Kisses in Colors

I kiss you in colors

Blooming behind my eyes, tight-shut

Like windows in waning winter light

Once it was scarlet, and sweet

Warm, steady and secure

Once yellow, both you and I

You stole my breath and wouldn’t give it back

Curled my toes and laughed a smug laugh

And once, we were black, edged thickly in white

Secret on the street in early hours

Contraband kisses that scuttled for cover

With every knowing approach of headlights

Always, your silhouette in every shade

A bright new hue to each tryst of the lips

Couplet

I forgot the snow, and it shocked me
With all of its white electricity

Writing Hands

So often lately I have felt lacking in drive.  I would look around and think, What on earth am I doing, and why?  There was no why.  It's been the cause of no small amount of stress in my life over the past little while.  Only recently I realized that my passion is, and always has been, writing.  It's a God-given talent, it's 99% of who I am, and it's all I want to do with my life.  This poem is a self-apology for forgetting about that for a while.

Dear writing hands, this

Is my apology

For your emaciation

Your cruel starvation

From your vivid, wordy fare

Dear writing hands, I

Will not make excuses

I forgot the feeling and sound

Of the pen in my hand

And the letters in my head

Dear writing hands, you

Are deep in my heart

At the core, squeezing

Pumping the blood, rich, dark

That gurgles with whispers of so much to say

Against Prejudice

I was in the midst
Of penning a poem
Against prejudice
When I made a remark of careless taste
Regarding the voice of the girl on the radio
And that is why my poem
Against prejudice
Will not now be written

Overcast, a Summary

I see it fit to give you fair warning.

In the future, however distant

There will be days, given infrequent

When the air is too cold to move

And puddles languish on the road

And the mountains have burrowed

Beneath their gray down comforters

And we will do the same

Meaning—

Forget your daily commute and stiff-backed chair

Forget my ringing phone and pressing matters

Shove the consequences beneath the pillow

Hold me close in lazy white seeping through the blinds

The air is not moving, and neither are we.

Such a Rain

Hair crowned by dewy rain at the point of molecule snowflakes

Hands deep within the shallow pockets like a mole hole

Stepping from the slick street onto the curb holds an unsteady weight

As though the concrete sand hungers for a greedy flagpole

I find myself set upon the long way home, serendipitous

Basking longer in the lunar-hued glow of Heaven’s will washed down

Brief hesitation, and I stoop to scoop up a handful of leaves

Tiny russet brown ones, curled like chocolate shavings on a cake

Cupped in my hand, the struts of a pale Noah’s ark about their ebbing fragility

They are safely borne to a new world in the name of memorabilia

For a day like this, with such a rain, such a mist on the mountains

Would be unjustly dealt with to receive no lasting memory

Unmoored

Would that I were unmoored

From the harbor which manufactures care

Would that I could halt the procession

From the dock to my decks of involved despair

Would that my hull was thickly built

Enough to weather the typhoons of change

Would that I could slip loose the rope

And drift, and drift, on hard waters away

The Nephilim

The nephilim came long ago

With saving grace in his sinuous veins

Consigned by light to lurk in dimness

In equal parts divine and damned

From first foot set on mortal soil

From first breath drawn, to be unnamed

With obeisance he resigned his freedom

Surrendered his wrists to dutiful chains

The gutter scum, his dwelling place

His warming fire, the heat of sin

Of higher planes than human refuse

He dwelt in silence amongst them

And with the roll of years, so soon

The shabby shell matched that within

A casualty to stay the course

Of Earth’s morally unsound spin

Untouchable by filth of years

He strode through changing alleyways

Seeking those whose every corrupted breath

Darkened the shine of mankind’s days

Predator imbued with divine right

He closed the reign of his unholy prey

Upon shoulders fortified for such a cause

He accepted the weight of the planet’s decay

Made of silk and velvet in choking pitch

It fits him well, the witching hour shroud

The blinding lack of heavenly light

Is sufficient for his iron crown

Prince of a doomsdayed race, he hunts

The darkness where atrocities prowl

And upon the marble of the sky

He carves tallymarks of years worn down

Upon street corners he can be seen

A tower amongst cottages of mortal forms

With the flawless visage of a brooding seraph

And battle scars his body marred

Yet beneath the wearied and shadowed brow

From spheres of brewing winter storms

He gazes upon his millennial charges

With a last late spark of celestial warmth

Sleepyhead

You are sprawled in a happy accident

Ankles still entangled with mine

My body is heavy with hard, companionable sleep

Yet I space the sheets and haul myself

Over onto the rise of your broad back

Tease the back of your neck

Much to your agreeable chagrin

Hold me responsible—hold me at all

I have been waiting for hours

For you to tell me good morning

October Velvet

Nothing satisfies the weary spirit

Such as the velvet of an October eve

Freckled by reticent sprinklings of rain

Which thicken like traffic on the ritual commute

Dull and murmuring from hours held on high

Cheeks of the sky flushed with the advances

Of a devilish chill, insistent, persuasive

Reflect on the browned mirror of the mountains

Color their dying eyes with a final surge of joy

Before the well-advanced annual condition claims the upper hand

The pearlescent opaque winter mists

Seep across nose and mouth at the peaks’ final breath

Cool the cheeks of the clouds into tones of frostbite

Remind raindrops of the cozy, homey quality

Of the final smack upon welcoming pavement

Massasoit’s charcoal figure, pensive, pipe in hand

Watches the sun sink into exhausted slumber

The furious rain slides down his nose and cloth folds

Twilight poses a challenge to sharp sightless eyes

Tacit, in memoriam he holds, as the autumn chill settles into his iron limbs

Great hulking shape

Great hulking shape
Lurking white in the reaches of darkness
Tribute and inspiration to the fixtures of Egypt
Barring the stars with the crag of your shoulders
Muzzle raised to the sky, square jaw taut
You hum a growling hymn to the absence of winter moon
And the valley tremors timorous beneath brief feet
Swathed in ignorance to the ways of your kind
Ever present, from the first break of the horizon
Enduring, to the final minute of time

Theories Obsolete

Where does your care come from?

For it may be the low gray walls of my little mind

Impeding my eager view

But I cannot make it out.

Is it labeled desperation

From a cyclical falling out of love? 

Addiction, perhaps

To that gentle tug of needing. 

Or does it taste of breath

Shared in close comfortable confines

That settles in your nose sometimes

When you go to sigh? 

Or last, and leastly plausible

Could it conceivably be

That you have seen between my lines

Heard within my mumbling

And you are truly attracted

To the texture of my soul?  

Hollows of trees echo outside themselves

Hollows of trees echo outside themselves. 

Twigs sway like beetles flipped downside up;

Premature snowflakes suspended

Glisten above the dusty curtain clouds. 

The mountains are surly, buried as they are

Up to their craggy chins in an orange woolen blanket. 

So many things sigh all at once

In a low, lowing chorus;

Grass playing host to parasitic frost

Loses its forced resolve, and yields

Beneath the soles of my firm flat feet. 

Curled carcasses, leaves laid with care upon the concrete

Like small animals unearthed from hibernation

Rustle their brown and gold shells

In semblance of life, but they are gone in a puff of winter impatience. 

The bite in the air is one with malice

One that targets the open parts of my jacket

Works its way up my neck in shivers and goosebumps

To set upon soft thoughts drifting in with the night.

Victim to curved claws and grinning canines

Once and together, they fall to their knees

Too weak to fight the farmer’s battle

With weapons of will against frost.

They drop confessions from their scarlet chapped lips

Of bits of sparkling soul, harvested thoughtless

Taken by excess of intention, not so much permission

And an overlying mist of selfishness.

In the same breath they speak

Of pieces relinquished

In tribute, in payment, in an accidental fashion,

Like trading suitcases at the baggage claim.

A misread of the internal print

Has incurred a feeling of loss at both ends.

A feeling of seeking, of sailing

Through the wet, white air

Over the broken grass and tragic leaves

Over the sleeping heads of mountains

Brushing aside the cirrus drapes

To float unencumbered between the snowflakes

That at this proximity, shine more like stars

Magpie

Magpie
Soaring on wires through stiff-jointed boughs
This is the first I've seen of you
Sharp eyes and clever beak
Fingers that grip and release without a scratch
But somehow still a trace remains
A shadow on the yellow face of the leaves
Tell me with your graveyard gaze
Are you to be my raven
And I your hopeless poet?

Paper Pieces

As I walk, I drop

From my right hand

So many paper pieces of a picture in shreds

An ellipsis of small white sugary dots

I trust that someone

Who happens to see

Will happen to be so thus intrigued

As to trail behind, bent like a willow over the water

Scraping fingertips upon the pavement

In his efforts to collect these little litterbugs

Cupped in the crease

Of a hand, between calluses

They mount in a mound

Of careful packed snowballs

Concealing in each a concrete pebble core

Of letters in a ransom note treasure map: 

I write poems

And I step out of bed on tiptoe

I have a freckle on my hip

And I try to be free with my smile

I like feeling small

I am scared of my closet

On a given warm night

I sit hours on the stairs

And more, and more

My hand is quite full

I trust that someone

Will take time, take care

To unfold each piece for each piece’s sake

All we all want is for some other soul

To form constellations from our stars

Time will tell, but just as well

You look as though you have curious fingers

To Listen

May I ask you to relate
Every piece of your life to this very minute
Every fog-minded morning, every dream-minded night
Every fear from twin bed years on
I have a bed waiting empty, and empty to stay
I will sit at your lips until the stars nod off
For the mere fleeting thought of your face
Or drop of your name
Floods my mind with the scent of your clothes
This is very important
Please, build me the man inside them

Sleepy

let me close my eyes against your heart
i will keep you warm until morning shows

Daily Habit

I catch every brief and simple moment
You toss at me with nonchalance
I polish each to perfect shine
Safekeep them in vials clear and round
These I place upon my shelf
To look at, me and no one else

Saturday One

There was a moment when
My eyes were shut
Yours were open, and
Set on my face
In that moment, you
Cupped my cheek
Slipped your fingers beneath my chin
Held my face in limbo
In that moment,
In between your lips and
Resignation to fleeting sleep
That lasted for second on second on
In that moment, that
Feeling elusive, which underlies
The space between stanzas
In all my work
Was everywhere, overwhelming
Light and deep like a single stormcloud sky
Light and strong like your two fingers
Beneath my chin for
Only a moment
Only a moment
Which will not leave my mind

Running on Sand

And then she got scared
became small
lost her mind
and she swallowed
like pills
all all at once
sound of words on page
sound of strings behind voice
she took a step in retreat
she pulled the blanket of night
back over her head

Baby Hope

Inspired by:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/nyregion/baby-hopes-mother-is-questioned-as-investigators-proceed-with-caution.html?_r=0

You, who took this daughter as your own
Who carried her cradled for 22 years
Who sat sleepless, enmeshed in frustration and prayer
She thanks you, I know, for each moment spared
Soon she may rest in a warm, peaceful sleep
Safe in the hearts of her badge-honored friends
And the hard-resolved, soft-souled vigil you keep

Three From Fall

The sluff of shoes on the sidewalk
So human, so hopeless
Trudging, to where?
Perhaps to a place
Where there are not so many leaves
And fall has yet to topple down


Little pale girl
Who rescued stray leaves
Look who you are
And who you can be


On the steps
I am hungry
And as my stomach growls
I detect in its tone
A reprimand:
"Next time, you fool,
Remember your key."

Chickadee Calls

Little chickadees, you darlings
In your gray collared coats and velvet black caps
I know your sounds, I let loose a challenge
From the harmless pucker of my lips
And to my amusement, you sprang up stiff
The both of you, flitting about your tree
Perched on a branch and the wall above my head
Thinking, "Her?  But no," and casting off
Pipping all the while your perplexity
You, the suspicious one, you dove on your brother
Pecked his cheek, and I saw him chastise with a glance
And then you were off, both of you, all at once
To while away noontime in a tree all your own
Little chickadees, if only I was fluent enough
To call you back and assure that I mean you no harm
For now I am left with a tree I don't need
And the empty high-low of my own lonely song

Elaborate Excuse-Making

It is fall

And college

Therefore I will wear my pajamas

And my roommate's boots

And you will say nothing

About my flyaway hair

A Warm and Cheerful Wake

It is a beautiful autumn Sunday
The afternoon light is shallow and clear
Over a ways, an acorn plummets interrupted
Down through the oak leaves to thump the ground
The maple tinged yellow is jittery in a breeze
That can only be sensed by ebbing leaves
Two craggy mountain peaks peer over the rooftops
Turning tawny in the face of advancing cold
Armed with a host of giant pines waiting for winter to spring
He is coiled now, in each crook of every branch
In the gusts of the morning and calm of the night
Purring softly in the scent of burning leaves
From the autumn funeral pyres always present, never seen
The insects are gone, the birds are beginning to go
We are immobile in our stoic routines
As snowtime advances, as sunlight saps away
We will wander daily through nature's annual graveyard
And the leaves will fall, resigned to old age
And the acorns will plummet down to thump
Upon the ground with a fading orange finality

Precious Things

The shining things are precious
The golden hopes, the diamond dreams
Forming a thick cosmetic shell
For the shining things are obvious,
Glimmering in our daily footsteps
Glowing through our open eyes
It is the dark and heavy stuff
Kept covered at the bottom of the trunk
That truly are the precious ones
For once you have seen the shape of these
I swear to you that you know me

Nightly

I sleep in your arms nightly
My cheek upon your collarbone
Beached across your chest, content
Alone in my bed and the confines of my room

Pictures of Sunshine

Take pictures of sunshine while the clouds are at bay

While none but the borders of memory are gray

Take not of the warmth and the spark in the air

Take note of contentment and absence of care

For when wind disquiets and the heavens rage

We will pull out the pictures and recall better days

75 Minutes Among Scholars

Written lovingly and scathingly about my Masterpieces of World Lit class.  Even the air is pompous.

Wisdom, dear class, is not to be found
In your mass of notes, transcripted furiously
From the mouth of the horse with little hair and glasses
You, with your bragging rights metered by credits
Swinging the banner of "Honors" above your overlarge heads
Philosophers in your own minds
You are those who I feared from the start
You are puddles of corruption pooled at my feet
Here is the extent of my disturbing your shining surfaces--
You sophists, you substance of those you deplore
Lifting Plato aloft in your processions of thought
Skimming past his description of scoring points in discussion
I tell you, in that game, you are certainly winning
Debate and discuss the past as you please
But do not discount the value of your years
You have not so many, so please refrain
From posturing as thought you are every one prodigies
I assure you, in the grand scheme
You are not, not yet

14%

you kill my phone, babe
between the pictures and the words
that battery bar is sinking
beneath the weight of minutes counted
between replies, always too many
would you were here, babe
and my phone was still alive

all these faces in my gaze

all these faces in my gaze
foreign faces, foreign ways
strangers' smiles, different eyes
often laughter, frequent sighs
hearts on hearts in drumming time
crowd about this heart of mine
long before the breach of dawn
as the night goes sprawling on
words and tales in foreign spaces
peering out from behind these faces

In a Whirlwind

You move me to write
Though I have not near enough words
My pencil, apprehensive, hovers over the page
A slender bird with a heart that hums
Too quickly to be halted by
Such petty earthly forces

The Base of the Hill, Inspiring

I find the growth at the base of the hill

Inspiring

Tangled as it is,

Vitally green in the hue of a rainstorm

Ivy tranquil curtaining the wall, and

Pine bushes like grazing herbivores, limp-limbed

Beside an abundance of thick, pouty greenery

Which withholds its name from me

From my view, a pair of trees

Which we called eucalyptus in our pre-school days

Stand ankle-deep in vegetation

With swaying hips and open arms, as though

They wish to float into the fog above

All of it is deep and alive and eternal

I will filter through this school next to nameless

But always these will have their place, always

They will be here, nesting

At the base of the hill, inspiring

A Sudden Storm of Hail

I heard the sound of the sky tearing over my head
And on my hurried way indoors, I exchanged smiles with strangers
All of us caught in the sudden hail and deluge
The rush and retreat of the weather of late

Devotional 9/17

There are cherry blossoms in my heart
On a black branch extended over pale blue sky
And when life has occasion to rage through the trees
The petals float free in a delicate downward spiral

Not Having

This girl, she

Has never been kissed, she

Has maybe held hands, maybe

Felt the warmth of two arms

But she has never been there, at

The point of looking and locking

And leaning

Oh, the leaning

And then you are thinking

Thinking about lip on lip and

Nose on nose and

Brushing cheeks

Thinking about hands

On necks, on backs

Everything is small and cozy and close

Close changes things, close

Is always wanting for more closeness

More of the leaning, more of the thinking

Long after you leave, that smile

That smile, reserved

For driving home fast at the close of the day or

The dawn of the night

For remembering, hours

And hours hence

As you pack away the dishes

As you toss clothes in the hamper

As you pull the sheets up over yourself and

Grip the pillow tightly, perhaps

Put a hand on your waist, close your eyes

Watch it all over, memorize every whit

Every sound, smell, jump of the stomach

This girl, she

Can make no comparison

She has done many things, granted, but

She has never been held by that particular moment

Never felt so exceptional she feels she may burst

And yet, I

Am the one now alone, in my chair

Penning poems of death and miles away

Things I know next to nothing about

And she

She is free, of

The missing, and the wanting

For that moment, for

The looking, the locking

The leaning

The closeness that follows you through the door

She is free to float asleep in peace

While I lie on my side and long,

Grip my pillow, set a hand on my waist

That is the worst, I think, perhaps

Worse than not knowing

Is the knowing

And the not having

That is the force which chews a hole in your chest

Makes you pine for people and places

You have never met

For once you have had,

All you have not

Becomes sharply defined

And you are sure

That if you could just try it, all of it

For only a moment

You could call back the closeness

And give it a home

One that lasts past the season,

Unlike so many things

And, because you are lucky, because you

Are the exceptional one

It all makes room, so it

May shelter you too

Small, and cozy, and close

And smiling that smile all the way home

At the close of the day, or

The dawn of the night

New England

She wants her eyes to open to a watercolor sky

Sunlight white and watery through a filter of gray

She wants to throw back the covers to a closet full

Of boots and jeans and coats with collars

She wants to leave the house and step onto a street

Lined with other small houses and wrought iron fences

She wants to walk down the way beneath limbs of great trees

Dripping with remnants of the overnight mist

She wants to stop by her café—hers

And leave with a cup steaming the smell of cocoa

She wants books and soup and history

Tall buildings, old buildings, and a piece of the sea

She wants to rise in the morning

With New England wrapped in her arms

Cool and cozy, independent, unabashed

She thinks she might find the future on that rocky shore

Death is no destruction

Death is no destruction

Death is a fleeing

A bid for freedom on the part of the soul

Death is a migration to higher ground

As the body succumbs to a mortal tide

Collapsed like a bridge upon weak, rotting struts

The flesh is brought low beneath weight of the years

And the soul, from a precipice crumbling fast

Springs on the wind of self-preservation

Soars on upon wings which are dormant no more

Hand-Holding

There is verse in the warmth and the shape of your hand

The stiff supple roughness of each fingertip

Contrast between your joints and mine

Is the difference between knots in a tree limb

And the slender angle of the bird that grips it

That is poetic on the level of Frost

And I am secure on the perch of your heart

Today Has Been Something Else

A few little short ones from my manic mind.  It's been a looong day.

When raindrops hit the sidewalk

And the leaves shuffle in the trees

That is the sound of a kiss.

i say i don’t look like myself

they all eye me slantways, give an incredulous laugh

but look, in the mirror and

who is that?

not me, no sir

not me

I have gone in so many circles today

Like a slow-flying bird in warehouse rafters

I shall go to sleep with my head

Spinning on its pillow

FaTG

The yellow bricks were wet with rain.

I slipped and stumbled into a nearby hole

I swear I saw a pair of ears on the way down.

When I landed I discovered

The sky was huge and open

Expansive, marbled like a temple ceiling

I wanted to pound my fists into the mountains holding it up

Just to feel the roar of them cracking.

Every room, every face is an empty box

I am in someone’s attic, pawing open every one

Labelled dishes or winter clothes

What shall I do with my coat, I wonder.

Every place is so far away and feet are the only way to travel

So I reach in and grab a handful of the chain

Winched tight within the confines of my ribs

And I haul myself forward like an anchor floats up. 

Every step destroys a tiny town

I think I placed a nose ring on my bullish heart. 

Watch me walking through this battlefield

With a spinning head and stardust under my fingernails

And puppet strings on my hips. 

Issue a challenge to my skull, I will meet it head-on.

Take me to my bed, I tell my feet, but they would rather see the world.

When night falls and they are ready to rest

The corner of my room will be empty

Except for a twin-sized piece of carpet bordered by dust bunnies and lint raccoons.

My bed will have gone off on an adventure

And it forgot to leave me a note.  

Snapdragons

In many cases I wish it were easier to forgive and harder to forget.  But that is an individual matter, I think.  I wish peace for all who have suffered because of what occurred that day, American, Middle Eastern, or otherwise.  To the families of those who lost loved ones twelve years ago, and to the men and women who serve our country as well as their families, my heart goes out to you.  Thank you for your courage, your sacrifice, and your legacy.  You have this young woman's utmost love and respect.  Your service to this country inspires me to contribute my own.

I sit across from the snapdragons

Under a rain-white sky

Hear sirens and fire trucks somewhere north, behind me

That sound is powerful on this day

I fixate on the ground and for a moment

Take myself and this patch of concrete

Place us in New York City

At 9:03 on a Tuesday morning

Quintuple the sirens, trade the misty clouds

For an all-encompassing whitewash of dust

And the thought occurs that death is only a part of life

That in all moments, in any moment

Life is the rosy peach and gold that sprouts

From the dark soil that frightens us so

The deeper the stain of mortal passing

The brighter the life that obstinately grows on

We are made strong by the strength of others

That is universal, on all shores, in all tongues

I am moved to pursue my grandest of goals

To the end of building up others

The rain-white sky comes sprinkling through

Chilled and clean on the backs of my hands

From the darkness of loss and difficulty

My colors can and will bloom

For the good of what yet lives on

In the name of those who have bravely gone

Axis

I need someone warm-chested,

Strong,

With arms like walls

And a face that looks good against the sky

I need you to help me onto the roof

To watch the stars

I need you to carry me

To bed when I’m up too late

I need you to lean your head on my knees

And let me rearrange your hair

I need someone who smiles,

Often,

Especially when I can’t keep it together

I need you to take the tunnel of my vision

And lift it away from my eyes

And broaden my sight to a scope that makes me gasp,

“Wow.

  This is special, this is life, and life

  Has meaning when you

  Are the center of my world.”

Show me your tears

Share with me your laughter

You are all I need, already

We just don’t know it yet

My Lord, my God

Could not think of an appropriate title.  I rarely write poems about spiritual matters because no matter what, I feel they are inadequate.  But this one holds its own, I think.

My Lord, my God

In the terror of the night,

In my sorrow and my smallness

I will roll from my bed and fall to my knees

With tears racing from my cheeks to moisten my pillow

I will cry to thee, in my fear and despair

And such a cry will warily push open the door

Embark on a trek through a cold starlit hallway

Ever so long, ever so silent

Come to rest at the foot of thy bed

And in soft supplication, request comfort of thee.

Without hesitation, thou will be there

At the edge of my bed to ease the darkness

With a listening ear, with a boundless eye

To see the first strains of dawn which are not so far off

To describe them to me in a tongue of silence

Which sounds like knowledge and feels like peace

To kiss my brow and lift me into bed,

Keeping vigil over my sleeping form

When morning arrives I will meet it fearless

Triumphant in the courage granted me

By my Father, my God

the days go by

I had a short phrase pop into my head this morning, which is often how my poems start.  But this one I felt like was a poem in and of itself, only it was so short that to write it on paper would've been severely anticlimactic.  So I tried making it a more visual representation, and I really like how it turned out.

Tribulation

Where is the grit—

Blood ninth circle red and crusted

Dust sent sailing along with the smiles of starving people

Lipstick, sweat, and tear stains

Open your boxes for me

Loose the dogs of oppression, segregation

Speak to me in tongues of constant danger and mortal fear

Tell me of the soldiers, of the camps

Of the jeering leering faces

Of the whistle and smash of bombs in the night

The immolation in the streets outside

Show me the scars on your skin and on your eyes

Those tendrilling down through the lump in your throat and pricking at your heart

There is a burning inside you, every soul of you, I see it

With the instinct of humanity, I feel it, even here

In the safe confines of my computer screen

And the warmth of my brand-new bedclothes

Many tonight will not sleep well

Many eyes will never grace the light of dawn

Lay the cruelty before me in photographs, in memoirs

In a procession of haunted visages

Grant me a shard of each heart broken by the camaraderie of your species

I will bind them together and carry them in mine

Well

I am not a mess.
I am well, well-adjusted, well put together
Except, well, maybe
That acute corner angle at the base of my heart
That very well may be
A stubborn, simple mess.

This Rainstorm

Somewhere in this rainstorm

Maybe, is you

Running up the walk with your coat about your ears

Foremost tendrils of your hair dripping

cheerily over your brow, in your eyes

Puddles leak through your sneakers,

You’ll leave them to dry by the door

You’ll say hello to your roommates, who are busy

You’ll go down the hall to your room

Before anything, you raise the blinds and

tug the window open

Maybe, like me

You look in the glow of the streetlights for the cold coagulated

mist that means

A downpour, if you didn’t know

I put up my hair and wipe a droplet from my nose

Thinking of the canopy of thunderheads held up by sonic booms

and lit with raw fluorescence

It warms my heart that maybe we are both underneath

Heartbeats like housecats enticed by a lion’s roar

Looking out the windows at the same rain

Safe inside and waiting, waiting while time

slows its pace for a while and walks

Leisurely beneath the dripping trees

The House Is

In the trees, the house is

Big and small,

Without and within

When the wind blows, the trees speak

And the shutters make as though to leap

From the borders of the windows

And inside he is

He is, that great marvel, he is

In his chair, with a book in his hands

With a dictionary on the arm,

Doglike, faithful

The windowpanes thick with years are his lampshade

The clouds are roaming onward west

The sound of his pages turning, the sound of

Small, soft, quick hearts in the forest

Downy feathers in the trees, and

Hooves on stones framing riverbeds,

Audible from the kitchen table

The foot of a page marks a change in the wind

Circling through the halls and the rooms

He lifts his eyes and his obedient head follows

The wild is in his hair like the mane of a wolf, but

He is ever gentle, ever in touch with

The soft things, the grass lying flat on the hills

From his chair he rises, the dog lifts his trapezoidal head

To watch his movements toward the door

The light through the window, the clouds in their migration

Stop, pause patiently like cows in a field

Await his return,

Countrymen camped in waiting upon their king

The floorboards creak beneath his feet

He comes to the kitchen with

A smile on hand, a murmured word

But no express objective

A clattering in the kitchen, a ceramic clinking

Water, then silence, then

The smell of warm, spices and autumn

He comes to the table

A mug in the calloused life of his right hand

Which he sets to the upper right of my papers

Hung with charcoal gray cursive streamers,

A celebration in their own existence

He fills the chair next to mine the way sunshine fills a valley,

To overflowing, to chills on the base of your neck

To thoughts of God and potential

And he asks how it is going

And his caring bleeds through the thin of his shirt

And the house is full within, and without

The clouds move on like wandering cows

An Absence of Reason and an Excess of Rain

Another sestina.  I really love writing them, they aren't nearly as hard as they look.  The erratic nature of the pattern helps me get my thoughts straight in the most roundabout way.  They also make me think and keep me from posturing, which is always a good thing.

Here I am, without

Surrounded by the foreboding of rain

Mind heavy with you

Heart suffering small

Thriving on thin promise

If nowhere else, I look up

Look, gaze, cling up

Without purchase for fingertips, without

The pink glow of promise

Everywhere is the weight of rain

Starting drops splatter cold and small

Smells like rain, and somehow you

You, you, you

Unbalanced, I tilt my head up

On this great plain I am small

Both within and without

Eyes shuttered against rain

In my ribcage blooms a promise

Tomorrow morning, miles away, promise

There will never be another you

My skin is slick with streaks of rain

I fall back and the rain falls up

Logical fit, I am strangely without

The value of reason is really very small

In reality, my frame is small

Physical restraint is a perpetual promise

But my soul is big and balloons without

Wearing a sad sweet smile that echoes of you

Tethered by a delicate string, tiny knots laced up

Dissolving quickly in the rain

Truly, I adore the rain

The size of the sky shrinks me to small

Always, always, I look up

This several-days storm has rolled in a promise

I have spent my time allotted with you

You, who are now something I must do without

This cave of rain rings silver with promise

You are a small wonder, you, and

Always I will be lifted up, even though I must do without

Light in the Cave

I love you, I think

I think because there is

A small dark hole right here,

In the center,

Small on the surface,

But grandiose underneath

Dry and full of coal dust

I am taking comfort in the sound

Of my own voice snaking off the walls

Wrapping around me like a thin fleece blanket

I am taking comfort in the promise

Of happiness on the horizon, for you and me

Though individually, in separate spheres

Daylight reaches round pale arms

Down into this cave

I stand in her shadow and she touches my face

I can smile, but

I love you, I think

And I think for that reason

I will stay in this cavern a little while longer

Let the sun warm the stone in his own due time

June 22

I found this in a notebook from the beginning of the summer and very much liked it.  I had totally forgotten about writing it.  

Even
When you are in
The depths of the pit
And life seems to be
"Over"--
Life
Goes
On.
Even
If all has gone wrong
You yet have your life
And therefore
There is
Hope.

The Beast

I cannot tell if that patch is
The deepest part of the sky, or
Merely unlit air over the country club
But I hear the thunder, I know it came
From that quadrant of the storm, I know
Its den is somewhere within that
Dense pocket of black
Watching me move back and forth with yellow eyes
Across the glossy parking lot
Even after the rain has stopped
And its eyelids grow heavy as
It sinks back into dormancy
I feel the wind in small lukewarm gusts
Like the silent sigh of a beast in hibernation

Yellow Flowers

Written not too long ago during some serious heartbreak.  I really like this one, though I hesitated to post it and still am not sold on doing so now.

Our story is beautiful

And tragic

A love story with a definite

Unhappy ending

Where you are too good

And I am not good at all

Where I am selfish

In my cruelest attempts to be kind

Where I am sorry

And we are both broken

An argument can be made

That having lost is better than never having

That pain is the lesser of two evils

But having lost is still losing

Silent tears taste like violent sobs

I cannot

I am sorry

I cannot for the both of us

And all the good of love may not be enough

You are precious

But I am responsible

This is beautiful

And terrible

Like yellow flowers in a porcelain vase

Bright, hopeful

Vitality seeping out

Drying and drooping

Dying slowly in a place where they do not belong

We do not belong

the pool

there is a draw to the

pull of tired eyes,the

run of streams of thought parallel

to each other,weaving

through the grass tendrils bobbingswaying through the current

somehow or another one is always music

the bed is empty,but silent,not calling

waiting patient on four small feet

wide and warm like a mother bear,but

infinitely cleaner

crickets countless rush by hours while

highway chirps and whines in spurts

sleeping is happening all around,in

houses and beds on the whole street

but maybe somewhere some is not,some

is dragging on like this

ball and chain to the weary body,the

soul is soaring to the stars

through the leaves of the apple branches in a

magnificent gasp for freedom

a nightly swim in the pool of darkand coolbut in a calming way

fireflies dip like fishes,floating,spinning slow beyond control

but calm,always

calm,without the need for care or planning

nirvana seems the apropos name,but

who am i to say it so

but this i know,when i’s and eyes are

heavy,too heavy to go to sleep

i slip away and swim,at night,in

the pool where all the spirits come

relax,and

for some reason,i think

they all are humming all the time

Sabbatical

You are unfortunate. 

I see you, I see

A shard of something shooting to earth

Cutting with a white light razorblade

Something slipped from the pocket of God. 

I know the color of your eyes. 

It has been a thousand hours, almost,

Since I saw your face

At a waxing gibbous angle

Walking back to your grandpa’s car

Yet I remember every line and shadow. 

You are unfortunate

Because you cannot be classified

By even the vaguest of labels. 

All at once, you are

Friend and brother and

Confidant and advisor and

Handsome and far away. 

If I were to save my pennies

For weeks and weeks on end

Would it be enough, or

Would something better come along? 

There is a fracture here

Right here, on the joint

Between what is unknown and what is speculated

Over and over on the verge of sleep

And boring afternoons in Spanish class. 

You outshine me in all your color

I cannot see you beside my beige.

Which does not mean I do not wish. 

I opened to you,

Deep and raw and unforgiving

And it was good even through the bad. 

Only now I’m afraid

Time has healed, as it will do

What was red and vital has cooled to something

Smooth, white, raised

Braille on the heart proclaiming your initials

Scar tissue wrapped around the splinter of you

That happened to work its way through my skin

Three years ago, when a snaggletoothed smile

Came through the door in winter

And lit up the side of the classroom

Where sat a pale girl in green and

A black blazer. 

I am afraid of making you into

A manikin, on which to hang

The clothes I see in a few years’ time. 

That would be the purest form of corruption,

Molding you into something I want. 

Nor can I lock away the negatives

Of the images of past encounters

Which would be tantamount to caging a bird

To ensure it remains undomesticated. 

I am afraid that,

For the time being,

I must dismiss you from the stage of my mind. 

I must retire you from the role you have played

And allow the both of us

A little creative freedom. 

Keep in touch,

For I expect to see you in a few months’ time

A few pounds heavier, a few inches higher

Marginally wiser, all the better. 

And who knows

What you will be then? 

The same, of course,

Can be said of me.

wishes on lashes

For someone I care about who deserves more than wishes.

wishes on lashes
made for your sake
to carry you through change
heartache, pain
rolled between finger and thumb to test merit
like a heart weighed precarious opposite a feather
found pure, and consequently
released on a puff of air
and the grace of your name

Little Bit of Matter

In my ears and into my heart

Catching words in a net till it bulges

Like stepping, calculated, to the edge of a building

Ten stories up, one inch forward

Then lurching backward off the face of the skyline

Spinning and stars in black blushing blue

I am so small and so clean

In a big, filthy world

Shell-shocked by the slightest smudge

Proud of that fact

I hope to preserve that

Wash around me, sit close on the subway

Live in the apartment above my own

But you cannot touch me

I take it in, I observe

I would like to understand

But stop—one step short of open

One step short of embracing it my own

See me, if you’d like, because I see you

That is what life is for

You do yours and I’ll do mine

The prince is magnificent

Inspired by Loki, Norse god of mischief and one of my favorite villains.

The prince is magnificent
Cloaked in pride and entitlement
Swathed in dark silk, sleek leather, thick fur
Crowned with gold tempered in blood and corruption
Coaxed forth from the threshold of enemy flesh
His jawline, his brow, speak of breeding exquisite
His body belies any mark of a blade
Fingers, interlaced like the strands of a widow's web,
Bear rings claiming fealty of numberless realms,
Are deadly as blades from the hilts of his wrists

His chamber is lit by the waver of torches
Burning mirthless in sconces of precious gems
The room is a temple to merciless cold
And the depths of a world long ago robbed of breath
The luxurious furs on his bed conceal tears
From the witch-hour throes of a creature tormented

While lit through the night, through the end of the gods,
Opposite the great headboard sits a shrine to a foe
A black marble pillar shrouded in witchlight
Glorious in the austerity of the design
Displaying a weapon of singular craftsmanship,
Singular efficacy, a king's device
Glimmering lonely in the eerie illumination
Devoid of a soul worthy to wield, yet potent enough
To pierce princely dreams
A sight preserved for the eyes that shine
Like new moons tacked over deadened coals
Alight with the sputtering flame of victory,
Feeble in the face of a bloodless existence,
Threadbare in the chill of a broken mind

Through the kingdom, whispers run in the dark
Stalk like lions on hissing paws
The prince is magnificent, the people agree
No more so than when he screams in his sleep
And the echoes weep through the palace halls
Pool at the foot of the empty throne
Fodder for ghosts who will not be disowned

Lacuna

Played around with form on this one and made it a concrete poem, one whose shape speaks to the poem as much as the words do.

It’s as though you have always been                    there

Right              there, in a sturdy log cabin

To the left of my heart

Surrounded by trees, a battalion of rigid

Lodgepoles twenty-one-gunning the morning fog

Me, as I stumble through the    d a y s  to  y   e    a     r      s

Sidestepping brush and crouching under limbs

I know you are there, but only in dreaming

Only subconsciously, your cabin amid the trees

I expect you are as wary as me

Woods hold wolves and bears and things

Things you are no more equipped for than I

But you are brave, in your cabin in the trees

 You note each  awkward  step I take

You smolder out the cabin window

You glower at each man I meet

Sub-par,           mediocre,          trivial,            mundane

This heart has been claimed, you loudly say

A cabin has already been built on this spot

And I must merely                          find                 it

I feel you there from time to time

You crowd my heart and give me pause

And sometimes, when a tree falls,

The left side of my chest aches

She walks out in rain

I wanted to write this scene, but prose seemed too daunting for eleven o'clock at night (which then stretched into one o'clock in the morning).  So this happened.  And it happened better than I expected it to, so go me!  Inspired by the ever-charming Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton.  If I ever manage a literary relationship half as precious and perfect I will consider it an accomplishment.

She walks out in rain

In high black heels and short black coat

Under a black umbrella

And nobody knows her name, nobody

Knows her name

Hair pulled up

Lips pulled up

In a press-on smile colored

Wine-to-the-light red

She parts the crowd like she’s holding a gun

Eyes roll off her

The way the city smog wicks off rain

She is a pretty thing lost in the beauty of life

She is a pretty sketch hung in the coat room of the Louvre

And she placed herself there

Across the sea of taxi cabs

Flickers the sign for a self-possessed coffee shop

She waits for the crosswalk light like everyone else

Floats over a white line bridge with

More conviction and less care

Than Tibbets over Hiroshima

She enters to the tinkling of a tiny bell

No one looks up, she is a ghost, she

Shakes the water from her umbrella

Hangs it on the overfull rack by the door

Orders a chai tea from the girl behind the counter

Takes the darkest seat at the table in the brightest side of the room

Waits for the city to catch up

Finger by finger

She strips off her gloves

Sets them neatly aside and

Folds her hands around the tea that comes

In a beige porcelain mug

She inhales and thinks of Hyderabad

The crescent moon lipstick gains a shade of sincerity

He is already here

She could tell from the street

The way the light fell from the windows

To the sidewalk

Slantways, as though

Tumbling through a poor quality mirror

Displaced like water

Dispelled like a rumor

Making room for his shining soul

And the leeching sins

Eyes meet across the huddled tables

He smirks, blows steam off his coffee

She can smell the two creams and no sugar

She tilts her head in a toast and fingers the rim of her mug

This time he gives in

Takes his cream and caffeine

And the other seat at her table

Pleasantries are exchanged

He has been in Berlin, she

Is wearing Colombian jet lag

She smells nice, he

Is cultivating the five o’clock shadow

And he almost coaxes a laugh from her lips

Time is sluggish and cannot be bothered

On rare occasions when he is so close

But she has a flight to catch

And must change her mask on the way

So she unbuttons her jacket

Smiling, he stiffens

Then releases unsprung when he sees it is only paper

She slides it to him

Her fingers are long, her nails short

Before he can unfold it

She is up and to the door

The umbrella is in her hand and she is outside

With a farewell whispered in another language, maybe French

The rain has picked up but she walks three blocks

Before hailing a cab

And slipping inside

Umbrella folded neatly

On the bench beside her like a well-trained dog

In silence she pictures

The coffee shop on the corner

He will open the paper

Skim the contents only to get to

The lipstick signature in the bottom margin

The information will be handed to higher-ups

Promptly, faithfully

Word for word

But he will keep the signature to himself

Stick it in his pocket with the lint and the others

She knows it

As surely as he knew it would be there

He leaves a tip on the table

Beside the empty cup of coffee

And the untouched tea

Turns up his collar

Steps out in the dark

The cab pulses through the city

She dozes in the back and thinks of Saint Petersburg

Raindrops hit the windshield

Like split-second decisions, like

Steps toward a conclusion

With practiced precision

The windshield wipers shrug it off

Popcorn

My father comes home
Following a long week of camping
And my little dog
Loses his head with excitement

We see him pull up
In our white beetlelike van
And disembark
In his khaki shirt

Just like that
The poodle pops up
Like a bubble bursting on the water
Peering out the window

With little round eyes
He barks, and every bark
Is punctuated by an offsetting
Wag of the stumpy tail

He whines between barks
And I pity him enough
That I would let him out the front door
If it weren't for the other campers

Dad will help them unpack
See that each bag finds each boy
And each boy a way home
To their own excitable mutts

In the meantime, ours
Will stand on the couch
On only two legs
Like a small lupine person

Potbelly brushing the headrest
Paws up on the crown of the couch
As though leaning over the bar
For a better view of the owner

Observing, Existing, Myself Selfless

This is a long one, but as John Mayer put it, "It's better to say too much than never to say what you need to say."  I think I need my own Walden.  That's one for the bucket list.  

Once in my life

I would like to awaken

In a modest cottage

Empty

From ceiling to floor

Furnished in the Spartan style

Not a soul

Within the walls

Simply dawn filtering

Through

And me in an iron-frame bed

And a pretty blue nightgown

I would haul myself

Up and out of the black

Deep lake of subconscious

Softly

As taking a breath

The first puff of air in new lungs

Lie in the arms of my

Clean linen sheets

Gazing up at the ceiling

Listening

To birds without my window

And dust motes in the light

Then I would rise

Place the soles of my feet

On the wooden floor

Cold

With morning and warm

With past life

I venture into the kitchen

Where sit the two forks

Two knives and one

Spoon

Which I have inherited from

Thoreau, who was finished with them

But the hollow of my stomach

Cannot be filled by

Material sustenance and so I

Decline

The invitation of the pantry

And my small table

I am drawn instead

To the arch top door

With its picture frame

Window

And pretty black handle

And fingerprint nicks in its body

I ease it open

As gentle as a mother

Nudging her child to bed

Courteous

I peer out nose-first

To be sure the morning has finished dressing

The scent of the air

Good-naturedly defies

Any word in any tongue

Fists

Clench with the fresh clean new untouched

That cannot be captured in any net

It washes over me

The sunlight, the breeze

The opening flowers

Songbirds

In the crowns of trees

Inhabitants of their own perfect country

I lower myself

Onto the top stone step

Smooth my nightgown

Scrape

My toes in the dust

And watch it go on

It unfolds, or better

Unravels thread by thread

Of original colors

Revealing

All at once the grand

Web of life unburdened

I am in the center

Allowed so long as I

Make no motion

No

Disturbance, for I

Am merely a guest here

Two chairs sit like

Well-trained hounds

At either end of the

Table

One marked for me, the other

Reserved for small chance of company

The birds and the flowers

Need no chair, but

Have in eternal generosity

Offered

One to me so that I

May be comfortable

This cottage is my chair

I am a visitor

In the immaculate house of

God

Humbly I take tea

And share in the purity

The bees take my burdens

The green things my sorrows

The mice in the bushes

Scatter

My cares and shred them

To make nests

I sit on the stone

Grateful and empty

A prayer in my soul

Voiced

By myself unremitting

And a clear summer morning