talk

this is the time, the sensation, the color of a morning when i realize that my whole life the only thing that's made me incredibly happy was silence with a man who loved me once.

how pathetic, how empty, how dry and lonely now to realize that all else, the trimmings and side-windings, are simply a distraction from the silence that opens nothing, shares nothing.

was it me? doubtless. my insatiable appetite for a thing beyond understanding, my destructive pattern to gain it all at once, my fear of giving too much, my damned inconsistency.

and here i am, older than i've ever been, pretty enough and young enough to move on and i should and i'd better but i'm wondering in a moment of weakness where it all went wrong and left me alone to think about silence. wondering who i could possibly talk to

at this time of night.

and knowing, somewhere in that calm immovable part of me, that this is all foolish because i'll be fine.

rain again

rain again, and night's a lover.
softly cover me.
let it pass, the come-thou-hither.
rain is rain, you'll see.

rain again - we've been discovered.
you and i and we.
everything that drinks will wither.
nothing loved is free.

the Time

no reason - none at all
to sit in two pieces
across from the clock.
when will we have
what it is we must have?

fine. well and good.
no reason to cradle yourself
there with silence,
not at this hour.

so, so desperate for whatever
it must be.
does he mean?
does he know?
and when will we end:
night,
and longing,

and i.
i will never be satisfied.

the Gentleman

The passing of a life between
this and that:
ninety-seven years and a single breath
to take and to tell,
elegance held in the few
syllables of a name we
rarely spoke except here.
No applause of men for men,
no memeory of that silver head
bent over a singular life.
Only the whisper in afterthought
of a mighty thing ended.

she

she muttered to me -
meaningless grumblings
the train the weather the time
ignoring my book she made
herself my touchless companion
wrinkled smelling of sweat
and four stops until she left
or so she said
folding and refolding here
and there the timetable.

she begged with her eyes -
never a word of need or plenty
but the begging
the train the weather the time
and the bare silences as she
pondered another touchless topic
for her just for now companion, me,
and I put away my book.

Conductor

I
Consumed of a rhythm, arms beckon their prose
in sweet urgent melodies, sifted and kind;
the quick lover's notes which he didn't compose.

Were music the fruit, than his role is the rind:
containing, consuming, revealing the charms
made real in time's passing, before and behind.

No vista fulfills him, no thunder alarms -
the mastery his of a tide yet in flux,
consuming, revealing, with broad empty arms
the life he conducts.

II
Consumed of a passion, his arms once held sway -
with one loving drift we were ripe for the thrill,
compelled to release what we might have made stay.

A single man swaying, perturbing the still;
impassioned yet silent, the music his speech.
His lover and tyrant, it moves as it will.

The rush not his making, these heights out of reach -
his lean clear-cut figure a voiceless parade,
and voiceless his listeners, loving him, each.
The man music made.

There and gone

The quiet of a moment lived on the doorstep,
nearly, so nearly inside, yet against the scent
of space between.
Disdain brewed calmly together with love.

Paused, muddled in the swill of sunset and
a hundred opposing hopes. Running dry within
reach of that happier flow.
How easily, cleanly forgotten the words are.

Flaws of a song made flesh, in the rude first light
of knowledge, turning the world on a brighter
axis. Here, on the doorstep,
morning sifts us, grey and lifeless and apart
but for the turning.

Screen

1
The late-night reader,
threatened by the encumbering
outside world;
moths cling to the screen
in an interrupted dash
to the light.

2
Silence of a few
isolated moments -
the end of the film -
and grey, milky light
giving a last bit of glow
to the screen
before the lights render them
strangers again.

3
How many faces?
The guileless, slow examination
made in passing,
screening
the world over in the meager hope
of a single look
to mirror our own
dawning dissatisfaction.

Time

I am no friend to Time
aging whilst it consents
the cold tyrant
but here on the border
of more Time lost
cold or otherwise
I would happily cut him
down out aside
to bring you some trophy
of the sacrifice.

I calculate
troubled by the thought
of you behind
alone aside
and indulge in hope that
you will remain
as you are
loving in your distant way
despite my failure
against an old foe.

It will not always be thus.

still

the morning sits pretty, draped as always over
teacup and toaster while i sing myself awake.

these are the mornings i should keep in a box,
shining and careless as the unmade bed while they wait
for life to overtake the blue-clad still with talk of nothing.

Tilt

Their goodbye caught me up
from a safe distance:
he touched her wrist in an after-thought
and tilted his chin to meet her.

It might have been the surprise,
the familiar angle of a man's jaw
frozen,
focused;
for all its sweet brevity,
the moment
was meat and drink to me
who have missed you so long.

Time
and the simple heady longings
that keep you real.
It is only another day.

Dishes

Nevermind:
This is no state
to argue,
elbow-deep in
things aside.
There are other
lived-in eyes
you could be accusing,
other burrows
to smoke out,
and the night
is too young for
your war.

la golondrina

fly as you will, but be still when you near me,
in shallow half-beats fight the wind to remain.
i'll whisper of oceans - in heart-felt debris we
may find what is worthy of flight yet again.

fly beyond sight, only take my eyes with you,
in longing and rapture the world will be ours.
i'll whisper the wind for your wings to plunge into.
may time give you years from my poor ruptured hours.

fly now and leave me - my days are accomplished.
in you, golondrina, my love must live on.
i'll whisper my last, be embraced by the perished,
may they welcome my soul as you welcome the sun.

If life were evidenced

In Love's heart, or in his pocket,
sits the reception we wear so lightly -
the attentive and the close,
thrust beyond thought.

If life were evidenced by a single kiss
I might have been immortal.
But we blush to remember or imagine,
caught up in constructing life,
lost in the absorption of our own fates.

Lighter verse

'Tis the time for lighter verse:
the butterflies and buttered toast,
the stuff above the blight or curse
of what the heart wants most.

'Tis the time for lighter verse:
beyond the daily grind and lure,
above what men may fight, coerce
or otherwise endure.

'Tis the time for lighter verse:
the quiet walks and weathered friends,
the hands we've held throughout the worst
and hold until it ends.

'Tis the time for lighter verse:
the loves that stay, the smiles they give
and give again, while we immerse
our hungry hearts and live.

small and able

the bubble bursts
innocence comes abruptly
to a stop
and the chalk washes
from the pavement
yet there you are
small and able
letting that troubled grown-up form
lean on your tiny shoulder

Bedroom

Here stands the last gaze, rankled and testing the grasp of old promises:
never forseeing this,
how carelessly they were given.

Here lie the secrets, rendered to poison by the turn of a back:
she and he and every night,
made dead with the drop of a glance.

Here echoes a final step, and the loathsome direction it takes calls back:
if this cup must be taken,
let it be the last.

I walk in the dim

I walk in the dim, and my bones rest at evening,
against day to day where my might is expressed.
Tonight we will meet where the sunlight is leaning,
and pause while the day is undressed.

I walk in the dim, and I rest on the waters,
not running in havoc like daylight at noon.
Tonight we will meet, kept apart from day's slaughters,
taking solace and heart in the moon.

I walk in the dim, and the dim walks beside me,
easing by as it will, with its threats to bring sleep.
Our road won't run deep as the day's, nor as widely,
but these dim, tender byways will keep.

wasted words

the moment is transparent,
and you are here,
bare in the truth of it
fighting that newborn fight
simply to live beyond the
confusion that hugs you close.
___

the words are not your language,
the cries not your own
here in the blank space of newness.
the others -
there will always be others -
could not have known you so soon.
___

the end or the beginning,
you will take your pick
and waste words,
surrendering breath to
the hope that these syllables will not
also give in to the ease of silence.

Sliver

One day, when I have spent my love
and am left dry in that dryness of afterthought,
will I cringe for the foolishness?
Breathing, only to create
ripples of thoughts I do not feel -
ashes of a thing finished burning.

One day, when all I have is love to give
and a flood of giving that comes with joy and age,
will I reach behind in secret?
Letting my thoughts take the shape of
a concrete presence I do not feel -
a sliver of an old hope, unreleased.

One day, when I've faced that grander self
and have put on that grander face,
still I wonder whether it, too, will not
glance so often behind.

Outcast

No rest for the bones of the unwanted,
in this or any street, dry against the longing
for home.
Do not pass your shadow here - do not
shade them from their own raging silence.
The others find familiar steps around.
They curse the dust for making men,
and may yet find the difference between.

Night flight

paint me in this moment, suspended
and in wonder above a living earth;
i have dreamt of a landscape of stars,
of two feet that never knew the ground
or the sudden death of pleasure in waking.
the dust of living is magic in this dark,
hidden and thrust aside in the company
of diamonds made alive.

flamingo motel

scorched by late-night neon, it follows my steps with its cheap blinking curves -
but i lie down, never so naked than when faced with silence,
never so alone than when in love.
it is the city - heartless and unsleeping -
and i am reduced to a number on a door.

words as canvas #22

The day is spent, pale with giving
in that sunken, brooding satisfaction,
aloof in its last fading moment.
I am here. The sea is here,
and in the rocks, all living things
have held conference to continue again
tomorrow.

What have I to do with another sunset?
Though I could accuse the days,
I find comfort that Life - that silent, robbing hand
that sweeps my hours so easily -
could take you no further away.

water falling down

does he dare another mile?
the distance, though unsure and dim,
may yet afford another smile.
i watch her wait for him.

a slender sunrise lights the road.
we bleed intentions, staying put -
let die the doubt, release the load
as time pursues on foot.

my silent friend, she eases in -
we speak of nothings lest we drown
as life moves on from what has been,
like water falling down.

The sinew and the fiber

The eyes have touched me that know their end is near,
they know and ache to live their time as they might,
without fear.
Embracing all but fear.

The history of a life slides gently away,
disembarked, suspended just within sight.
Do not ask what time it is.
There is just time enough here,
between two old souls,
for one last look.

Strangling a living out of our days,
we were too blind to see;
too infuriated with the effort of breath and sustenence
to realize
our hearts were bloodless from the lack of dreaming.

"Beautiful"

I've noticed - I have - that the foreign are funny.
Their terms are all mixed and their shames don't exist.
It must be that their homes are too sunny.

I don't trust a word - no, I don't trust a one.
Were he dressed like a prince I'd still doubt him.
Adoration is fine, but it's light as the wind,
and I feel that they've spent too much time in the sun.

Little traveler

Deft and unalarmed,
she packed for the best.
Unaware
in her thrill,
how unaware,
that she will be out of my grasp.
"Three days - you won't even notice."

I've noticed now,
now that the tea is made
and I am alone,
catching myself just before the words
form themselves,
"Shall I be mother?"

One cup.
One humongous lonely cup with enough tea
to put me to sleep until she is back.

hands

fluttering with an art for the best of painters
he unfolds the story -
but who hears?
there is music in those hands,
a dance,
an affair of space and expression
that captivates beyond words,
conducting
in silence.

dance along, dance along

dance along now, though the world be abandoned,
though the hull of your hopes may have no ground to land on;
the joy of the thing will lend credence to folly.

dance along now, though the dead are not laughing,
though the light of the world is beyond your own grasping;
the joy of the thing,
although mighty the sting,
will lend credence and justice to folly.

lucid moments

simple enough, when the ebb is displaced
and the flow eases in
and our old paths retraced.
in soft childish din
I retrieve just one face
and a girl in my mind is content.

stay - just be still, while the calm draws it in
and the whim and the will
find excuse for the sin.
I have grown out of haste -
saving moments, unspent.
and a girl in my mind is content.

Oh, the others

An eager evening with the party still before us, dresses and napkins and of course the antique candle holders. One last thing, but it was quick enough, and I bundled up over everything else and threw myself into the flourescent reality, alone when I should have been surrounded by the buzz of the others.

She didn't pretend to browse the aisle. "Is that real fur?"

The momentum of the evening was like drink. Yes - genuine angora. My best scarf.

"Was it expensive?"

Not very - in this cold, though, I should have saved the money and hibernated. I laughed. She didn't seem amused.

"You shouldn't encourage these clothing people. Do you know how many things had to die to make that scarf? It's shameful, and people just wear it like it's nothing."

Well, some people wear it like it's warm.

But giddyness is not the best armor. I returned to our subplot to humanity - with its open curtains and over-polished flatware and too-literary conversations. It's bewildering, this little war she was intent to rage in defense of a thing that could never thank her. I may take up the war myself one day, when I'm content to antagonize strangers instead of wear fur... when I understand who it really helps.

The evening was diminished. A headless roast gaped at me until dessert.

Love form, overheard

Mother stood by with needle and thread to mend the seam.
"But I love teddy!" he screamed, keeping a stranglehold.

Shared shower

There is a polite enclave of thought that silently lays the law:
acknowledgement is the only breach of privacy.
No 'good morning' or 'spare towel on the rack, love'
to color the tedium.
We speak in rhythms, in the brevity of our turn
and the cleanness of the sink.
Considerations are moot - leave behind
the precise mess you found, and add
nothing of your own.
Waiting,
the mornings and nights are intimate
with shadows under the door.

Time and again

A lighter pen would write you in -
would seal you up in black and white
and never question why the nights
have left no clue to where you've been.

A finer face would just forgive,
without the turmoil left behind.
A tyrant would respond in kind.
A lover would refuse to live.

A poet writes, an artist fumes.
Yet, while you still remain my muse,
I have to write around the bruise,
retracing steps to empty rooms.

Can true love end? Thank goodness not.
So life moves on, time and again.
Despite the words and acts of men,
my trust, it seems, is all I've got.

Reason takes a mile

I never knew this road, nor the plaid-and-cut-grass
sentiment of the strangers restraining their dogs
and waving.
A rough chill
foreign
clingy
determines to make itself known and steals my
fingertips.
Three hundred miles, they said,
between myself and the ocean, as if that
were no distance at all, cramped into a single sentence.
I will not walk so far today -
my road is confined to the whims of the mountain.

wave

my mind half made-up to retrieve one last token,
i take up the pulse of the sea and the wind -
with not a word, not a word, not a word spoken,
my body's the ocean. i reach and rescind.

terrified now that the ground is beneath me,
solid and still after oh such a storm.
with not a word left to retort or unsheath, we
take comfort in change, and let life take its form.

with not a word, not a word, not a word spoken,
my thoughts are the wind, and i race to catch up.
the storm comes to rest. oh i hope nothing's broken -
i take just one wave, fingers curled for a cup.

Untitled

Another even-handed sunset - but we must be children to notice,
children with only delight and time for silence. Men with clock faces
keep our hands busy counting seconds, and applause must wait.

Cookie?

Peace-making offer, he nudges the plate -
attempting to placate what must seem like hate.
My favorites. I eye them -
well-knowing they're bait.
(Does it matter the kind? When's the last time I ate?
I could use just a something.)
Folding my arms, we both sit back and wait.

The nerve - yes, I'm hungry. This truce is a plot.
If I take one, I'm stuck - bribed, won over and bought.
My favorites. I eye them -
I think they're still hot.
(Does it matter the kind? It's a back-handed shot,
and I think I've lost out.)
Still, he humors my silence, though he chuckles a lot.

I took one. I did. And the argument stopped.
Once my stomach stopped growling, my point simply flopped.

Being watched

Every girl knows, though the knowing fades
to knowledge over time -
as beauty changes, skin loses
its grip, bodies take on the burden
of aging.
Disappointment lends us
its wisdom...
Until words such as 'forever'
raise flags against the gentle
downward progression.
There is no forever. There is
only now, and every other now
we may have, you and I.

Womanhood certainly is hell.

'I go the way of all the earth'

I go the way of all the earth,
of all the children, I am I.
And struggling now to taste my worth
I clasp these final strands and die.
The promises of life and birth
have ended. Here I lie.

I go the way of all the earth.
I tabernacled well and long,
and drove above the aimless mirth -
my love was once, my fights were strong.
But promises of life and birth
have ended, proven wrong.

The earth will take me, make its love
and draw me in like those before.
I go to find the end of war -
below, if not above.

do not say

do not say the air is fine and thoughts clear and hands covered
in the blood of deathless thinkers, when i know, and you know,
and the thinkers know that love will wait, and waits unafraid.

painted woman

i have seen her in her secrets,
lying chill and alive in the bare grass
when morning unsettles itself
on two wings like the eyes she holds
closed before me.

they desire her for her solitude,
and steal her heart away to make her whole.

The audacity

The pause and recoil, giving in
to too much hope, too little sin -
the thoughts we yield are last to
make effect.

Audacity, to blend with doubts
the longing acts of ins and outs -
affections seen and passed do
not connect.

Formula

There is an equation in these chatty little reels -
a human thing trapped between the projector and myself
that lets flow the tears.
A ratio of dust and light and brilliance while
they hope and I hope with them.
Oh, for a moment
I've put on the heart of a giant, holding my breath
and clinging to the place behind closed eyes
where the salt and the sorry meet.

Shh

Hold yourself utterly still and let it come,
the steady, dawning rush of the silent world
waking. Steam and crumbs and running water
and the gushing, earthen, sensual chaos of
another day. Listen,
the walls are humming, bursting with the life
they hold, and aging - beam for beam - under
our hopes. The pavement strikes a husky note
and off you go again,
to the heavy hand of thickly-bound books on
wood, fingers held mid-air to tune your point.
Hold yourself utterly still as the world encloses you,
deafened by the song of your living.

Flash rain

Tell me, is there something better
than to find the world got wetter,
wetter, while you slept in bed or
dozed or nodded off a bit?

Flash of rain - it always wakes me
up, and in an instant takes me,
takes me back before mistakes. We
let the rain wash all of it.

Stormclouds break to make me better.
Safe in bed, I write and sit.

Never

I could never teach you the misery
of a thousand nights,
pooled up in the grasp of a heart until
before you and after you were one -
a single wail of loneliness
momentarily broken.
_____

The old comforts cannot pursuade me now -
there are no comforts.
And my breath clings to the unsatisfying stillness
that lies with me,
occupies me,
possesses your place with a certainty
that no question can shake.
_____

Love aside,
I am content to wander on.

my tender sleepless art

there is a curve that i remember well,
repeating
slowly inward.
what have you heard?
did you know i love you desperately?
wanting
for all the world
to be a whisper.

the slope
and ease of you.
time is kind,
stealing only your flaws.
terrible that you should be
so simply gone.

i will be old, i will be old.
awash in change and the same
quiet shame at losing you.
freed by the dark to search you out,
and rebuild that tender bridge
beneath my footsteps.

Swim

The closest thing, the closest thing
I have to flying, since the wings
I dreamed of failed to show or grow.
I'm water-bound, imagining.

The clouds are close, the clouds are close,
and follow me in trembling rows.
I'm chilled and long for bluer hues,
but gravity denies me those.

I'd never choose, I'd never choose
to tarry here, but skies refuse
to free me from these heavy shoes.
Till then, I swim reflected views.

I fell in love

I fell in love, but only once -
since then I've learned to look.
To make account of every shun,
to keep in mind what each fall took.
I've come to say that Love's a crook.

Am I enough? The tender crook
has laid me bare to blame.
See now, the footing I mistook
for sturdy promise was a game.
And snared, I yeilded just the same.

I fell in love, and just the same,
it seems I'll fall again.
The days without you seem mundane -
they long to see the moment when
my slim resolve will bend.

Eventually, the road will bend,
as all roads seem to do.
Until the road repeats us, then,
I'll watch my step and look for you;
I find I hope we'll fall anew,
and hope you hope it, too.

Tolstoy's aunt learns a lesson

A certain Tolstoy wouldn't eat
a solitary scrap of meat.
His aunt found this unstable.

She asked if he would be so sweet
to spare the greens and beans and beets
and serve fowl, were he able.

That night, a hen was in her seat,
and cleaver on the table.

Dust

A thousand years is all I ask to turn me into dust;
then let me dream that nothing dream,
swept off beneath the lightest gust.

I'll gently show the wear of Time - I'll be its outer skin,
and coat the secret memories
where dust is all that you'll let in.

I fear I'll meet you yet again - in places where we curled.
I will not land, but take my turn
and finally embrace the world.