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 Nov 2013 Charley H
Emma-willow
Happy but lonely;
This feeling comes and goes like waves hitting the shore,
Retreating back to sea
Come and go; Back and Forth

It’s those thoughts that linger too long
And over stay their welcome
If only I could shake the nagging feelings
Out of my head and make it disappear

Content but yearning*;
No room for complaints
But maybe I’m longing for the
Excitement of tomorrow
or maybe I’m just letting a thought
Hang around like clouds on a sunny day
as i bathed in the ashes
of a swirling monstrous din
the cries of  a woman
hysterically expunging
ghastly portions of an all
consuming horror
pierced my ears,
cuddled my heart

as i huddled in a corner
biting lacerated knees
i beheld ax wielding
firemen swagger into the
jagged dangers of a
metallic avalanche, its
voracious maw
swallowing last
acts of heroic love

as i genuflected toward
Trinity's steeple,
i was cowed by
the rushing noise
of a splintering tower
collapsing downward,
billowing outward,
a gray predation
scattering the proud
humbling the mighty
breeding terror
threshing anything
fearfully racing
through the city's
cavernous breaches

as i fled down
Wall Street
screaming adrenalin
outran bits of the city
cascading down
stalking, nipping,
gnashing at fleeting steps
chasing reeling refugees
into miraculous sanctuaries
shielding trembling confusion
in blanket's of grace

as i peered into
the mortal wound
of the South Tower
incomprehensibly wondering
what my eyes refused to
understand; a slow
astonishing epiphany
of the grisly hell unfolding
in the upper floors
was confirmed by the
intermittent slow
cascade of leapers
deciding it was
a good day to die

as i decamped
temporary refuge
i entered an unsure
midnight of a blackened
street joining a growing mass
of refugees trundling eastward,
our burning eyes yearning
to perceive a river of escape
hoping the bits of torn cloth will
shield nostrils and cover mouths
protecting tinged lungs from
emulsified ash of glass
and asbestos laden air

as i made my way
northward, enveloped
in ambivalent confusion,
shell shocked  by civic turmoil,
covered in terror dust;
amassing voyeurs
rushing downtown
incredulously asked
what we witnessed,
a Jersey Journal stringer
refused to believe
people jumped
from the upper floors,
as vendors in Chinatown
marked up bottles of water
and a barkeep of a
crowded SOHO saloon
refused me entry
to use the
bathroom fearing
contamination risk...

as i stood depleted
on Christopher Street
ATMs and wireless
phones out of service and
my PATH way home
shut down;
a Sisters of Charity
AIDS hospice
brought me in,
wiped the terror dust
from my clothes,
gave me grape juice to drink,
set me a bed for the night
and put me to work
in the kitchen
to feed God's children.

as i stood on
a late afternoon
Washington Street,
witnessing Seven WTC
plunge into another raging billow
the collapsing day ended
in a room shared with
a young man traumatized
by the days events.
We related our
halting incomprehensions
as the sound of fighter jets
circling the city filled
the void in our
disjointed narratives.
My roommate related
that he was on the plaza
as jumpers splattered around him.  
A tearful PA Cop pleaded for help
to cover the dead.  
It was the last request of this
trembling public servant
as a jumper crushed him
as he finished speaking.

as i fell off to sleep that night
my young roommate
tossed and turned
in the maelstrom of
a deeply troubled sleep.
  

Music Selection:
Philip Glass Koyaanisqatsi

9/10/13
Oakland
jbm
recollections of 9/11
I left this town in 75
a dumb drunk ****

or as a friend once
poetically observed
"a beer quaffing linebacker"

but tonight I return
an enlightened poet
ready to recite
a stack of poems
eight years and two days
removed from my last drink

now relishing
the sweet intoxication
of drinking in
seas of words and letters,
brading a life's narrative with
solitary lifelines of truth

This town knew me

I know this town

The pomp and circumstance
of my high school commencement
occurred in this very place

I know the exact spot
near St. Mary
where Moose was killed
that awful
Good Friday evening.

After enjoying
the team revelry
at a Saturday Night
victory party;
I ran my hand across
the scarred Poplar
on West Passaic Avenue
that abruptly ended
Fic's life.

I slink past the house
filled with heinous memories
of my youth, cringing
through relived nightmares
of my father brutalizing
my naked mother in
an alcoholic rage;
and remain busy
trying to lick the still
raw sting of running wounds
inflicted by a mother
consumed with a
raging bitterness of
self righteous resentments.

Beer, *****,
Strawberry
Boone's Farm
and lotsa rolled bones
destroyed my family home,
murdered childhood
friends and greased
the wheels of
getaway cars in
fruitless attempts
to escape emotional
nightmares.

From where I stand
I can throw a stone
in any direction to mark
the scenes of
a hundred stories
that authored
the constitution
of me.

Across
the street
I can see
the lights burning
in the apartment where
Weehawken Joe
once lived.

Take a look.

He was crazier than
Tony Montana and
like Scarface not a
single lie could
be found in him;
he also possessed
the gift of
the best jump-shot
the Bulldogs ever had.

Years after I left town
I burst into tears
when Buns Hines
broke the news that
Weehawken  Joe
died of throat cancer.

Mortality is a
bitter truth
to swallow.

All along
Park Avenue
old commercial haunts,
save Varrelmann's Bakery
long gone.

Further up the street
my pilgrimage ends at the
WCW homestead.

In the fading light
of a glorious
autumn afternoon
the house appears
rundown, empty,
mournfully shabby.

On an upper floor
a lace curtain gently
flits and darts out an
open window.

I ponder
the words
still dwelling in
the dark closets
haunting the rooms
of this distressed edifice.

I wonder
how they now
sound?

The faint noises
hidden in
dusty corners
moaning a
ghostly presence,
creeping the halls,
clattering about
the kitchen,
bounding through
the living room
in an old beat-up
Red Wheelbarrow;
rolling along
moving to manifest
faintly whispered echos
into fully formed phrases;
liberating expressive sentiments
of a very blue house...

Eight years, two days
removed from a drink,
I'm grasping for letters
fumbling for the words
listening for sounds
churning within me
seeking to release
the revelations
of my truth.

Crosby, Stills Nash & Young
On the Way Home

William Carlos Williams Center
Rutherford NJ
10/02/13
 Oct 2013 Charley H
Kasey
I want to kiss you softly and often.
Every moment of every day for the rest of my life if I could
I'd pull you as close to me as possible.
I'd grab your hands and put them around my waist
And taste your lips over and over again until they're all I remember.
When I'm not with you I want to dream of you holding me
Against your chest, feeling it rise and fall with every nervous breath
That sneaks out of your lungs
Through those beautiful lips of yours.
I want to lose myself to thoughts of you taking me by the hands
And fight loving you with everything I have.
I want to lose
Myself
In the way you kiss me sweetly and hold me tenderly.
In the way you've already kissed me sweetly
And held me gently, softly, warmly, kindly that one night.
I want to hate you. But more than that.
More than your lips, arms, eyes, smile, breath
I want to love you as wonderfully as a girl can love a boy
Beautiful and innocent until no more.
 Oct 2013 Charley H
babydulle
You were always the last bus home
As though
If I didn’t catch you I’d be stuck waiting for a lift I’m not sure would come
I missed you often.
Always went to the wrong station
I read your numbers wrong
You were vivid, neon flashing
But I wasn’t wearing my glasses
I couldn’t see you properly
I thought I deserved the long walks home
As if chalky hills and borrowed books torn up into pieces were the only things I could hold onto
I always managed to lose my return ticket
Some days I did it in the hope that you would let me on for free
Let me in
Do not close the doors automatically
As if I am not worth the wait
I am worth the wait
Don’t drive away from me again
I am not begging
I am not praying
I am asking you to come back for me
Reverse to a time when we discussed frame sizes and half flamed dreams under fairy lights
Come back to a time when you thought I was something special
I met you in gold and black shadows
Like we were sweeping statements of colour
Thrown together
Into a palette
Paint with me
Do not separate me like ink and oil
Do not separate yourself anymore
We are not cheap materials
We are quality
Treat us like it
Treat us softly
Take my hand and follow me across the canvas because honestly, it’s all I am good at doing
Making a rough pattern of a future I was never sure I’d have
I can find the destination but I need the petrol of your spirit
I need your headlights, your windows into things I don’t understand, your compass into things I am not brave enough to dive into
Guide me
And once you have finished
Please. Take me home.
 Sep 2013 Charley H
Micheal Wolf
Time is a measure of where you have been
Where you are going and when you were seen
Its a friend to your journey a remimder of place
A pull on the heart strings  when thoughts are misplaced
So time is of essence!
For you dont hold it at all
It just moves beside you, no becon no call.
 Sep 2013 Charley H
Coriander Lee
She was a dream,
As lucid as the sea,
And we sat in the sand
And laughed on the wind.

And her eyes,
A serene lagoon of green.

And a kiss,
Salty like the sea ****,
That washed up on the shore,
And danced under the waves.

And she was a dream?
That girl and me,
And her green eyes by the sea.
I was trying
to say that
the ocean and

the night sky
are two of
my closest friends

that we are
called to be
two of the

dreamers, of
those on the
paths of silence

who often find
themselves with hands
and heads pressed

up against the
wailing walls of
a world where

man has power
over man to
his hurt.

Yet Love waits
like a pool
of stars on

the ocean’s face
waiting for us
to step into

it; friend,
brother,
I was trying

to say:
Christ never leaves
me orphan nor

you
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