we like to shower afterwards
(I like the water hotter than she)
and her face is always soft and peaceful
and she'll watch me first
spread the soap over my *****
lift the *****
squeeze them,
then wash the ****:
"hey, this thing is still hard!"
then get all the hair down there,-
the belly, the back, the neck, the legs,
I grin grin grin,
and then I wash her. . .
first the ****, I
stand behind her, my **** in the cheeks of her ***
I gently soap up the **** hairs,
wash there with a soothing motion,
I linger perhaps longer than necessary,
then I get the backs of the legs, the ***,
the back, the neck, I turn her, kiss her,
soap up the *******, get them and the belly, the neck,
the fronts of the legs, the ankles, the feet,
and then the ****, once more, for luck. . .
another kiss, and she gets out first,
toweling, sometimes singing while I stay in
turn the water on hotter
feeling the good times of love's miracle
I then get out. . .
it is usually mid-afternoon and quiet,
and getting dressed we talk about what else
there might be to do,
but being together solves most of it
for as long as those things stay solved
in the history of women and
man, it's different for each-
for me, it's splendid enough to remember
past the memories of pain and defeat and unhappiness:
when you take it away
do it slowly and easily
make it as if I were dying in my sleep instead of in
my life, amen.

oft on bus seated next,
every one of your senses
adjusting, modulating,
to her unpredictable
solar flaring

you don't ever risk
that first missing
           misstep,
your entirety is
sun bursted
        (un)/consumed
in unhappy joy of her
consuming presence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you laugh
years later
re the topic of
your first shaky
foot in the mouth
a classic misstep
first bow shot,
opening one liner

and each storied retelling  
is nature!s
snow and rain
refilling
the love of your
groundwater table
welling up

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you love her scent
the silly hats she wears,
her short skirts arouse,
that last open button
a misstep invitation,
angry it incenses,
her every solitary everything is
incense,
pervading a daily
co-riding
passenger's
oxygen? starved soul

~~~~~~~~~

her umbrella is a wet
selfie stick
accidentally opening and dousing
an un random next door
seatmate

just another unlucky misstep for
someone sitting next store,
oil on the fire of
happily ever after

two selfies are last seen as
one
un selfishly
toweling each other off and
on
with wet kisses

~~~~~~~~~~~

you eavesdrop on her
earbud music,
weep internally you do with
crazed jealously

The Temptations
are so unfairly
singing to her
"Ain't to Proud to Beg"
and neither are you

you heart is misstepping
to every beat,
your fingers
thrumming,
you idiot, not quietly enough
humming
in the next seat

the first,
will not be
the last

smile exchanged

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

poem writing on the tablet,
amidst the groaning awful
no moving
city traffic

overheated bus
combustible with
winter snow dampness,
wet dog sweat smelling people clothes

all you want to do is get home
shower off
the daily dirt

the poetry writing pastime
is the place
where you put yourself
to better to pass over
your sour surroundings

her finger rattlesnakes,
misstepping over,
noisily invading,
the invisible boundary
constructed to hold up the
eye-averting
Keep Out sign
to momentary,
too neighborly
strangers

her red painted
pointer finger
smudge prints on your tablet,
accompanied with
bespoke words
"try this"

that smudge suggestion
won't come off

insisting on crediting
a shared authorship,
you ask for her
email and cell,
so you can share
her
forever

co jointed tangled
bus and bed sheet first efforts
on writing, all about
what you play~argue
what should your entitled poem
be titled

you think

endless short love story bus poems

but she prefers,
with red fingers persuading

the first misstep is the best

both see the merit
in each other

sometimes, i just want healthy relationships
                              and even though they might look crazy
~us waking up ****** and taking 10 am trips to the grocery store
to buy a bottle of wine and some flowers
for a trip to the park downtown
                   where we'll play our version of rugby while
the sun hits the color of your eyes just right
and the perfect song turns on, maybe led zeppelin
           and we'll run like children through a sudden rainshower
all the 1.5 miles to the borrowed car, with cassette records
of our mixtapes to each other when we first hit it off
all strewn across the console,
                 toweling each other off and saying **** it
driving ******* in rain spattered shorts home to our flat
blasting music from stupid-loud speakers,
         cooking souped-up ramen noodles with fancy appetizers
before we leave the stove on because we were too busy kissing
or feeding the dogs the treats we bought at 10 am
      while we swallow our wine with i love yous
and yes this is a healthy relationship
one where you don't expect anything but life from me
                     and me life from you
where there ain't nothin' but lovin' and real **** between us.

To be knelt in a shower
Watching crimson mix with water
Some good ol’ fashioned
Pain drain

Bloodletting
How delicious

What is it about a cleansing ritual
That brings
Soot to surface

It’s scar tissue
Meets fresh wounds
Amidst the carnage
A kernel of truth

Cartography
How scrumptious

What is it about toweling off
That removes
Less than we thought

It’s whispered words
Meets silent screams
All this chaos
What does it mean

Decryption
How cathartic

What is it about slipping into jeans
That tucks away the secrets
Folds up the mental maps
Slurps the blood from the floor
And masks us up
For the world to adore

///

“How was your weekend?”

(wait, what’s my line?)

Plasma
A flushed cheek
“Oh…it was fine”
smiles

Merely existing
How divine

///

these last two weeks drag on.
I wash my hair all the time, rinse and repeat rinse and repeat rinse and repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat
slithering out of my follicles and sliding down the drain
toweling my hair dry, and
then you're creeping into my skin
you're creeping in creeping creeping and there's a whole bar of soap, gone.
and I think I'm finally clean and you've etched yourself in the pads of my fingers
that I rub on sandpaper until they bleed, ****** ****** badges of I'm winning!
winning this game with you in my lungs, pushing out with all your hands and your feet;
I can't breathe out, you won't let me, I hold it hold it hold it I touch edges of darkness feel my eyes
clog with pinpricks, stars, explosions and I've suffocated you, let out my breath,
calmed by your soft murmur in my ear, your touch on places we always went together,
I am cleaning cleaning cleaning trying to get you out of my skin and my hair and my thoughts
thoughts like you didn't even care and you don't even think about me anymore and all I do is think about trying to scrape your brains out of my innards.
vivid intakes, passionate obsession, cleaning cleaning cleaning the house the yard my hair (again) the door the mirror you wrote I love you beautiful the car seat you pulled me into the feel of your lips and your hands and your hair when you sweat because I could make you
feel.
and now I look in that mirror where I can't erase your words and I don't see that girl you watched anymore;
all I see is ***** of skin and listless hair and blue purple circles stalking my eyelids and profound sadness and I see so much that isn't even there because the one thing I need to see I can't because it's
you and you're wrapped up in her like a present
and all I got this christmas was coal to match this listless hair and an inability to see reality and a really awful obsession with wanting to cause you pain
pain pain pain pain what is pain, pearl white
what is pain

Equations
in the sand

Laid out
and toweling off

Curvatures to
algebraic form

They define her lines
shape her axis

My island of
expectation

Amid summer's long
subterfuge

Blemished by the experience
Worn and fatigued
Murky and uncertain
Static, unfree

Scrubbing at the past
until it begins to clear
Soaking in the truth of things
Clarity is near

Stepping out and drying off,
toweling away all the debris
Fresh and fragrant now I stand.
Ready, a new Me.

Mrs Squires and Benedict
at the cheap hotel
in back street
off Charing Cross station

and she said
come on in
let's share this bath
and so he undressed

and there she was
in the water
waiting for him
and he climbed in

and sat opposite her
in the big bath
her shorter legs
between his

his longer legs
outside of hers
she lay back
her *******

sleeping puppies
her hands touching
his feet
come on

she said
don't be shy
and she tickled his toes
and tried to lift them

to her lips
he laughed
I see Percy's moving
she said

he looked at his pecker
rising in the water
needs a wash
she said

and that was that
and after in the room
by the noisy gas heater
in front

of the double bed
he dried
and watched
as she lay there smoking

her hair brushed back
her nightdress
covering her
and she said

wasn't the show good?
yes it was
he said
toweling his pecker dry

the dancers were good too
she inhaled
he studied her
wondered what

her husband would say
seeing her there
what he would have thought
of her bathing

with some young dude
in some cheap hotel
once he had dried
he put on

his dressing gown
and lay on the bed
beside her
and she offered him

a cigarette and lit it for him
and they watched
as their joint smoke
rose in swirling patterns

later
when the lights
were out
(except for the on and off

neon lights
from the street outside)
they made love
in the double bed

the springs going some
the gas fire hissing
like a box of snakes
and he thinking

of her husband
lying in some
other bed alone
with the lights out

and she thinking
of the best ***
she'd had in years
and more to come

and the on and off
neon lights
and somewhere
a gunshot

or car backfiring
and he wondering
what her husband
would say

or think
her having
a young stud
and a good lay.

Circles and ovals made in space,
As sweat rolls of a brow and face,
legs piston forced, make the pedals,
go round and round,
                                  steady cadence to the musical
chamber, it is so full of sound, notes fill it full
while the legs go up and down and pedals go round and round,
the rest
of the gym
is full of sound
but nothing is
heard in my head                                       except the sound of "quitting would be nice"
as my ear buds are
pumping sound
to keep the legs
going up and down as
the pedals go round
and round and the
arms can handle the
need to pull to keep
the rhythm, and not
break pace, now the sweat pours down my face,
streams roll, hydrate more
as so do the hills, so climb                                           " off the bike before the grade increases and"
the gear increases,
a need to pound out
to the sound, at this pace
a twenty total minutes,
then my feet will
walk on ground, feeling strange
toweling off and cleaning
the stationary machine,                                              "it is not a machine it is a monster"
the workout is complete again.

Next stop the shower, to drown the voices of doubt and admonition, this is my life and I am on a mission.


©DWE012014

I. You Will Make A Name For Yourself

She said my name - it stuck there -
a jot of air caught in space between us -
it hung there, it's still hanging there,
moss growing over the truth of it,
rain chipping away at the crags,
my name waiting to be claimed.

II. Success And Wealth Are In Your Fate

There is a hill where I go walking
that is covered in grave slants -
headstones effaced by scraping snows -
money and marble sliding green and down -
so many dead hands bidding to shape
their fate - they're shushed by vines.

III. You Will Receive A Surprising Prize

In an open window across the street -
creamy unlidded eye in beige brick face -
a woman has showered and is toweling off
slowly and deliberately - almost burlesque -
as the sun cuts morning's cusp
in bright-grown slices - coming for her.