Tuesday, January 29, 2013

on second thought

on second thought


you give to me
you here with me

while i gaze into my phone
connected to people

i do not know or others
who are not here with me

these things more important
than you here with me

close enough to smell
to touch looking into your eyes

on second thought...

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

a short poem about a hollow object

a short poem about a hollow object


he created something wonderful
maybe even beautiful

he held it up to the light in one palm
tapping it with the other hand

to find that it was empty

hollow

he turned to share it with someone
(the only one)

but no one was there
so he named it: My Heart

and then spent his days debating himself
whether it was Aristotelian or Platonic

Monday, January 21, 2013

52 (hurtling)

52 (hurtling)


i do not know
how to turn 52

it is something
i have never done before

it is not like any other
year of this inevitable gravity

and growing older has become
a crumbling and a hurtling like orbiting

reminding me of science fiction films
the soft roaring of space ships and planets

this thing happening to me against me over me
until i become a drifting consequence of being overwhelmed


this other side of over
this rain of you gone

has washed away all
the color leaving gray

and black and white
like a decaying silent film


i come to where you are
and even though you asked
me without asking me not to

you are not angry or surprised
i appear asking you to read to me
something you think wonderful

i expect Franny and Zooey
or Vonnegut or Carl Rogers
or something i could not guess

i lay my head in your lap
and then you read this poem
over the rush of planetary hurtling

i do not know how to turn 52”
i say when you finish

it is something
i have never done before”

i reach for your ankle
taking it in my hand
holding on this time

hurtling and crumbling
slip from my mind
and suddenly

i do not know how to turn 52
without you”

i confess

i know i know”
resting your warm palm
on my bare head

you say in a voice
like a hurtling space ship
and the colors of the rainbow

that’s why i read you this poem”

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

prayer (inhale)

prayer (inhale)


i have begun to pray
which seems a silly thing
in the godless rubble of my life

and these are my prayers in hell

i turn on all the lights
and keep my eyes wide open
without blinking or looking away
and i say
tell me you love me
to watch your mouth and throat

i turn off all the lights
and rest my finger tips on your lips
closing my eyes as tight as possible
and i say
tell me you love me
to feel those words form right there

i ask you to lie on the bed
and i slip off your shirt and bra
to rest my ear against your bare chest
and i say
tell me you love me
to press against that single vibration


and then i ask you to die your hair red
something stark and unnatural

not to hide or avoid your natural blonde
or the gray you will become

who you are and who you have been
and who you will be i love

not for me to make a list of all
the things you owe me

but for me to make a list of all
the things i owe you


everything i whisper
over and over

everything

it becomes the sound my lungs make
every time i inhale

Saturday, January 12, 2013

unable (the day rose)

unable (the day rose)

“He spreads wide my right eye with his fingers and pushes the knife into my eyeball….He does the same with my left eye….‘But as long as you bear this sign, you must beware of light.’”
The Gatekeeper and the Dreamreader in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the WorldHaruki Murakami

“So as not to see you see me react”


the day rose
with sunshine so bright
no one could open their eyes

we raised our arms
against the blinding glare
of this new shocking day

forced as we were underground
to nighttime lives like vampires
feasting on dreams dark as blood


none of this happened of course
but came it did to me in a vision

just before i read the scene
of the Gatekeeper blinding

the Dreamreader taking daylight
from him and giving him dreams


this is not about suddenly too-bright sunshine
or visions anticipating a novel not yet read

this is not allegory or fantasy or science fiction
where readers of dreams are rendered blind

this is about me no longer able to see you see me
leaving me unable to look myself in the eyes

Monday, January 7, 2013

Anomaly (imagined child)

Anomaly (imagined child)


Anomaly as his imagined child
allowed Tarame hours sitting in the sun
watching and listening to the ceaseless tide

contemplating this young woman of him
and all that was female for him in this world
as he faced his life completely solitary.

Tarame knew he had accomplished
one real and clear thing in his half century—
failing women who had claimed his heart,

but what was a man to do with failure
and a heart gripped tight by squandered love lost
while the ocean sang and the sun always shined?


Alone Tarame could imagine a daughter
unlike him and unlike anyone else,

but he could not even fathom a lover,
his soulmate sitting there beside him.

In the space of his imagination was nothing
except the hollowness he knew as longing

and the animated voice and laughter
he believed rose from Anomaly’s throat.

Friday, January 4, 2013

what does a curve weigh?

what does a curve weigh?


i wake up on the edge of the bed
my back turned to you beside me

i ease my foot under the covers
toward you until my sole touches

the curve of your calf sleeping
smooth and warm pressing there


what does a curve weigh?

the curve of your shoulder to neck
the curves of you my Achilles heel


i wake up on the edge of the bed
my back turned to you not there

the curve of the earth beneath me
and somewhere else beneath you

no sole pressed against your calf
smooth and warm in my memory


what does a curve weigh?

when you are not there curve to curve
more than anything i’ve ever carried