Let us put a few pages between us
Unread, unsaid, unshed
Unsoiled if it could be said
Likened as if they would stay
Empty as the newborn day
Unruffled as a Sunday afternoon

Too many flavors have spoiled the cook
Shape-shifting constituents of exactitude
Aplomb with certitude
Straight as an arrow
Smooth as certainty
Singular as perfect pursuit
Agaze are you, blue hue
Cobalt true and blue
Cerulean sometimes soft
and clouding
Metallic pallet surrounding
Hard as steel,
Warm as a cold day in May

Where analysis paralysis
Has you curious
Doubting and dubious
Calculous and carefulness
Left you immaculately scandleless

Does it sometimes get so lonely
Between the devil and the deep blue sea
Have you ever not looked before you leap
Do you ever gurgle goo goo’s
Before you go go
Running in place
Going nowhere
Never too close
Never too base

Was it ever not intentional
Wrought by incompleteness
Messy this neatness
Red hot chili sweetness
Intense with meetness
Hurt and heat compete
Will you ever admit defeat

This can’t go on
I’m ending it here now
This is the end
My pretend friend
I tore up the recipe
I’m going to make you over again
A pinch of friendly less pretense
A dash of vulnerabilities
Stir to understanding consistency
Deep well cooker piquancy
Boil until bubbles break
Give and take
Friend
Skewer to hold shape
Then lift with a circular motion
More kneading
Less bias
Low and slow
Until tender
More me
Less you
This I can do
And so can you

I’ve made you anew

Yes, I think I did it
Didn’t I do it
I mean, you saw me do it
Yes, you did
You saw me do
What I’ve never been able to do
Which was to say
Love you
Love me
It was nothing
Nothing at all
Nothing to do
Was it even true

I stare into space
Implacable clockface
Worn-out bookcase
All the knowing I stuffed
Shelved, just in case
Ornamental armament
Bounded & staged
Dialectical argument

I did nothing
Who did nothing
You did
No, I didn’t
Who are you talking to
Who’s asking
Don’t answer a question with a question
Don’t tell me what to do
Relax we’re only talking
Don’t patronize
Don’t criticize  
Well that’s what I mean
Was I doing Nothing,  
Or Something?
What did I do?

I mean
Was it Nothing
Or
Was it Something
Tell me
Was Nothing Something
or
Was Something the Nothing I did
or
Nothing the Something I did
I’m an Escher painting
One hand painting the other
Thing is
I don’t know
But that is the very thing I know

Talking to a friend today
She says
I got to go
My daughters calling me
Thing is
She doesn’t have a daughter
Or does she

Thing is
I know
She wanted to talk about her thing
And I wanted to talk about my thing

I know
How this looks to you
But here’s what you need to know
I’ve listened and listened and listened
I’ve been a listening machine
So shut the **** up
I’m not your therapist
This I’ll only do for my daughter
You mean our daughter.
Whatever

But, here’s the real thing
A think thing
You don’t have to say anything  
But’ it’s better if you do  
Because I need you to
But not like this
So maybe it’s better if you don’t
But, that’s not the real thing
Maybe It’s better if you do
Or don’t
Then Don’t
Then Do
Don’t
Do
Don’t
Do
Then Don’t
Then Do
Please Do
I think I’m thru with you!
But wait
I have to think this through
Where have I heard that before
Not from me.

The other day
They made me part of the coffee crowd
For once, I didn’t object
Choosing sides was never my thing
Sitting on fences was my usual go to
The single dad by my side
Whose children are all grown
The proctologist who thinks too much
I must have broken the ice when I said
He works from both ends
He watches CNN in the morning
And Fox at night
So he has a balanced point of view, hmm
Guess he’s sitting on fences too
Who knows maybe the joke was on me

The other day
What was it I was thinking
That you could possibly be my friend
When you thought I was so unkind
You would respond so quickly then
You were comfortable in that role
But I didn’t want to be that person
I didn’t want to critique you
I didn’t want to be arrogant
Sanctimonious, pretentious
I didn’t feel comfortable in that role
I wanted to drop all the pretenses
You wouldn’t let me
You wouldn’t let me get that close
It was all arranged so well
Nothing was out of place
Nothing to embrace
Displace,
Deface
Everything so neatly aligned
Everything accounted for
Every dollar, nickel, and dime
But someone left the cake out in the rain
I can’t remember who sang it
Time to hang it
Out to cry

The Other Day
Waiting for a message that never came
The phone a *** that never boils
But is that true
Isn’t silence your answer
It’s true
Messages come through
We just refuse to see them
No problem
They’ll be no hissing sound
Of the *** that never comes around
I’m a shipwreck
That’s run around
A digital dingbat
For a screen that screams
Wakeup
It’s time to wake up
Dingbat

The other day

Until Now

You have taken the words from my own
You are the pedals in my poem
A riddle wrapped in a rose
Cherry pie a la mode
A garden of poppy prose
Poppy I have waited for so long
Followed the primrose path
Running along to your song
Swung from the branches of your stanzas
Hidden in honeysuckle extravaganza
Picadillos and innuendos
Abound
Words sprung from fertile ground
Budding images messing  
A delicate balance
A lover’s dalliance
A vineyard
Of the triggered and the inward
Thickets of thorny morning glories
Questing bouquets of lily days
Where daffodils
Are dressed to ****
And a single rose grows
Inviolate
Yet
Stem to stern
I have felt the male fern
And the grass burn
And the willow cry
And the dragonfly fly by
In the blink of an eye
But I have never ever felt you.
Until now.

Nattering **** head of negativity
Birdbrain, half-wit *****
Can’t count on to get on
Ever a nerd twerp blockhead
Braindead- can’t follow a single thread
Instead
Dance to the strings of your puppet poodle
You’re boring attempts are feudal
You’re as appetizing as a ten-day-old strudel
Square head, *******, yoyo, bozo
Backhoe cargo
Exciting as bread dough
Rising
Not surprising
That I’m so despising
You’re constant attempts at upstaging
Left me
Utterly disengaging
Your raging
Left me
Utterly disengaging
Your blaming
Left me
Utterly disengaging
Your constant contradictions left me
With a drug addiction
I’m not blaming
Just saying
Praying for the end
But wait
Why all the hate?
What hate?

Isn’t the mirror
Reflecting the interior
Can anyone save me from my nightmare?
Scared
That must be it
I mean me.

My hair is braided, I swear
Somedays I wear it like a crown
And somedays a crown of thorns
Creditors keep calling
I don’t answer
Friends reach out
Reluctantly I engage
Engagement like a minimum-security prison
Hush, the weak have arisen
That’s some days
I long for, crave for
Nothing
Answers
Fulfillment
Peace
Emptiness
Apple pie?
French Fries
With loads of ketchup
Presence
Yes, That’s it
The present-perfect moment
Wrapped in gift gold
A pen that doesn’t skip
Except down the street
A pen that writes what it wants
Not what it’s told
Without regards to you
A totally naked pen
Unselfconsciously naked pen
A pen without permission
A pen without presumption
A pen without proper purpose
A pen without a penchant for perfection
(excuse the alliteration)
Without politeness or uptightness
A pen that flip-flops
A pen that hides under the covers when you’re around
A pen that doesn’t stop
Even after it runs out of ink
Pink Ink
Think ink
Until I get tired of pink think ink
A pen that doesn’t get bored so easily
Like you
Maybe I do  
And maybe I don’t
Maybe we’re two pens in a pod.
Oh, fickle pen
That’s so like you
Yup’ the pen made me do it
I’m a slave to the pen
What’s up with you?

I continue to suffer, God
Separate from Your Infinite Awareness
Fetal and curled up inside myself
I continue the battle outside myself
Having not the honesty to face
What’s felt inside myself
Love, you have so long eluded me
Love tell me where you hide from me.
Intermittently you return to me
You are always felt like another
While I struggle to find you inside of me
Why is it only with another that I find me?
Peace and tranquility apart from me
So, God, if I ask these questions
And if I am you
So, must you too.
Is that why you created me
And the others I see
Could it be, ***
That I created you and
That you were lonely too?
Could we be
The ultimate entertainment for you
Or for me
Like characters on a moving screen
You gave us names
You gave us roles
You gave us means
But you forgot to tell us
It was only a game
You designed
To keep us entertained
That would be too cruel
So, I may have to overrule
That scenario, however
You really are the ultimate Lothario
Looking for love
In all the wrong places
Looking for love
In the crawl spaces of your mind
While you were dishing it out
You left some of us out
A Brahmin once said
Cease to cling to yourself
Who should you cling to when no one is there
I know I’ve misconstrued the point
It’s true and
If that is true and I am you
It is true for you too
So, you should cease to cling to me
Pretend if you can that you are me
And no one was there
What would you do?
Probably cling to you, too.
And I know there are more important things to say
But I’m just writing what comes up for me  
For God’s sake
Maybe it’s not pretty
Maybe it’s nitpicky
Who’s to say
And who are you anyway?
No disrespect intended
Covering my bases
Just in case
She turns out to be a he
With an ax to grind
Oh, nevermind!