From racing dreamscapes,
Swirled with glitz and feathers,
Dizzying patchwork recollections,
Stitched with designer chemicals,
That deepened the hue of our smiles,
Stylishly arranged,
Like so many accents,
Around the wrought-iron geometry,
Of your home,

To perfect cappuccino mornings,
The lazy creeping brightness,
Of the city as it woke,
On a plane where time,
Was still of tangible essence.
From your rooftop we watched,
Eating scones.

There was an easy,
Any-time-of-day-ness,
To the laugh lines in your face.

Blue hair spiked with glitter,
Wiggly wool socks peeking,
From your flannel pj's,
That relic of a leather coat,
As orange-brown-tan,
As my memories of the seventies.
Shades thrown over that peacock grin,
So that your mouth was as cool as I longed to be.

There was July,
That designer suit,
Myself a mess of crushed velvet,
On the couch,
Cutting lines with your passport.
Sniff and a jingling of keys,
Then off with your briefcase,
To litigate the conflicts of industry.

Not without a wry smile,
Shot over your shoulder,
Too boyish to possibly be contrived,
The reflection in your wire-rimmed specs,
A girl,
much like myself,
We're she not so starry-eyed,
And swooning drunk on your vapor.

You were the essential amalgamation,
Of youth and worldliness,
Lacking only romance.
A marvel how passion
Seemed to ebb and break all around,
Yet never touching you,
Or never touching me through you.

Versed in the ways of inurement,
And whimsy,
I have not been blind until now.

This precedent came on wings,
Neon swift but insidious,
Like the venom in your sting,
Which has leaked into the cavities off my brain,
And there like alginate congealed,
Stamping me with your impression.

Thought is now a slide show exhibit,
Of our days and nights,
Each frame individually,
Carbon printed with your seal.

This is a mockery,
Of the years that I've conquered,
Of the woman I've become ,
Still you remain,

A cover boy,
Posing as the marble etched ideal,
For the centerfold of my very soul.

It's a long,
            slow,
                languid sky.

Clouds incinerating,
in a smouldering heat,
on the horizon,

The last traces,
of afternoon light,
beseiged by sunset.

Your memory,
is a wild specter,
casting firefly trickery,
into the settling twilight.

And the city rolls,
past itself,
projected on the mirrored face,
of a glass building.

I am a lonely Alice.
Somewhere on a checkered green,
in that looking glass world,
you are having tea parties,
without me.

Coaxing dream,
with your Red Queen,
and Cheshire grin.

Sending it flailing,
weightless,
through smoke rings,
like dogs through hoops -
rabbit holes.

It's a long,
           slow,
               languid sky.

Darkness falls,
like the weight of years,
that pass as quickly,
as the peak,
of a dreaming red sunset.

Their memory,
is a great humid ghost,
condensing itself,
the way dampness and heat,
press the air.

Tomorrow promises rain.
I will ****** my face,
to the mirage sky,
and its clouds,
will weep.

Salty,
watercolor tears,
blurring the reflection,
of my absence,
in your looking glass world.

I dreamt of you last night.
I can still envision your smile,
that bright mural,
the colorful decor,

The Korean couple,
aging bohemians,
living vicariously through us,
as we toured their home.

You told me I was
the love of your life.
We kissed,
and it was electric.

As though our lips were
two filaments,
our souls conduit,

We created,
and conducted,
a shared,
essential spark,

I loved you completely,
in that moment,
knew you,
felt you,
completely.

In that small eternity,
I experienced happiness,
as I had never done
before,

As though a lens,
has focused,
I now understood,
what others felt,

When they used words,
like contentment,
and fulfillment,
and bilss.

For a brief space,
of subconscious delight,
I forgot what it was like,
to be hollow,

And existed,
for a pause of breath,
in the warm overflow,
of your embrace.

Days are splendorous,
in the royal color wash,
and frost,
of November.

Four thirty is a burning torchlight
of reminiscence.
November,
older,
wiser,

But similar,
in the way that air,
is a rustle of crisp leaves,
and emotions that,
stretch across the horizon,
like an autumn parade.

Familiar,
in the way that,
shifting parameters of light,
invigorate and disturb.

Prodigious,
whispering of enchantment,
and it's Siamese twin,
disillusionment.

November,
That lingers like a somber melody,
or a dense beat,
hanging on the evening wind,

Whose disruptive energy,
is portentous,
of wakeful nights to come.

That shimmers,
and shivers,
and sings,
sending a mating call,
to ravenous winter.

November,
is a communicable pheromone,
am aphrodisiac,
A crescendo.

The yearly succubus,
crowned,
in her raucous display,
of jewels,

Her ingenious distraction,
as she drains the world
of warmth,
and daylight.

And I am hallowed.
November's champion,
riding the dark,
like a faithful steed.

A cowgirl about town.
An outlaw,
blown in on a strident wind,

Primed to partake,
of libation and lechery,
because I am restless,
and it is too brisk to wander.

November is distilled,
and flows like hot cider,
steaming in the faces,
of days it leaves cold.

It is one thousand proof,
and permeates breath vapor,
each small fog,
that lingers like an apparition.

Shades of November,
fettered from dissipation,
as winter,
in search of answers,
clutches at the evidence of its becoming.

My last memory of you,
is watching you walk through a crowd,
not realizing who you were,

Having lost you momentarily,
thinking snidely,
as I watched you,
bogart your way through the herd,
"Why is this old man in such a hurry?"

Then I recognized the hat,
That shaggy hair,
once spun cornsilk,
now grayer than I'd realized.

The trousers,
baggy on your thin frame,
less than thin,
gaunt.

I couldn't shake,
The way your skin hung,
like parchment on jagged bone.

Frail...
The word ricocheted in my mind,
like a rogue pinball...

You had been under the weather.
Dimly,
I understood that.

There had been a battery,
of tests.
A barrage of them,

But for every differential diagnosis,
came a negative finding.
There was and all clear,
nothing to see here,
kind of trend.

Of course it was so.
You were indestructible,
A legend,
A mythical being,

A titanium Phoenix,
rising ever from the ash,
leaving steely slide guitar riffs,
and cold fire in your wake.

I never saw you again after that day,
my birthday.
The next week,
I forgot to call.
Father's Day.

Not because I hadn't thought of it,
The time just always gets past me.
It haunts me still.

We made plans later,
I would make it up to you.
Grilled steaks on the rooftop deck.

You were even on your way,
to reconciling with Dave,
making amends at long last.
The ship was righting itself.

I slept soundly that night.
Groggilly ignored my phone,
in the morning,
But it just kept ringing.

Reaching in the early light,
clumsily,
to check the time,
I thought,

"There had better be something wrong..."

My soul feels colicky,
wants to cry,
wants to fall in sheets like rain,
and patter against you.

Yearns to drape itself,
across your alter,
like sacrifice.

It's name on my tongue is thunder.
Wet and booming.
Counting the seconds,
between rumble and strike.

Precipitation,
and the breadth of night,
seem as chronic as thought.
Restless.
Driven by some chemical altercation.

Molecules shifting,
spinning weather vanes,
in the drowning current,
of silence.

It is deafening,
The progress of discontent,
That resounds within these walls.
Painting instant pictures,
like slideshow noir.

Gaudy and random,
divining art,
from discord.

The rhythm is slate gray,
cast against the depths of night.
The clouds loom,
in time lapse procession.

They speak of ***** films,
of the serial killer,
inside my head.

That sick,
ranting ****,
That drones on in tongues,
at 4 am!
That throws books at the wall!

But it's only the rain,
gleeful-mad on the tin roof.
Spouting hostile jargon,
intermittent,
with the sad soliloquy of flush.

Steady,
The somber hymn of my sacrament.
This offering,
layed before you like ***.

Profound,
clinging,
desperate.

In dark hours I writhe,
distended,
by the invasive girth,
of this storm inside my head.