"banked" poems
On days like this
cool, with little winds
desert birds forage for sticks
they build nests perched in cactus
some build green in palo verde trees
always I think of baby birds in spring
hatchlings, the fledglings that fly
I travel far beyond the noise of towns
watch the movement of cooling clouds
the roundness of rain upon the ground
the grey banked scurrilous skies
of hurried birds, their silhouettes before a storm
daisies that close, cold amid the stones
beneath where snakes and lizards go
slither and crawl in this landscape of saguaros
and I, ever tethered can only dream to fly.
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 7:45 AM UTC
in memoriam Woodrow (Woody) Rifenburgh
The soft purr of a Piper Cub
drifted over Italy's southern hills.
Soul stirred by the landscape’s song,
the young army pilot gently spoke.
“It’s mighty peaceful up here.”
Touching wheels to the tarmac,
Woody shed his flight suit
for an engineer’s desk
and placed a viola beneath his chin.
For three score years
Woody molded horsehair and wire into string song
steadying the orchestra’s midriff
with the vibrations of his spirit.
On Christmas Eve he played for the coming child,
fell stricken and flew his last flight
on instruments at Memorial.
Early New Year’s morn one could almost hear
the faint soft purr of a Piper Cub
as it banked to the right around the moon
and merged with the waiting heavens.
Apr 26, 2016
Apr 26, 2016 at 9:37 AM UTC
Have you known the winter days?
Late February falls like frigid snow
Merciless undertow
Of evergreen and alpenglow
And grey ground pavement walking
Like Grocery shopping
and weak chai tea
Moonlengths from all family
And surrounded like strawbury temptation,
Late night lamp light contemplation
And drowsy-dampened mornings
Grey glaze of diluted boring
Spattered over every orifice
Charcoal eyes, platonic kiss.
Pull your bow to shoot and miss
Tell me all this is is what it is
And I will tell you, “okay”
(but you know this isn’t what I wanted)
Hide the roadsigns
Blur the guidelines
This is how I love you
Have you known the winter days?
Late February fell like fire on hell
And shook me from my sleep
Ashes cover snow-banked heaps of rubble
I slice my wrist on the sharpened stubble
Of your half-assed beard
(this is how I bleed my dear)
This is how I bear my soul
******* smile
And dominoes
Carnation cults
And buried bones
(This is how I build your throne)
Hide the gravestones
Burn the rainbows
This is how I love you.
And have you known the winter days?
Late February fallen like Lucifer to the underworld
We both knew I wasn’t altogether that typeof girl
But we pretended anyways
Alcoholic halo haze
And foreign intervention
Of somewhat insidious intention
And the legitimate logistical question
That defined our discourse on fear
(this is how I think my dear)
This is how I speak my mind
All that grey
Those missing roadsigns
Smoke and soot and
Blurry guidelines
And Gravestones gone
And rainbows ash
(and we are never coming back)
This.
This is how I love you.
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 11:43 AM UTC
The conservation of energy in full effect,
Energy presses from inside, colliding to outside,
A reflection from inside a metal water fountain
Draws it into the swirling vortex; a clone of myself sitting on a bench,
Bench I'm sitting on, several secluded fibers banked upon a velvetine valentine between the ceiling and floor. (Couch)
The conservation of energy in full effect,
Behind a vent, nestled, relaxing under the speckled water fountain (Couch)
WA-ter FoUNtain,
I'm the grays and the bleak black bland,
In the conservation of energy in full effect.
Xitia:-- Sent you a -whimpering, sent you a-wishing.
I, myself: Into a victory, into admission.
The conservation of energy in full effect.
Xitia:--- Where do you sit in the waterfall of lessons?
I, myself: In the back, to mask the need for the front.
The conservation of energy in full effect.
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 3:22 PM UTC
I still have
your rectangle
black leather wallet,
but it is empty now:
the money notes
banked in your account,
the cards sorted,
cut up and shredded,
the loose coins given
to your chosen charity.
How lonely it looks now
without you to handle;
the leather worn
at the edges
through use
you gave,
shiny black,
silent black,
unused now,
kept as a memory
to hold onto in days
of hurt like now
and years to come.
I remember
that last Saturday
in hospital,
you took out coins,
to buy bottles of water,
to quench your thirst
and help you ***
The wallet looked full then,
bulging at the seams,
full of use and life,
held in your hands,
your fingers working
the coin zip.
Now it lays there
unused and thin,
your DNA
all over it,
worked in the seams,
the leather,
the small pocket
of the wallet.
I feel close to you
when I rub a thumb
or ageing finger
along its black
rectangle length,
the shiny worn leather,
bringing us, momentarily,
closer together.
Mar 9, 2014
Mar 9, 2014 at 3:53 AM UTC
oh sure, forgiveness of sin... or perhaps crimes... or just fetishes? like John Paul II forgiving sin, once polite society answered and John Paul staged the forgiveness session in a prison cell... forgiveness alright, acted out, with all the preliminary provisions readied - ode to Mehmet Ali Ağca, forgiveness always played out great for photography when all the Chinese laws were passed - Siberia welcomes all keen joggers; but you know one thing? raised in a canine environment as a child i learned to attach a different perspective with felines:
like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse like you'd play with a mouse - you keep teasing - you keep teasing - you keep teasing - you just wait... crocodile or boa insomniac - and when the opposite party has banked enough to cry about having lost it... you spit at your enemy's mother's face while ****** her; **** me! you get to prove god along the way! how's that for a Camden Market daytrip? and if you don't? well, it was a nice thought - feels like being a woman with a foetus craving doughnuts and pickles.
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 10:11 PM UTC
For a Palestinian Child, with Butterflies
by Michael R. Burch
Where does the butterfly go ...
when lightning rails ...
when thunder howls ...
when hailstones scream ...
when winter scowls ...
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
where does the butterfly go?
Where does the rose hide its bloom
when night descends oblique and chill,
beyond the capacity of moonlight to fill?
When the only relief’s a banked fire’s glow,
where does the butterfly go?
And where shall the spirit flee
when life is harsh, too harsh to face,
and hope is lost without a trace?
Oh, when the light of life runs low,
where does the butterfly go?
Published by Tucumcari Literary Review, Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times, Victorian Violet Press (where it was nominated for a “Best of the Net”), The Contributor (a Nashville homeless newspaper), Siasat (Pakistan), and set to music as a part of the song cycle “The Children of Gaza” which has been performed in various European venues by the Palestinian soprano Dima Bawab. Keywords/Tags: butterfly, children, storm, lightning, thunder, hailstones, snow, frost, night, shelter, comfort, safety, rose, fire, warmth, Holocaust, Nakba, Gaza, Trail of Tears, slavery, injustice, abuse, ethnic cleansing, genocide
Apr 4, 2020
Apr 4, 2020 at 4:39 AM UTC
Banked up against a terraced mountainside
photogenic pristine rows
of blasting green
rows of manicured waterways
with two buffaloes treading ballet-like
between squelching mud and green shoots
the paddy fields stayed buoyant
all season through.
Come harvesting time
and thrashing the sunburied ripe
tendrils of husk and seed
along threshing traffic wheels
the husk sought divorce from
the long tongued long grained
wives -and parted ways.
Soon the pudding spent its silky smooth sexiness
on a plate of punchy aromatic costumes
that invaded the senses and palate
in sensual smoothness. Oh my!
Ricebowl pudding
of the worlds staple.
Author Notes
Gluttony beckons just now!
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 6:45 PM UTC
*Since we last met
We have learned a lot
We are educated now
We are knowledgeable more
We have developed virtues
we have morals & ethics
We are immersed in work culture
Now we meet again
We have sailed a part of life
expounded on the boats of those
virtues, ethics and morals
And see, there is this breeze
There is something in the air
We understand that
Is it the same wave of LOVE...
That struck us when we were teen-lovers?
And in its eventide
Tumbles our boat
And Washed away we see...
our virtues, morals & ethics
In the ebb & tide of LOE
All that knowledge we banked on
That paid us our living debt to
Earn an livelihood
And security for us to live
for our future savings
All we saw swept away
In the ebb & tide of LOVE
This is the LOVE
I am talking about
This is the LOVE
The same LOVE
We went in search for
Sailing on the same boat
With equipments of knowledge
Virtues, ethics and morals
And now When we've found LOVE
It has asked us for the sacrifice
Everything that we've acquired till now
Knowledge, virtues, ethics and morals
So be it
SO BE IT!
We held each other's hand,
And
The hand of LOVE
And let go...
Everything we owed
To the ocean of LOVE*
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 1:11 AM UTC
A square, white, four bedroom, one bath country home
With fourteen kids, parents and much family love
We didn’t have abundance: fiscally poor
But we had each other: banked on our family
We shared our victories and or trying pain
We were a modest Scottish Catholic Clan
Isolated, we were not to our immediate clan
Our uncle’s lived within a trot, fifteen in his home
We kids worked and played on the farm without pain
It was an adventurous labor of extended family love
We worked, laughed, cried, and played as a family
In the early years, we young ones were anything but poor
However, in grammar school, we learned the meaning of poor
And materialism and envy, outside our cloistered clan
But together we lived and loved as a close nit family
Sure we had disagreements, not material goods, but a solid home
White paint peeled on the outside, yet inside was painted love
Still, there were poverty jokes, ridicule and masked pain
Every family has strife, baggage, and superfluous pain
Our parents didn’t drink; we had faith, yet fiscally poor
Ole Dad plumbed toilets; Mom slaved in the house, both with love
So we wouldn’t trade riches for our impoverished meager clan
Summer berries to pick, winter sledding, spring kites, and forever home
Kickball games, splashing in ponds, nature hikes and family
We were not taught to show emotions, hug, not an “I love you family,”
Albeit, an honest, polite, and proud Scottish Clan
The old house was eternally warm; it was our forever home
Until 1999. Dad passed from cancer still money poor
Yet rich in the knowledge of family and that his true pain
Was never saying that word; on his deathbed he whispered “Love”
Though our patriarch was laid to rest, we rose with the word “Love”
Eventually, the house was sold, but always one huge family
Mom spends her days in a retirement home remembering her clan
As time passes and memories fades, it lessens the pain
Of the loss of a noble father, economically poor
Yet with a strong work ethic, church, and love, built a home
Fourteen children now forged fourteen homes on love
Many, still, financially poor, but rich in forever family
Correcting mistakes that caused pain, while perpetuating our clan
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 3:23 PM UTC
"They call him a magic man"
"There's no such thing as..."
"As what, magic?"
"..."
And the coffin hit the banks in Burma
Mud on the feet of a white man, stranger
"I came in search of truth, can you help me?"
The two men sat awake, drinking alcohol
Fermented and brewed by hand and the locals watched
Flaking hut, the bamboo was broken, he wondered how
"They say he has the power to heal"
"And yet I don't believe you"
"Find him"
The trees were dusted and the Antelope were grazing
In the Kalahari I found my guide, we smoked and died
By the fireside, I lied about the tide
He took my hand, I lost my stride
The Nile ran red and I awoke covered in sweat
Phantom structures of glass and brick, apparent not to I
A world of stars and the translucent eyes of a **********
The grinning dawn was mournful as we fell from barriers
The guards were boiled alive but their guns survived
And the California beaches were beckoning
I lay down on the road, calling out to Kerouac and receiving nothing but a jolt as the cars massaged my flailing back, and the monkeys were howling as a witch doctor calls
The small boy read the lacquered book with glistening nails adorned
The tide was vile, washed him away with a sly smile
A great **** at the doors of a church, masks discarded
The preacher man watched with a snarl, upturned lip
Gripped by fear the small boy clawed his way to the banks
He banked on life
Gambled with a choice and won
Burmese man-child, hashish in the pipe
Tell me of the story of your life
The bamboo pipes
A lighter falling through space, as the astronaut suffocates
Nicotine daze and a greyish haze, through the eternal maze
And we lay awake for days and days
A tank would fall from the mountain top
Crushing just one daffodil
and the bamboo mourned
Muddy river ran dry
Today, the day I die
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 9:48 AM UTC
from the eye wall
thoughts of imminent rain
banked clouds assemble
black and ominous
with saturated breath
will not be denied
their time to rage
against the numbness
of each little death
barometers fall
coastal fortification
futile sandbagging
forlorn gestures
against the flood
a tropical depression
jet-streaming blue
wild moon tide
to desolate shore
precipitation
gray accomplice
faithful torrent
stratified walls erode
sodden wood, bone
unbalanced homes
collapse gracelessly
no match for gravity
or the merciless sea
Oct 27, 2016
Oct 27, 2016 at 12:43 PM UTC
Freckles make your back a map
Seabirds circle but they lack
Grasp of what youth endures
Vacating summer shores
Carrying their lives to sea.
Mechanically they return
For bright months they did not yearn-
Only their homecoming retells
Of warmth and hope in summer spells
Of ploughed soil, banked country roads
And feathers bent not under loads;
Put-to-side partners reconcile,
Their lives measured in sea miles
Time comfortably slipping away,
Together living easy days
Until they fly on.
Dec 22, 2012
Dec 22, 2012 at 12:47 PM UTC
When the clouds below turn to into carpet
Up there in the cold morning light,
The VFR pilot jitters and frets:
Time to check fuel, to come up with a plan
To search for a hole in the billow below,
And bring the craft in to land.
So it was when a pilot coming back from a lark,
Flew in a circle somewhere over Williston,
Above clouds turning thicker and dark.
In his office sat Phil, across the state line,
When the radio crackled, pleading a break:
"VFR practice," he thought, "He's probably fine."
Phil headed to lunch, had an errand to do...
Drove downtown for a couple of hours,
Returning somewhere around 2:00.
The radio tone carried tired despair
When Phil walked back in from his break
And heard the pilot, still stuck in the air.
Phil knew that the fuel must be drained
In the old Piper Cub overhead,
So he logged a flight plan and ran for his plane.
He flew to the east and banked to the north,
Rising above the gray carpet below,
And spotted the wanderer holding its course.
Coming in fast, cutting his distance by half,
"Super Cub over Williston, this is Bonanza
On your left. How much fuel do you have?"
"About 30 minutes," came a despondent reply,
Standard answer, but gauging the hours,
Phil calculated the response was a lie.
"I am going to fly by your side.
Follow me and dive when I dive;
Keep contact and enjoy the ride."
The planes in tandem turned around;
Phil flew by IFR to find the runway end,
Backed off the throttle, and led them down.
The tail dragger followed, did not complain,
Dropped into the soup gliding blind
Except for the strobe on the faster plane.
The old Cub flared when Phil said, "Land!"
Settled onto the runway end as the propeller stalled,
And Phil had saved a desperate man.
On the hangar wall now hangs a plaque,
Though Phil himself is gone,
The Governor's gift for bringing a flyer back.
--------------
My brother once watched Phil Petrik of Sidney Aviation fly off the Sidney runway, disappearing into a pea soup fog, carrying our father and mother on an emergency flight to Billings, to save my father's life.
I lay this poetic rose upon Phil's grave as a slim tribute to a man who earned my admiration and life long gratitude. Rest In Peace, Phil Petrik.
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 11:18 AM UTC
On days like this
cool, with little winds
desert birds forage for sticks
they build nests perched in cactus
some build green in palo verde trees
always I think of baby birds in spring
hatchlings, the fledglings that fly
I travel far beyond the noise of towns
watch the movement of cooling clouds
the roundness of rain upon the ground
the grey banked scurrilous skies
of hurried birds, their silhouettes before a storm
daisies that close, cold amid the stones
beneath where snakes and lizards go
slither and crawl in this landscape of saguaros
and I, ever tethered can only dream to fly.
Sep 11, 2016
Sep 11, 2016 at 8:49 PM UTC
(10/8/12)
They are known by many names - **********
Hookers, ladies of the night, escort services, call girls
But what’s in a name ! it’s a trade name like electrician
Carpenter, plumber, doctor.
First and foremost she is a daughter - has a mother
And may even be a mother.
You may not accept her as a sister, a cousin , or an aunt
But she is still blood.
her ways of thinking and living
May be different from you
But do not criticize unless you’ve walked
A mile in her shoes.
She may open her legs to all and any man
But there is one thing you must understand.
She is a woman with many needs
And on this men do feed.
She puts to use what GOD has given
And that’s how she earns her living.
She knows that these are her tools
For her to survive - and it’s one of a kind.
Her tools can be used in so many different ways
Whether she stands , sits, or even lays.
She does the same things that all women do
She even has dreams just like you.
There are many who use their income
From day to day - then there are the ones
Who use a lay- a-way.
They’re the ones who think ahead
And 30% goes into the bank instead.
So when their bodies tell them it’s time to quit
And to enjoy life
By then they’ve accumulated a nice slice.
Now I decided to figure it out
What their lives are all about.
Using a very low figure, even thou
It can be much bigger.
If they have ten johns at twenty dollars a pop
Each day for a five day week .
10x 20 = 200 a day times 5 days =1000.00
A week times 4 weeks is 4000.00
At 30% being banked is 1200.00 per month
Times 12 months is $14,400 a year for 20 years
Is $ 288.000 dollars.
This is a low figure, and how many of us can
Retire in twenty years and have saved this amount?
So with this in mind- who are we to criticize.
© L . RAMS
Oct 9, 2012
Oct 9, 2012 at 10:19 AM UTC
Nature’s ebb and flow
There is something about a country road time slows the soothed mind intensifies. Then border it with a line of trees in this wooded strength picturesque purity flows through the eye gate. This flood of soft
emotional stirrings cast the hustle bustle of the modern life across the air like a fly fishermen easy floating fishing line follow it float along on this suspended timelessness you will find yourself
unconsciously holding your breath in anticipation of the cast as it lays down on the water. A fish strike would be icing on the cake almost anti climatic not quiet though when the trout jerks his head back and
forth putting his whole electrified cold stream lived life into the fight.
In this wooded chill a campfire ignites the smoke rises the kindling releases energy its inner life warmth
pushes back the cold. You set look into the leaping flames transfixed deep moody thoughts begin to enter your thoughts the most extravagant furnished palace does not compare the tame and wild intermingle
you truly at that moment are the true lord of the wood not only brawn but the mind comes to full
potential. You’re not trying to solve problems you’re a great spool the soft darkness does the pulling
knots kinks disappear you wonder about all the apprehensions you thought you brought it must have
been foolishness parading as actual problems.
When you thought it couldn’t be any more perfect there they were the night sky with silver points
overload begins when they stretch so far you feel the very weight of heaven as it asserts its supremacy the
night air filled with a tangible burden of weight this is only the blanket that was stored during the day now angels imperceptibly have rolled it across the four corners of heaven. The night wind speaks
mysteries at their center a stoking fire of its own not a fire of heat and flame but one banked just the
same. The drifting sifting sand that mortals find impossible to resist soon in deepest wool like
sheepclothed you sleep while the Sheppard stands beyond the fire light keeping watch sleep my child no harm
will disturb He rules the mighty sea and harder the egos of angry men to you he will be your peace is he not the prince of peace.
Nov 17, 2011
Nov 17, 2011 at 4:35 AM UTC
There is something about a country road time slows the soothed mind intensifies. Then border it with a line of trees in this wooded strength picturesque purity flows through the eye gate. This flood of soft emotional stirrings cast the hustle bustle of the modern life across the air like a fly fishermen easy floating fishing line follow it float along on this suspended timelessness you will find yourself unconsciously holding your breath in anticipation of the cast as it lays down on the water. A fish strike would be icing on the cake almost anti climatic not quiet though when the trout jerks his head back and forth putting his whole electrified cold stream lived life into the fight.
In this wooded chill a campfire ignites the smoke rises the kindling releases energy its inner life warmth pushes back the cold. You set look into the leaping flames transfixed deep moody thoughts begin to enter your thoughts the most extravagant furnished palace does not compare the tame and wild intermingle you truly at that moment are the true lord of the wood not only brawn but the mind comes to full potential. You’re not trying to solve problems you’re a great spool the soft darkness does the pulling knots kinks disappear you wonder about all the apprehensions you thought you brought it must have been foolishness parading as actual problems.
When you thought it couldn’t be any more perfect there they were the night sky with silver points overload begins when they stretch so far you feel the very weight of heaven as it asserts its supremacy the night air filled with a tangible burden of weight this is only the blanket that was stored during the day now angels imperceptibly have rolled it across the four corners of heaven. The night wind speaks mysteries at their center a stoking fire of its own not a fire of heat and flame but one banked just the same. The drifting sifting sand that mortals find impossible to resist soon in deepest wool like sheep clothed you sleep while the Sheppard stands beyond the fire light keeping watch sleep my child no harm will disturb He rules the mighty sea and harder the egos of angry men to you he will be your peace is he not the prince of peace.
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 10:36 PM UTC
Caught an intellect from the beams of a flashin' tech
Skies open fools still hopin'
more corrupt than Kenneth Copeland yo I ain't
Jokin' words carefully spoken
From Houston to Oakland me ghettos we all kin
Born in sin so I was made for lusting put my trust in
My nine millimeter soon to beat cha if ya
Not fast with ya draw man this a southside gang
And We running thangs comin' back on track like a
boomerang
Haters love to sing chirpin' like early birds
I move the herds the black Sheppard
testing nerves
Check my lac banked on the curb hit a taste of the herb
To calm my brain cells light a fire see visions of Hell
I inhale free my mind from jail caught in this fairy tale
Thought this world was made for me but it ain't see?
The devil's laughing at me cuz I took the plea of insanity
Expose my mind through pens and papers
Towerin' empires past the
skyscrapers
traces of flowin' vapors
Disappear then reappear back on the atmosphere
But still i ain't here a ghost in a
shell
Pass the seven gates of chakras
cells
Gather my intel from my enemies that sail
Undercover lover to ya mother
mentally
See me I create energy powerful enough
To call out any bluff keep it rough
and rugged
So **** it since most chicken ya feathers
Gettin' plucked givin' up the what?
The funk that is
From Rosemary's kids made in
Hades
Check the tens bumpin' in the
Mercedes
I'm old school rock big jewels pinky
rings
Diamond bezels shining and still
blinding
Sip Tennessee whiskey out the glass cup
Flashback it's the return of King
Tut
Speak bad watch the raw clips keep ya mouth shut
Oct 13, 2018
Oct 13, 2018 at 9:31 PM UTC
Who are they that they get moments with you,
And I get weeks apart.
What prior commitment do you have with them?
And what about our commitment,
Don't respond, I know the answer.
A fortress of silence combats all conflict
I know you don't want to be with me.
Or rather, I know you want to be without me.
Maybe you want to be with me like one wants to be with a chair,
But if you want me gone then leave.
Don't leave me waiting for you.
I'm sorry, as you say
I'm not meeting you halfway
But I'm just doing everything I've ever been taught.
Everything I've ever learned from you.
Just hide it away,
Because maybe tomorrow it'll be gone
And I keep hoping, waiting.
Thinking that next year
You'll be right here,
And I won't be so angry that every moment is wasted
That every moment is precious.
Because moments will be plural,
And so what if it falls apart then
Because maybe we can't stand each other.
But right now I'm investing.
Surviving while all my love is banked,
Locked in a vault a few chairs away,
That won't even look at me
To see what I've learned.
Distance makes the heart grow weak
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 4:11 PM UTC
The cab moved quietly
Beneath the street lamps
Pleather seats: torn, faded
There we sat, silent- content.
The driver, a portly man, hacked
Struggling, his breathing deepened
Panting, gasping to regain regularity
Quickly, his breath filled the
Confined, litter-shrouded,
Van with the stench of
Cheap cigar smoke
We arrived at her home
The driver approached slowly
Carefully avoiding the icy snow
Banked earlier by the cities plows
Sliding the van door open I step out
Still holding her hand, the night air
Enters my lungs, sobering me
Just for that brief instant
Hastily, she leans in
Without hesitation, I meet her
Ambitious advance, reciprocating
The kiss is brief; I’m no longer cold
Her lips are warm and soft against mine
Retreating, she smiles. I gently brush her hair
Behind her ear unveiling a dark brown eye
My glazed, drunk, stare meet hers
Her grin, now beginning to fade
She looks down in confusion
I sense the cab driver behind me
Growing impatient he lights a cigar
Before turning away she whispers night
Her hand lets go of mine; our fingers part
Complacent, tomorrow she will return to him
Revisiting that feigned, simulated, infatuation
The kind they falsely advertised as ‘love’
Standing alone, I’m cold once more
Keying in, she doesn’t look back
Reaching into my pocket
Scrounging for what cash is left
To the cab, I surrender my last five dollars
This pays just enough to get me where I stand
Dissatisfied with his tip, the driver departs cursing
Unsure what to make of the evening, I begin my walk
Now, not so sobering, the night air dries my throat
The chilled breeze that once blushed her cheeks
Now stings my nose, ears, and finger tips
Alone, I continue west- home
Cold, I have miles ahead
Spirit torn in twain
I walk them.
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 10:03 PM UTC
“We’re cleared for takeoff,” the pilot announced, “settle in, our flight time to Atlanta will be 9 hours.”
The Gulfstream roared down the runway and in a moment the tops of trees flashed by. We climbed quickly, and banked. Paris dwindled, the Seine became a string of blue, the world a patchwork of colors before we punched through a layer of hair-like cirrus clouds.
My roommates and friends were all a-chatter as we lined up on the runway but as we ascended, they grew quiet.
Thoughts of Peter ran through me and gripped me like a serpent. The last time I saw him he was dressed in a summer outfit I bought him - a short-sleeve, pale-pastel-plaid seersucker shirt, kentucky-derby breaker shorts, pop color flip flops and a straw fedora. His sweet-face was all grin, he looked like a deck gillespie. Meow.
When I think about Peter, my skin tickles, my pulse accelerates, I’m confuddled. I think about the disturbance that moved through the air between us when we met. We were strangers, but a magnetic flux seemed to roll off him and break against me.
I didn’t let it show. I drew in, looked away and became quiet. What else could I do? Later, when I described it to Sunny, our meeting seemed like nothing. When I described it to Lisa, it sounded like too much.
Of course, my choices must be consistent with my ambitions, but I want Peter to come to Athens, so badly. He was a human placebo, for me, in otherwise stressful times. Now I want to be with him without school pressures - to see what that’s like - and get closer, a lot closer.
I don’t want commitment, but I’m saturated with desire. All I want is a fun July or August - with him. I seldom reveal the businesslike hardness I have buried inside. I want this and I’m ready for derp.
Peter worries - about money, about gender roles, social positions and what’s apposite. I don’t care about any of that. I want to give him a free month, like an amazing gift. He’s so male, so deceptively complicated, fragile and intoxicating.
I really need to think about this, and work it out - HA! - like I can think of anything else.
Jul 3, 2022
Jul 3, 2022 at 8:58 AM UTC
Can't see the dawn
from the angle of dusk
Even harder to believe--
it could see me?
Why would sunrise care about its setting?
“I think you'd hafta be flyin', er sumpthin'
Maybe if I banked a 180
gazing into that new east?
Okay--
I know it's not
I could still see the reflections
of where it was
of warmth and color where it used to be?
Okay--
...and now I'm just the warmth of the reflected
disorientation
--God **** that poetry-killing six syllable word!
Ya wanna pass that joint
before I land this heap without My wheels down”
Nov 1, 2017
Nov 1, 2017 at 7:44 PM UTC