Posts for June 9, 2023 (page 9)

How was I to guess
Your love was deadly to the touch
The howl of death
Unexpected, effervescent love

Only you have this effect
The beating drum in our chests
Over again, everything ends
Even lucky lovers leave their nests

Oh don’t you know
You broke into my home
My sacred place, you took up space
In my heart

You sank so quickly
In the quicksand trap I built for you
We sang songs in winter
Spring wisteria, autumn wilts

Summer came too fast
You left with no trace
Until you come back
Tell her it’s over, save me

Why don’t you know
My heart was my home
You opened up the door
And made everything yours

Don’t turn out the light
This love is ours
Done after tonight
Make it last forever

I hope you know
This home we built together
To show you my love for you
Is forevermore, for you

By the end of July she was gone
Gone to visit old friends down south
Gone a month or more now
Calls to say she’s found more old friends
Up this holler or in that home
Must stay another day, another week
And then she finds others from another time
Her mother’s sister’s children’s nanny she might have said
Whom she must visit, so another day or so
“I’ll be be back Sunday”
But Sunday comes and there is mass at the old church
“Those who will be there may not ever be seen
Or heard from again in this life or time
Then I’ll get on the road”
But Sunday evening, a phone call
So I’m having a martini in the yard
Got another in the can
Hot damn, August Monday morning in the sun

water ripple effect
wildfires across canada
our impact evidence 

green jade flower vase 
rests on your grandfather’s desk
fresh cut wildflowers
he worked hard, never gave up
I’m sorry I never met him

Elongated fingers of light
From December’s cold sun, 
Found their ways 
Through the slats 
Of the west window’s  blinds.

Slanted shadow arrows darted 
Across my hands 
As I folded soft, pink and yellow emboridered  guest towels 
For her morning shower.

I placed the towels 
on the rack over the marble sink.

She hovered 
Behind me 
Over my shoulder
Straightening her wind-blown hair.

I looked up into the mirror—-
she was not home this Christmas.

I remembered;
she died last year. 

Right now, there’s a guy in heaven with a clipboard
deciding who’ll die first, — you or me.  

If you die first, I’m better than you.
All your good qualities didn’t save your ass, did they?
Ha-ha!  

But if I die first, you’ll peer into my casket
at the funeral home, triumphant and at peace.  

They’ll shut the lid, seal it, and lower me down
into eternal insomnia lit by your smirk.  

I bought a big clock
at Walmart
and hit the road

Took the interstate,
recorded the whole trip,
my clock belted in 
the passenger seat

we did it, folks–
real time travel!

The citrus smell drifting over the fence
is from the neighbor’s mock orange bush,
a cultivar lab-tweaked to produce
the heady fragrance of orange 
and jasmine blossom, 
evoking sensual nights in the tropics, 
colorful saris, musky incense,

which feels a far distance 
from Louisville, Kentucky, 
where I am rooted
struggling to write a poem,
the results never bearing the fruit I desire.
With the frustration comes the familiar

suspicion that mine are but poor imitations,
that the best I can hope for
is to trick the senses — a frippery, 
plain-clothed mimic of what 
I am not meant to be.

I climbed a mountain and foolishly fell into a valley when
I found your love.

A false peak and a single misstep sent me spiraling
through thick clouds.

My hopeless body smacked the ground with a bone-shattering thud.

Without hesitation, my soul peels itself from the broken mess;
I float with ease beyond your summit to kiss the cosmos,
to fall in love beyond a broken crown.