Camel Blues protruding from the right hip pocket
Of your too-tight skinny jeans
Containing the gracefullest legs
You're a tower.

You've left your mark on me
In more ways than one
And I fell to pieces, leaking colors through the cracks
Like none I'd known were there

But you aren't going to pull me close again
Or run your knowledgeable hands
Over my worn-cotton white skin,

Alas.

Declared the red digital clock, forcefully.
My left hand tingled
In the place where your right belongs.

My body felt as half-baked dough
In an oven of linen:
My feet and ankles embraced by old wool socks,
Slate grey and olive green,
Bare arms and shoulders,
A black chemise is all the rest.

My dreams are full of you,
With your long-limbed frame
And Gaia's mossy eyes,
Your gentle voice and
The sweetness of your fleeting touch.

This morning drenched our little world-
Fogged our vision driving in,
As the wind blew the water sideways in sheets
Which threw themselves against the windshield:
THWAPP
THWAPP
THWAPP.

The wipers fought a losing battle:
FSH-erhh
FSH-erhh
FSH-erhh.

Stepping out the driver's side door
Was like having walked the plank
And reached the end,
Emerging into nothingness,
And then endless water.

Wool socks were damp for hours
Souls were exhilarated, voices tittering ironically joyful grousings.
"Can you believe this weather?"

Home again,
I feel as a stranger to the indoors,
The smell of clean clothes,
Imprisonment under electric lighting.

Now I am curly-headed,
Smoke-scented,
Mud-sprinkled.

My hands feel as leathery as
The bulky Bean Boots I wear over my wool socks-
They have been marked by climbing ropes,
tree bark,
the handle of my guitar case.

I crave a return to the forest,
the trance-like feeling we all got from staring at the fire,
the dirt under my fingernails,
you in your sleeping bag (maximum capacity: three persons)
the children on my lap and at my feet.

thinking about the night we spent in the patchy grass
with the dry soil rubbing from the earth
onto our clothes
leaving its mark on us
as we left our mark on each other
i begin to feel unwelcome in my own body
and long for an escape
a chance to become someone else
like the long-legged femme with her mouth open
sending out
blue smoke rising in plumes
rising to heaven like a prayer from the mouth of a ******
with Wilde tattooed on her wrist and his rough pink hand on her shoulder
and her shoes: muddy slip-ons with holes worn through
and his eyes, telling me i have worn out my welcome
so i leave
and i find you
alone in a booth by the window
looking ruefully into the black depths of your big white mug
and i go to you; let you slip your fingers through mine
and again we find ourselves as before
endlessly intertwined.

We sit together,
On old chairs with cracked legs
And upholstery of a dated pattern.

My hands:
blackened at the fingertips
nails in ruins
calloused.
it appears that my guitar is the victor of this battle.

The dining room is a mess-
textbooks strewn about, proclaiming that
a change in buyer preferences will
cause a shift in demand
and that
the Amarna Period reflected
a number of stylistic changes
and the clock on the oven says it's nearly midnight.

Retire with me to the front porch.
Sit down in a white rocking chair
with green-and-brown striped cushions
And feel the cool, clean mist on your cheeks
As the rain comes pouring forth
From the opened mouth of Tlaloc,

And we will sing, and laugh, and cry
Until it is quite late indeed
And we become
dizzy,
giddy,
wobbly-minded
And fall gratefully into bed.

Tonight envelops your spindly frame.

Dark forest-green wool,
It is softer than velvet
Against your moon-pale skin.

Such a merry garment
Welcomes the onset of
Autumn, a most idyllic season.

Hearing the high-register flute tones
Drift up from downstairs-
Not sweetly like the angels' song
Or gently like a bird's:
But forcefully, repetitively,
Like the sound of a car's anti-theft alarm,
Has slowly heated my mind past its boiling point.

And now the walls are closing in
And the water's running black from the tap
And it's dripping down your cheeks
Flowing like your endless grievous tears.

We can't accomplish anything we set out to do
You call me and we babble for an hour
About nothing.
You'd had something important to say
But it never came out-
Your plans like the half-formed sneeze that looms imminent
And then inexplicably disappears forever.

I am the sunny green basil
You grew in the terra cotta tureen by the north-facing window.

I started off light, sweet, tangy, refreshing.

You left me alone for too long.

And now I am bitter,
Biting,
Useless.

If you had tended me with care,
I would be always at your service,
Adding flavor to your sauces and meats.


But you neglected me,
And you've put me in your compost bin
With potato skins and banana peels
And I am good for nothing, no one.

Yours is extraordinarily beautiful.
It's rhythmic like the movement of the sea and
Reassures me of the endlessness,
The ceaseless calm of the world we've created
Here in our embrace.

Mine is far more painful
And my exhausted lungs sound
Like the wheezing old engine of our '83 Chevy
As I lay here
Surrounded by electronics meant to preserve my life
That will only destroy my spirit.

You hold the short balsa match
Between your stubby pale fingers
The bitten-down nails painted black-cherry-hot-blood red.
And you tremble.

Strike it- sulfur's tangy odor permeates the air.

Your soul rattles like dead leaves
On the end of a long blight-stricken oak branch in November.

Skin, it hisses like firewood left out in the rain
And reddens like your cheeks did when your lips first touched his,
When you first saw his skin gleaming white
In the Autumn-chill  moonglow.

Now it blisters, white and swollen, tender, sore.
And you feel you've accomplished something, moved forward,
But there's a faint voice
Calling to you from the back of your consciousness
Telling you you've gone down the wrong road entirely.

Proclaimed the paper-cutout placard on the table:
Clothless gray plastic-surfaced round.

In this immense faux-stone (concrete?)
Faux-English country house
We escape to the top of the stairs:
The no admittance sign is no deterrent.

The iridescence of your skirt is captivating
But all I can remember is living in a castle like this one
When I was a little blonde nothing
And feeling the way I do now,
As if there's been no transformation, no progress.

Maybe there has,
And this band must be pretty great
To keep this many old white people dancing so enthusiastically
For such a long time:
An ancient one with a Christmas-themed vest
Foxtrots with a once-lady in a polyester pants suit
Thin hair dyed roofing-tar black, suede kitten heels clacking.

The world's a **** strange place.
Even if we feel like we aren't quite awake,
We'll adjust our stockings and fill our plates
With that mystery-shrouded gelatinous citrus dessert
And our plastic cups with apple cider, light beer, 7-Up.

Endure a few more minutes on this rented dancefloor with me
Because they're playing love shack
And who doesn't smile at the mere notion of the B-52s?

Oh, sweet lithe creature!
You radiate light
And warmth
And a playful arrogance, harmless rebellion

Your smell is clay and moss,
Cigarette and cologne and Society

We burn burn burn through the night
And share sweet desire and bitter coffee

But you turn on your heels
And go. Go!

When I see you again we'll be ghosts
I'll blush and you'll tell me something dry
I'll want you to wrap me in your arms,
To feel your breath on my neck again.

"I'm sorry. Take care of yourself, Cailey."

Is the world through your clouded eyes.
there's no way to grow that don't hurt,

So let the light shine through,
Cleanly,
As it did in the beginning,

And love me.

Here
In the spaces between the trees
Bands of light squeeze through and
Illuminate your mossy eyes,
Making them shine like diamonds.

Walk with me.
If we don't find our way back
To where we started,
We'll discover somewhere new.

Share with me a conversation
So much like our physical journey:
Exciting, refreshing,
Exploratory,
Slightly perilous.

Then, at last,
Share with me
An embrace warm and true
Of the kind that warm to the core,
That draw contented sighs,
Gentle smiles.

I have for you such quiet adoration,
Silent longing that would bleed me dry if I let it.
But I do not;
Instead I make it fortify my soul.

The carpeting under your reclining form
Is stained with ink from an old-style fountain pen
And the prints of innumerable tired aching feet
Encased in sullied boots.

You are marred by nothing,
Your kiss cool and fresh, sweet, floral, clean.

Your small white hands
Explore a thread
That has escaped from a pair of old jeans-
Worn every day, rarely washed,
the pockets full of coins, lint, gum wrappers.

I take a drag off this cigarette
And contemplate how close I am in identity with it,
How I fit the mold perfectly and take no chances.
I am a case study in consistency

And you,
Dearest,
Are like nothing else
And second to none.

Sitting here on his shoulders
Like a little child,

I can see over the heads of the crowd,
The hay bales and pumpkins,
And my troubles.

My spirit is lifted by this new and great height
And I am utterly free.

Time has worn my body down
To less than it was before,
But it has done the same for my mind,
And I am wiser than you will ever be.

I have seen all you have done
And I know the consequences.

Youth breeds idleness and stupidity;
With great age like mine comes not defeat but victory.

You cast me aside as a wrinkled old nothing
But I know you are hollow at your core,
While I am stone-solid.

Your visage
Is so refreshing
Like a long cool drink of sencha
With honey in it

On the last day of July
When the weather feels like Hell
And to hear your voice
Was what I needed most just then.

Hold me in your arms:
Long, slender, pale.

Brush your lips on mine:
Rosy, warm, gentle.

Kiss me hard, now:
Passionate, forceful, deliberate.

And in the rain, my hair curls
So you run your fingers through it
And I can't love you any more than I do now.

We've been driving for hours
And I'm hypnotized
By the endless white dashes
Separating lanes:
Hi-Reflection government-grade paint.

They rush by
And they're innumerable, extending endlessly in both directions
Each of them someone I've met and forgotten.

I become distraught
Thinking about all of the missed opportunities ,
Wasted words.

You tell me it's all in my head;
I'm being ridiculous
But I can't take it anymore.

So we stop at a diner.
The warm rolls,
Coffee: burnt and bitter,
Big plate of greasy meat and fries
Restore me to my humanity
And remind me that we're all we've got.

I drive home, slowly.
The trees lining the road look the way I feel:
Ambivalent.

Some of the leaves are brilliant
Shining he way this amber ring does
And some have flat warm tones
Like the ochres the shaman, in his trance,
Brushed onto the walls
Building a miracle at Lascaux.

The dead ones
Lay still
Until a big rig barrels by
And they fly up in circles
And settle back where they began-
They're shiftless, no better than you or me.

Standing there
In that light,
You looked so good

Stirring the meats and sauces
In the pans on my stove
That I called your name,

And when you turned around,
And you wrapped your arms around my waist
And slid your hands down to my hips
And pulled me in tight

And our lips met,
Softly at first,
Then again:
Passionately,

I knew we were entering uncharted territory,
And it was beautiful.

Hang loosely from your frame:
Long, lean, exquisite.

Holes in the knees
Match the holes in your heart
And in mine: bored through by those we meet
With the sweetest pain.

What do you keep in your pockets?
Portable property-do you value it as Mr. Jaggers's clerk did?

I know you have two faces, as did he.
In your castle you are serene, affectionate.
Here you have Wemmick's letter-box mouth
And reveal none of what you feel.

You stand there, on the other side of the room
your shadowy soul taking refuge in
your perfectly Sculpted body

Surely Angels sang
uttering music as sweet
as the simple syrup in my Lime Rickey
while they formed your body's Symmetry
from moist, dense mass of Clay

And your steel-gray Eyes!
how they Penetrate my soul to its very Core!

as you approach me I notice the grace in your gait,
the nonchalant placing of one worn Boot before another.
It gives me endless pleasure to be the fortunate witness of such Beauty of form, and I whisper a Prayer of thanks

when you Stop directly to my right
extend your Hand,
with its beautiful palm
of worn Leather like that you wear on your feet
and in it i place mine:
small
white
trembling

You guide me to the dance floor;
i am blushing, unsure of what is to follow.

We dance close
you lean in Closer
and
here you are with your sweet Lips on mine,
your delicious tongue meets my nervous one
and I can feel the rhythm of your Heart in your chest,
beating Morse code
singing joyfully to its Creator

My thoughts: surely this is the body Michaelangelo sought for his David,
undeniably this is the very essence of masculinity
here in the body of my mysterious, shadowy companion
i find nothing but Bliss.

Lying here,
Now nothing more than a fragment of terrycloth
Faded from red to pink

You are something much more.
You know the essence of athleticism,
Of strength, stamina, courage.

You relish every drop of perspiration,
Rhythmic breath of runners is sweet music,
And now you have been cast aside,
Reposing gently on the side table,
Alone but for the stopwatch.

Such solidarity we created
On the hilltop with the cows

Discussing sassafras,
Our Chakras,
Summer-berry wine.

Per aspera ad astra
But without inhaling tar
We have come.

The cornbread with anise and wheat berries
Cruncy and sweet
Slathered with strawberry jam
Was such a luxurious meal
For us two tired wanderers.

We're left over from the '60s
Living in the past but in the moment
Listening to Mama Tried (well, she did!)
And crying over Wharf Rat
We model turtles, Celtic knots, a moose
Dream of yesterday and tomorrow
Say what we mean
Take a misguided turn driving home
And our minds meander to slumber and internal illusions.

How can one as pure as you
Endure these times, emerge unmarked?

You seem to live apart
From all this pain and loss
Evil and filth

I can't extricate myself
From this quicksand-sin

And none have trod upon your heart;
It's still full of helium and joy
And sweetness and light
And love- for me!

The chest proclaims:
Twilight Collective
The red fabric faded
and
worn thin and soft over years
Of status as
that revered object:
The favorite t-shirt,
worn first from the wash.

How it flattered your form!
Now it is draped limply from mine,
Its hem nearly at my knees,
The sleeves, short on you,
Hang past my elbows,
Giving me the appearance of a child in her father's clothes,
or of a scarecrow, faded in the sun.

Your smell remains in the fabric,
And it wraps me, safely,
As you do in your arms.

Lovingly I imbibe the sweet fragrance
As a traveler does water,
found in an oasis

And I drift to sleep in this endless desert
That is separation from you,
your voice,
your touch.

You,
who give to me love Unconditional
Unquestioning
Endless, Eternal

True.

You who gave substance to me from YOUR body
You who were willing to sacrifice your very life for my own,

Beautiful.
Mysterious.
Enduring.

You who suffered so that I may Thrive,
and would do It Again,

You who are so like our Saviour,
You have put my joy before your own,

only to find the Joy was yours equally,

You are truly blessed.

We spend it close in spirit,
but our bodies never touch.

I know little of your Inner Thoughts,
but your Eyes are like those of Horus,
gazing over me always,
your Heart nurturing like Hathor's
caring for me eternally,
but at a safe distance, from above.

You showed me my Identity;
You chastise me for my wrongdoings.
Like Osiris making my last judgement,
you sit, enthroned, with your tall white hat, flanked by vultures,
and deliver your verdict:

Love.
Love despite my failings, despite my faults,
for which you give me disappointed
looks that smash my heart to pieces,
like Seth did to your own body, you god of the Dead.

And now she, my Isis, gathers them for me.
But she forgets one vital part:

My ability to distinguish good from evil,
and now my heart is not light like the vulture's feather.

It is heavy as a river-stone and will be eaten by jackal-headed beasts.

But still, my time with you is a time of love:
enigmatic, painful love.

Things aren't what they were
And they won't be.

We are the ever-living ghost of what once was
And we're everything
But we aren't anything.

Your hard square hands
Won't move over that scrawny frame
With its gently rounded hips and healthy little *******
Again.

And the cold little chapped pink lips
Won't brush yours: warm, soft, full.

Still, something from you pulls me
The way the moon tugs on the sea
And I know you know how much we took for granted.

Onward, now,
To new,
Better?
Other
Things.

These pale little fingers
Are lavishly decorated:

Dried clay soil
Around and under jagged stubby nails
A pink crescent-moon scar
On the third one's second knuckle,
India Ink dried in drips and streaks
Deep whorl prints
Like no others- snowflakes, IDs

And slow to heal,
Painful to the touch,
These omnipresent little slashes,
Paper Cuts.

The oil on your neck
Has a smell so earthy, heavy, dark.

Its small white flowers
Are like the quiet words
That you pour out

From your sugar-sweet mouth,
Your lips warm, moist,
Like a velvet rose,

And your lily-of-the-valley hands
Reach out like stems, calling to the sun.

So **** the stars.

Your form too elegant for words,
You are draped across the floor, reposing

And she springs upon you,
Leopardlike,
As she did before
And she robs you of your very essence.

I, the observer,
Am stricken with immeasurable pain on your behalf
And I shed tears of desperation
Which form a puddle at your feet.

See me as the Sweet Thing I want to be to you.

Hold me close so I can hear your heart;
Comfort me.

Let my supernova eyes glide over your form,
and your earthy ones survey mine.

Kiss me like you mean it.

Line the edge of the shelf
And fill a bowl at one end of its dusty surface,
Worn old hickory supporting
Ashen grey pottery

The way my love for you
Fills my heart and overflows,
Pouring into my worn old mind and body.

It's placed squarely in the upper corner.
I'll send you away,
And wash my hands of you forever.

You'll tell quite a tale-
And it may be honest,
But it's certainly not true.

My gold hair still reflects the sunshine
Back to your wet but empty eyes
That tell your earnest, bumbling mind
To take the straight and narrow path
Directly towards oblivion.

My Soul was shut tight;
No light could ever enter such a place.

and here You are,
gingerly coaxing open the doors,
slowly pulling up the shades,
gently brushing the dust from the worn glass panes.

There are dishes stacked in the kitchen sink.
There is a skeleton in the closet.
The air is still musty and stagnant.

But:
The light is streaming in,
the sun's rays warming every surface, brightening the corners.

Progress.

And:
soon, this place will be clean,
bright,
new,
beautiful,
Yours.

Don't You know that I'm all full of love for *You?

Snowed in,
We prepare peasant food:

Simmering onions
Then broth
Base for boiling fish stew
Cooled in the snowbank beside the brown ale
The pineapple pies
and the venison steak.

You recline, sublimely.

Kiss me hard.
Pull me down onto you,
Your soul and mine overflowing with desire
and the wanting comes in waves

And our heavy hot breathing steams up the glass and my mind.

When I awake,
The rain has stopped- mostly.

I turn over to take in the glory of your resting form.
Your breath:
slow
deep
rhythmic
Makes me think of the days we spent by the sea,
taking refuge from the burning sun under striped umbrellas
that never stood quite right,
Drinking diet cola from cans that the sand always stuck to.

Your countenance, though now serene,
Is the same one that glared at me, exasperated,
as I drove us home only hours ago,
with the windows down and the rain
pelting our faces,  
soaking our T-Shirts and stinging my hand,
which I had ****** outside.

I chuckle at the memory:
the way the humidity curled my hair
and created the oppressive sensation of being in a sauna,
making respiration difficult.

Seeing the clock,
I curl back up to your warm body under our worn-out cotton sheets,
close my eyes,
and return to sleep's abundant shores.

I was silently within myself, when
bzz bzz bzz

You rang.
Exuberant, I answered.

First it was small talk,
insignificant,
fit for the simpleminded in my Art History class.

Metamorphosis occured,
unexpectedly.

And

Here we were.
You, crying,
and I, deeply sighing,
Passed an hour in that glorious manner
Until you knew the tides had turned
and the spark had gone.

Our bond, though,
Will never weaken, never falter

we are forever united,
Held together with the most permanent ties short of True Love:
those of True Friendship,
that most lovely creation.

Christlike in our treatment of each other,
we share:
consolation
empathy
affection
tenderness
joy

And, occasionally,

Small Talk.

This place
Is where I keep all of my worldly possessions
But it cannot be my home-

My heart is not here.

Where there is joy,
There resides my spirit.

Where there is harmony,
There is my joy.

Where there is love,
There you are.

Wrap me in your arms,
Caress my lips with yours,
Make me yours,
To have and to hold.

Take Me Home.

Is clean, and laden with the smells of Autumn
So invigorating and more apt to inspire amorous emotion
Than those of spring.

Crisp coldness calls to mind
Time spent as children
Piling the leaves and leaping into them-
Such fun, until a slug is discovered in her shoe:
"eeeeee!"
His reaction: gleeful chortling

Walking into the dark to meet you,
I feel no apprehension
Because I know my heart to be full of holes
Into which (or out) may walk anyone who may so desire,
And this feeling of openness is not frightening but refreshing.

My devotion to you overflows from its small container
And fills my body: such delightful pain!

Here i Lie:
Disconsolate
Discouraged

Worn down to nothing like the teeth of the Pharaohs-
the  resilient, tiny grains of sand contaminating their food, interminable grinding of bone

like  defeat, rejection, failure endlessly chipping away at and disintegrating the substance of my soul.

Is there hope?
There always is,
but its once-bright warm caress of light
has faded to almost nothing,
the last minuscule bit of candle wick

now fizzles out, its dying breath a trail of swirling black smoke,
oily,
fragrant,


Gone.

Laying here with you
Under the paper-thin gossamer canopy
(Providing protection from nasty dreams)
I think how much I love you,
Love us.

I roll over and kiss your clean white linen shoulder
You giggle
I breathe in your sweet smell.

The tentative contact of your full smooth lips,
Your quick shallow breaths and cold white hands
Are more wonderful than the touch of any other.

The candle burning softly on the nightstand
And the musicians singing from the corner of the room
Bring us to a better place;
We're all we need.

Walking through the parking lot,
I feel my hair starting to curl

And it's like when I feel my core
Heat and warm my all,
Making my cheeks tingle and redden

When I think about you:
How I wish you'd slip your arms around my waist,
Your hands pressing on the small of my back,
Pulling me in close enough to feel your breath on my neck
Refreshing me and rejuvenating my soul
Like a breeze in a room full of stagnant air,

Pull back just an inch,
Look into my face and my soul,
Close your mossy eyes,
and kiss me.

The raindrops are small,
cold,
piercing like shrapnel-

I am caught in the crossfire of the war in my mind.

I am here for one reason only:
the enjoyment of the male gaze, in two ways:

So the eyes of men may be delighted
By the contours of my form,
My graceful assumption of the traditional female role,
The fire in my eyes,
The eloquent curls sliding down the arch of my back
Like a cascade in a river cool and clean,

and so that I may enjoy the male gaze myself:
From his approval of me comes my own;
From his acknowledgement of my beauty comes my reassurance,
my security.

He will look down on me
As a member of the weaker ***,
and I will look down on him as self-glorifying,
empty-headed.

the Glances you give him
so Enticing

the Quiet utterances of your full red lips
inspire adoration in his Heart

your smile:
raspberry-****
honey-Sweet
makes his Soul do somersaults, releasing Doves from his exhilarated mind

now you Sleep
silent, still, sublime

the contours of your form composed in such glorious harmony
singing una canción dulce to the Creator, the lover of the loveless,
the author of Compassion

with each light sigh,
your soul is cleansed, rejuvenated as you rest

when morning Light through the drapes does filter
we will rise again,
nourish our bodies with:
pancakes of a luscious purple hue, their pigment from new small berries that stain our Hands
orange juice -
pulpy
acidic

and New Life will be ours.

You'll be wearing an old grey pea-coat,
Buttoned tighter than my grip on the wheel
On my way over,
My hands trembling
Like something small, trapped, scared-
As I was speeding off toward freedom, security.

Your scarf will keep your neck and chin
Protected from the damp cold night the color of slate.
And there'll be Johnny Cash playing:
And in the dim of yesterday
I can clearly see
That flesh and blood cried out to someone
As it does in me
And I'll take my place against the rail.

You'll sidle over to where I stand
But you won't stand too close.
You'll smell like moss and musk and sandalwood
And slowly you'll slide closer
A deliberate, serpentine motion.

Now.

Our hips touch.
You go red and my hands tingle
As your fingers glide into their place between mine,
Warp and weft.
I'd risk it all right now.