Loyal hearts are a paradox,
These strong and frail commodities,
They're not concerned with etiquette,
Or confused by love's vast oddities,
They're strongest not for how they love,
Not weak for vision that they might lack,
They're strongest once they've been abandoned,
Love one who will not
Love them back...

Pour one under the table for those who walk outside.  In memory of Spalding Gray, for what he meant to me...
    Thanks, “Spuddy”, for sharing your inner life.   Thanks for having the courage to bring so many troubles into the light.  You laughed at your troubles and allowed us a way to laugh at our own.  You put a voice to carrying an unbearable shyness or an excess of fear along with us as we go through life.  You strived to care when caring was out of fashion and in short supply.  Thanks for reminding us that life is the journey, and not only the destination.  You wrote a book.  You played a minor role in a feature film.  Those were some of your destinations.  When you shared your journey, you did it with humor, humility, and with love.  Thanks for reminding me that storytelling is all around us.  Thanks for reminding me that it need not be complex.  You were merely observant during your journey,  and you shared it through the lens of your own perception.
    I learned this January that life became unbearable for you.  If only we, your audience, could have comforted you or somehow stemmed the river; the flood that carried you to leave so early.  I would like to believe that, once you died, you might be able to hear our collective voice.  I imagine that you are able to see the people affected by your work, some inspired thus to create works of their own; tell their own awkward stories, sharing them as you shared yours.  I am far back in the line, and I eventually arrive at your table.  You flip a page in your spiral-bound notebook and take a sip of water before glancing up inquiringly.  I only have one thing to say, really.  “Thanks, Spalding.  Thanks for sharing”.

We assembled a modest telescope,
To find what sights there were  to see.
I stared, transfixed, at the moon and stars,
In the driveway with all of my family.

I know exactly where I stood,
The moment I would find,
The infinite nature of time and space,
And how it all unwinds.

I asked about the size of the moon,
The distance of its arcing track.
I asked about the space beyond,
The nothing in the black.

I asked my family how big it is.
I asked if anyone knows,
The moon, the stars, and all of it.
I asked how far it goes.

“My son, our curious little one…”,
My parents said to me,
“It has no end”, “It just keeps going”,
“Outward, eternally”.

I stared up into a southern sky,
Ominous, dark as the sea.
And I swear, at that moment,
Looking up,
Something departed from me.

            It flew into the dark of space,
And hasn’t slowed in all this time,
       As far and as fast as information can.
                        The speed of light, I hear…
Which is not so much a speed…
          Hitched, perhaps, to the Voyager probe…
   By these new thoughts inside of my head.
                             But I digress.

This thing  began a journey that,
Must bring it face to face,
With everything that ever was,
Every corner of time and space.
Everything that is yet to come,
Everything that has ever been.
Repeating every history,
It’s trek would never end.

That thought has always stayed with me.
It anchors me, somehow.
A line cast from a sailing ship,
Where I stand upon the bow.
In the oblivion of the infinite,
It grounds me to the “now”.

"A vice grinds hard in the gut..."
Began a poem from decades past.
From one hard lover, now a ghost,
Whose words have long since passed.

She scoffed at love and poured another,
Drunk, to dull the pain,
Sober, I held her in my arms,
On guard against the flames.

But love grew, still, within the dark,
Inside her body, bourbon-tied.
Unseen to me, there was a spark,
And the gates below blew open wide.

Discarding friends and lovers, too,
She ****** them for their care.
Believing this was what to do,
Her love became a dare.

She sang her wrath in poetry,
Self-loathing, hatred, blame.
The gilded coach that had to be,
A vehicle of pain.

I made farewells once she was gone,
They formed inside of sighs.
I gathered up the rhyming note,
And kissed her peaceful eyes.

She never lied, she never lies,
She just ignores.
The truth,
I tried to tell her how I feel,
She just ignored,
The proof.
"Then try to think of something else", she said.
"Write the other way"
Whenever she'd drink and rant like this,
I'd stay out of her way.
Because “real”, for her, seemed to signify,
I tried it once, but should probably try again.
I was real with you, that once,
Only, later,  to find
That those imploring me to "relax",
Insisting things would be different,
If only I could "flow", If only I could "see"...
You said, “be real”, and now the memory
Just turns my ******* stomach
Since all of those whose mantra called,
For a plea to just “be real”
Were the least capable, almost to the man,
Of being anything close to that.

I found myself, once, longing,
To be hated by you.
To feel the burning shame of guilt,

I won't say any more about feelings,
Because that place,
I'd occupy without them,
To see this nonsense through.

So few people seem to really give a ****.
And you actually do.
You really do.
Maybe if I wished too much for you
To love and respect me,
To see me as as a friend,
then maybe I risk the capacity to be hated by you, as well.
but I tend to see you as a force of nature.

If you ever began to love me, as I hope,
Then I have to realize,
Your capacity to hate me would also materialize.
And, like a force of nature, I know,
You would spare me: Nothing.
Help me: Not.
Trust me: Never.
but you would do nothing to me
Out of malice or for ego or for personal gain.
And I would have to trust,
With a child's trust, happily,
even to my death,

That it was better to be loved
    by a force of nature,
Regardless of pleasure or pain,
Beyond reproach or false intent.

Take countless photos, when the mood so inspires.
You may as well have not even thrown the shutter.
For the things that move you right in this moment,
Will not adhere to the chemistry of film
Will not flip one single electronic switch
Cannot be stored, except in the mind,
(A shoddy storage medium)
For the sight of your face,
Your beautiful otherness
Mingling with me in the air in between us-
( As you try to pick my nose… )
Your head is on my shoulder,
Heavy with sleep
And trust, always growing,
As your eyelids drop lower
My arm, sore, bends to raise you up.
I’m relishing the time
To be quiet, close, and still.
When I can find, in my heart,
All the words that mean something,
Not tossed about casually, in the noise of the day.

When the hate  she expressed
Was in honesty’s name,
When she doubled down on lies,
Her excuse was the same.
I was there with my finger,
On the pulse and the blame,
But I am not cruel,
And she is not your shame.

That night you tried more,
Smoking, late, on the bed,
And the things you had done,
Were just as she’d said,
When the ashtray came down,
It was inches from your head.
But,
When Fall came and went,
You two were still wed.

You were not promised wealth,
Not one measure of fame,
You said life wasn’t fair,
Because you see it as a game.
Now, the last time we’d speak,
You’d be cursing my name,
But,
I am not cruel.
You will never be the same.

Twice lost, one soul appeared, unbidden,
Ambushed, in plain sight.
Results?     All hidden.
As I walked, I thought of this,
Imagined as I sought,
A sign of full surrender,
In the battles that we fought.
I threw what always seemed, to you,
The ordnance of the soul,
Words on leaves and tissue tigers,
Weak and boring, far from whole.
My engine had an inner working, impossible to see.
My feet still carry me to you,
And you just stare at me.

Gently... exhale , now,
Breathe out, but slow,
And I sink, if only a bit.
Down into the sea, but never in fear,
Though flat on my back in the vastness of it.

Gently... inhale,
Never panic, never rush,
Only trust, and the rise of my chest, but slow,
Only faith in the physics of fluids and mass,
And I rise again, safe from the depths below.

I rise again, safe, at the interface,
My lips welcome air from the edge of the blue,
My ears hear the sea, still muted and mingled,
With the sound of a voice, and a heartbeat, too.
A comfort, a terror, both in the same,
My regular gentle reminder of how,
The world cannot touch me from there,
In the past.

The sea touches all of me, here,

And right now.

Here was a human animal, most kind,
With a sword for the heart of kindness,
Any that came from a place of deceit.
Are you true to yourself?  
Say, or no, and be quick.

If she told you she cared, or not at all,
Then you had good cause to believe,
That she meant it- every word unspoken,
Or none, as the case may be...

The world built a challenge,
In pretense and sloth.
She gave it the finger and
Bang-  Took the day.
If the night was a struggle, she never did show it,
She made it look easy anyway.

She appeared in the masks we all have to wear.
A voice from behind spoke at last.
Speaking grace through atrocity, reliance on self,
And she never once spoke of the past.

This most human animal, in touch with the world,
Most kind in the offing, decay for the wood,
Preserving a cycle, flesh beetles contented,
That life destroys, as well, to create.

So the life that relentlessly comes, now must go.
I can’t tell you a thing,
You don’t already know.

Back at the shore, on my own this time,
I'm free now, yes, but alone.
I'm left with nothing,
No pain,
No rhyme,
On a beach less sand than stone.


The tide still licks the shore for crumbs,
But nothing hides beneath.
No voice calls out in dark, feigned scorn,
No stoic secretly cries for release.


The world outside worked magic for real,
It promised us strength in identity,
But now I'm just beginning to feel,
There's actually something wrong with me.


I can't go back until I know,
That your death has served some purpose.
What chance is there, to survive and grow,
When even ghosts can hurt us?


"Perhaps", I said, "it's all unspoken", aloud,
To myself, discovering,
How words can wound but silence drowned,
A heart that's still recovering.

It's a ridiculous cliche but, ******* it, your eyes...
Forgive me if I don't always make eye contact,
Or look away too soon.  I'm listening. I swear it.
I'm afraid you might think that I'm full of myself,
Or afraid you might think that I've no self-esteem.
The truth is much simpler than either extreme.
The truth is I'm somewhere right in between.
but still:
Twin seas draw my stare and I fear what I'll say.
Fear falling into their unlit depths, where even my silence could betray.
The source to illuminate and fuel our lives' desires,
Find it in her hands , her touch,
Find it in her eyes.
Her eyes of ocean depth see me,
Giving no safe place to hide,
Searching bad cliches for the light, the otherness inside.
But what if all of my words are wrong?
What if they drive you away?
What if the light between oceans is mute?
Insufficient to make you stay?

If I wanted to take a little time,
If I wanted to share my inner mind,
If someone said it had to rhyme,
I got no time for that ****…

Paint for me, in your chosen words,
The lines are branches; the letters, birds.
Sing to me songs sublime; absurd,
Just don’t tell me it has to rhyme…

Settle the bitter, ancient scores,
Make the audience seek for more,
Make the shoes I stand in yours,
Do not make me repeat myself…

Write me a letter, I long to hear,
Your poet’s voice in my mental ear,
Till the world does shed a collective tear,

I think I’ve made myself perfectly-  uh…

Clear.

We took a drive. I had things to say.
My heart was aching, shattered.
I rehearsed the words throughout the day,
Believing that it mattered.

I met you then but I only saw,
The mask you chose to show.
If you were suffering underneath,
Then how was I to know?

I said,
" Your grey facade hides worlds so vast,
Naked flesh of fruit, beneath the rind.
Your future's informed by its turbulent past,
Full understanding; when you look behind."

You said,
" You try too hard, you think too much.
You never live for now.
Wrapping words around the wrong ideas,
You miss the point somehow."
"Stuck in place, because it's safe,
You're too afraid to grow.
If you had begun to change your fate,
Then how was I to know?"

You saw me within a grey facade.
I saw you within a grey facade.

We could not say more, it seemed sufficient,
That love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love is ignoring all that came before,
Loving only the moment.
That coin of the realm: elusive, bright.
Your grey facade hides
Such a beautiful light.
Love has many names.
Call any one aloud and I will answer.
I will come.
You will see.
You'll see me clearly, even behind this grey facade.

I see a solid object, in my mind,
Grasped by a phantom human hand,
Explored to distract, or pass the time,
Every day carry to a distant land.
Fidget, spin, or brass fitting held,
A soothing reminder, dense and cool.
Carried with me,
Compulsively,
In the pockets of a child,
Or maybe,
A fool.


It escapes,
Irretrievable,
                                   Time.

"I just want to have ***", you said.
An unexpected non-sequitur.
We had been sipping tea or coffee or something.
We had been reminiscing about the old street,
Back when none of us were single.
"yeah, I miss it, too", I said.

"No.  I mean right now", you corrected.
As I turned to see your face, it betrayed little.
Impassive but alert.  Warm but not intimate.  No passion.
I was willing, but remember: this never happened to me.
Something seemed wrong about it,
But was there any harm?

I asked if I could think about it.
You thought about it, too, as we watched a movie.
Halfway through some Ridley Scott epic, we held each other.
We touch-explored and memory only tells me this is true:
With no further reason beyond the will to be,
I soon lay naked there with you.  
It wasn't love but, then again,
This never happened.
Awkward, at first, we found our place,
Our touch and pull, our rhythm and pace.
"no kissing", you admonished, speaking only that.

Though I rest spent and full inside you,
That was your concern.
Too personal.
Too intimate.

We held each other for a while,  you left within the hour,
Saying, "this never happened", and my only thought,
My only answer to you,
Was a solemn confirmation,
That nothing could be more true.

In a room full of people, you're reading our words,
Silent, to yourself, alone.
Because bearing the stress of talking aloud,
Is much harder than sitting on your own.

And when we let you in, it's all the way.
We keep ourselves safe, but we have to say,
The ideas from within, the shadow or light,
Can comfort a stranger or set things right.

Our words have reached you,
       they've made you see more,
And understand better than you could before,
In a form that can never completely remain,
       untouched by the heart of it's writer,
We share this very real part of ourselves,
While the audience glows, ever brighter.
And vulnerability opens a door,
pulling strength on the strings of a lyre.
Our melody and lyric, not wanting for more,
Can raise each of our readers up higher.

You wrote a letter, it had to be,
Your merest whim and dearest thought.
I found it clever, you have to see, going
Out on a limb where the true battle’s fought.

We sorely wished and ached to know,
You shared a life, I shared one, too.
The seeds we sow and hope to grow,
‘Till vines cross the boundaries of me,
(And you…)

Forging a future in distant foundries,
Life and love make a space for you.
Our lives, as such, the liminal boundaries,
Our love, of course, the glue.

You worked with words wrapped tightly round,
This secret life of thought.
You sorely want to win, by hand,
Each battle that was brought.
But how can someone understand,
What every stranger knows?
You placed a bleak reminder  note,
where your integrity goes.

You put it off and tried to smile,
But waiting made it hard to live.
You'd seek for her forgiveness but,
There’s hardly any
                                  left to give.

Come back to life, my dearest friend,
You’ve had more than enough.
That inner voice, with strength to lend,
Is  your best ally when things get rough.

The reflecting pool lay long and flat, a massive mirror door...
I stepped up to it's concrete edge, and looked down to it's floor.
I saw pale tiles beneath the water, some pennies, a dime, a nail.
I dropped my thoughts beneath this sea, which quickly grew in scale.

One foot of water became, thus, ten... A hundred... thousand... more.
My view was that of one who's soaring many miles above some shore.
I was, at once, consumed with fear at how this made me feel,
That is to say, I convinced myself that this height was truly real.

That was when I dreamed I fell, but before I'd be no more,
I had much time to think awhile on what had come before.
I had much time to regret the past, and dread what was yet to be,
Saw images of fortune, ruin, the dust of you; the ashes of me.

Small joys helped to bridge the gaps where fear eroded hope,
The terror of  my empty room, the makeshift hanging rope.
My thoughts of death reminded me that the moment should be much more,
I opened my eyes to the rushing air, my throat felt raw and sore,
Looked down to see a blaze of leaves and the fast approaching forest floor.

Asleep, I fell, through sunlit leaves that seemed to fill the space,
Awake, I stood beside the pool when you had touched my face.
Something in your eyes was telling me you were concerned,
You somehow knew the man who left was not the man who returned.

We stood at the shore then, you and I, expressing futures yet to pass,
Fishing out mythologies and illusions that might last.
Our mouths were full of histories and secrets that we bared,
The reassuring comfort that illusions can be shared.

Look east and see the brightening sky, but not yet see the sun,
Look west and see the shrinking black,
The place where last night's stars have run.

Look up and see the limbs and leaves of the high forest canopy,
The ones above the gloom that's half obscuring you and me...
A bright gold glow suffuses them, but only way up high,
Where they already see the dawn, and the guiding star that fills their sky.

I'm reminded by these tall trees rising high into the air,
When shadow darkens my small world, but light is everywhere,
You do not need to see the sun to know that it is there.

So as I lifted up my face,
To where sunlight paints the highest tree,
In this expansive time and place,
I felt the same; beautiful and free.

I said, "God, I love you".
She smiled and said I'd do in a pinch.

I said, "but I need you to do something for me..."
She looked into my eyes and said, "What's that"?

I said, "I need you to tell me something".
She said, "All right.  What's that?"

I said, "repeat after me"
I said, " 'wes...' "

She stared back into my eyes and said, "wes..."
She laughed a little chuckle in her throat.

I said, "no, this is serious..."
I looked into her eyes.
I prompted her:  " 'wes...' "

She smiled, saying "wes..."
I said, " 'stop ******' around' "

She said, "stop ******' around"
she laughed again, adding, "wes".

I smiled and said, "no, try it seriously  now"
She said, "wes.  seriously.  stop ******* around..."

She laughed.
I said, "want to go back to bed and fool around?"
She laughed.
I laughed.
We went back to bed.

Do you see yourself there,
In this life that you've made?
Arcs traced, just so, by the motion of eyes?
The flicker as they search, the pause before they rest,
The metrics of biology, could they possibly tell?
Whose child was whose,
and what they were thinking?

I think about it, *******,
And it leads me to this place.
Teeth all clenched and aching now,
From shouting in your face.

I told you, I ******* hate poetry.

But you poets listen, and then you don't.
You can't, you never will,
Touch me with your sentiments,
Dropped at my windowsill.

******* your muse,  her wells of eyes,
Just **** the ***** and be done.
Stiffen readers with the tale,
But don't count me as one.

Your Dulcinea's sweet and, well,
(She's better than the last…)
You're dying for a future now,
Not living in the past.

For sweet Art's sake, a nest of lies,
The poverty of self,
puts You up high and lost, in shadow,
and Pining, on the shelf.

So speak your mind now, if you must,
Aloud, to no avail.
Your nature blind of clever words,
Is always bound to fail.

Slow is her progress and high is her climb,
It's measured in arcs that trace my night sky.
I spoke and she answered, but only in rhyme,
Across space and time, the poetess and I.

In my dream we met, and she told me she'd written,
Something dear to her kind heart- a poetic creation.
For Sara herself, I was utterly smitten,
And I urged her to share it, with awkward elation.

I rambled then, foolish, and shy to be near,
Since her words had already reached me before.
In a future that’s past yet, paradoxically, here,
And knowing, not knowing, just what was in store.

“There's a poem that you wrote...”, I had started to say,
“In the Bradbury story, I think that's the one”,
“There's an automated house that's going through it's day...”,
“It recites your piece aloud...?  but the people have all gone...?”

“ ‘There will come soft rains’,dear friend”, her reply,
And her smile said, “thank you.  I'm glad you recall”,
“But this one is shorter”, and her voice was a sigh,
“It’s a different theme, but encompasses all”.

Then, as you'd expect, in the midst of a dreaming,
She opened her notebook and the next thing I knew,
Four lines of writing appeared, only seeming,
To arrange themselves magical, universal and true.

——————————————————
"Moon's  Ending"  by Sara Teasdale

Moon, worn thin to the width of a quill,
In the dawn clouds flying,
How good to go, light into light, and still
Giving light, dying.
——————————————————

Every step of our lives, we are walking the line,
Fail or succeed, illuminated in the trying,
The moon is just as bright when she's on the decline,
Our light, consolation to the living or dying.

Thank you, poets. You gave everything that you could,
When you’d make something holy from the simplest spark.
Thank you, friend, for understanding. I had hoped that you would.
Thank you, Sara, for writing the light and the dark.

Back at the shore, at the interface, I tried, once, to be free.
I found a human animal there, hidden beneath the sea.
It stared, defiant, back at me, perplexed to be observed.
It had no need for company,
It had no need for words.

I felt unable to understand,
Understanding all too well.
The pain within the heart of man,
The pain they buy and sell.

I spoke aloud, though, anyway,
I thought I knew those eyes,
Believed my voice could make a change,
In other creature's lives.

"You're hurt", I said, to the ocean waves,
"Why hide beneath the sea?"
"You're a fool", it said, "presuming that",
"There's something wrong with me"

"Go back to where it's warm and dry,"
"Just walk away from here."
"The water gives me all I need."
"Spare me your hope and fear".

Perhaps", I said, "We all are broken,"
"To some extent, in body; soul..."
I saw my own, afraid but happy,
So unbroken as to seem whole.

It shouted at me once I had left,
We would never meet again.
Then whispered an unheard, but felt,
Admission to the pain.

His body floats on the surface,
Limbs spread wide and bound to the water,
An "X" marks his place on the planet.
Ankles and wrists between water and air,
He submits to a force of nature,
An "X", half submerged in the waves.
It says, "You are here",
but the ocean has more "there".
The water is a woman.
The sea is terrifying,
But he won't ever fear her.
A force of nature does nothing for spite,
Nothing for greed,
Nothing for personal gain.
His death would be clean.  
Honest.
Absorbed, even, thoroughly, back to the source,
The waters from which we all came.

His love for her made her
More like him.
Her love for him made him
Like her more.
His love for her made him
More like her.
Moreover, for them,
She made love more like him.
He made love, at her whim,
More like her than like him.

Hello again, raven, I’m glad that you’re here,
It’s been far too long since you came.
I missed your black feathers, your gravelly call,
Becomes music when speaking my name.
Lean close, my bird, and tell me a secret,
Any, if yours, will do.
I’m too long alone, and the world is too guarded,
I’m pinning my hopes all on you.

Lean again, bird, and tell me some more,
Black feathers cantilevered,
Away and Away.
Drink of me,
And Drink of you,
As we think all the night into day.

His feet carried him there with no plan but to see.
Beyond that, the ****** appendages were ******* useless.
But he can't blame his feet for the failures above,
In the brain that is always awash in a chemical storm,
Not of it's creation,
But rather, from failures up higher,
Where angels throw darts and roll dice with God,
(who disdains such a sport),
And anyway...
So, here he is again,
With a mind full of wonder,
When he wants only, sorely, for this:
To have something to say,
Through the fog and the chatter,
To find that within,
Which is real.

Our lot was not to stay all night;
In kneeling praise by bathroom stalls.
Alcohol numbed your honesty's bite,
wrote her destiny on the divider walls.

And we weren't the kind to cheat, don't believe,
All the loose lips half-cross town,
Last call patrons who watch me leave,
And shut this ****** down...

Like Zane and Beckett, so convinced,
Their **** would last forever,
Bad enough to make you wince,
If they spend one more second together.

Or Jane and Kinney, young, driven, and full,
Of lust or something similar.
Don't be surprised, you've seen this fire,
The end? ...all too familiar.

And pretty Syd had all the gall,
and Pony Boy thought he knew the score...
but he's just a **** like so much Pyrex,
Stuffed inside his paper *****.

But Ashtray Woman with ***** Mouth,
And monster's blood on toilet tissue,
Is just another frightened girl,
With real and dangerous daddy issues.

Now, here, at the close (I'm still glad to say),
You deserve almost everything, that you've won,
Our karma arose ( and, in time, took the day ).
Now I ponder regrets in the hours before dawn,
It wasn't the when, or with whom we may lay,
or the time in the morning before I should be gone,
It's more about how we desired to stay...
When we gazed into stars lying flat on your lawn.
I once craved your poison but, now, in my way,
I'm actually glad
to see you gone.

The wheel of fortune turns for me,
And always, revolves at its own leisure.
Time is curved where the future will be,
But always flat when it is measured.

The rest is a serpent, in every direction,
Forever consuming the end of its tail.
Self contained death and resurrection,
Superluminal ship, without wind or sail.

Will you safekeep our knowledge when it is done?
Humanity’s worst as well as its best?
Will you mind if it’s turtles, all the way down?
A stable foundation on which to rest?

Where will you fall, at the teeth or the tail?
Destroying or rebuilding anew?
If All is cyclic, then we’ll meet once more,
Eternal versions of me and of you.

"Nothing waits below for you", mermaids smiled, and spoke to me.
Memory fled, then all I knew was written on the sea.
Great paragraphs, on ocean swells,
In running, sodden ink,
The bow broke foam from recollections,
My wedding day,
I think.
Words rose up the sides of waves,
and flung me down the other side.
Then licked the shore for crumbs they found,
That rose up in the tide.
Heartbeat slowed, my body sank,
Turned empty eyes beneath.
Rays of light revealed your face,
Colossal, in the reef.

This stupid book has nothing to offer me
In eight pages on stiff paper board.
The pictures are saccharine,
A fat headed boy
In colorful clothes
Shows us what he can do.
How could I see the value
In knowing this simple stuff?
I’m too far removed from my point in time
When “jump” and “run” were just sounds,
When jumping and running were just what they are,
Far removed from the labels we gave them.

So it comes to this: this stupid book
Among all of God’s ink-sodden paper,
Is an achievement of gold,
the height of literature,
a swell in my throat,
When you brought it to me
just today, and said,
“dada”
“read”

Raise, for your experiences, a city.
Build a warehouse, down the block,
Where you’ll keep the cosmos.
Build a bookshelf, within a brownstone,
Where some other things can go.
Like the time you grasped a flower,
Felt beneath, felt the spines that
Pricked your skin,
Made you cry.
But that shelf will be revisited many times,
In this fragile, crumbling zip code,
Forsaking more majestic memory palaces,
Because the vision reached your soul,
Through pain,
Of all that beauty, soft, red, enfolded into itself,
On such a slender stem.

This thing, the words and all?  I was trying on a new skin.
It was made of the old -the familiar, too, but transformed.
Something added that could take root,
Take me out from the norm.
Take on a new identity.
Perform.
Squinting at a light, held at arm’s length:
My own spotlight.
So you could watch me act it all out,
Over and over, forever on the page.
but nothing ends as it began.
My troubles, my worries, my lust, my greed,
All fictionalized and petty.

Disgust and shame.
Anger and fear,
Are not advisable
Unless they bring about change.
Even those, now left behind.
Moulted.
Shedding my old skin.
Toughening up the new.

I led her, at last, to the lip of the crater.
The smell and heat had been increasing as, each conversation,
We drew closer to it.

Apprehensive, I searched her eyes.
She saw it fully, my greed and my shame,
The cavernous need of my worst natures.
Flames singed her hair and the smell choked us both.
But, "still", she said, "be still..." and smiled into my face.

Secretly, I envied you...
Forgive me if it presumes too much
To wish you happiness and comfort.
As far as I can tell, you'd have me think
Those things are not for you.

I used to think that this was appalling,
and pity the creature who lays claim
To misery as their lot.
but
Secretly, I envied you, before even
Understanding,
That my pity was like hatred,
A misery in its own right,
And worse than that which I judged.
I resented the affront, another deadly sin,
And you were right.  
You were right again.
You were right.
All along...

Fallen angels and pixies and such,
Look into Earth’s skies,
Remembering much,
Of their life as it was,
Time and energy fields,
From the young star above us,
To the way the wind feels...

Could it ever compare
To the home that once was?
Oh, I say to you, “yes…”,
Yes, it can,
And it does.

Wednesday 17 December 2014

This one was beautiful.  I sculpted it myself.  Did you know that?
It took years and, if I’m completely honest, I was overly fond of it.
I’d made many, of course.  I had to.  We all had to.
Cupped, round, and smooth, heavy in my hand like a clay pigeon.
So beautiful...

Somehow it began in light,
Naïveté and youth.
I used to say it just felt right,
And free from all abuse.

At  first it formed a perfect ring,
Of lies I thought were true.
I bring it, now, to end the thing.
I bring it, now, to you.  

Because every thing must have its place,
Every thing in its own time.  
This beautiful thing has failed it's need,
Inspiring only pain and rhyme.

-but may it live in memory, still,
May the growth outweigh the pain.
When pain brings growth beyond your will,
Remember fondly, this thing, again.

So why did I smile when you asked me to hold it?
Why did I find it fitting that you made me load it into the trap?
Why were the lines formed by your braced shoulder,
your leveled forearm, your
outstrectched, cradled hand,
so beautiful...
when you inclined your head,
Closed one eye, and,
Steady, raised your sights?

Why did I love you so much for pulling the trigger?

Always, I have been here before.
I tried living backwards with her,
Asking the questions after her answers,
Falling in love once she was long gone.
But that was another, not the same, in a chain of serial Dulcineas.
But then you came along and climbed down from that pedestal,
you slapped me,
Hard,
But laughed,
And I realized,
how you had been right,
All along.

Perhaps we could give each other insights,
Ideas, ways of thought,
Ourselves, the points of departure,
Ourselves, like complimentary colors,
The frequencies I lack, I might find,
And the frequencies you lack,
might, too, be filled.
Know what it means, this joy,
Know what it means, this sorrow,
Perhaps the darkness confused me too much,
Perhaps your joy confused you too much,
Do you shun your feelings
      because they make you weak?
I wallow in mine to make me strong,
Like each muscle fiber, torn in the making,
I trained , unwitting, but found,
The pain unavoidable to risk the pleasure,
Euphoria, plain joy, or humble contentment.

Never did I try to guess,
Or ever pretend to know,
The places you would retreat to,
The places I could never go.

Silent, you would disappear,
And, silent, you'd return.
No questions asked, no trust betrayed,
I simply had to learn.

It never was… personal.
It never was… yours to tell.
It never was…  my place to ask,
It never was, but it’s just as well.

It never passed from between our lips,
Or a friendly, reassuring touch.
“And that's ok”, you told me once.  
“Don’t  be afraid”,  “You worry too much”.

Never did I fault your wishes,
And my loyalty was never a whim.
I never doubted your kind heart,
And never did I falter, my friend.

Confidences
   were something we shared, but then,
Secrets are nothing per sè...

Confidence
   was a thing that I'm lacking, but that
Never stopped me, anyway...

I pressed you, you starved me,
It was wrong, but it couldn't be helped.
I said some things that I don't quite recall
You said a few things yourself.

It was a ridiculous assumption, and god **** it,
You're right.
Forgive me if I don't always hear your advice,
Or look away from the truth.
I'm still listening, I swear it.
I'm afraid you might think I'm just here for your ***,
Or afraid you might think that I'm boring and dull.
I'm just beginning to learn that others perceptions,
Are all, as they should be,
well beyond my control,

But, still...

Your eyes of ocean depth see me,
I want you to speak my name.
Searching all my cliches in the dark,
Forgetting the lies from which we came.
But what if all my words are true?
What if they show me the way?
What if the light between oceans is thought,
And words sufficient to make you stay?

Miss sits in silence and understands,
Nothing breaks the spell.
Missing nothing, understanding,
As far as I can tell.
Miss spoke and said, the word was "sure",
An understanding guess,
Missing understanding pure,
The answer could be "yes".
Miss came and understood for sure,
But wouldn't stay for long.
Thought was insufficient lure,
When I think my guess was wrong.

Perhaps you’ll remember,
though most of us don’t
recall our earliest days.
What relative scale could you use
to describe the things you saw
and the things you felt?
It seems too unreal for a mind
you would one day call mature
and an intelligence
deemed sufficient.
If you could, would you choose,
and what would you find,
if you could retrieve these moments?

when a warm, familiar heartbeat
kept reassuring time,
in a comforting bed at blood temperature,

when hands twice your size
would cradle you completely; move you
from bath to crib,

when loving giants would come
when you called,
to sing or to soothe your pains,

when sleep held dreams of this and more,
in a language we all have spoken,
Beautiful to hear, forgotten on waking