A new man (much older
than you) tells me that, truthfully,
you saying that you loved me
means nothing
I want alcohol, but I opt
for cheap coffee
I hope your new lover
doesn’t annoy you, sits patiently
while you cook & doesn’t stare
at you too long
You wanted it both ways
& chose the other way
I miss how naked,
I’d buzz my head in the bathroom, every few months since the end of everything began.
You checked my blind spots
Your hands used to trace
the nape of my neck the way the sun
catches
a crystal and casts
rainbows on the mislaid tile floor
hands as familiar with my body as my own
gently brushing away the torturous hair from my shoulders
before I made of me a martyr
then rubbing, full palm, against the grain of my scalp
through to the core of me in an exquisite
embrace of my unbecoming
I had always been unbecoming something
The Thing About Poetry
The thing about Poetry is
that you don’t have to explain why
you jumped,
fell, imagined,
transitioned, moved,
left, arrived…..
You don’t even have to know
“the why”
or provide “the why”
shield anyone from a falling brick
apologize for raunchy or randy words
or for your reckless renderings of scenes
into which the reader is cast
without permission
Nor say “sorry?” with a shoulder shrug
for making a reader visualize one thing
while having them think another,
And no need to back down
for verbally shocking someone
leading them to mutter
pre-verbal incantations
for the duration of eternity
The thing about Poetry is
that it is fluid
like water from a faucet flooding and
trickling through the Milky Way
carrying with it stars, raining down…
Yet also burning holes through shields
exposing perceptions in conflict
about the universe—
where carnival people walk through your mind
somersaulting and juggling, snapping whips,
and tight rope walking at perilous heights
making you feel great danger in choosing the right words..
And finally,
The thing about Poetry is
that it sends you searching for others
speaking to you
Through poetry
where there is no time and space
Only
the
Persistence of Poetry.
Those Springtime Sundays are etched
Into my heart
No destination
Just driving
Any way the wind would blow
I long for
The winding roads
And the feeling that
Nothing could be better
Than me and you
On a Sunday in Spring
Six sides, in conventional imagination
based on the rectangle, though why
that should be isn’t immediately
apparent. The simplest shape
in three dimensions is a triangular
pyramid, three points in the planar
field and one in space. Perhaps
we favor rectangles as fourth
dimensional creatures, time
our true constraint and the one thing
we most wish we controlled.
Lately, I’ve taken to letting the world wash over
me. Passively. Not Zen
thoughts about suffering & acceptance, but more
general fatigue. I tried a random word generator,
but I don’t think you’re supposed to
hit “refresh” with each list. Nothing clicks,
so I wander outside to the courtyard & open
the cantilever umbrella—side-hanging & blood-red,
but with bleached-out stripes where the sun
beat down. I wish I cared enough to scrub the mold
off the fabric, like I have in years past. I’ve considered
a new one, but I can’t imagine carrying the old
to the trash. Isn’t it typical that there’s no way
to replace just the worn-out cloth? Planned obsolescence.
Maybe I’ve lost the will, but (for sure) I’ve lost the make & model
number—the times I’ve researched…
Believe me! Still, I don’t know why I resist the effort
to start or finish anything…I move when the wind stirs
enough. I hang on with one strong arm.
But who knows how frayed this cord is?
I climbed a hill
it doesn’t matter so much it wasn’t a mountain
elevation is relative in this case and I am now on top
not quite ready to descend
do you know I’m up here?
watching from my perch
studying, plotting, planning
can I win?
what a silly question when I evaluate
as if this is a contest or game
what next or what’s next or some semblance
I ask and I don’t answer
not yet
change though
change knows my heart and mind
No Riviera or
Venice Beach
No Grand Canyon
or Grand Cayman
No Niagara or
Alberta Falls
No Alps or Andes
or Tetons
No Bay of Fundi.
We’re not one of
the ten wonders
of the world.
Around here we live in
the plain language of the
Licking River and it’s North
Fork. Our Blue Lick Springs
is buried beneath road fill
and our Ohio Valley choked
with coal plants.
And yet our rolling hills are not
stripped or fracked and a kayak
on Johnson Creek reveals hawk
beaver, muskrat, mink. wild
turkey and blue heron.
In high summer there’s a certain
slant of late light and as darkness
comes to this ordinary land
there is the fledgling chirp
of swallows under the eaves,
a vast ocean of peak firefly,
and the mad dash of hungry bat.
1.
My bartender therapist asks
do you think your problem
is that you’re too nice?
I don’t need to think,
I know it is.
But why should I have to sacrifice what I believe
to be the best version of myself
for some kind of lasting happiness?
2.
I told the kamikaze girl
that if she went over to his place,
he would have sex with her and then
she would never hear from him again.
I held her a week later while she cried,
wondering why he did exactly that.
Then there was the windswept girl
who couldn’t land where she wanted
because of a man who thought they belonged together.
We drunkenly made out once
but we never talked about it.
Ensuring her safety was more important.
Then there was the perfect girl, my silent yearning,
always acting the flirt for men’s attention
without ever following through.
I fell hard into her spike pit trap, yet to this day
I question if I had any right
to bring her down with me.
3.
Rejection is mine to deal with.
It does not belong to anyone else.
Nobody’s responsibility is to not reject me.
However, constant rejection has an effect.
It makes me think there is something wrong with me
and self-esteem falls to pieces.
How does one keep going in the face of this
without giving up or lashing out?
What if I was a little less resilient?
Silence has been my answer.
You can’t ever miss if you don’t take a shot.
Can’t hurt more if you stop taking risks.
4.
But even if you try to sit still,
the river of life keeps flowing.
Eventually it carries a lovely new story
that forces you back into the turbulent currents
of hope versus reality.
No, her smile is not attraction, but maybe…
That touch on the shoulder was general affection, not romantic
but it still reverberates through every bone in my body.
Give out compliments like oxytocin bombs
on the off chance that possibility explodes forth in her heart.
Believe
even when every lived experience has taught me
it’s not worth it.
The rapids are growing ever closer now.
I know I’m about to get hurt again
because I love hard and give full with self-abandon–
I so miss being emotionally naked with another
and I just can’t deny the motion happening inside of me.
I’m falling in love again.
I’m fucking terrified.
