Reading “Poem” While Waiting for her in Peet’s Coffee

Lukewarm coffee with nothing special
in it, and my brain buzzing
with words passed through a phone.
Ah, I’d love to go back to those days
spent singing and seeing colors in cement
questions asked precariously of my life
and yours, your and my possibilities.
But staring into the beyond, I am left
disappearing quick in the cold air like the warmth of coffee left on the table.


Precariously

in love
I was caressed to the point where
my face left itself
impressioned on the pillow
I pressed into every night.
My head was clear
because it was expelled
each night into a cell phone
away from here. It reached
an ear, soft and embracing
swallowing all I pressed into it.

The indentation I left
I saw as me
held precariously
in the head
of another.

Now, head spinning,
ready to be filled with anything
stable or not, I at least remember
being held.


Poem*

Is this love, now that the first love
has finally died, where there were no impossibilities?*

I saw no impossibilities with you
held there in all I wanted. True
there was bliss, but if what they say is true,
what else is that?
I remember more color
pointed out by you,
blues and oranges in shadows on cement
reds in faces and how the sky is the only one
who can blend yellow with blue, but

now all colors are an option
for this palette
though all colors mixed
leave grey

They’re here again.
That auburn that gold
the occasional surprise burst
of green or blue and purple
sits behind my eyes
and reawakens my heart
in the dark
the rainbow that is your hair in the sun
and that perfect sparkle catches my mind
again:

It’s hard to say
which earring it was
so I take the liberty to consider
each silver crystalline spear
creating harmony between gravity and your body;
I take the chance to notice
each peach, orange, and raspberry
that paint your cheeks and nose on
this sunny day
that isn’t today.

I remember
they prove the Golden Hour’s
potential for prying beauty
out of these few dimensions we can comprehend.

And it’s here again.
Smothering everything with
every most distracting color
only to leave within
an hour or less
leaving me blind
and still struggling for air,
distracted by
memory
by shapes
by your shape
by color.

The warm wispy clouds are your hair
the red and orange are your eyes and face
and the bright setting sliver
disappears behind smoke.
And all there is is color.

thousand droplets hang
from the tip of each bare branch
of the ginkgo tree.
Each orb holds the world in it
like the ornaments that decorate
a coniferous cousin, they
reflect me and all I see
today, a curious blend of grey.

Each shed leaf
is replaced by a tear
too delicate for me
to decipher all that it carries.
I am too distracted
by what I carry
to grasp what each holds
suspended so perfectly
making everything it reflects
into a single something solar twinkling,
each cosm capturing
all in need of being captured.

Today
I am left with no color.
The sky, the trees, the asphalt,
and the air I breathe,
in their unified beauty
say nothing.

It seems that as soon as I forget you’re here
I close my eyes
and you come back
sonnerie Acouphène
you come back
a soft sonar ping
I didn’t realize was still searching
sonnerie
for you
Acouphène
ringing, as in a dream
hanging, silently
suspended, in my subconscious
sonnerie Acouphène
your origin uncertain
and I can’t remember how long you’ve been here
ringing

On nights like this one
he’s shouted at the empty sky
His good ear has looked upward
for years hearing nothing yet
still he’s howled words that were not his
to a Heaven hidden behind sheets of black

Though solace can be found in the words of others
their sound filling a room like steam
they rise and collect, touching everything
only to disappear, signifying nothing

He’s tried to fill the sky with their words:
heroic stories and constellations
monuments in the stellar void
But these stories drift away
and are forgotten in the turn of a season
He’s bellowed them but each night fallen short of Heaven
their words reaching only the air
between his lungs and the stars

And thus the air has become the only solid thing he knows
From it he can solicit a response
aurally awaking the otherwise dormant
particles into motion

But tonight, the air swirls around him and within him
as he strips his soul
thrusts it naked from his throat
and floods the sky with lyric his own
They ****** and return to the silence of breathing

A sustained exhalation
leaves his body and rises
A walking shadow
drifts into infinity
and dissipates
leaving the hum of electricity
hanging in the air

But even butterflies of sunset colors
still flutter in the wind.
Despite a heavy metamorphosis
the wind does still support them.
Their orange and yellow do remind
of something that has ended.
But their flickering flutter, too,
rekindles the memory of stars long suspended.

So let us all provide the wind
for one another’s wings.
Let us catch each other’s tears
that fall from cloudy eyes.
Let us help each other
embrace the memories of
cigar smoke, the white whale,
and warm holidays without worry.

        Because Father said clocks slay time.
        He said time is dead
        as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels;
        only when the clock stops
        does time come to life

And the butterfly knows this is true
for a pocket-watch would weigh her down;
her subtle strength would not allow
for her wings to leave the ground.

That is why the butterfly (accepting change)
releases time
in order for her time to be used
floating via a warm wind’s courtesy.
Without the weight of a timepiece
she is able to welcome the reminders
of warm memories of her butterfly,
now warm wind strong behind her.

In a desperate hug
we brace our spines
for what feels to me
like one last time,
me and my desperate fingertips
cling to you and plead for grip;
But in vain all ten on fabric slip
forced to settle for a steering wheel.

In the dark
time shows no sign
forward backward or up
the diligent digital clock
tacitly ticks its tocks
dark recedes to dark and then
only to spare no light again;
But suddenly some scowling scream
("Still survive!" he shouts at me, according to the OED.)
shatters silence, tears the scene,
rips a hole in the dark, serene,
before any morning can be seen;
Some hidden pigeon's cackling
time revives, unshackling,
though the day is yet to come,
as if to offer a reminder to one:
"keep to the fore,
look to the sun."

Let me gather my balloons
(I have ten)
I've been saving them for today
(I know you're scared for me
        But I have ten)
Let me see how far I can fly with them
(I hope they will support you too
        I know I only use five, really)
Will you be there when I take the first step
(I won't blame you if you aren't
        But--)
off the cliff
(perhaps a wind will help me rise
        I have ink!)
I know you say not to trust something so shaky as a gust
(You say this from your shackled shelter
        See?)
But I must trust my ten
        (and my mind)
And hope what I grip is not something frivolous
        (so I may ascend
         via steady zephyr pen
         and the luck it draws
         for me).

Whistle while you work
whilst waterfalls wash
salt stained cheeks and
cracked callused palms cry
crooked crimson creeks and
carve crumpled X's in
everything you've written
tonight.

Are my wavering watery
tired two in the morning
eyes
what the trembling violinist's
vibrato
tries to tell?

How does the sound of a saw
slither so sweetly
from bow through wire to bone
a perfect wavering banshee
whose wails cut not but
fill
the air
with every remaining frequency
required
but never imagined
before keratin kissed steel?
      (But will I ever find the notes I need?)

I scrub down the entrails
cast now in wire
forcing fast horsehair to form
audible friction,
with wood, metal, keratin, and navel craft
comprehensible tension;
and I study such tension to
form a portfolio of frequencies
from which to draw
and cause
emotion on cue:
to tease my tactile habits
is to hone my habitual expression (they say);
I ask the doctor and take this aural tool
--a theory of not colors but a fifth wheel--
as directed,
and use it to forge links between acoustic flailings
to turn feelings into gears that line up
just as the label instructs.

And so I train my instincts to match the mold taught in
this cramped and unfamiliar womb;
and I teach my hand to tremble uniformly.