I hope you are

A star-gazer

An avid embracer

A rainy day reveler

A countless kiss craver



A cheerful heart
Filled with
Joie de vivre

And for you, I hope,
All these things
I will be

Saw a comment
In this age of interwoven everything
Incensed that Bourdain's death
Receive more attention than those
Of many lost veterans

(My father a veteran
With yet a glint of hope
To live out his years
To their natural end

And my grandfather
A serviceman long ago
Carrying light betrayals
Of this said great nation

Great men both, and)
Great those who give their all
Yet what gave us Bourdain?

Just as much
In equal measure

A life
Hard lived
Worn and weary and truthfully
Desperate

All peoples feel
The terrible weight of their sins
Even,
At days end,
Those who profess no belief

Bourdain gave art
Bought with sweat and blood and
Costly time
(For all of us
Time is valuable beyond gold)

Art
And food
And good cheer
Spent in the late evenings
And long mornings
Surrounded by all manner of
Gripping yarn

A double life?
Not unlikely
A wounded wanderer?
Most assuredly
A value immeasurable?
Beyond doubt

And what would we all do?
Should we write, or read, or sing, or paint, or eat, or travel, or labor, or rest, or weep, or laugh, or cook, or question, or answer, or defend, or break?

Love,
And live.
Veterans of this warring world
Cooks of worthy creations

There is a terrible wonder
a childlike mystery
wrapped in the word
'Innocence'

for none of us have;

though once,

we did.

and how haunting the notion
as though even lost Eden
still lingered somewhere
on the edges of our
bitter broken hearts



Perhaps
mine was stolen
about the age of ten

or worse
perhaps I sold it
for bittersweet pleasures,
the foretaste of
everlasting ash.

to never again
know the joy of kindly eyes,
or the incomparable inhalation
of that first breath
when the rumors of the sea
become real
to both sight and lung.



Stolen,
or lost,
or sold,

or very simply removed

through the cruel currents
of terrible time.



Yet:

redeemed;
recovered;
repurchased;

if only I have
the audacity
to put myself aside

and yet come

to the crux
of humanity
and history



with the shameful
significant cry

'forgive me'

Often,
I wake in the middle,
And at all other hours,
Of the night.

Sometimes,
I hear the joints
Of this old building,
Creaking.

I have to remind myself
It's older than I am;
Likely has more complaints,
But fewer demons.

You have left me,
My love,
With naught but words of scorn,
As your every step
Draws you further from me.

How far will you go,
Before you realize
Your tears have been falling?
Before you feel
The ache of this abandonment?

But I know you,
And I know
You chase perfection as a shooting star.
It lives but a moment
And burns into your heart;
And you dream more than I can give.

Now we are separated
By towering mountain ranges
That shimmer bright
From a hundred seasons of snow.
But even then
The lilies there are never silent;
They whisper in the winter night.

I still see your prints
Not yet buried under new snow.
You have gone
So very far away.
Though my heart
Never ceases its call,
I cannot you through the storm
Anymore.

Goodbye,
July.
See you again,
After June
Has been back in.

Many men catch beauty

with merely an eye.

Few men cherish beauty;

Fewer still wonder why.

I.
As the bow
On violin
Invite my lips
Upon your skin
And our music play
Therein

II.
Kisses sprinkled
Over her
Hourglass form
Would be
An hour
Well spent

III.
Her teeth naively bite my ear
And I tingle as I hear
‘You belong to me, my dear’

IX.
She strips me bare
With but a glance
Her tongue on her lips
Begins to dance
She pins me down
And takes her chance

Of all my regrets,
For Man is granted
Not a few;

Of all my regret:
My deepest wound,
My keenest loss,
Has settled there upon
You.

I love you.

I only wish

I could teach my younger self

I didn’t only want you;

I loved you.



If I could do that,

Perhaps tonight,

I could breathe that honest truth

Into your ears

And not spill it on paper.

In a dream I sought you

Begging a second chance

Within that dream

You gave me not a second glance




'Perfection failed our first time round,

What do you want from me?'

I never sought from you perfection;

Yet from desire, I'm never free.

Still,
I remember
     your lips:

Understated, yet
     strikingly sweet,

Like the scent of plums
     wavering on the breeze.

I've listened long
To men so loud
Boasting on and
Ever proud

I've listened less
To honesty
Fearful it might
Undo me

I cannot think of you

Without being burned

And I cannot touch you

Without being scarred





Yet to resign myself

To neither

Is to be forever marred

i've been shuffling around in the socks of a dead man

i don't want to die in a hospital bed
mummified quite politely in their
robe of humiliation
before they wheel me off to excavate any
unspoiled organs
to suit another ill-fated man

i should be out
on the charred pavement and
streets of dust
catching the taste of this bittersweet place
on the edge of my tongue
though the dregs and the derelicts
trudge beneath a weight of weariness
and i am fit between it all

Perhaps love is,

at least for us mortal folk,

little more (or less)

than a frail seed

In great need

of good tilled soil and

water and sun

and laughter and fun

and wisdom to know

how desperately

broken we all are.



And maybe

perhaps

given due time and care

Love can bloom

become a real thing

become a summer garden thriving

because love

real Love

is far more than passion and desire

More than a meager

give and take

push and pull

'you scratch my back
I scratch yours';



Perhaps love is

something breathed in

with that breath of divine

that first brought us

up out of dust;



Perhaps Love

is so much more than our emotions

much more vast

than all our oceans

Perhaps love is less about

Caste and height;

Perhaps real love

is an unprecedented delight,

A chance to live right.

Her neighbors were her friends
Her friends were her family
Her family went unnumbered
For with a smile she won strangers
And called them her neighbors

The man I am and

The one I should have been

Often meet

At a broken mirror.

You can never
Lure me with lipstick

But a gentle gaze
Leads me astray

Street markets bustle
Long after dark.

Vendors offer sweet
Moments of satisfaction.

Hundreds of voices call
In a language I do not know.

In this new wild world
I have found home.

She smiled like April

Breaking out of winter gloom;

She laughed with the fervor

Of a sudden shower in June.

How often still

You slip between

My restless thoughts

And fitful sleep

And how it is

Your lips belie

The promises of which

They sigh

I catch her modest glance
As she scans for mistletoe.

And upon its discovery
She quietly strays below;

Gentle eyes fall on me, and,
Drawn by that coy smile,

We meet beneath the greenery
To linger there a while.

Mourn with those who mourn.

How plain.

How right.

For my tears are not meant

To be hoarded and spent

Only on my own heavy sorrow.

And I am not to borrow

The troubles of tomorrow,

For today's are dreadful enough.

You were the one

I needed;

More than all the fanfare:

The lyrical beat,

Some empty engagement,

Some puffed up promise.

You were the one

I needed.

So I find myself

Famished,

Come the end.

Her laughter has

worked its way

in between my heartbeats

the empty tree branches

reach out for the moon

as miserly fingers

straining for a doubloon

Her whispers tingle at my ear

As she plants seeds of expectation.

Thus I draw her in to a night

Of pleasure, and culmination.

I am ****** into

Waking;

Silently screaming,

Furiously shaking.

I am far too old

To remember night fear;

Yet wake terribly quaking,

And am left right here.

A heady brew of espresso

Mingles with the dewy air,

Buttery pain au chocolat

Makes for quite a pair;

The morning warms to the songs

Of the chipper moineau,

And lovers beneath the columns

Of Parc Monceau.

I feel autumn on the breeze
Summer has gotten away from me
The hospital now like a second home
And as such, I also leave it alone

In pursuit

          of perfection,

Seldom have I

          also seen success.

Ah!

Grant me

Cold rain upon my neck,

And petrichor

Within my deep breaths.

Honestly

I saw your smile tonight
That real
Bright
Stunning
Smile

So much more
Than those counterfeits you
Spent on me

How often you torment me
How appropriate
Since that day you determined
You now must hate me

I find every hour or so

Words bursting in my head

As corn kernels agitated;

And greedily

I scoop up all I can,

Though the result is often

A mess of burned buttery bunk.

I have ears...


God!


Please let me hear.

You were,
to me,
more heady
than the finest wines of France.

You were,
to me,
exemplary;
an unexpected innocence.

My heart now heavy as stone

and it seems to me

come judgment day

I shall crawl all that way

with it shackled to my ankle

and yet ever be alone

We might have
laughed our way into age,
growing older,
shorter,
wider
together.

Instead,
we parted,
while yet young
and thin
and proud.

Your thighs

As golden Caribbean beaches,

And my lips:

Marathoners.

I can feel my heart
beating against its cage
like a couple missionaries
dressed and pressed
at my door on Saturday
eager to explain to me
the queue into heaven and say
nothing of God

it's night
or morning?
Some muted twilight
seeping through the shades
in a season between the
wholesome seasons
where it's too hot for closed windows
too cold for open ones

I have to measure my
fingers against the bottle
having long stopped counting
the drinks that are downed

I remember you
a bit
the best parts of our
scant fifty-two together

that night
maybe amid the seasons
where the clock sets
all wrong against the
charcoal skies,
but that night,
you bit me

I still feel it pulsing,
electric in my veins

abandon caution
the moment I began my trespass
the way you meticulously attacked
every sense I knew

peeling away all these
unnecessary layers
as the shadows were already
heavy enough
but peeling away
every apprehension
simply to press against you
and let, like butter,

my tongue melt

on your tender skin

Oregon in winter

With patchwork fields

Of green and gold.

Woodsmoke lingers;

Memory bursts in;

And maybe it’s okay

To be growing old.