She was that stranger..

A stranger to her eyes..

A stranger in her mind..

It hurt, it really hurt,

but with time she loved it.

She was a stranger..forever-changing.

Always born living and dying,

like a leaf on a breeze..

always on the flow..

swirling and dancing in a sundress.

Like the moon,

she will always fade and glow.

She will always rise and break,

silently like a wave on the water surface.

She will always be reborn, and transform..

like a black butterfly.

She is life and she is death..

She is a black butterfly.

The poem was inspired by a particular photo of the WT C, and after that by my first visit to the 9/11 Memorial.  On the day of 9/11, I was working about a diagonal mile away, and from our windows, we could see people jumping to their death.

Open sky annulled
to bordered lines of
uptown edges,
worldview momentarily
forcibly redefined by
memories of buildings and sadder days,
recollections of pillars of biblical smoke rising

A photograph
makes me look up,
and sit down historically,
need to catch a breath,
to rest mentally,
upon a storied small bridge's steps,
that I well recall,
a disappeared street stoop.
all were rubble then and once
upon that day.

Wear, tear, and older eyes distill perspective,
but the hardy heart is hardly stilled
by the recognizable gray upon
bon vivant gray reflective surfaces of
memories of buildings and sadder days

So today, on a reborn street,
I rest upon reconstituted speckled curbstone,
the city's lowered down ledges,
the city's lowered down-town boundaries,
constantly redrawn, but
nonetheless, always rebuilt from their own
regenerated stony compost,
and the NY passersby doesn't even notice
a man, head in hands,
silently weeping, thinking that:

We throw away so much we should have kept.
We keep so much we should have thrown away.

Lose keepsakes, but keep our mysterious sadnesses
locked away in compartments that open only to
benedictions uttered in ancient tongues.

Make your own list,
be your own curator,
catalogue visions of sophomoric triumphs,
museum mile pile
those early poetic drafts,
be unafraid of memories
raw and ungentrified,
overlaid, buried underneath
postmortem of dust-piles of senior critiques

Finally went downtown to see
where the blessed water falls
into catacomb pits that once
were the foundations
of buildings that ruled the cityscape,
downtown anchors
for a modern city that exists
only because it was built on
million year old granite bedrock

Stone monuments are stolid, discrete.
Memories are of grayed, frayed edge consistency.
Negatives resurrected that survive digitally,
all blend synthetically, layer upon layer,
essence distilled in a single,
black and white photograph
that serves to
disturb complacency,  
awaken stilled pain,
reflections suppressed,
are restored

My trust was broken along with my heart,
My lust is no more as I accepted being apart,
My mind longs that I could go back to the start,
I think back to the day that we were done, and I depart.
Time was needed for me to feel whole,
Whereas you moved on quickly just to patch up your soul,
As calm as I acted you could never know,
How much you hurt me alas I could never show,
Bottled it up and my emotions I let float,
For I couldn't shut down I just had to cope,
Despite days I spent thinking of my neck tangled in rope.

I had to be strong and I forced myself through,
And to myself I had to be true,
I could never drop to your level as a cheater and lie,
Therefore creating a barrier that you tried to deny,
I held myself high and I worked out my way,
I created a life and my health was sustained.
My life was worth more than being destroyed by you,
I'm still proud in knowing my soul and love is true.

" Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, drenched with a possibility of a new tomorrow"

When you feel the thunder in your thighs
Look up to the sky
And thank only yourself
For being brave enough to allow him passage through your lands
Given the last time you peeked through the gate
It was torn down
​
They
               Scorched the trees
               ****** the birds
               Ate the flowers
               And ****** the rivers dry
​
C O L O N I Z I N G      you

Selfishly
Turning lush forests into the Sahara
Yet
You flooded them out
​
Now feel the cool trickle
Of his hands on your waist
The splash of lips, on your inner thigh
Notice the depth within you
The surge of water deep in your belly
Rushing, rushing, rising
Until it overflows.
For now let me drink your sweet nectar
But remember you decide when to turn off the faucet

-The life history of my sexuality

This year clothes me like an old coat
Worn at the elbows, with saggy shoulders
A smell that suggests more wears than washes,
***** tissues and receipts filling pockets
A tear in the lining from a drunken fall,
A tear of pain from an emotional fool
Wiped on a sleeve to preserve my masculinity.

I need to shed this year like a skin
As a spider, a lobster, a snake in the sun
To outgrow and move on from restrictive tissue,
Embrace the world as new again,
Fool myself on New Year’s Eve
I emerge like the butterfly from its cocoon
Reveal my flamboyant new wings,
To kid myself I am reborn.