Bruises of lust March 31, 2012

Glass broken doesn’t

Cut as deeply

As a shattered heart does,

Worse,

The blunt pangs

Of unresolved desire,

The black and blue bruises

Lust leaves,

After you’ve beaten

Yourself up over

Someone you want.

The ever erect position

You can’t fix,

Stitch up,

The wound too deep

The flesh too damaged,

You have to live with it,

Letting it poke at you,

Continuing to bruise

That part of your insides

Where only you can

See the bleeding,

Knowing that what

You want most won’t last

Even when you get it.

So, you take it for now,

Delaying the pain

You know will come

From it someday,

Telling yourself

It’s all worth it,

Maybe it is

Maybe it will be

Only time will tell.

br>email to Al Sullivan

Chess master May 2012

She makes me feel

 like a lost dog

she gives a bowl of water to

when she agrees to meet me

 at the bar after all,

I'm just needy enough to lap up the gift

even knowing it is more out

of pity than affection.

These are not the kinds of things

 a person should be grateful for,

 when it is never really real,

 just a show in which I

happen to be the beneficiary,

 though in truth,

 who can say what she gets out of it,

 this chess player many moves ahead

 in a game I am destined to lose,

check mate long before i move my first pawn,

 king trapped in the reflections of her amazing eyes,

 where the real mysteries lie,

her features disguising who she really is

and I can only guess as to what end

the game is,

whether she just plays to keep in practice.

 

The sound of thunder Nov. 14, 2012

 

I missed the warning signs, back then, and even later, thunder rumbling through the valley after those brief flashes on the horizon. I can see her face when I close my eyes: her mouth, her eyes, the tilt of her head, hearing the whole time the snide remark of Mae West: Are you making love or taking an inventory?

I try to keep my eyes wide open, as to keep from seeing a face I miss, which may be how I missed the warning, back then, even now, the flashes of light on the horizon I should have taken more seriously, how at risk it all was, and how I might have run for cover before it all rained down on me.

I hear the thunder now when it is clearly too later, after the story has passed and I’ve already been drenched, my soul drowning in it instead of quicksand.

Do we know when to stop even when we heed the warnings?

Or are we already lost by the time the sounds come? Do we need a lightning strike to tell us we made a mistake?

 

 

email to Al Sullivan

Faces in the clouds August 3, 2014

 

 

I still see faces in the clouds which float over this wide river, clouds reflected in the rippled surface of water constantly stirred by the ferries and barges, sometimes, a cruise ship, inbound from some foreign place or outbound to find adventure beyond my imagination to see.

I see faces in the sky I want to see, the wide eyes, the perky mouth, the odd tilt of head, clouds looking back at me as if I am the face they see reflected on the surface of the river.

I see her face most often, but not always, one of a parade of faces moving in the upper air like people in search of salvation we cannot find on solid ground, my feel firmly planted on stone that has stood here for a millennium and will still stand long after the city across the river is gone, after all the faces in the clouds and reflections in the water have ceased, long after I am no longe here to see them or paint my wishes on them, all those moments of memory, painted before me, above me or down below, filled with all those things I wish for but cannot have.

I see the face shaped in those clouds, sometimes, even my own.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Every which way April 19, 2015

 

I still imagine you with someone else, and it still hurts, my imagination so vivid I might draw it out, where you engage, the sound of you heard banging against the wall, the moan of a cheap bed in a cheap motel, the roll over, the other approach, I try to keep up, stroking to the beat of it, the number of times it takes you and the mysterious other to come around. I seat over it, trying not to thinking of all the angles, the upside down, the sideways, the able, the chair as if a tradition bed just won’t satisfy the need, this time at night after too many drinks, then again in the morning, where the moaning seems unbearably loud, you, he and me, all arriving at last at the same time, finally.

 

email to Al Sullivan

This life we live Oct. 8, 2025

  

I am at the bottom of the cliffs, churching along on a train I take so regularly I almost sometime forget she used to live up top of it, coming out along the promenade, to jog by day and sometimes night, a long lost memory I keep locked up in my brain, seemingly so long ago, especially when I have longed for so long for it all to go back to when it was, when it never can, this life we lead taking us to other place than we intended, even when I still reside her and she no longer does, this longing so intense it takes me at night in anticipation of a text or call I know will never come, while I keep on chugging along as if still locked in this day dream that often lingering long into dark.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Hook, line and sinker (2015)

  

I’m not the one

 who chooses

You do

Girl picks boys

And he’s lucky

To have her,

The painted lips

The shadowed eyes,

The tight hips

The becoming thighs

Bait to bait me

And I always bite

Taking the hook

So keep inside

I can neve yank it out,

Living with the cut of it

If I move wrong

Or think too much,

Even though you’ve

Cut the line

Returned me to the pond

From which I came,

I will always feel the barbs

Stabbing at my heart,

Each time recalling you

And yet,

I still ache for it,

Hook, line and sinker

 

email to Al Sullivan

Going in the wrong direction May 25, 2025

 

 

The hum of the wheels keeps me awake, if not focused, traveling though time as well as space, no Einstein bent to let me pop put in some other remote place, my thoughts do that, drawing me back, letting me see the faces of people I have not seen in decades, some I will never see again on this mortal coil, the rumble seemingly remove yet a constant reminder that I am still in progress, still moving, going somewhere even if it is the place I intended to go. I live too much in the past and longer for people no longer a part of my life, as if in leaving them I have lost something valuable, something I need, yet cannot retrieve, and I am condemned to keep going forward when all I want is to go back

 

email to Al Sullivan

All Dressed up Sept. 25, 2013

 

 What goes through her head

when she dressed up like this,

 the way she did for that party

 I did not attend or that one

along the waterside where

all eyes were on her,

 different from when she

wanted to perform

all those years ago

 and a time and place

 now so far, far away,

 living proof of what

Shakespeare claimed,

she treating the whole

world as her stage,

 desperate to have

 her moment in

the spot light or sunlight,

where all eyes are fixed.

What goes on in her head?

Is she aware of what

her movements cause,

if not quite an earthquake,

 certainly a shudder through each room.

Does she know?

Can she sense the vibrations

she causes as those

who watched her in court felt,

 she the focus of attention

with each shift of her hips.

email to Al Sullivan

don't stare Aug. 2012

rule number one

don't stare at her at the office

 don't even pretend you are not staring

don't stare in some other direction

to make her think you are staring in stealth

just stay down behind your computer

 in your tiny Harry Potter cubicle

under the stairs

and pretend to work

when you are doing your best not to stare

 not to exist

 not to breathe too deeply

and make any sound

 don't stare at the meeting either

 especially because you still sit

with back to the windows

when she sits across the table

 illuminated, beautiful, powerful,

arrogant, victorious and deadly

 if you hold your breath long enough

you might be reprieved by fainting

 though she might think

this is a faint to get attention

so you grip your pen

 poised to take notes

on your yellow pad

and wait out the tick of the clock

 like a countdown to that point

 when it is safe again to breathe

again

email to Al Sullivan

Which ever way works April 2012

 

She says she goes both ways,

but won't give up one

just to get the other.

"I need to get dick" she says,

 shocking me as she says it,

 her  hands in the air,

 rattling around in the phone static

 the way voices used

to on long distance calls

when I was a kid,

her life spread out

before me like a feast

I'm too scared to touch,

 my imagination filling in

all the blank spaces

 of this erotic paint by number piece,

 she in my head,

the vision I see across the table

from me once a week,

every Tuesday, and not the harlot

she claims when she speaks

 like this in private,

deliberate or maybe not trying to shock me,

and I am shocked to think

she talks like this to sound

more street wise that she is,

 though in truth,

she is already having been

 through the grind of the music scene

and pick up bars,

she needs what she needs

which ever way that is.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Chopping wood March 28, 2012

 

I chop wood

Left from that

Halloween storm

When snow settled

On the limbs

Still thick with leaves,

Whole halves of trees

Fell into the yard

Left entangled

Until I could risk

Blindness to cut

Them up.

I chop wood

And think of

The strange voice

On the telephone,

As if there is a connection,

Seeing her slanted lips

In my one good eye,

Each sawed limb

Breaking between

My already calloused

Fingers,

Yet with no inspiration

As to why I’m on

Her weather map,

Whether or not

She is a brewing storm,

Or merely a cloud burst,

Clouds in my coffee.

I saw wood

And try not to

Think of her,

Her slanted lips,

Or the weight of snow

And green leaves

That brought these

Limbs to my knees.

I chop wood.

br>email to Al Sullivan

Other plans? May 26, 2025

 

 

What she is doing and where she is, remains one big mystery am unable to resolve, too distant, too out of touch with her environment, too few people I can trust who still keep connected.

Is she happy or sad, lonely or in love, or simply getting on with what life has given her, as she claims to embrace middle age, the way she embraced those events of life she endured before all this?

Did life ripped her off, deny her her dreams or has she come to realize the old John Lennon maxim of life being what happens when she’s business making other plans.

In the end we all tread the path our feet set us on, and I sit here, she there, two paths too remote to reconnection as they briefly once did, long ago, even though I will always want to.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Happy birthday a few days late Aug. 2, 2014

  

No birthday cards, nor well-meaning emails or texts.

I let the day pass unremarked on except in the back of my brain where I struggle to recall how many candles I should put on a cake I know you will never eat, though I know somewhere on that special day you celebrated, the clock ticks for both of us, through mind has marked much more considerable passage.

Still, I mark my birthday on my calendar if only to acknowledge its annual coming, then trying not to remind myself of what it means, while with you, surrounded by friends and family, times moves much more slowly, something hold up the sand in the hour glass – it always runs quicker later when there is less time to count, my worry, not yours, though on this day, this year, you have to ponder fate and if the new year will grant you what you ache for in the year that has passed, and I wonder, do you expect me to remark again as I foolishly once did, if so, here it is, though I don’t believe you will ever get to read it.

email to Al Sullivan

Worth it April 7, 2012

 

 I know

This will all end

Badly

Yet, I tell

Myself

It will be worth it,

Pain being the price

Tomorrow

For the delight

I get today,

When in fact

I know,

It will get

Really, really bad

Before it’s over,

Yet, I cling to

What it is

In this moment,

And hope it won’t

Became as bad

As it is great today,

Though I know

My world will crash,

Mostly because

I don’t deserve

What is happening,

Pleasure or pain,

I have always lived

My life in safety,

Choosing not to

Take risks,

While she is not safe

And that’s the thrill of it,

Like looking over

The edge of a cliff,

Inching as close to

The brink as possible

Before I fall off,

Presuming that when

I land at the bottom

It will have been worth

The fall.

br>email to Al Sullivan

I can’t see the stars April 18, 2015

 

I can’t see the stars for the skyline, the night time blaze I’m sure you can see where you are, from the vantage point far above the place where Burr murdered Hamilton, just not out of love, old poems filling my head about you being the brightest of these stars, only I am blinded by the brilliance of the city that never sleeps and can’t see passed it to see you, even at this late date, even when I know where you shine and when, it is not for me, and I settle for the illusion that you light up my sky just for me, and that if I try hard enough I can see you, even when I know I can’t, your light reflecting on this river that keeps me company when you are no longer here, a river we share, the pattern on the water taking your shape if I stare hard enough.

email to Al Sullivan

That face Oct. 12, 2025

  

I see it; I don’t believe it, all these years later, the same pang I got when I saw it way back when, different only in the periphery, hair longer, reaped over her should, n ot not the mouth or eyes, looking out from the picture frame as it did when I first saw it, drawing out of me the same acute reaction I can’t help but feel.

How this is possible, I can’t say, our livings having diverged, off into opposite directions, she finding the niche she spent a life time seeking, while I remain, like a rock, here in the same place, feeling the same as I did, helpless to modify the intensity of it, and so much do as I have always done, endure, taking off comfort in the fact that she still exists and is as hard to resist as she always was.

 

email to Al Sullivan

I’ve just seen a face April 6, 2012

 

  Everywhere I go

I see her face

Popping up on my phone

As if by magic,

Her slanted lips giving

A sardonic smile

(like Mona Lisa),

Her deep, potent eyes

Stare right through me

Right through the phone,

Just as she does

On Facebook,

Like a billboard I

Can’t possibly miss,

Too painful to look at,

Worse not to,

A face I can’t touch,

Yet touches me

Down deep,

Ike a wound

I can’t remember

Being inflicted with,

Aching from it,

Her face, her eyes,

Temptation beyond

Reach, her stare

Looking right into

My soul,

Raising the memory

Of that old Beatles

Tune,”

I’ve just seen a face

I can’t forget,”

Playing in my head,

I never stop hearing

The song or seeing

The face

Even when I’m

Only sleeping.

 

br>email to Al Sullivan

Come -- together March 21, 2024

 

Warmth greets me

As the pads of my fingers

Caress there,

Soft, wet, vibrating,

A shudder, then

A sigh,

A slow touch at first

Getting faster,

Until the earth quakes

In you, this

Piece of me,

The key in search

Of a key hole,

And the lock I must

Unlock to find joy,

I feel the heat of us

Spreading up

From where my fingers

Touch,

The first sparks to

Some wild fire,

Ready to ignite,

If I can keep pace,

Not too rough,

Not too gentle,

Just rough enough

Making the feeling

Grow more,

As I spread you wide

Where my fingers

Can feel even more,

The shudder

The stirring,

The deeper I go,

Searching for that

One place

Where it all

Comes

Together,

For both of us.

email to Al Sullivan

I still feel it May 14, 2025

  

I still feel the chill of the beer glass in my fingers, even all these years later, the dark bar, the old couple, the bartender she seeks to impress, and me, lingering on the edge of the stool like a truant school boy.

I still feel the chill of it as if it made its way down into my bones, this lingering sense of the inequitable I can’t shake, which grows more and more intense this time of year, the card and candy I foolishly brought, set aside on the bar, abandoned, if not forgotten.

I still feel it, as vivid now as then, as haunting ass the regular arrival of a full moon, stirring up something ugly, something I despise, something I wish I could take back, but can’t.

I still feel the chill of the glass against my hand as I pick it up to sip, inebriated by more than just hat the glass contains, and always will be.

email to Al Sullivan

Who she is now` June 10, 2015

 

Heavy rain comes and goes, pausing briefly as to provide some relief as I stroll again a landscape that reminds me of her, old buildings pressed up against new, painting gray by a moody day as gray as she must me.

I have no vision of her other than that impressed upon me on the oft chance she posts a picture of who she is now, when I envision her of who I remember, images of a past that has long ceased to be except as a dream, the remake of a reality impressed on my retina, too void of details to fully be real, and yet, it is what I cherish, the face I see when I close my eyes to sleep, the person I knew back then, when the person she is now remains a stranger.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Surrender? Aug. 1, 2014

 

Here, after all that, you’d think the conflict has ended, peace in our time, if not surrender, or perhaps surrender to the inevitable, we giving up hope of conquest, and sit back to watch the aftermath, what happens next after Lee gave his sword to Grant, the long walk home with sloped shoulders, with images of imagined glory still running in my head, like a scratchy black & white newsreel, her face featured predominantly, as if part of the peace agreement, someone I continue to lust after long after the possibility of satisfaction is one, my Vicksburg having come long before Appomattox, this clinging to something we already knew would not be won, and half the battle revolved around the need to get better terms before abdicating to reality in surrender. I acknowledge all I could not have and never will have, watching the mansions burn, this fading sense of what once was, lost in the haze of what it has become

email to Al Sullivan

Are we there yet? April 12, 2015

 

If I ask often enough, I hope she will give in, even if I have no right to ask, the friend of a friend who should not want what I want, and yet, I want it anyway, asking the way the kick in the back seat asks “are we there yet?” over a trip of too many miles.

I am relentless, even if I am also impatient, like a burglar who keeps trying every combination to her safe with hope to hear the tumblers click and the dark chamber to open before me to come in.

I think if I ask and ask again, she might give in, even if it is just to be ride of me, and yet, as much as I want it, I ache for something more than just access and foolishly think “am I there yet,?” holding out for that moment when we arrive.

 

email to Al Sullivan