I watched “Schindler’s List” again,
I really don’t know why,
I know how it ends…
Everybody dies
I guess I loved the theater
Maybe, I’m getting older,
But I sure loved the popcorn,
And your arm around my shoulder,
The way you said “aw honey”
As tears rolled down my face,
I felt so important in that crowded place,
I thought about you as I watched,
Its over 20 years,
I microwaved the popcorn,
And wish that you were here,
Alone on the couch,
The movies loose there meaning,
They say it cost less,
****,
I’m sick of streaming
©B L Costello 2018

She was so attractive,
Back when she was ”right”
She went to work everyday,
She said her prayers at night,
To this common life,
She had come,
so far,
“it takes courage to grow up and become who you are”,
Resided,
Then content,
something had to break,
They said she was an ‘accident”,
But people make mistakes,
And, still she is forgiving,
She is actualized,
It doesn’t even matter,
You don’t look her in the eye,
She who you looked down upon,
Now makes you feel strange,
and all she ever did was ask,
“Have you got some change”?
©B L Costello 2018

Sometimes I wonder...

   if you and I...

     would be comfortable...

       being alone....

         while just sitting....

          near each other...

            breathing easy...

             slow....

              no destination....

                listening to the silence...

             in between the sounds...

           of our hearts beating...

         a solitary pair...

       alone together...

     no love to feed...

   no human needs...

  two players...

on a single stage...

no winds of worry...

   no words of rage...

     no climbing hope...

       just sand slipping...

        starlight fading...

          dimming into darkness....

         wondering...

       why...

     are...

   we...

  all...

so...

comfortable...


  being . .  



          
       alone.

He was right about April
callous brutality
washing our sorrows in joy
each sweet breath effortful
eyes reborn to the brightness
unaccustomed to all this blossoming
an embarrassment of beauty

but we go on
year after blistering year
infusing our days with purpose
we'll never come to understand
your lips against mine in
mysterious bliss

Death, my friend, is in everything
we touch
the small porcelain cup
which holds my coffee
the tiny silver spoon that
stirs my mind

our breaths are numbered
assigned at birth
watching your chest rise and fall
as you sleep
I count
trying to formulate between us
the perfect equation

my deep and dire dreams
redeem me
no lunar memory remains
I'm transformed with no recollection
precious state
dissolving ribbon
a fresh organism
cells renewed
a sloughing off of the night
a hatching
perhaps, after all, there is a soul

She lived along the Atlantic coast
and had a collection of lobster pots
by the porch
and her lawn was trimmed for croquet
smelled of clams at low tide
the house was set near barnacle rocks
just beyond a stand of trees.

I found her by looking in a phonebook
next to her name it said, "Poetry Journals,"
so I called the number, and said I was on my way.
"Is that ok?" I added hesitantly.

“Well, yes,” she laughed, “You can come buy one.”
I passed the sign for fresh eggs
and arrived at a black wrought iron gate that said,
"Poetry Journals - 2 for $5.00."

“You’re the first one
who’s ever made it all the way to the house for a journal…”
“In four dozen years,"
she said.
Then she asked,
“What’s your name?”

“I don’t really have a name," I said.
She nodded and understood.
She'd heard from Byron
that the Banshee drags souls out to sea
but sometimes the nameless
manage to float back looking for poetry
these lost ones are like driftwood
bringing a sense of chilly dusk
a retrospective on the sea
in a seashell
appearing by happenstance
at low tide
"yes, I hear a distant mumble of waves,"
she might have said of me
I was one of the lost
turning her porch into a quay of despair
the first one in almost 50 years
who had made it so far
to latch on
until high tide
when the rush of sea returned
washed me out again clinging for dear life
to a raft of poetry

I have no reason
just a feeling
In my being

The wipers are beating
fast as they can go
The rain is faster
blurring my vison
just like my division

Lightning flashes
illuminating my thoughts
on my failures and
reasons for driving in the rain

Water swirling down the gutters
Viciously hellbent on destiny
A juxtaposition compared to my life

A desert in a thunderstorm

this is not a heartbreak poem
this is not a poem about loss or yearning
or all the shattering that comes with it
this is not a poem about sadness

this is a poem about falling in love
and falling out of love
and falling, and falling, and falling
this is a poem about gravity

in this poem there is no measure
there is no rhyme, only longing and
a heart that keeps itself wide open
for things to beat and break for

in this poem there are sunsets
and oceans and moons and sweet, tangy
summers and hands, always hands
all maddening clichés about falling in love

this is not a heartbreak poem
but it is a poem about things that break
hearts and promises and prose
but never us - never us