Peter in the summer morning sun
his cool smile shaded by shadows run
his voice as soothing as coffee’s scent
tell me he wasn’t heaven sent

Peter of Malibu moss and Spanish rose
his lips like light-coral, in kissable repose
his legs slouched akimbo, like a tiger’s limbs
how I long to re-entangle myself in them.

Peter’s quick caress, on windy Tropez beaches
aren’t men the most delightful, of nature's invasive species?
I miss the jeweler’s precision, of his warm and playful hands
and how the sun slowly gifted him, with a model’s golden tan.

Peter sipping coffee under a brittle, New Haven sun,
his rough laugh following something silly I’d done.
There’s no cryptic, localized pathology, happening at the beach,
when the two of us are together, our worlds just seem complete.
.
.
Songs for this:
What the World Needs Now by Tori Holub & James Wilkas
be mine by strongboi

My 10th grade year,
Dad put my brother,
Tobin and I in a  
private school in  
Camarillo California.  
  
Mom sent us  
to live with him after  
we traded our  
education, back in  
Des Moines, for **** and  
sitting around  
listening to Led   
Zeppelin records in the  
basement.  
We had it all figured out.  
  
Before we started
a day of class, we  
went on a week-long   
skiing trip to  
Sequoia National Park.  
I loved that school.  
A passion grew in  
me for literature,   
Melville and Dickens,  
Dylan Thomas and the  
rest of the greats visited  
me in my dreams.  
They were good, gentle  
nights back then. 
 
I wrote a paper on  
Billy Budd, and received a C  
for my weak effort.  
Dad explained aspects of  
the story:  
plot  
theme  
antagonist  
protagonist  
and tragic character flaws.  
I didn’t get a C again on  
anything to do with  
literature.  
I was still inept  
with the numbers game.  
Math didn’t hold my  
Interest.  
It dog-paddled, then drowned in  
my budding poet brain.  
  
I had a gorgeous Dutch  
Girlfriend, Van Vleck or  
Van something or other.  
I acted in the play,  
and started at small   
forward on the   
basketball team.  
I even got into a  
fight with a kid for  
telling the principal that  
he sold me a little ****.  
I was suspended for a week,  
but Dad didn’t seem to  
mind that much.  

He gave me a copy of   
Don Quixote, and told   
me to write an essay a day.  
Back then, I was  
the prince of the private school.  
 I started to care about  
learning.   
The teachers taught with  
zeal and zest.  
The lust for literature was  
born in me  
beneath that smiling  
West Coast sunshine, and  
melancholy California fog.

As a student I was very talkative,
Sometimes I would talk nonstop,
And disrupt the class,
Exasperated my teacher told me to write an essay,"Why I enjoyed talk8ng.
So I wrote:
When mum was pregnant with me,
She loved to nap under our mango tree with a book in the afternoon,
My grandmother would  caution her not to sit under any tree as  suspicious witches lived there,
But mum would not heed her.
Now a good talkative witch lived in that tree
And as mum napped  we would talk for hours giggling and laughing
Sometimes grandmother would call out to mum for tea,
But the witch made sure mum was in deep sleep,
The witch enjoyed my company
You see she was the only one left in the tree,
Her family had gone to live in the baobab tree,
So she felt lonely.
All those months I had become a chatterbox,
Even after birth I started to coo all the time,
Bewitched by a witch I am ma'am.
26/2/2025

i can feel you
distancing yourself from me
i can feel continental drift
i wonder, do the shoes
you wear to run from me
have holes in them?
or do you go barefoot
careful not to make a sound
in your retreat. "cover your tracks & don't look back" i imagine
your demons whisper daily
as you are growing fond of me
i wonder if your heart puts up a fight when you want to see me
or if it's a massacre
& the demons dance
on dreams you have
of us holding hands
do you wander to your car
only to find yourself back in bed?
do you put your makeup on
just to take if off again?  
is your imagination of me
a graveyard, or a pair of open arms
that are inches away
but just out of reach?
you see, what i've been so afraid
to tell you for so long,
why i feign sometimes
before speaking
careful not to tell you
all my unspoken promises,
it has to do with the night you had your head on my chest and confessed you never thought my heart
could beat like hummingbird wings:
i apologize for my silence
what i've been trying to say
is that my heart hasn't slowed down
since the day we drank coffee together
continents apart

I can't do brain
I can't do thoughts
I can't do friends
And I can't do smoking in parking lots

I can't do death
But I also can't do living

I can't do anything
Except for just giving
And giving