricks

Go wrong, his cards filled with holes

He can peer through at them,

Maybe the old men who gather in the old casino

Still have memories of that time

When a different life percolated here,

Getting caught on rides that have long been demolished.

Thinking they might never get off,

But now, in this lingering limbo, this twilight

Sea-side city of dreams, they really can’t,

Like the old carousel building or the sewerage plant

Serving as icons to a glorious past

Nobody thought were glory days

When they transpired,

Or the equally ancient old man 

With an equally ancient guitar

Strumming out songs that no one hears

And people stop to pay him out of sympathy

Or tribute to some god they knew

Once traveled in his company,

That he saw in the flesh and could testify to,

And who in strumming tuneless tunes,

Gives a different, less distinct soundtrack

To this life that never was.

Ah Carol

Saturday, September 20, 2014

She sat on my knee at 23

Short skirt hiding the lap

She rode like a steed,

As she rubbed my leg

between her thighs,

an old Chuck Berry

Rolling Stones song

Reverberating in my head,

She pretending to be

A little girl seated

On her daddy’s lap

While glancing over

Her shoulder at me

Laughing, talking

With a mutual friend

Pretending not to notice

My growing need,

Looking my way

Just enough to

Turn me into butter

She knew she churned,

All of me oozing

Out of me

Turning me

Inside out,

A wax man ignited

From within

By her rubbing

Of sticks,

An internal flame

I could not extinguish

Until she stopped,

An eternal anguish

I feel even

All these years later,

So near and yet

Not near enough,

Always on the edge of it

As she came close

And then moved away,

Each stroke stoking

The fire as to make it

All the hotter,

Until she was certain

She had seen every

Drop ooze out of me

And then, only then,

Did she smile

Scorched

Friday, September 19, 2014

I bleed you

With both eyes

Not wounded

But scorched

The way

All mortal men

Get when looking

At a god

Sweet Athena

Infecting every
inch of me

no ointment

Oozed over
my tight skin

Can bring

Lasting relief

The ache

Is too deep

To reach

Regardless

Of how far

I go

Each inch

More than a mile,

A huffing and puffing

Plunge into the dark

And no piece

Of mushroom

And shrink me

As the world grows

Rigid around me,

But I bleed

Even from a distance

One glance

And I singe my soul

And bubble up inside

Bleeding from every

Orifice, especially

My eyes

Crying out of joy

The way all mortal men

Must when they see

What is utterly forbidden

And always lethal

Yet always lusted

After.

Pointed shapes

Thursday, September 18, 2014

The sudden chill

Brings out the best in you,

The pointed shapes

That haunts men’s dreams
even fully awake,

The nape of neck

The sudden fleck of wet

The lick that tips it all

Into so much more

And makes cripples

Of men like me

Who hobble on imaginary canes

We did not intend to create,

All too obvious

But not so easily contained,

When the chill air comes

We overheat, and seek

Just a little peek,

Or touch with the tips of fingers

We know will scald

Despite the cold,

Palms curled around

The whole of them,

While our minds plunge

Deep into places

We only dream

Of reaching

Nefertari’s slave

You wrap me up in silk threads

Until I am bound tight

In your cocoon,

This squirming worm feeling

Every bit of the soft warmth

Around me,

The cut of cords against my skin

Telling me how far I might go

Without permission.

I am a mummy bound up

For some goddess’ pleasure

To live or die,

To serve as needed,

To be or not be

As you see fit,

The silk bitter not sweet

Pressing the air out of me

A suffocating sucfocofus

From which I am not

Expected to wake

Again in this world,

But sent with you

To do for you what

I did not do here,

To be what I should have been,

A pale worm squirming

And yet tied to this new promise

Of an old thing that will

Explode into something grand,

Something different from

What I was before,

If not beautiful on the outside,

Then marvelous within.

Madam Marie’s

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

I pass it on the boardwalk

And then again in town,

A granddaughter taking

Possession of an institution

Made famous by a song,

We live in a world

Thick with hints and omens

Trying to read tea leaves

When we need it spoken plain

And nothing ever is,

Life is always a mingling

Of coming and going

Green or red

Walk or don’t walk

When we need to know

Which we should do when

I prefer the blue neon

Of the boardwalk Marie’s

Because it is so near to the sea

So if I can’t get a straight answer

From one, I can seek one in the foam

Flowing up at my feet,

Hoping against hope

The cops don’t bust the waves

For telling fortunes

Better than they do.

Melted metal

Monday, September 15, 2014

It rumbles through you

Like a late night earthquake

The back beat ripping

Open this thin civilized veneer

To expose what we all are

Deep inside,

The tsunami rushing

Through out vein

To some primitive call

We thought we had

Long evolved from

We breathe deep breaths

And drink deep draughts

And still it comes on

A fire in the belly of a beast

We all become
the screech of loud guitar

Like a hot poker

Stirring up slumbering coals

Until we turn into melted metal

Aching for that moment

When inspiration makes us

Solid again,

This life gets into the blood

And then lays dormant

Even after all these years

All pretence at being

So prim and proper

Until the first note

Like the first light of dawn

And we crumble

To the rumble and shake

And we become what

We have always been,

Swept up and consumed

Inside and out,

The floor boards vibrating

Not from the bass drum,

But from something inside us

Pushing its way out.

Asbury Park 9/13/14

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Autumn falls on the boardwalk

With a gush of rain

Like a stage curtain coming down

On what was

To leave what will be

The creak of wood moans

Under my footstep

As I make my way passed

Madam Marie’s,

A slick, precarious trip

But no longer scalding

As it was

Not extinguished

But a mist rising

From each crack

Like steam

From a tea kettle

I feel the bubbling

Inside of me

Even as my brow drips

With the cool broth

Of this changing season

The vacancy of the place

Only making the urgency acute

Winter forces it all inward

Putting pressure

On this frail frame

That stumbles over

This sacred ground,

Aching even now to be

The savior that rises

From these streets,

From the spidery web

Of the ruined casino

To the crumbling art deco

Of the once and future theater

And back again

As rain washes over me

And through me

To the sound of the nearby sea

Zen

Saturday, September 13, 2014

I press the button

And hear the distant sound

Of machines and cables
bringing up or down

The cage I need

This vertical lift

We ride to and from

Destinations marked out

On no road maps

The elevation marked
on no altimeter

But rather inside my head

Where I leave marks

Of my own importance

The way my uncles did

In pencil on the dinning room

Door frame when I was small

To see how much I’d grown

Though now I am no taller

Yet still need to measure

How high I stand,

If I have lost stature

And how to get it back if I have

Who I am reflected

Not in any mirror

But on the faces of those I see

Through the small window

Of my cage

As I travel floor by floor,

My life measured

In the groan of cables

Above and below

When all I really want

Is to be where I am

At any given moment,

Free of the need to be

High or low,

Rich or poor,

Powerful or powerless,

The heat of it

September 11, 2014

I kiss the air until my lips bleed,

And I can’t breathe the overheated sky

That scalds me with each breath I breathe

No smoldering from mere sunlight

But hot lava scorching everything I expose,

Leaving my tongue and fingers blistered,

And still I reach for more,

Grasping hot coals in the cup of my hands

Feeling them quiver against my fingers

And then against the tip of my tongue,

Making me ache all the more

For what I know only causes me pain,

And still I plunge headlong into the fiery plume

Knowing I can’t possibly survive,

Knowing it is the only way I can stay alive,

Knowing this kiss I kiss is all there is

And all there can ever be,

And this touch I touch incinerates me

From the inside out,

And like a fool I let it happen,

Beg for it to happen again

Kissing air that seals my lips closed like wax,

Breathing from a fiery sky a fire I can’t survive,

Touching molten lava until I have no fingers

Or toes or tongue, only the urge to press on,

Pushing myself into the deepest and hottest parts,

Aching with every bone for more,

To kiss even without lips to kiss with,

To breathe more deeply and feel every bit of it

Before I go up entirely in flames

Full moon

Tuesday, September 09, 2014

It is hot and wet

When I get there

A moving target

That closes in

Around me

And shifts

This way, then that,

Up and down

And sideways

Until I’m drunk

On the movement

As any sailor

Something stirring

In the depth of me

I’ve not quite

Felt before,

A rising to the tides

As if you were a full moon,

And I change

On your account

This hard and soft of it

Commingled

And always shifting

Like wind driven beach sand,

As if to cease moving

Is to cease to exist

With me wrapped up

In all that you are,

The need of it

Burning in us both

Making it impossible

To breathe for whole moments,

As I hold onto your sides

This ride, this rise and fall,

This ache and release,

All there is to think about

Or feel,

The perfect Zen moment

When time stops

But we cannot.

How deep is too deep?

Friday, September 05, 2014

There is only so deep you can go

Before the air runs out

And the more you reach

The less breath you can take in

And must measure pleasure

With survival and whether it is wiser

To withdraw or die there in bliss

Our lives our circumscribed

By such limits, that place

From which me must leap

Or take a step back,

Reevaluating what it means

To go on after being pumped up

So much we do not often

Understand the consequences

Of coming or going,

But we ache to continue,

To come and come again

To breathe deep when there is

Nothing left to breathe

But our own expected breath

And yet, when all is said and done

Sometimes, that is enough.

Brush fire

Thursday, September 04, 2014

Our fingers brush and something sparks

A device in me Tommy Edison barely imagined

Turbines turning with that first contact

And once begun unable to stop

I can barely move without feeling it poke me

From the inside out

So scalding I dare not touch it

Or expose it to air

Knowing that like phosphorous

It will explode into a flame I cannot contain

And barely kept quiet as I stagger around with it

A hobbling man with burning fingers

From a touch I never intended

But cannot take back,

I can’t even find the fuse that touch lit

Only hear its hissing inside my head

And sense its growth I cannot long handle,

Sitting or standing or stumbling around,
I can only suck at my finger tips

Like a child hoping to suck away the burn

Wishing I could taste something,

Wondering if the rumbling inside

Leads finally to something else.

Milk and honey

Tuesday, September 02, 2014

It is enough to fill you up,

I pour it all from the pitcher of milk

Into a glass filled half way with honey

I just don’t know when to top

To keep it from running over

And oozing down the sides.

I know don’t know if I can stop this

After having stoked this up

And caused it to flow,

You don’t stop a boulder

You set rolling down a hill

By running in front of it,

You just let it roll

Yet I feel run over by it anyway,

Feel each drip of milk

As it slips out the spout,

Wondering at what mixture it makes

When it makes with you

Do I stir it or let it settle?

Do I keep pumping it up?

And pour it in?

Should I ask you to taste it

To see if it tastes right?

And do I ask if anything else

Came come of this –

Some higher purpose

For all the energy we expend

The milkmaid and the milkman

Churching up this concoction

To make butter,

Or perhaps it is enough to church

Both letting the stone roll

Or the broth drip over

The edges.

Laying it on thick (from My Little Book of E)

Sunday, August 31, 2014

I smear it on with both hands

Just for the excuse to lick it off

To feel the hard and soft of it,

To linger near the top

And delve into the bottom

To know it all with the best part of me

To taste what I touch,

To feel each inch of landscape

By having moved over it,

And I move slowly

As not to miss anything

Each flaw a treasure,

Each ripple a luxurious side trip

To fit with the tip or lip

As I move on,

There is always too much to

Take in all at once

Too many tiny places

To slip in and out of,

Too little time
to know as much as I should,

And like a road-weary tourist

I vow to explore this or that

On my next trip

Aching for the chance 

At least one more encounter,

Hoping beyond hope

That I have done enough

To deserve another lick

Smearing it all on so thick

I can’t possibly miss

My next try.

The salty haze of uncertainty

Friday, August 29, 2014

I breathe the scent of salmon

As the net scrapes against my thigh

And I think of you

And the sea we all sale in

Waiting for the mesh to drop

The panic in the up-churned waves

The up and down and sideways

That leaves us perpetually confused

As to which way we have come

Or where we should go,

The tight ropes that bind us

And scrap our sin with a mixture

Of pain and pleasure,

The lost of the unknown

Mingled with the lack of free will,

The prickly coarse entwinement

Containing us as the moist fingers

Beats around us and over us,

And yet we somehow remain secure,

Wanting sure hands to haul us in,

A warm touch to rub those limbs

Where the ropes chafed

To ease the ache with bliss

And until we cannot tell

Which is which, nor care,

Only that we are no longer lost,

No longer drowned

In the salty haze of uncertainty.

Smoldering

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

The leaves cling to the ground

With the first autumn rain

Skins slick with wet

As if churned from a summer’s sweat,

The rubbing of limbs

The moan of pressing trunks

The expired sigh of each breeze,

All lost in this afterglow

Of changing seasons

And the expected chill

That makes limbs shudder

And press even deeper

To retain bits of warmth

And keep it all from oozing out

Winter being such a long

And exasperating time

That makes us cling

All the closer but without

The rage of heat,

we rubbing together

like stick against stone

expecting no burst of flame

but a slow and steady smoldering

we hope will keep us warm

until spring springs upon us again,

bringing back summer’s bliss.

What I live for

Saturday, August 23, 2014

I melt in your hand

AND in your mouth,

A stick of butter

Injected into scalding heat

You cool me

Only just enough

To mold me,

An oozing mass

Of hissing steam

My thoughts evaporate

When I think of you,

I never learned

The most fundamental lesson

I touch heat

And it hurts so bad

I always have to do it again

And still want more,

I’m like one of those trees

Whose seeds pop

When set on fire

I can’t get out of the kitchen

Even if I wanted to,

Stirred up on your stove top

Until I’m all froth,

You drink me up

A bit of slip clinging

To your upper lip,

You sip, I drip,

The ever melting man

Aching for you

To melt me

To mold me

It’s what I live for.

Vampire love?

Monday, August 11, 2014

The wind weaves

Through the meadow grass

Like fingers through

Strands of hair,

The palms of my hands

Moist in the chill air

My breath near your ear,

The nip of love bites

Always leading to

Blood lust,

My lips brushing

Your neck

Always with the deeper

Hunger for more,

Always struggling on

With the eternal debate

How deep to sink my teeth,

To satisfy this that rises

Up inside of me,

Not done until buried deep

This flesh that seeks

A moist sheath,

To draw in and out

Each blow matched by

The blow of breath

And the moan of this meadow

Wind as it stirs,

This vampire love

Leaving me to wonder

How deep to feed

To sedate this insatiable hunger

My lips pressed against soft flesh

And with infinite impatience

Seeking solace in twin peaks

I can easily reach,

How deep do I plunge

And will it ever be enough?

The right combination

August 10, 2014

He puts two hands on her

And feels her tremble

Like a flower with each

Delicate leaf vibrating

And wet with morning dew

He can taste just by touching

His fingers reaching deep

To places the rest of him

Aches to go

And she is all eyes and mouth

Beneath his face

So his breath breathes

Her breath,

And his gaze sees only

What she wishes him to see

And like a boy trying to find

The right combination to a puzzle

He works his fingers to see

What he can unlock

And make those eyes

Open up to him,

So he might reach into her place

He cannot reach now

Without her permission

Better than nothing

August 7, 2014

She tells me to kneel

And I kneel

Her jaw clenched

And her fingers,

As if she clutches a whip,

I didn’t always do

What I was told to do

And that was the trouble,

But I do now,

Knowing that it’s her way

Or no way

And no way is unacceptable

Since I do not exist without her

This is not just love

It’s physics

Like a Star Wars movie

With two sides to the force

And my hands bound

By the all powerful

And my mouth gagged

By the fear that I might

Bring down doom

If I think too much for myself,

So I stop thinking

And do what I’m told to do

Regardless of how much it hurts,

Accepting my fate

With bowed head,

Knowing this is better than

The nothing I would be

Without her.

Voyeur

August 6, 2014

I am always the voyeur,

Taking sneak peeks at your soul

To see what’s there,

Truth as naked as a new born

And just as frail,
my long rough fingers,

Caressing its forehead

And then it’s thigh

Trying to squeeze out of it,

The last bit of sweet juice

Before it all seems like a lie.

I have no shame,

I feel what I need to

In order to feel alive,

Throbbing head to toe

With need I can rarely satisfy,

Throwing open curtains

Plunging through,

Laying truth on its back

So I can have my way with it,

And it always lets me do

Whatever I want,

Tasting what I need to taste

Touching what I have to touch,

Letting me rock it to sleep

As I lay down beside it.

Dripping

August 3, 2014

Beads of morning rain’s residue

Lingers on the lips of pedals

Of meadow roses
like tears cried from

And overnight storm

I only dreamed about

The aftermath of a shaken world

I feel as I stroll

This meadow path

Air heavy over me

And inside of me

My thirst barely quenched

From sipping these lingering leaves,

The pink pedals spread

To expose their yellow insides

While all around

Green and purple thistles

Make it impossible to touch

Each kiss I attempt

Bringing blood to my lips

Not bliss as I slip

Through the tips of leaves

To linger and look at

Those pink pedals

But not to touch,

Blisters of thirst on my lips

Instead of a kiss

As those pink flowers

Drip, drip, drip.

The Emperor’s new clothes

August 2, 2014

I feel you right through

All these layers of cloth,

Sketched out in public places

As if we both wore

The Emperor’s new clothes

Everybody can fully see

But us, or maybe merely me,

Seeing what I ache to see,

Feeling what I need to feel,

Each brush in public

Feeding some hunger in me

I can feed in no other way,

My life caught

On the frayed edges

Of my sleeve,

Rubbing shoulders too hard

And too often

Because I can’t rub

In any other way

Trying to rub off

Every bit of that

Invisible cloth

So there is nothing

Between us

At all.