Soulful,

like your voice which winds and wraps itself about my heart, slowing its beat to preserve the moment we’re in.

Soulful,

like a troubled blues singer who beats out his feelings on his six string and expels his troubles through a tiny silver harmonica. he lets the audience glimpse the infinite road to his unattainable being.

Soulful,

like the feeling of music so loud it vibrates in your chest. music that shakes your very core and dares you to grasp inspiration.  

Soulful, further still,

like the beauty of humanity as we change and thus, grow upon each other like vines on a house.

Soulful,

like the strange reason we have transformed the idea of rain to be both wildly romantic and depressing.

Soulful,

like a river of my own thoughts that tumble over rocks of inhibition and doubt.

And soulful,

I dare say,

like my own pretentious soul.

Delighted giggles ring in the night
I picture them skipping and racing in front of their parents, so eager.
Mom and Dad will lag behind and chat about what cute thing Susie did on the playground today, and how she cried for an hour because she wanted to start trick or treating early.

Now their plastic pumpkins swing too and fro in their hands; they drop what precious amount of candy they have worked for in the first ten minutes without even noticing their loss, they dash forward while the elders of the parade pick up the wayward treats.

To be young and gleeful again, they think to themselves.

Now endless bills replace endless candy bars and brief cases replace swinging pumpkin baskets, the glitter of innocence long gone from their eyes.
They can no longer afford reckless nights of illuminating bed sheets with flash lights in order to read books after the lights go out; flash lights with names inscribed in puffy-paint give way to harsh desk lamps which show the work left abandoned on the desk at night: Susie needs a bath, work will have to wait.

No longer can they crawl into their siblings’ beds and share secrets about such lovely things like the kitten they secretly feed in the mornings before school, or how Marianne uttered a curse word at home and got a spanking.
The only secrets they share now in the wee hours of the night are of their distresses about how to fix the leaking sink and who will pick Susie up from school tomorrow.

But soon they are snapped back into this crisp night
from their more somber thoughts
by the most beautiful sound in the world:

“Mommy! Daddy! Can I go to the next house?”

“Everything crackles when I walk, dear,”

she said as she stood to go.

The teapot was whistling

And the TV blared loud

Because his hearing aid was turned down to ‘low.’



These splendid old bean eaters



These God loving fools

Live out their days alone.

She can barely see right

And her hands can’t much hold

The hair brush of hers

he plated with gold.



She’s hardly annoyed by the ways of this world,

She’s seen it all come and go except—

The caller ID is a plain old mystery—



What happened to telegrams?



This lovely of woman

And her lovely old man

Still live out their days as in old,

He goes to the barber and she to salon

To gussy up pretty for the drug store.



Few worries they have

But tonight without fail,

She’ll screech

“Al! What’s the Jeopardy channel?!”



“WHAT!?”

He’ll yell back as he shuffles her way

From the kitchen where

sleep closed his eyes as he waited “all day”

For that “**** coffee ***

that never made good coffee in anyway.”



Then they’ll eat stale chips

And he’ll start to snore

As she turns the TV up to its max;



Shifting thick, horn rim glasses that she’s had since high school

Untill in the blue TV lights her eyes will glow.

She can see her show is over

as the fuzzy credits roll down

She stands up and everything cracks,

Shuffle…

Shuffle…

Step.



She reaches for him

and covers his feet

with a quilt.

Driving in the rain,

Isn’t that deep?

Our human obsession with rain and cigarettes and other shallow things like love never ceases to confound me.

I pound the steering wheel 3 times.

Hard.

I think of what you said about my cheetah print steering wheel and my ****** Mary bobble head clacking away, nodding gently on my dashboard, encouraging your thoughts about me.

But maybe not.

She nods away today in the mist; she’s wet cause I’ve got the windows rolled down trying to cool my hot cheeks, pink and blushed with artificial and real rouge alike.

The dull ache in my palm from the pounding the wheel gives way to the cold finger tips and white knuckles that I give myself as I mutter harsh words to your apparition in the passenger seat.

If talking to myself makes me crazy then put me in the psych ward cause thats all I can do.

I sure can’t tell you. I can’t scream “LOOK at me. Just look.”

If I could describe my soul’s reaction to you, which I never could, it would be something like this:


A joyous, but frustrated 5 year old, her blonde pigtails bouncing in the sunshine, begs her father “play catch with me, daddy!” She tugs at the hem of his pant leg and jumps around being silly, waving her arms and shining her little girl smile around for the world involuntarily. Too young, she cannot bottle her excitement, her willingness.

“LOOK. Just look…at me.”

We seek to defy it with doctors and creams,
but beg for its mercy during really bad dreams.
We wish it to stop on a perfectly timed kiss,
on a perfect date night that ends with a wish.

This thing makes us wonder,
but mostly makes us wait.
Who thought it up?
Why do we wait?
Are we searching Time’s pockets for a timely response?
Are we waiting for Time to take time for us?
Are we waiting for a wrinkle,
like we wait for the bus?
And what would a wrinkle in time do to us?

……

Can I make up a wrinkle like I whip up a craft?
Does time wrinkle up when we’re looking back?

Or is it only our noses that wrinkle as we doze…. and repose,
thinking of what we’ve done wrong?

Well wrinkle away, my pig-nosed friends,
but time doesn’t care when you’ve gone ‘round the bend.
And time doesn’t flinch when terror grips your heart,
when you wish you could fly,
when a loved one is gone.

Time doesn’t love you,
in fact its quite cruel.
Time, man’s invention, is our own poison jewel.

It drags us to work in rusted out cars.
It ***** up the money from children’s coin jars,

Ashes to ashes and rust to dust,
Time is all knowing,
Or so we’re taught.

Time is our essence,
our incentive to go,
but why should we listen when time tells us no?
Time is imagined.
We made it all up.
Time is of man,
and never of God.

The best times in life are when time disappears,
because time means nothing when your perspective is clear.

The thought
that we may have made the wrong decision
terrifies us,
so we choose to ignore the possible exploration it might take to realize
what the right decision might actually be.

The gray, old statue sits lopsided in my mother’s garden
Twenty four inches high and leaning ever forward in the mud while
enduring the sun
and enjoying the snow or rain
Because she gets the most attention in the weather that depresses humans,
Mortals drawn to her alluring virginity and enduring divinity
Groveling for guidance and searching for silence in less than tranquil gardens on earth.
Mary cries gray tears for America and grey tears for Europe
Because we all fling questions up to her for the same reason.


But we will never realize how small we are until we hit our knees and stare eye to eye,
Instead of
staring,
crestfallen, down at muddy Mary in the garden.

Can love contradict?
Can love be wrong?
Wrong in what sense
Can love be a song?
A jam, a tune, a slow song, a beat?
Love had moved my feet.

Will it speak to your heart?
Or is that too cliche?

Will it top off you glass,
‘till it spills on you hands?
Can it drain too quickly?
Does love run out,
like hour glass sands?
Does love leave?
Desert?
Walk out?
Can love abandon us,
like we abandon it?
Can love ever really leave us,
or give us the slip?

Does love roll over,
like unused cell phone minutes?
Or does love start anew when each day is finished?
Does love know time?
Can time sense love?
Is that why loving moments last so long?
Or perhaps they flee,
for time, like love, is objective you see.

Can love be malicious?
Or only be kind?
Does love need glasses because it’s blind?
Should love use a walker when it grows old?
Does love stand tall?
Does it do what it’s told?

Can love be found on a walk in the park?
Can it pop up through sidewalk cracks?
Be painted on a wall?
A canvas?
Is love like art?

Can love be withdrawn?
Taken aback?

Is love a fighter or meek?
Old and wise, or young and weak?
Does love take time or maybe it’s quick?
Go out like a sparkler, or burn long like a wick?
Soft as a pillow, or rough as bark?
Can love be harsh?

Will love always run smooth?
I’ll answer that, no.
But neither can love erode.

Yes, love is a healer and love loves your love.
Love loves you questions, your short comings, simple hugs.

Love is the mother that kneels,
Praying for you.
The father watching fondly,
Over everything you’ll do.
Even if it’s silly or wrong,
He’ll be amused.
But He won’t show it,
He’ll be quiet,
Because God, like love, loves to take His time.

My face looks muddy today.
Patchy.
Dryness and oil coincide to create the ***** complexion I regretfully view in a spotted mirror.
My ears hurt.
I listened to a poet today who soothed them
but they are still aching.

The screaming notes coming from your actions are ripping them to shreds.
Absurdly fast, syncopated fingers gibe on a guitar, making it cry out painfully.
You ran from her.

Crashing symbols crunch my tiny, helpless inner ear bones.
You took the cat, the mahogany bedroom dresser, the silver candle sticks that you will probably pawn
and sped off in your car.

We are neither in control nor completely naive of our actions, said the poet.

Yes, yes,

Put socks in my ears with your pretty words! and achieve the serenity in myself that I cannot accomplish myself.

Oh Soft cotton *****! Fill me to the brim and let me lay comfortable beside myself where I am usually so twitchy and restless.

I sigh audibly and return to a sunny day where
I am stopped, staring at a red light preparing to
to…
to what?

I realize I do not know what song the radio is singing,
What street I am.
I whip around to see if the dog is riding shotgun.

He is not.

Why am I in the car?
How did I get here?

Was I going to the store, was I leaving town? Going to mother’s house to sob crocodile tears into lace covered throw pillows and a rough, flour-dappled apron?

I just don’t know.
I cannothearmyselfthinkanymore.My ears hurt.

‘Be still and know….’
I oblige--
Until
calming words bubble from my own mouth,
Or rather from my mind
Soothing my inner adult,
forcing it to
regress
and relent to the pensive child I am.

Breathe in--
Ah Lord Jesus, come.
Breathe out--
I expel wordless breaths
that are considered thoughts, that are turned into prayers
when strung together in my subconscious
whilst I sit unawares--
Just me and my cat
or perhaps there’s one more
lets make it three, rather,
for God plus me makes four.

I search Google for poetry
I find naught but prayers
Perhaps, then, they’re similar--

Like warm breath and winter air.

Left to rot in dingy vases under layers of dust, paper roses wilt too.
So I guess it’s a good thing I
Might
Have you.
To justify my
Constantly
Conjuring
Assumptions that you will bring me real ones.
Assuming is dangerous.
So are promises.

So are open fan blades.

I want to be lead.

I want to be told something so profound that I cry.

More than that I want to believe this thing I’m told.


I want to know what makes you cry.

I want to know what you dreamt of last night,

And more than that

I must know if your’re happy when you dream

or if you’re bleeding inside,

hoping for something you won’t tell me.



I want to know something you’re only telling your heart;

But more than that I want to be sure you can trust yourself in every word you say.


I want to write, and have readers.

I must cause impact and I must go.

Where is not clear,

But why is so sure.



Can you learn to stand when your baby steps are over

And can you run as a last resort

but be happy you first learned to walk?


I wish you would write ‘love’ on your arms, your hand, your wrist,

When you’re bored in class

Or when you feel like you’re the only one home alone on Friday,



Because I believe the repetition of love is as good as the recognition of it.

I want you to…

I want to know that you can…

Can you please learn to…

More that anything can you…


just be happy you first learned to walk.

May the road rise to meet you,
may the wind gently nudge
the hair from your eyes
and the weight from your grudge.

Running to hug you, how do our feet know exactly where to stop?
The perfect distance from the other’s toes so that when we reach out,
there are

mere inches from my lips to yours.