Flash back April 2012

 

Time stood still

the moment we arrived

the print factory

on that long walk

through her memories

and finally coming

to a memory of mine

 the man popping out the door

Like a wizard from behind

His curtain,

As if having overheard

My tale of long ago

When I labored in such a place

Where I met the woman of my life

With whom I later shared

My life of crime,

And who bore my child,

An ironic twist having some so far

In the company of a workmate

Who might have easily

Been my child.

Making it all feel all the more intense

Emotions of then and now

Exploding in me,

And inside the factory

The scent ink and sight of paper

Dragging me back,

As if I’d never left,

My hormones just as crazy,

The man, the owner,

Giving us the two-cent tour,

As taken with today’s girl

As I was,

As if she could not help

 being a magnet for men

like us, who lust,

all this mingling inside me

a witch’s brew stirred up

all the boil, toil and trouble,

until I felt drunk

I was 17 again

in love,

and just as confused.

 

 

email to Al Sullivan

Why did God let them die? May 16, 2025

 

Scores of people have drowned here, this gap that divides this state from that, with a wild river running between, the sign near the stairs that leads to the water, advising caution, yet I cannot resist taking the plunge, down to where the kayaks bob like corns and mountains rise above on every side, so majestic, even now, before the rich bloom of spring, while I feel so small, just one more speck on this space we call our home, our sun, our universe, and I wonder how God – who created all this – let all those scores of people drown, this dark smudge on a stunning landscape I cannot resident even facing danger..

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Dust May 1972

 

I come home to dust, the ghostly faces I traveled with for so long, they cling to me, the empty space where they had been, thick with dust and regret, the trail of their passing a dusty imprint, their hurried retreat, their flight before my return, like so many thieves, absconding with possessions we previously shared, the memories of joy and anguish, leaving only the dust in their wake, for me to disturb again at my return, without broom or dust pan to clean up after them.

 

 email to Al Sullivan

Cycles June 10, 1982

 

Cycles bend my life, the intervals of time, succession of events, I am changed each time, different from what I was on my last go around, coming to this same point where I get to start it all over again, my heart beating fast with each panicked thought, as I come back to where I was, with the same person, waiting to determine if this turns out to be the same, a call in the dark to a person I did not know still existed there, a voice responding as if from the distant past, sounding the same, while I have changed, and wondering, dumbstruck, if I have changed enough to make a difference.

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The first time? Oct. 11, 2012

  

I can barely imagine what she might have been like at 17, or 16, or 15, or where she actually did it all fir the first time, not Lola and Dorothy, though she did those, too, how rushed was she to get there, to feel it all, to go where no man hade gone before, under the skin, in all those apertures she previously used for other things, what did she think it would be like before it all transpired, and did it live up to what she expected, and how far did she go, did it happened fast or slow, did she ramp it up, touching and being touched, sucking and being sucked, was it almost as savage as it was with the beast she studied in biology class, doing and being done, just as the teacher said when it came to bird and bees, feeling his fingers root through her hair, holding her in place for the final plunge, skirt risen or jeans down below her knees, did it feel as dirty as the magazines the boys read suggest, or was it as near to what she thought it might be before it occurred?

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We wait for rain June 22, 1982

We wait for rain, for the scent of slick concrete, rising into the hot hair, carrying with memories of pain, the blistering heat this season always brings, relieved briefly, even as we are haunted by the past, you and silent me, still stirring in the midst of Hollywood fame, marble stars under foot as we stroll there barefoot, a strains of strange voices, foreign names, you and me, licking our wounds, a fleet of frustrated shame, the stench of a city far to far west from our roots, dry as a desert, shimmering in magnificent sunsets we rarely see this far east, waiting there for rain that never comes, while here, we feel it, sweeping away the residue if only for those moments of cloud bursts we never felt so far west.

email to Al Sullivan

Rabbit in her rabbit hole April 2012

She always texts first

in the morning

making certain I wake up

if not with her beside me

The photo coming next

As if I might have forgotten her

Overnight,

Her image already

Tattooed in my brain,

The odd chat

Among relative strangers

She knows more about me

Than I ever will about her,

This loneliness

She pretends she doesn’t feel

Though I feel it in her

the intense isolation

on the far side,

self imposed to keep her safe

yet -- in the dark of night,

the ghosts come

filling her head

 a scared rabbit in a

 self-created rabbit hole

 where she hopes nobody

 can get at her,

 at lease,

 without her invitation.

email to Al Sullivan