Making pearls July 15, 2013

 

Making pearls

 

 

July 15, 2013

 

Sure she's scared,

she should be,

the end game to a love game

that started out in her mind,

real because she thinks it's real,

painful because love imagined

causes pain.

made real by constant rubbing,

the way a clam makes pearls,

if you caress long enough

This thing she clutches

with heart and hands

 molding it into a precious stone

like the stone in a ring on a finger

 that's not hers,

 glitters all the more

when she ceases it,

it's not hers either.

You can't make love by making love,

but often you can't keep it,

forced it to cast out

into the endless sea

, watch it sail away,

 into some else's arms.

 

email to Al Sullivan

The rattle of ice April 24, 2012

 I can almost hear the rattle of the ice

from the photograph she sent me

tending bar at her father's house

somewhere in NY state,

 a role she plays because she did it

 for a living at several places

 and she likes the idea of having a purpose

 when she goes to see the man she

supposedly claimed to our work mate

had died when she was still a kid

the sound of the rattling ice filling my head

 as I look at the pictures of a place I never saw in real life,

 she telling me she could not meet her

because of this obligation,

 her life spread out in the parade of bottles,

 each drink unique still she needs to sip.

 

email to Al Sullivan

Lost in the supermarket May 2012

 

I am of two minds about all this,

 maybe more multiplying my personalities

each time I think of her,

aching yet not over the usual suspects,

 drawn and yet repelled,

 like that poem she wrote

in which we/they all either cling or flee,

only there is no longer anything to cling to,

maybe smoke or to run away from,

 since she has already left,

all this bouncing around

inside my head like a rubber ball,

 inciting me to jealousy I have not right to feel,

 she, free to be with he or them or even me,

 though she clearly no longer wants me

and I feel lost,

like a kid in a supermarket unable

 to find my way through the long aisle

where I don't belong.

 

 

email to Al Sullivan

Wanton? (January 2014)

 

It is wanton

To want it

To want others

To want you,

To want them,

To find joy

In physical pleasures

Bodies colliding bring,

The smashing of atoms,

The chain reaction

We feel deep inside

Ourselves in an

Act of love

(as they call it)

That is more than love,

Needing not to be more

Than just a moment

In time when

We feel it,

Embrace it,

Wanting to be wanton,

Because at times

That’s all there is,

The touching and

Being touched,

The unlocking of doors

That lead to joy.

Is it wonton,

Or is it what we need

To sustain ourselves

In a world where

There is so little else

To pleasure us?

email to Al Sullivan

The big picture April 15, 2012

 

She slices the vegetables

With sharp, harsh strokes,

Each blow a snap against

The cutting board,

As if she is thinking

She is slicing something else,

A cool spring morning

Turning to a bitter chill

Inside, and I don’t know why.

I’m too scared to ask

What might be wrong,

Or to divert her attention

From each stroke, fearing

She might slice off her finger

Or mine, by accident,

Or something else on purpose,

Her gaze focused downward

Though she seems not to see

The vegetables she is cutting,

And I think she’s enraged at me,

Something I said or worse

Something I should have said,

Or accomplished, some gift

Of life I should have provided,

Yet in my ignorance have not,

Snap goes each piece

Of this breakfast puzzle,

A jig saw being dismantled

So might never get to see

The big picture

After all.

 

email to Al Sullivan

back in the bottle (2014)

 

 

I can't stop

put the stopper back in the bottle

out of which the genie popped

I got what I wish for and yet

not the lips I craved

 the hips

 the ifs and buts and where fors

 lost time lingering aftermath

the craving this deep sense

of what can't be had with a wish

but must be worked for

churned up like butter

 from the most precious cream

 the dream love true

 not quite a nightmare

the ache denied

the shiver in the thighs

The Lost world in your eyes

 I got what I wish for

 now wish I hadn't

it is never enough

This lust for more and more

 this adoration

this sweet pain stirred up

with sweat

pounding it out like butter

like cream

like a dream come true

email to Al Sullivan

Lost at sea Jan 14, 2013

 

 

I have no life preserver

To toss her,

Even if she trust me

To catch it

If I did,

Watching her

Drift wherever

The fickle tides

Take her,

After she has

Pointed herself

In the “right”

Direction,

We all suffering

The deeper we go

Where we can’t

Feel bottom

Even with the tips

Of our toes

Her life, like my life

Slowly sinking

Like broken

Oyster shells

Having already

Spent whatever

Aphrodisiac power

It might possess

Her desperate fingers

Grasping at things

No longer there,

Things that cannot save her,

Things she learned

To use to survive,

All failing her

As the sea rises,

The ruthlessness of nature,

She can only drift

Away into the fog,

Where I can barely

See her,

The fog horns of

Distant ships

Making her cries mute,

She needs love

To save her,

But where do you

Find it

In a place so

Otherwise

Devoid of life.

 

 

email to Al Sullivan