To make it right, you can take away
until only skin and bones remain.
With elixirs you can reign over pleasure and pain,
you can go on,
feeling only frustration that there is something missing,
that in this piece you cannot find more than a morsel
of dignity, which wouldn't bother you so much
except that you can sense the potential
for so much more.
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 8:48 AM UTC
When the bitter December air blows and the girl
screams on the street corner, a Christmas list of dreams and demands
in her unrelenting grip, a bit homesick, though she is young,
wishing her poppa hadn't drifted so far
from who he was when she was born.
When at school the boy had day dreamed of staying home
and keeping the door closed--
now amidst his mother's disillusioned cries to be understood
and the solace of the radio in his room,
he imagines himself singing "Blue Christmas" like Elvis
and impressing all the kids at school.
When the young woman pulls a tray of chocolate chip cookies
from the oven and turns on the television,
wishing there was someone there to share them
and so she opens the window and smells the night,
the snow approaching with the wind from beyond the moonlight.
And the young man strikes the guitar strings with fingers
cold to the bone, a tragic tale sung in every note
but his heart beats warmly and echoes up the street
along the cool walls of every home
in search of something kind
underneath the December sky.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 7:05 AM UTC
A new day, another
just like all the rest
except that as I lay my eyes upon it
I can see the sunrise with clouds just so,
hues that never quite existed before,
and I breathe a breeze
as new as the skin in which I stand,
although it still feels just like it always has
as far back as I can remember.
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 8:54 PM UTC
I wonder what it would feel like,
with a lover's heart beating against mine,
the natural sweetness of the oils in her hair,
her hand, perhaps with one scar or another
and chipped nail paint--touching my cheek,
and her breath alive and endearing
with warm air, petite lungs breathing easily,
and maybe with a reflexive glance upward to me
flashing brilliantly beautiful
in a brief moment of thoughtlessness where the reality is
she's surrendered her very being
without intending to and without regret,
for she feels safe enough not to hold her heart
in her own hands, and I safe enough
to let her hold mine, and I tell her
that I've known no greater joy than to give her
everything I am.
It must be so much more beautiful
than wrapping my fingers around the hand of a fantasy,
which in my desperate grip crumples
like the paper on which I drafted
her every perfect detail.
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 7:33 AM UTC
Years ago I heard a song;
it was a burst of fresh spring water,
thoughtless as thoughts exhausted on a day's end,
somber as delta sleep
with dreams of love like lovers
can never be
in the mind's eye,
because with all its intellect
it's song is little more
than a thousand haunted memories
and a reasonable fear
that what I wished I could keep forever
is dissolving like an exhale into the breeze.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 10:39 PM UTC
My love, I still wish I could pull you close,
my hand along the curve of your spine,
and kiss your cheek, feel
you blush underneath my lips
and run my fingers through your hair,
all the while remaining open to you
--if you were to whisper to me a suggestion
that we might run away together
and leave everything else behind,
and our hearts would race because
we just might do it.
But love,
as I pine away after you,
I wonder if I'm more than this infant
who can plot and scheme to conquer your heart
but who at the end would relinquish all pride
to kick and scream.
I don't want
what we had,
each of us with our agendas
so in the shape of each other
that I'm sure it's been ages since I've seen
into your eyes and since you've seen
into mine.
My love, all I want is to find the courage to love again,
and so I pray that some bravery exists within
the heart of this goodbye, in which I wish you the same.
Oct 26, 2013
Oct 26, 2013 at 2:57 AM UTC
Your eyes are lost in a place with no answers--and I wonder how I could reach you.
I wonder how I could penetrate the surface of the ice.
And I understand that
the grief of your mother's passing and the grief of our lost life together
is churning within you and
in this hellish place, I imagine you are sitting alone.
A great sense of urgency overcomes me
every day
in every moment my mind is available to wander--and it does so,
seeming to be drawn to you; I feel
drawn to throw my body against the ice with the force of ten thousand Greek soldiers
against the walls of Troy. And it's only when I've got nothing left
save an indignant and animal desperation
that a reasonable voice echoes faintly in my head.
It pulls me back and suggests
that only a warmth within you
can possibly melt the barrier
between us.
With the animal urge still whimpering in half breaths and drooling spit
like a dying rodent, I whisper to you
that I'd be in there with you if I could, that I love you
and I'm so sorry I can't turn back time to correct for my foolishness.
My breath condenses upon the ice and instantly freezes,
leaving me alone in my own hell
where the reasonable voice tells me
that I will still live
if I never see you again.
Oct 26, 2013
Oct 26, 2013 at 2:53 AM UTC