She sits across from me sipping and slurping her fat free french vanilla.
While I'm pacing myself with cappuccino imitation.

"All I'm saying is, that if he starts calling me baby, I might wanna keep him!"

She says it with that cajoling tone.
But I can notice the glimmer in her eyes that tells me she longs for that.
That sweet pet name that would mean she's special to him, in her mind...

I never could get comfortable around those things...pet names.
Cutesy little endearments reserved for a child's affection.

What is wrong with me?

She's vibrating with unmasked giddiness, glancing at her phone.
They've been dating for only months but she is lost in him.

Him.
With his once a week date nights
and clean shaven face
and joking interaction with her friends.  

She's full of soft embrace and warm affection and vulnerable interest.
Wanting never looked so form fitting on a person.
Like a cup waiting for a refill...

"If you want, I could see if his friend is up for dinner next week? You know it's been months for you..."

I hope she doesn't choke on her millionth slurp with the glare of indignation leveled at her cherub-like face.

"Ah thanks, but no thanks." races out of my mouth before I even hesitate to pretend to consider her obvious proposal.

How is it that easy to just offer companionship like that? Do I give off a "desperate for love" vibe?
And what the hell makes her think I can't find someone on my own **** time?

"Okay, okay. It's just...I hate seeing you alone. Don't you want to not be alone anymore?"

I know she loves me but those kind of questions from her caring heart, make me contemplate knocking her in the head.

My alone-ness she says.
My singular existence.

I'd laugh at her if I didn't know it would hurt her feelings.
To disregard her feeble attempts at pairing me up with whatever half-assed man candy she could sway my way.

I'm staring at the ring left from my coffee,
wondering if I should just give in this one time for her,
for me,
for the over used batteries at home.

"I'm not lonely you know. I just, haven't felt that connection yet."

Looking pitifully back at me she wonders aloud, "You're always waiting on that connection but have you ever felt it before? I mean, how do you know it's even real, that body, mind, spirit...magnet pull you believe so fiercely?"

It's the first time I've given her a genuine smile today as I tell her yes I have felt it before.
Briefly...
Bitter sweetly...

I just never got his last name.

It might have been years ago but I can still recall with clarity that electric tornado that seemed to have surrounded us.

We had only been gifted ten hours together but it left a mark on me for over fourteen years.
His face is definitely matured I imagine and his body shaped differently.
But I'll never mistake those sea green eyes, haloed by dusty blue cloud rings.  

The only boy who has ever made me want to get lost and never be found.

"Well...good luck with that. But until mystery man crashes back into your life, for god's sake live a little huh!"

She means well I'm sure but like an eager pup I just tsk at her goofily plastered expression and finish off the grainy remains of my only afternoon delight. She's in a hurry to make her "honey bunny" a homemade dinner anyway so it's not hard to cut things short on our weekly coffee shop vent session.

She's floating out the door before I even get my coat above my elbows but I can't feel offended.
Mulling over the uncomfortable idea of boring interaction with another stranger I decide to grab one more drink for the ride home.

Alone.

Oh, wonderful...now she's planted that seed.

Shaking it off, I order my vice and move benignly to wait and resolve to not think about anything related to that anymore either.

"Seems outrageous they charge so much for imitation don't you think?"

The question's asked to me but I pretend I can't hear it. A guy hitting on me today is not what I want to deal with.

And he seems to be standing right behind me
making goosebumps scatter across my neck.

He tries again, "So I guess you like buying bottom of the barrel cappuccino?"

This time I've gotten a little itchy from his voice and want him to just stop in his tracks.
So I turn to tell him where, in fact, he can go...

But I'm the one stopped short and a bit flabbergasted.

No way do things happen to me like this.

Those coincidental, lucky, fated things...

I almost wish I was a liar right now with the things I just spilled to my loyally, encouraging friend.
Because there is no way the universe would be this cruel.

Finally I exhale and word *****,

"They're the only place that taste just like the ones at my grandmas' house every summer when I was a girl. I waited a long time to find that connection again, even if it is just coffee..."

The smirking face and broad shoulders that greet me aren't the cause of my temporary delirium.
Not even the wild hair and black rimmed glasses.

It's the sea green, haloed dusty blue eyes centering all the rest that shallow my breaths

Of all the places.....

Like a falling satin sheet his face morphs into a query riddled expression.

I hear the barista call out a name and he reluctantly steps away, never taking his eyes off mine whispering,

"I'll...be right back. Don't move...please?"

I'm nodding like an awkward parrot and he turns to grab his imitation coffee.
The same kind I'm waiting on.
And I start smiling after a second.

Not because of the similar drink order, which could be anyone...

But because of something I haven't known until this moment for over fourteen years.
All thanks to fate, or destiny...
Or perhaps the oblivious barista.

His last name...


*© NDHK

We'd bound around
For golf downtown
Frisbees always in hand

"The students are coming!!”
Was a seasonal refrain
As we’d goofily gallivant

Mother’s Day shows
We‘re free, mother-suckers
For your kids, a show we grant

A CLOWN SHOW!
A DOWNTOWN SHOW!
THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN’T!

Rock their world with juggling
See the Doctor for what ails
Rudi and O in laundromat land

Jeanie, Splash, Allison, Donna,
Silly girls astonishing with
Leaps, jokes and handstands

Chewey, Steamboat and Grog
"Yeah-yeah! Yeah-yeah!”
Silly boys grandstanding

All hail Papa Gale! We
Funned with Cpt. Plunge
Leader of the band!

Sweet Georgia!
**** croquet!
It was grand!



(**** croquet was the official lawn game of the Sweet Georgia Brown Clowns during the summer 198x Trinity Country tour [wherein we masqueraded as a Norwegian Salmon Kissing team at a Moose Lodge Talent Show in Lewiston, CA* {true!}]: “Don’t forget your hat!”)

*(we won)

Three of my gorgeous friends stood outside the restaurant
where I sat eating dinner with the poet
and made faces at me through the window.
They were wearing red, turquoise,
and pale green silk,
and with their ripe smiles,
they looked like goddesses behaving goofily.
Not what well-mannered women in their 40's do,
but they did it anyway,
and I laughed and he laughed.
He raised his fork to them and laughed.

I wanted to talk about "Moon-Skin,"
and poetry and courage and mortality,
and we did.
We talked about all of it.
We ate steak and drank red wine,
and if I noticed that his hair did not fall over his eyes in the quite the same way it had all day,
or remembered—just briefly—
the feel of his hand on my back as we came through the door,
or listened to the sound of his breathing as we drove back to his hotel,
it does not mean that I hadn't been paying attention
to all of the talk,
especially about mortality.

It just means that some part of me finally woke up
and realized that that the mind and body together make poetry,
and I wanted to apologize to someone
for taking so long to understand this—
that I am allowed to pay attention to all of it,
that this craft will not ask me to leave any of my senses behind,
that it will say, instead, use everything, tell it all,
and my God,
what have you been waiting for?

Yes, tell everything, even how he took the moist, red morsel of meat
from the point of my knife and put it into his mouth,
even this description—so flagrant and entirely lacking in subtlety,
I am allowed to say yes,
yes, it happened exactly that way.

I should be sleeping,
With soft sheets under my skin.
But my mind wanders,
To memories I can't let go.

It's exactly three months,
Since you left.
But the wound feel so fresh
Like it was  just yesterday.

I browse through my profile,
Jumping from albums to photos.
I realize most of it was you and I.

Hundreds of us together.
Smiling goofily at the camera.
We are so happy that I didnt see this moment coming.

Here I am remembering
What was gone.
Trying to hold something that was just a distant past.
Like pouring salt on my own cuts.

It's 1:45 AM.
I should be dreaming of something,
But I choose to dream of you and I.
A story that already ended.

I missed you.
But it seems my eyes are tired of crying for you.
Maybe its true,
Our heart never stops loving,
But it gets tired of waiting
And gets used to the emptiness inside.
That someone once a plays a big part,
Now an empty hole in my heart.

i see you smile at me from across the room
our eyes play a friendly game of hide and seek
i go over the pros and cons of a polite introduction
because your grin has made me weak
it seems that in this the good out weighs the bad
so i goofily saunter over and you wink
i am utterly baffled at your face up close
and it was suddenly hard for me to think
it seems so casual to talk to you like im not terrified
and i even laugh a little when you ask me to dance
im still waiting for you to up and leave
because i simply refuse to believe in romance.

snowflakes are prettier when I’m alone

when i walk with my face up towards the sky
smiling goofily to myself

when i twirl around pretending i’m in a movie that no one is watching
because no one is if no one is there

and i like it that way

My poetry
may appear to be
written goofily
but they mean a lot to me

when she leaves for work,
i'm left in the absence of wonderful wild spirit.

i tidy up the covers we slept on together peacefully & arrange the stuffed animals.

they look happy that we no longer dominate the bed with our talking and laughter, they watched us enviously from the floor the night before.

i wipe down the counters lightly, coated with dust, & vaccum the floor. i assume my mother would be surprised at the sight of me after i proclaimed "i will never fall in love!" as a 10 yr old.

i go downstairs and wash our dishes from the dinner the night before, remembering how each cookware served us, & how goofily we waltzed in the kitchen ballroom.

the day is bright and sunny, even if it isn't.

as i take out the trash on my way out, i commute to my house
where she'll be for the rest of the week.

After experiencing a severe,
albeit violent near lethal bout
of irritable bowel syndrome
(yesterday night August 30th, 2023)
triggered courtesy dulcolax caplets plus
healthy portion of lentils,
I (a beatle browed, foo fighting,
night ranger needing nirvana)
imperiled me to twist and shout
as a whirling dervish analogous
to F5 tornado bread a deep purple
to kiss earth, wind and fire
hopscotching across terrestrial plain.

Irritable bowel syndrome
in my pinion wracked
lower abdominal area (mine)
bubbled, gurgled and ballooned
sub stomach gastrointestinal tract
vis a vis flatulence crooned
in tandem with subsequent expulsion
explosively eliminated ***** waste
witnessed this scribe forcibly
zipping, sprinting, jetting to bathroom,

self propulsion (a race against time)
nsync with contraction of sphincter muscles'
spasmodically, desperately braced
body electric of mine hurled
at light speed across the universe
courtesy unpleasant symptoms
that mimicked anxiety/ panic attack,
which tortuousness, odorousness, insidiousness,
horrendousness, gaseousness, arduousness...
played mean game of (gastrointestinal
knick knack paddywhack havoc.

Ofttimes in the past
irritable bowel syndrome
affrighted, afflicted, and affected me,
hence yours truly no stranger
to making light of offal plight
and even managing to craft poem
else my alias not mister rhyme stir,
who found himself held hostage
self barricaded in the water closet,
where thoughts about mooning

did not crack a smile,
more explicitly baring derriere
tubby more exact
humor did little to cheer me up -
matter of fact
no source of laughter manifested,
(despite usual presence of chuckles
from this fan of good humor) hijacked
for what seemed a maternity leave
from all mothers tub be

thus envision, a bevy of pregnant gals
aching with cramps heave
ving (times square of the hippopotamus)
with ****** fully dilated key
ping alert, when mother nature ready
to pull out all stops (via umbilical cord)
to deliver bundle of joy followed
in quick succession with after birth re:
placental sack, hence
said effort to expel newborn

the closest scenario
experienced ill suited
to Saint Vitus dance
afflicting this anxiety prone
lovely bones, an all expense
paid (seat of the pants)
accursed bane of proletariat grants
no truce to attend
found me pampered doubled over stance.

Modus operandi to distract
against acute pain crisis
yielded impossible mission
exhibited courtesy haphazard poem  
awaiting unsolicited feedback
across rock of ages woke
beguiling ghostly ***** spectre
courtesy Marie-Antoinette,
(i.e. bride of France's arty choke
King Louis XVI) bespoke

let him eat cake, and (sic)
send back the ****** bloke,
aye suddenly begot idea rye
Jack Corner of zee desk
didst impale and provoke
moderately painful injury
right side rib cage
analogous to intriguing
unfortunate circumstance
mysterious secret shrouded

as dagger and cloak
(think Alfred E. Neuman,
viz MAD Magazine), yes no joke
lovely bones of me body electric,
(particularly right side rib cage)
severely traumatized, nailed, injured...
crucified oft told umteen times,
yet omitting key mirrors and smoke,
significant Dorian Gray parallel,
when former antique,

viz secrétaire looking glass reflection,
spider hairline fractures radiated
resembled bay of pigs in a poke
ham handedly oinked,
quaked, shattered... broke
into bajillion pieces
deafening, exploding,
glowering thunder stroke
jagged shrapnel size shards
unleashed cosmic force
lacerated, gnashed, beribboned...

impeaching flesh with
one engulfed masterstroke,
no rhyme nor reason aiming to choke
off promising poet (ha) of corpse
resembling scrambled egg yolk
posthumous fame besmoke
salvaged mine besmirched reputation
courtesy humble cartoon character
bugs bunny and kinfolk spoke
daffy fully goofily
eulogizing humor did evoke.

Your precious, God-given inner beauty often makes me ***** over
the bus seat after eating putrefied carnage that no vulture could eat.
Beta males don't construct aqueducts in their spare time 'cause they
are key-cut midgets, goofily spinning each other queer-splurt dizzy.
It's the little things that makes midgets the way that they are: skinn-
ing tigers, deep-fryin' puppies, selling salmon disguised as guppies.
Shaving in the dark with a dark muskrat on his arm, youthful Philip
Muskrat day-dreamed about having a **** woman to womanize to-
morrow after breakfast or just before brunch or 1 hour before cook-
ing a supper of muskrat tongue with gravy like the meat that he for-
ever got when he was porkin' hyper-obese pigs who hated the navy.
These mind-numbing velocities of liquid-orb Earth that are proffer-
ed to the lowly plebeians by N.A.S.A. (the war department) certain-
ly should be enough to elicit cruel ridicule by an odd pud who's old
enough to wipe ***, tightly tie snow shoes & consider logical clues.
Elderly Susana Giménez, our 200 million is bomb-proof & guarded
behind concrete & steel where no idiot'll get it, not Hillary nor Bill.
Granny *** Susana Giménez, your 200 million is in ill Fayetteville,
near bare Hill & Bill, a rare quare pair in sheer, bear-fur underwear.
You filled my heart with blood Suzy, which made me glad because
any substance other than blood would've instantaneously killed me.
The lymphatic system is 600 lobular glands or 600 glandular lobes,
each committed to real thrill-kills: to cure the sick & enliven the ill.
Remember when we spread terror: fryin' eggs without bacon, using
a plastic Walmart snow shovel to do half or our autumn-leaf rakin'?
I liked the turbulence of your smile for a mile as you took a **** out
the helicopter window above California where millions of ***** **-
mosexual communists live in a no-gender paradise of timeless love.
“Sure, it's easy in Scandinavia! Try doing it in Albania & you'll see
50 cops climbing up & down your syphilitic *** sister!”; “What are
you talking about?!”; “You know what I mean! Albania's a danger-
ous place ruled by the criminal element.”; “West Albania too?”; “A
little bit. Anyway, never look for love within 1 mile of an Albanian
river or you'll regret the day that you were adopted.”; “Oh my God!
I was adopted?!”; Yes, I'm not your sixth cousin.”; “Jesus Christ!”;
“Oh and that reminds me: you are not a Christian. Your real family
belongs to a tribe of ruthlessly cruel cannibal Pygmy head hunters.”