Each hour
passes as in a day.
First,
second,
third
it began.
Now,
Saturday,
soon Friday again.
If only the dreaded days
are kinder,
less hostile
to the mind.
If only
memories fill pages - -
A trip, a nightout,
a conversation
while traversing
unknown streets at night.
But days have become
prayers uttered
with every breath,
with nights far longer
and more threatening
in one's isolation.


I think about the city lights
as souls.
Do not die out, do not die out,
I cry into the night.
My breath I lift up
as incense to the Sky.
I pray for flickers
that are not consumed.
I ask for less stars
in the heavenlies
and more hopeful
ones in the Metro.
I poke at Venus now.
I tell her:
Dispense your warmth.
Let it glow within us.
She is beauty
but she mocks.


050220

You are a doll,
too pretty, too arresting.
But you are mass
that demands shaping,
and my fingers are not accustomed
to one such as you.

I press too hard
and sculpt too much.
You are too soft
for my fervid hands.
My own prints roughen you up.
I am anxious.
You should be
as you are.
You are an unshaped doll,
demanding familiarity.

I draw back.
I don't know how to draw back.
My fervid hands are arrested.
Too soft, too much, too hard.
You are pretty but I am anxious.

I can't sculpt you.
My prints are too rough
to be familiar.
I am too unaccustomed.
You should be as you are,
without my prints.
I am not a doll.

for l.r.
*091718

(aka Home
aka Dear Skrubs, love, your Skrubqueen)

We have made a home
in each other's oddities,
hidden our frustrations
in foreign language.
Together,
we danced Moskau
and sang worship songs
and played Red Sun.

I, for one,
have embraced my sadness
with your presence.
In your loyalty,
I found acceptance.

Dear Skrubs,
I have made a home
in your antics
and pranks
and laughter.
In shared food
and secrets,
I have known love.

We are potatoes
and potatoes are us
(or perhaps that's just me).

But you have hailed me
your Skrubqueen with the potato heart.
No power any license I earn
will ever win me that.

You are a freedom I dare to indulge in. You are rooftops and walks. You are explorations of old hotels and hardbound books left in shelves. You are a moment (of clouds of dust and abandon) that filled a niche in my being. I have niches far too many to count. I have walked far too many walks. I have sat on rooftops I still miss. I have explored and I have saved moments that are nothing now but accumulated dust. I have hardbound my stories in poems. In my audacity, I am keeping you now - my hopeful space, my abandon.

for l.r.
**041718

I am futile.
My words are futile.
I am little.
My words are little.
That's inappropriate,
I know.
The same way
no word
(or verse)
is appropriate enough
to describe
You.

In my dream,
I was unlocking
you,
portion by portion.
This door
then the next.

I think I know you.
I think -- I
know you

enough

to know
what passcodes to use.
I key in pins
and scramble letters.

Yet
every time,
a new door,
a new dream.

I don't know
you.

for l.r.
040218

your voice drones on
through the open door,
history now melodious,
thick, resounding --
the cacophony
of an infatuation

for jj
081617