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.