Years like horseflies July 19, 2015

 

If I knew you would be here soon, I would wait, even when I know you won’t be. I watch the summer rush by the way others have, and other will, and I push aside each day the way I might a house fly, a persistent nuisance I would abandon if I could. I cast aside years now as if they were days, or put them in a drawer the way the poet does mothballs, perverted for no good reason, each drawer overflowing with details and memories I cannot resurrected, each day, week, moth, passing as if a century, quickly and then, not at all, not quickly enough to eradicate the thoughts I had, and wished I hoped would come true, knowing you will not come soon or at all, but like a horsefly or butterfly, you hover just beyond my reach.

 

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The intensity of heat Aug. 21, 2025

 The rain comes followed by a deep chill, an oddity for the end of August, with no groundhog an early arrival of fall, no leaves changing yet, just the shiver and the sense of change, our lives altered in the aftermath of July’s intense heat, this pre-Labor Day modification I welcome yet also resist, not wanting winter to arrive too soon, not wanting to lose the romance summer brings, that potency I cling to, filled with tender memories I stoke up in my dreams at night, stirring up as much sweat as the summer head does. I need it, need to feel it, need to have that aspect in my life, this sweat reminiscent of something sweet that vanishes always when the cold comes, no one to rub again to keep me warm. 

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On the brink feb 17, 2014

 

I'm still on the brink of it

the moment I perpetually live

again and again

 a repetitive dream

 where I feel my way

through the buttons to flesh

 cupping my hands around it

the tremble of it as ruthless in me

 as an earthquake

I live in constant state of anticipation

of longing, of wishing for it

when I know I can't have it,

 feeling flesh I have not felt in years ,

shaping it the way a sculptor

might from a bit of moist clay

 making it this then that

 flat at first then long and thin and potent

reshaping it again and again

from a brief memory of when

it once was real

 I live with the echo of old texts

like the voices of crazy people hear

 telling me to do things I ought not to do

even in private, even in the dark

still I do them, feeling what I imagine I feel

and the feel of real flesh

that happens to be mine

 One vision, one touch

 inspiring me even when

 it's not real I

 am still an interrupting volcano

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where she goes. Feb 6, 2014

  

nobody knows least of all me where

she goes

whether she will ever come back

 who exactly these beings

 she calls angels are

what exactly happened

to make her leave

was it a small man again

ruthlessly reading the virgin mayor

the riot act

or some other reason

 even her poems do not

bring better understanding about

 “don't try to save me, she one wrote

 Yet she needs salvation

 the way we all do

these angels on her shoulders

whispering words of wisdom

and hope she can't derive

 from the more ordinary people

in her life

nobody knows but her

 as to what exactly transpired

why she flew the coop

or slip the shell

to where she is gone

what new shell

 what New path

 she hopes will save her

 now that she has worn out

the current path

nobody knows where she goes

while I sit on the edge of my chair

scared she might be gone forever

 

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admission of guilt 2014

  

I admit it 

I wanted to get sucked into it

 lost in the desert

unable to find my way out again

aching for her Oasis

 brain numb

not at all in control

of where I am

where I might end up

wanting her to hold it all in her hands

aces up her sleeve

I admit I wanted not to have to think about it

 to go where it went

to end up  whatever way it happened

a space cadet floating in a vacuum

 with her steering his spaceship

I admit I wanted to lose my soul

to have her take it

have her twisted in any shape she desires

I admit I wanted to stumble around in the fog

 waiting for her

 a female Jack the ripper

to find me and do with me

whatever she wanted

 I admit that I still want

what I wanted then

 

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gifts. aug 2, 2024

  

I learned the lesson the hard way

when she gives you a gift

 take it no matter how small

 it is not insignificant

like those from back when

 she came to my desk

asking for things she didn't need

 seeking to keep the connection alive

and I foolishly always wanted more

 like a birthday at the bar

or the poems about quicksand or compassion

and now all these years later

 we are connected again

 remotely, barely

 a fragile hookup

I dare not question

I just let it happen

 grateful for the significance

the non-verbal clicks

that wake me up each morning

and put me to sleep at night

 whether he loves me or hates me

 it does not matter

this in wire that has

each of us on each end

remotely

together

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I dream of it Sept. 9, 2014

 

 

I still dream of us, even when I don’t want to, the remorse gazing out at me at night, when I am alone, when I am desperate to pump it all out to keep from exploding.

After this long, you’d assume I would cease to percolate, when in fact I boil all the more, even more than I did before, dream upon dream I wake from to find not real, reeling from the impact of imagined hips engaged, pounding like jackhammers, digging as deep as I dare to go.

I still dream of it, even when I know I ought not to, the attraction of heavenly bodies still as potent as the Big Bang.

At what point does the universe cease to expand, contracting only when I come back to consciousness. It only grows in my sleep, hard as steel, prodding at the soft boundaries of the pliable universe, which groans with the banging of bedposts on the cheap motel walls, the desperate cries I hear turning out to be my own, always wanting more.

I dream of it when I know I shouldn’t. I just can’t stop.

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