An illuminated room.
Twinkling lights strung up carefully
like the constellations outside the window.
Around the two of them the essence of frailty and incense hung in the electric air.
The low hum tension sizzles.
So close, every breath shared back and forth.
Finally the silent standoff is obliterated and the outpouring of words run over a thousand times bursts forth.

"What do you think I want?
You think you have me figured out, huh?
Use that keen mind of yours and tell me what it is, you think I want from you.
A pledge of forever?
All of your attention every day?
You think I want to have you give up all of your time to me, be at my beck and call?

I want this.
I want what has been between us since we first met.
I know you're probably nervous and unsure what's going on.
I am too.
But I trust my gut.
And tomorrow might not save me.

When you know, you know, right?
This is why it seems so hard.
Undeniable.
So I'm telling you what I want.
I want you.
Simple.
I want this moment.
With you.

I want this moment and if I'm lucky I could be given another and another after this.
And maybe,
if the universe allows,
we can take those moments and string them together and something more,
something bigger can come of it.
But for now I will be grateful for this moment, here with you.

Because you mean something to me.
I care deeply about you.
You're my friend.
I love you.
And I will never regret a day of knowing you if this moment is the only one we'll ever have together.
Because that's what it is.
That's love.

And even if it scares you, you deserve to hear it.
This is my truth.
I'm not asking you to handle my feelings.
I'm not ashamed of them.
There's no need to be rash.
I'm here.
I've always been here.
For a time I've been waiting and trying to understand myself.
But it's never gone away for me.
This connection.
The chemistry swirling between us.

So now that I've given more breath with all that, when I'd rather be holding it in to kiss you until my lips went numb.
You have a choice.
You can either clam up and push me away.
Or you can pull me in...
And kiss me..."



*©NDHK

Elect, select and write it down!
Stare at it for 60 seconds, no more,
Then write the first thing that comes along!

It matters not if it is
Inferning or just churning,
Cold or hot,
Matters not to anyone
On this site,
Even if it is explicitly ***** (alriiiiiight!)

Hell, matters not
Even if it is absent from the
Dictionary's stock!

Matters not
If it is two or letters twelve,
**! **! **! reserved for Santa Claus,
Rambunctious, reserved for his Elves!

Put, pick a word and work it well,
In fact, give it hell!
Squeeze it, free it, and when you're done,
Just leave it the fk alone.

Milk it for all the silk
In it,
And if its only cotton,
Turn it in to cotton candy,
Which rhymes with dandy,
But I refuse to use that rhyme,
But thinking about using randy!

Put, walk, nay, run
That word, now single,
But soon to be married,
Upon whatever you write,
Chew it up and spit it out
After, but a solitary bite.

Taste it,
Run the  tongue's buds upon it,
Make it a flavorful word,
Then fool us with the saddest funeral dirge!

Vanilla passed away today,
The Chocolates, mourning, both,  dark and white,
By celebrating  and laughing long into the night...

This will not be the hardest poem I e're wrote,
But if there is no inspiration
For you to smote,
And armpits refuse to provide perspiration,
To source juices for a new creation,
Try this trick,
I promise you
No one will lick your ice cream cone,
Nor mistake you for Leonard Cohen,
But when you are done,
You will be High Priest of
Hello Poetry for the rest of the day!

My childhood
was stubbing toes on pool railings
while trying not to drown
four foot tall, six feet under.

I sat by houseplants
on cold tile.
I lost my teeth to salt water taffy.

My parakeet was named
after a character on Full House
who had frizzy hair
and did not have her mama either.

One day,
she broke her beak.

It was my fault, I brought the
blood to my face as I would salve
to apologize

but it was far too late.
Daddy set her free while I slept.

I would rush to the
school supply aisle in Kroger
for pens and pencils
and bought Barbie dolls to glide
against the bayou’s surface.

Later, Katrina came
to sink everything I ever touched.
  
I thought
about the black men and their
saxophones downtown

how I wanted to replace the reeds
so badly
to hear New Orleans jazz
one final time before we moved.

The whole time
my sister was made of sage.

My brother slept on my Powerpuff
Girl sheets so often that
I kept my ******* in another room.

And I thought that
mothers came from fireplaces
because mine
hid her liquor in there sometimes.

We met in the sandbox, which felt kind of like a beach
but hardly forbidden – the Garden of Eden without any fruit.
I had small hands, his were smaller
and were likely to drown in any sea we touched,
a forest or a wave or teardrops when saying goodbye. Well,
I gave him a kiss on the cheek every few minutes
so he invited me to his house.
The selling point was a tire-swing, big enough for two:
he said, milady, I saved this seat here for you.
When no one was looking he would hug my stuffed kitten –
our daughter. I didn’t even get angry when he rubbed
chocolate onto her nose, split water on her tail. Our first kiss
was shared between the three of us,
her bell dipping between our chests as if we were pets too.
In some ways we were. I
pushed him off the bed at night and he bit my toes
then spit up, saying my skin still tasted like salt and sand.

I don’t remember exactly when Budberg died, it was either two years
ago or three.
The same with Chen. Whether last year or the one before.
Soon after our arrival, Budberg, gently pensive,
Said that in the beginning it is hard to get accustomed,
For here there is no spring or summer, no winter or fall.


“I kept dreaming of snow and birch forests.
Where so little changes you hardly notice how time goes by.
This is, you will see, a magic mountain.”


Budberg: a familiar name in my childhood.
They were prominent in our region,
This Russian family, descendants of German Balts.
I read none of his works, too specialized.
And Chen, I have heard, was an exquisite poet,
Which I must take on faith, for he wrote in Chinese.


Sultry Octobers, cool Julys, trees blossom in February.
Here the nuptial flight of hummingbirds does not forecast spring.
Only the faithful maple sheds its leaves every year.
For no reason, its ancestors simply learned it that way.


I sensed Budberg was right and I rebelled.
So I won’t have power, won’t save the world?
Fame will pass me by, no tiara, no crown?
Did I then train myself, myself the Unique,
To compose stanzas for gulls and sea haze,
To listen to the foghorns blaring down below?


Until it passed. What passed? Life.
Now I am not ashamed of my defeat.
One murky island with its barking seals
Or a parched desert is enough
To make us say: yes, oui, si.
'Even asleep we partake in the becoming of the world.”
Endurance comes only from enduring.
With a flick of the wrist I fashioned an invisible rope,
And climbed it and it held me.


What a procession! Quelles délices!
What caps and hooded gowns!
Most respected Professor Budberg,
Most distinguished Professor Chen,
Wrong Honorable Professor Milosz
Who wrote poems in some unheard-of tongue.
Who will count them anyway. And here sunlight.
So that the flames of their tall candles fade.
And how many generations of hummingbirds keep them company
As they walk on. Across the magic mountain.
And the fog from the ocean is cool, for once again it is July.