I step into the night
in wonder at the coming year.
I will wish you inspiration
and warmth if you will allow me
to believe in your creativity.

Oh my god
the wonder of life!

older brothers aren't supposed to die at 35

PINK FLOYD
"Wish You Were Here"

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

One thing I rarely mention;

the tumor they removed was benign
and in fact quite simply a “mass”.

I feel it’s loss like a molar removed
my tongue ever probing the hole till it heals,
and even after at it’s ghostly presence.

Pangs in it’s place, my mass I miss you
like a child never born or a dream unrecalled.

Little did I know the offset of my chi,
the placement of my ink, the quenching of
thirst and quelling of hunger centered on you.

One thing I rarely mention
is that I cry when I write.

on my friends list, on my friends

People I knew, people I know;
some talk to me, some don’t.
some I’ll meet, some I won’t.
Some linger out of sight taking
in scents along the neckline
and breathing in stillness
content with presence prefect.
So often I never quite gather
why any came to me or how.
What drew them? Did they
read me, did they not?
Do they care to look as deep
as I will surely make them?
My counsel with they keep?

I try to dream your chi,
find your totem. Perhaps
once we touch again
I will have more of you
to guide the streams.

And for me?

When did touch turn
from grieving into a
soft and sure living?
Your musing I find
may carry me to light

yet you do nothing
to inspire except exist.

I
I blame the muse’s
Words and songs,
the brightness in eyes
and smiles and the way
he becomes lost
in thought, tripping
on words when under
the influence of
spirits with which
I ply him.

II
Coddling
So the Ex says “no,
you didn’t coddle him.”

But the food?

“It’s always nice to be fed
and everyone has to eat,
why eat alone?”

The wine?

“When isn’t wine good?

And making him take
the rest home?

“Weren’t you going
to see your Dad a few days?
food and wine do go bad…”

And the gift?

“It's Christmas?”

I worry you know…
we’re just friends.

“Don’t.
You’ll never be
like you were with me.
Never.”

I’m afraid, my shell
was warm.

III
Turbulance on the plane and the Captain,
he says restrict your getting up but I know
I’ll have to go sometime in these four hours.

So I decide I’ll wait till on of the ladies
get up…only they’re asleep.

My row, we set still and silent. Lady in front
shifts in her seat. The boy behind, bam ba
bambam tap tap tap. I push back. punk.

In the window my reflection, hair cut too
short the night before but after hiding
behind miles of hair, plain and dull – so long –

I walk in and say Zulema! what, what
should we try today!

My hands as I write, nails also short,
clean trimmed and I wonder when and if
will I find a man that looks deep and wants
to hold on and I the same to him.

Maybe some day but right now I’m here
where I need to be, if a little sadly, and
someday will come when it does. only
now I do have to go and the ladies sleep on.

IV
muse
I saw snow
on the tips of mountains,
was warmed
by your laughter lingering
from two days past.

last words

for donna

As they said their goodnights,
the hesitance tangible in the air as
he said hey, she said what and
brief silence ensued as he mustered
the thought…I like you a lot.

She was smitten, that girl
no bigger than a cricket’s song,
her heart about to burst
the very size of God.

Love comes blind
in a willy-nilly way and
Like seeps in lasting long.


of that girl

She writes in the wee hours of the night
“sleeping is for the dead”, she says and
yet eyes heavy lidded, head nodding,
the little journal slipping from her grasp,
rest she must and does at last as

“go to sleep” he says soft, and
“yes sir” she replies in low
whispers as faint she barely
discerns his last words of
"sweet dream", too late...

that girl is already gone.

they're just numbers

Four cups of tea, two
pieces of toast and
three hours of good
cryin’ later, confused
I can’t stop the words
or the writing; all day
with the writing. My
wrists feel slit and
fingers numbing,
can’t stop feeling,
can’t stop thinking.

Honestly, I have to ask
myself if more would
be known in fifty-two
conversations than three.
And I answer yes cause
it took sixteen years
for me to know the last
but he didn't share did he
until now after two years
of being someone else's.

auras

Auras in flight
like lights
sparkly, almost
palpable
hazy shades
in overlay. I
see too much
too quick and
quickening
comes the beat
of a little heart
blushed peach.

second spirit

One morn late this week
I took off his ring, then
set aside his spirit
that I carried these
almost four years
past and eased
the weights from my
shoulders. Unwound,
unbound, freed after
all too long of a self
imposed imprisonment
I walked about
a little lost, no longer
did the second spirit speak.

chance II

Stop, stop,
I cannot read your words
of dreams and love
Though they are
unintentional
in thier cruelty they
show me what I don't have
can't have, may never find.
And I admit the desire,
the hope of wanting
the chance to see
if I could be that for you.

In limbo 'tween spark
and none, I had hoped...

we would for I was
atleast quite taken.

chance

I didn’t know what I was doing
but when you see a man as he lay
dying by your hand somehow
your despair becomes impassioned,
your promises prophetic.

And yet who was to know the depth
at which the psyche would wield
it’s governances when I took on

his frail spirit and swore

I will know no anger again
(as I did at God
when he faced me with
the taking a life) nor be the brunt;
I will be no less than happy,
(cherished, validated,
desired, unlike the life known
thus far, found lacking,
in need of want);
I will nourish my curious nature,
mind, heart, spirit
(leave no stone unturned
no chance unexplored);
I will live life to it’s fullest,
emoting expressively as I moan
and bleed
my soul like ink
on paper
and the scratch, scratch the pen
makes, my very being will I whore.

But chance;
it’s like an open door
and the coming to it, inspiration,
the getting of a glimpse, divinity and yet
now and again, my verve and
exuberance bruised
when suddenly it slams and promises
I made lay
unfulfilled.

My heart breaks, second spirit stirring as

sadly it is not the chance I mourn
or the person left unexplored
but loss like the unrealized absence
of a lover’s touch after being warmed,
like the lives I have known that passed,
like the thought of slow decay,

like promises I never should have have made
and burdens I never should have bourne.

I drove east into the sun

Glass almost as good as
summer’s heat on hot concrete
as I drove east into the sun
almost full up in the sky
this winter’s mid-morn.

I was reminded of a solemn youth
torn ‘twixt two lovers courting;
dreams filled with calm and coolness,
days lit with warmth and gentle lulling.
Thanos came with his promise of peace
and yet whose passion would I keep but Ra?

Give of thyself in
substance and depth,
let not the frivolities
bind but drink deep
from the well of souls
surrounding us with
valor and affording us
actual validation.

“The prison of the world has crossed the threshold and it overturned the order of the soul…”
~ Leonard Cohen

I
Eyes half lidded,
hot tea too sweet,
I write too late in a
drugged out stupor
from too much sleep
of midday napping
and the recollection
of dreams too real;
flesh and moonlight.

I swear
the flesh -
palpable,
tactile -
I could

feel

the warmth and passion,
shivering from loss
as I awoke in a cold sweat...

fever again, so tired...

II
This way comes one
in glorious valor slain
to the halls of Valhalla
looking for the ferryman
to take him yonder.

I am not the ferryman.
but Valhalla’s distant shore.

I
Have you ever seen
someone’s soul, gleaned
the slightest glimpse
mesmerized by lips
and the sparkle in their eye…

been so utterly taken
with their beauty whole
in being you could weep?

II
If I could have a crush
allow my heart to sap
infatuously sweet
and nauseating crap…
ha! It would be for you.

III
But
there’s a price to being
strong ne’er fleeting
and would you have me
any other way?

Through self-efficacy
I seek validation in one
whose very being validates
the sun and shines
at least half as bright as I.

IV
It’s a brave
new
world
and dreams are meant
to come to fruition,
to be lived…

enlightenment

Yule is the Capricorn’s solstice
a time of enlightenment and settling
of spirit. It is not the New Year’s
resolution but yuletide that brings
me into molten golden hues
of a sunlit soul evolving.

Turtle clan, year of the rooster,
more than my share of life’s
peccadilloes surmounted, just a few
of an infinitesimal number of details
convergent to create the whole of me.

Allowing me to become, to form…

I am the Capricorn reborn, reformed.

Somewhere, somehow I took heed
of what the universe was saying and
finally I see the messages around me;
finally have I come to b-e-l-i-e-v-e
in the connectivity of all things.

sun...set

As the sun sets
and the heat fades
do I drift off
slowly to my grave
and mourn
no arms to hold me
in comfort as I sleep,
no voice to soothe
me soft and wamly
as I weep?

Or face the cold
and dream
of new days dawning
when again I rise
and new eves when
we will meet again.

I
newness

Soft sounds sooth the soul
as I sit in soft soliloquy
mulling over days of old
pouring like molasses

and I sigh
deep
emphatic

lookabout
at the newness.

Some things I can’t recall,
reckon or reconcile; feelings
reasonings, rightness and
too oft his anger, my sadness.

I reach deep grasping…nothing,
the white space feeding well
hollowing out stagnations,
making room for soft smiles

cool curves
ink, steel
and sparklys.

II
All I have are bits and barnacles
of old journals and evocative musings
to tell me who I was once and mayhap
soft smiles of hard things gotten past.

III
I had just settled into
the shoulds of staying,
listing out the whys of
what needs be done

when one
reminiscent of the sun…
come and stole my logic.

remember...

no filters

here.

I
I write from days past:
words written in haste
from slit veins and a
tongue tripping, slipping
on the meat of my split
heart lying about;
words that became
thoughts just now coming
into clean lines and clarity
of a life with no place
for anger or avarice.

II
Acknowledge
express/emote
write/heal

III
As I lay in swirls
of midnight slumber
I thought of
wordswithoutspaces
and the forming of
the white space these
few years past and
how it’s becoming
less and fewer.

Purring perhaps
I am unbecoming
as I stretch
long and lean
into a full soft
woman of concrete,
heat, and wanderlust.

IV
As I reach close
to the being past
and over halfway
to forty, a calming
stillness settles
sweetly into
hard-earned wonder
and self-actualizations;
the fierceness of
being alive, of being me.

day walker

She moves through the hours
daywalking, sight unseeing while
tripping lightly from her tongue,
after silent stillness as she listens
and gives from her very being,
solace and the logic of emotion.

Saving none to herself, heart
lost in trepidation, as she stiffens.

limbo

“Where are we”
striking cords of
what do I want
and whom
And then…
why to myself
do I cling
in the shell
yet push away
as if in hell.

And the ex
he says don't
retreat again
as if ever
he saw me.

II
What if someone gets
so close yet not near
enough and I feel I
cannot express myself
freely to the world?
Peach cannot be denied
she’s out to touch the hiney
of the distraught
unfeeling masses.

throw down

Karma and kismet
can kiss my ass.
I’m tired,
beat sore and weary.
Who’s the one decided
I could handle
this shit anyway.

teddy bear

As I lay in twilight hours
just resting my head
in the haze after crying
I snuggled close and thought
you my love
will never come a dying.

Feisty Boy Elektra Two d. December 3rd, 2005

Hearts at unease seeking

solace in soft words and arms

while She lay succor to

their bleeding hearts,

feeding the moon and stars.

Eyes bright and laughing

Cheeks flushed from having fed.

She coos and hums, stumbles

heady to her bed while dawn

Seeps in and the dreamscape fades.

She is both fearless and afraid.

No Tomorrow
Thoughts too oft of late have reached her eyes and
he is too right, feels like coming home just walked in the room.
Yearning is her little heart to heal and soothe by
running fingers cross stubble cheeks that make her want to weep.

Yet love dost not lightly linger in her heart
nor on the morrow’s hopes.
Only flesh and tender words that search
does she crave this day.

Morning
and I’m thinking
‘bout another life
‘bout another man
‘bout the night before
my passion having spent
on you.

But then I
lay awake most nights
little hands creeping
down
to soft flesh weeping
tiny little oh’s…
tiny….little oh’s.

I am alone.

Tears that fell, salt to the earth
These several years past
And still I can’t recall quite…
When did he die? Pass on?
When did I kill him,
My older brother who is younger than I.
I have to find the paper and I sigh,
“Oh yes, that’s right, I remember…
I remember.” Wash, rinse, repeat.

Daddy says some of us,
We just set with death,
Hold hands through the dying,
Pat brows with warm wet clothes
Coo inarticulate soothings to deaf ears.
Some of us, we just deal in silence soft
with tears that fall, salt to the earth.

I look about at the growing, the change,
How did I come to this place? Come to me?
Was it spring that I first stepped foot
along this path or was it fall?
Or was it that one March when
the morphine drip
drip
drip, haunted, that March when
I buried one too young too angry,
Tears falling, salt to the earth
As I patted them from his hollow cheeks,
Licked them from my own lips gone dry.

I
It should be a sin
when everything is caving in
to feel your breathe
tracing whispers long my breasts

from what seems a
million miles away

and I play

the longest day away
thinking of you.

what do I do?

how do I get to
you…when I am here
you are there

some day
maybe we will share
all our some days.

II
Little girl lost as she took you
in her arms, her fear
of the other too great.
But she does wonder
what if her heart were free
had been free and she recalls
your head in your hands
and tears…she wanted
to sooth away your tears.

One more sleep and no more to mine eyes
will sadness creep. No more will the sighs
of lilting breath belay my heart’s inner depths
for only one more day do I miss my love, bereft.

And it’s not so much my life I like
now but me, who I am, have become,
hard work having moved past passed
days of sleepwalking, going through
life unannounced but now I wallow
in my new song of I am here finally.

I sit, in the preamble of years, months,
days to come; fearless and afraid. He
feels like home, like earth and sky. He
feels sure like the other half of spirit
lost once in another life so long ago.

And I am tired of sitting, laying low.

I sit, looking at a blank screen thinking
about the months, days, things to wrap
up here, coming together quickly. And
I want things I cannot articulate but
I am here finally, I am ready to go.

Some lives but brief
in the evening meet
with few word save

goodbye
good luck
be well

if you need me
I'll be here.

In her fearless
qualm she turns
still as restless,
the inner beast stirs.

Been too long
since her blood
rushed for days,
those other crushes
crushing hard when
she was looking.

Now she's not.

Been too long
yet never
did it come quite
so soft in the stillness
of no intent
save the enjoyment
of laughter's sweetest
flush of cheeks pink
and the desire
to blush the other.

Quietly she
takes a breath.

Tomorrow as yet
she says she
will worry tomorrow
of what may come
and revel in the
briefness of today.

For in her past
she recalls
how frail the body
and quickness
of the soul to flee.

Through salt tears
she whispers
my god, my god,
take no more from me

for I connot stop...

giving.

she wants

An inquiry made
and she was smiling
words exchanged
and she was laughing.
She in one place
he in another
She waxed, he waned
thoughts explained
it just was
she let it be.

Went about her way
thinking that was all
then one day
her way stalled.
Tentatively
they each replied
perhaps feeling out
the other.

But then she dreamed
of the oddest things
her admittance
inarticulate and hard,
after all to utter.
Yet from him
P’raps a wry grin.

Lost and lonely

boy if only

words were worth
more than a blink of the eye,
flush of the cheeks
shallow breathes
fluids piqued
one heart torn
yearning

I want

…are words of intent
desire and aggression,

words of fire for

She wants it too.

Sometime between death and his being laid in the ground, I took a razor to my hair. I had been wearing it progressively shorter but not quite there, not quite so…shorn. My husband was aghast, afflicted with the pain of what? Selfishness perhaps?. I laid out my best gray dress and sweater of sea blue-green. I would not wear black to another funeral. I would not live my life in a lesser way.

Something haunting

I
Something haunting
stalking like prey;
burying in the bone,
her spirit forming,
restless and pacing.

Dreams of spirit
and the land; maybe she
is just more in tuned to
the earth’s churning.

No promise is broken
when faith and life
are there to evolve.

Her concerns fixed
on the lust for blood

she may just die alone.

II
She dreamt deep
the desert in sandy hues
warm breezes
open windows pulling in dry air
drapes in sudden stillness
candlelit rooms, shadows.
Diner put away
dishes being done,
roughhousing
leading to other things as yet left untried.

She stopped in the moment
pushed up from him
glanced at the knife having been set aside
and the thirst for blood, marking
weighed heavy
in deep labored breaths.
She reached for it slowly
he let her.

The candle flickered.

She dreamt of things as sure
they were never to be had
and woke in tears of loss

for this life gone to waste.

Heat lingering too late into fall,
the summer season clutching
holding on to strings a comin’
undone, unraveled in knots.

Blood lust and cheeks turn pink
and who will understand that?

She cares too deep you know, really
but attaches so rarely and falls,
well no that she can’t quite recall.

She, once lost and lonely
found it all since and only
less than a breath away.

Restless,
god I'm fucking
restless.

I was looking for you late at night
couldn’t sleep, that single drink
sitting heavy, breathing labored.

Face Flushed I thought my god
why are you still there, did I really
almost call and tell you to come?

And was it the drink really?
or the world and years of living
that sits on my soul?

Was it the drink or is it the offering?
That false thing any other
on your long list would take.

That thing I want for itself and
the myriad connotations it brings?
thoughts of it quelching fires,

the burying of knowing
I’m not where I want to be,
skin, not just any but yours.

I swear I almost called,
asked you to come.

Texoma

I
When you said you were going
there and if I had known you
actually known you, I would have
asked you to drive a ways further
turn down Cemetary Road,
throw a glance to the side
tell Robert his sister’s restless
though I think he knows.

II
Lay still brother dear for when your spirit stirs
mine in restless repose rears it’s head. We two
across the chasm finally are brother and sister
caring for each others woes and lost youth.

On meeting men…

Brush the soil away
Scratch the surface
see what gives
what deeply lay
in spirit and soul.
Yet aft a while the
meeting dost get old.

Idealistic Much?

When a dog get beat down
she get mean…won’t last long.
A lady now, she deal and turn
sweetly tempered smiles up
then in her heart cry alone
her strength a front, her
will incomparable, unknown.

I am solid in my standing
Je suis trop fort pour me retirer totalement.

Restless, almost shook
in a cool funk unfocused
driven, she gave way
to thoughts unfettered
and almost succumbed
to the breaking of it.
Promises almost come
undone but she recalled
the smell of death,
stagnation in the binding
of two so unmatched.
So she wait and see,
wait and see more.

She cared once too deep
little heart sore, body
callus in her immense
desire of flesh try for more.

In the weeks after Stevie Ray’s
death I walked in a bright white haze.
Met a man not quite right for me
but gave of myself unconditionally.

More than a year and a half has past
and I recall the day I saw you last.
Christmas Eve wasn’t it when I wore
my boots, your hat and little more?

Nine months since I walked away.
One full year and another birthday.
I settle into singledom resigned,
my mate unsure e're will I find.

I
Tell me the sun rose as the moon set and there were no betwixt or tween.
Speak oft on such is concealed in a lover’s touch and how the heart does wane.
Contemplate the nature of the ‘verse and inner workings of the spirit’s soul.
Bear with me while I struggle to match your pace a strolling up the knoll.
Know the depths of me and stay? instead I see you turn and walk away.

II
Little heart I stowed today
ready for the journey when
perhaps I’ll find some skin
don’t mind coming, then
just going the fuck away.

III
Somehow today I want to weep.
it is the setting aside of things
and the coming of the storms.

IV
I sing
oft a beat off tune.
I am only me
neither sun nor moon
but magma
and fire of the earth.

je me retire totalement

I am not some girl all giddy
but a woman of passion
and yes, deliberation
I sleep alone tonight.

I
Solitaire
The nights are long and days are short;
when I was married I slept to dream.
now the night escapes in stillness and
the words won’t come fast enough;
I write in discombobulated streams.

II
My eye is caught
something shiny
something pretty
I wish men

weren’t so pretty.

II
Bare flesh and I want.

Tears come when they want
just like words...

Je me retire seulement vous ai laissé mener.

I am the mode of coercion
I am spurring thoughts unknown
Not so sure I’m okay with this.
Want to stay, want to go…

something stirring
restless in the white space
restless in the stillness
something hot and wet.

I
All you see is light and air
flushed sweet giggles and eyes bright.
Let not loose do I the dark despair
caged, contained, cruelly and deservingly
beat down, drug low and tortured till
it holds no grasp on me, no longer does it kill.

II
Tying up and drawing blood in one deep clean cut.
Swelling, beading, pulsing as she wets her lips, small
pink tongue gently testing, teasing, full mouth over it
nursing, sucking. Hands taking into her the extent of him.
Oh sweet thought and she is gone to shallow breaths.

Things I hate...

Raspberry sauce
whole kernel hominy
being cold

Things from my marraige

Old wounds acting up today
physical reminder of deeper things.

Broken finger
recalling crying
wedding band cutoff,
more crying
having set alone in a room so long
having been with him too long.
Knowing this even then.


Eight stitches
joint of the thumb, cut
washing dishes, the anger
(not mine)
missing his race.
The pain of severed nerves.
The pain of disbelief.


Pulled Achilles tendon
Left heel, driving
a stick anyway
other option? His truck.
The healing taking longer
The retreat just beginning.

Things from my marriage...

Stumbled across this journal entry and became...too overwhelmed not to post it forever in my memory.

for...Skye Marie

Saturday, May 3, 2003
My sickness since the twenty-seventh has become progressively worse, and reached its height last night when I could hardly sleep for the pain in my head and the nausea in my stomach. We have only been trying for a few months, and just last month I finally learned to count the days. My body has betrayed me, thrown me into this doubt. Testing on the first was negative. This morning, Saturday, May third, there was a brief spotting and I almost wept, but still, no free flowing menstration, only the little spot. It is my hope that you, my darling child, were conceived on the sixteenth of April when I fell asleep after making love with your father, the evidence of his desire still with me. That you have traveled and transformed, my impish zygote, making my own body betray me, that this morning, it was you, my mighty blastocyst, that have implanted yourself firmly to my uteran wall. I did not want just any child. I want you, my tiny Capricorn, no larger than a lima bean, still and soon, my baby bean. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I’ll take the test again, and if it is negative, I’ll take it again in a few more days. My body has never betrayed me with such passion and ardor. And yet, I’ll bear down, just for you, my baby Rubella, in your tentative weeks of life. I can only hope you will not break my heart and leave too soon. Please wait, break my heart in your adolescence.

she didn't wait, but then I wouldn't be who I am today, would I...

Almost

The sheets smelled like cigarette smoke and pot. They smelled like Frank. The scent was on his clothes, but stronger near his ear and hairline where I had breathed deep and then ran my cheek along his. He had shaved that day, his skin smooth and unmarred, just the patch on his chin and thin line across his lip remained. But I couldn’t smell the soap, only the cigarette smoke and pot. It was his scent, the one I would associate with him, with his touch and taste, with sex.

What are you doing, he had asked, just got home from….and some indistinct explanation followed. I was half asleep, my sinus hurt, and I couldn’t concentrate as usual. So I said breathless and low, come see me. He was almost timid in reply, incredulous when he said, really? Funny thing about Frank, he always kissed me goodbye then he’d promise to call and I’d ask when. And he wouldn’t always call.

And I had laughed deeply at the question he asked. Then I turn and catch his stare time after time. Funny thing, attraction, it holds great weight against age. Yes, I knew he was young, but hadn’t realized there would be almost ten years between us. His reply had been that it shouldn’t matter, age. Those words held infinite weight. Shouldn’t matter for what?

That first weekend I was very busy but he called a day early and I had sought him out in my free time but not found him. And every other day since, we’d seen each other – so far. Things were still new. And I knew right he wouldn't be the one for me, not ultimately and that we had little in common But we laughed and touched and it was what I need right then and even now perhaps. And his kiss goodbye was gentle and sweet, almost like something more, almost.

Curse of the Butterfly

We are unintentional in our desire, in our hunger for the touch and feel of human flesh and the quest for our place in a human heart. We were human once, content in chains, in the ties that bound unrequited. Still as then, when our maker calls, we come. It is one prison in trade of another.

Only now, am I restless with an understanding, a need. Driven on wrestles dreams. And he was a cool drink on a June afternoon that lay light in spirit, still untouched by the heat of summer.

The first brief touch of his fingers grazing lightly across shoulder sealed his fate and when I call this one I make? He will come.

I move on silent wings that turn in a beat, pulse high and wild, these men too sweet.

It's smooth, relaxed, chilled
never missed a beat
rarely hit a lull. and
only then to catch my breath,
let the other speak.

risk and return

Mike
“Cancer” he said, and I thought, “oh damn”.
All after having just been asked how I do it,
in the face of all, how I stay so upbeat.
I shoulda seen the topic would turn,
already knew I’d ask, “is your dad ok”?

Robert
Just like then, just like when…
you know…I told you to go…
I grew still and that little girl
awoke…

Steve
Can’t change the course I lead,

Yet to my strength of will
let another never pass.
that I cave to compassion,
let my heart grow at last

and give the way you need.

je suis du peche

I am not the elegance
but on occasion.
I am not that big-eyed
innocent ever.

Neither jealousy nor
games would I give.
Neither fame nor
fortune would you gain.

I am bits of this and
mostly that.
I am no more, no less
than I can be.

And though I wish
I were what you need,
there is no way cause
I am only me…

Ain't no seein', only knowin'.
As sure as you were you'd skin me
is as sure I am things will drift away.

Sadly this night I sleep
only to awake on the morrow
with nothing to keep
save memories of voices,
one sweet kiss and
the wonderings of what
if and things I may have missed.

Restless in the shadow soft meat bruised wet,
odd thoughts set aside for the calming verve.
I am coming anyway me thinks for I am brave
and want to see…that much I deserve.

Hardness tries, her weary eyes beg and plead but no.
Instead I took the other path, the one I've never known.
What other way could my conscience ever play when
I call thee my own…dear friend.

"Was the simple chance to see too much to ask?"
But her god turned a deaf ear as always in the past...

Too much a comin’ too fast to hold. Devastation,
cheapness, all my wherewithal punched in the gut.

Get the to a nunnery darling girl, mayhap
You’ll find one to accept you sight unseen and blind.

baby crush

He thinks I’m cool and calm and sure
bounding forth like a pup on a treat.
But look a little further in my sweet

for I am that girl drug through the days,
dazed and wondering in the white space
awhirl, afraid here’s one more
I’ll never be quite good enough for.

And in the next breathe...

I had not planned...

Today seems too sweet,
cool breezes kissing cheeks.
All I am is the tripping of words,
the use of hands, eyes gazing
through windows of the sun and soul.

In my new place I wander,
wonder would it have seemed
as right as ever once I had deemed
if that one day in July
my mind had not been clearing
solidifying purpose, had not looked,
taken on a deeper notice of
cursory curiosity already astir.

Restless though I walk about
something heavy setting in
preemptive where I cannot,
will not let it lie for months
in time for I had not planned…

I had not planned…

truly...

lord, I see the fineness,
please, bequeath me all I am
for surety divines I take
neither fjord or damn
instead to forge and stake
my claims on trails unknown.

Far away in fey rays of her summer blush
lithely crossing oceans far and wide
eyes closed soft, nowhere could she hide
breathes shallow heart strong
sways and dips of inner songs.

All the words fell away as she
was left in silent shallow breathes
stopped twice for thoughts invading
clear, concise, ominous and sweet.
Soft and meek,
Are you okay, her dear did speak.
No, she replied in gentle cries
no, nowhere to hide. It all lay bared
and in his care much of the past had died.

While she lay softly weeping,
all the word in silence sleeping,
that girl she never was allowed to be
waved in gay charade across the sea
in welcome home and come to me.

Euphoria, how long does it last?
Last? Can you not see done right...
why would it ever die?

the uncrush

Storm come through a clearing out
recollections stoutly clenching hard
against their mothers tit and strings
till they pulled a knot being on toward.

Knot come undone

they fell aside

she looked about

little heart previously denied.

First pale blossoms spreading sweet
cheeks flushed deep peach in the heat
fire and ice, embraced and denied
in the white space where doors stood ajar.

The Uncrush began to stir

she grew still

heart beat too fast to hold

all against her will.

Yester morn the dawn come soft
she stretched long and lean
the blush of summer kissed her lips
small hands searched between.

what am I thinking...

The list I built these two years past
in review today I see perchance.
and yet newly I have secrets…
secrets that could burn.

Words won’t just come
now I sit down to write for
somehow I am not lost,
neither hurt nor bruised.
I am not deep in crushes
light and free, nor whoring
passions bright and gay.
I sit in soft soliloquy
in the white space awhirl,
brave and unsure, forward
yet shy in blushes and smiles
knowing I’m okay either way
but open to chance and curious
I meet the new day flushed.
Is this what hope is?

I write in the dim lit
of the sun softly leaving,

sway to soft sounds
melodically pink.

I am the little girl longing
after having lost so much.

What am I thinking?

thought stream from june sixteenth

Sometime the weary come
Only it don’t fade so fast
And damn you John Berryman
With your booze and dem bones,
That voice too familiar to my own.

No one sees me weary
And if they knew
My heart sore on the pavement?

“Unique and special”,
“Nary one a rude and
aggressive bone”
“A wonderful person”
So much is she and yet
Not his words, his time,
But his dick do she get.

all mimsy were the borogroves...

I am strangely serene and happy today. The past few days’ thoughts have come up to surface in a blush on warm cheeks only to settle quietly on gentle smiles. Last night in conversations I recalled a friend who last July committed suicide, ending my three month sabbatical into celibacy. Vulnerably I came out of my solitude and met *R and learned to give even more unconditionally if that’s possible.

May, my darling *J had just graduated with her degrees and was moving to Berkley. Planning a dinner was put off until suddenly she was gone…off on her way. I called her a month later. “Baby, Steve is gone….” And we cried. At the funeral his wife Kanami clung to me and in her little girl voice of broken English, whispered “is so unfair”

“Hush, I know darling…” We lose people too easy but I would rather have and lose than to never know.


on being the peach, on being a woman

Last night the air was sweet and the moon full but there was little breeze. Last night I took lessons on being a woman. Funny what a man can tell you about your own nature. Or rather what your own nature is supposed to be. Intention versus perception, what is real? But what he said struck home.

In retrospect, you should know I grew up in a vaccuum raised by books and apparently Dickens and Poe could only go so far in thier teachings. The rest I suppose should have been learned from human interaction. Only there was little human interaction, just books and my own imagination for the longest time.

So now I understand some things about what I should be feeling. As a woman I should want more. In entering an exclusive relationship, I should naturally want it to develop in to something serious. I should be territorial, jealous of other females, perhaps especially the younger ones, the pretty ones, the more exotic ones, the often immature.

But I raised myself from scratch more than I was raised by another. And between that and the hardness I've faced in life, the loss, I truly believe…

Every relationship has a time and place, a depth and duration, a purpose. And we can only know these things as they occur and in hindsight. Though I suppose hope plays a role somewhere in there, I’m not quite sure where, but I always seem to have it in abundance.

We spoke of other things, the house, my moving, friendship...

The line stayed clear and we spoke at length of suddenly having friends you couldn’t walk away from and the panic that instilled in us. The freedom we lost by it and the companionship we gained. That was the key, companionship. Loners I think are such by habit as much by nature, but sometimes we find we need others and it's new way of life to suddenly learn.

So on being a woman? Evidently where I should want marriage, I want companionship and intimacy and where I should be jealous of the young, the pretty, the immature, I find I’m not. For though I may not be the typical female, from where a man stands, as my friend says, I am most definitely all woman.

p.s. thank you my friend for believing I am who I am and difficult to typify. It means a lot that someone actually sees that part of me.

flash pieces from the last few days...

goodbye to the good luck girl

My ex and I, we split mid-October of 2003, the divorce finalized in January 2004, five days after my birthday. About that time he met *A, that June they moved in together, in March of 2005 they wed. Though he and I weren’t the best match, my feelings were mixed. How could he move on so soon? Was he sure she was the right one? Regardless, I was happy for him.

I have actually met three men I felt fairly compatable with. The first now married, the second now engaged. I am their good luck girl, all having found their mates shortly after my parting with them. Much like my ex, I was not their one.

I have never envied others or wanted what they had. That was one thing that divided my spouse and I. I could always care less what so-and-so had, but sought my own happiness instead. Last week, however, when I found out about *R’s engagement, I thought briefly “where is mine”.

But I made a decision a while back that has made several people angry with me; though we know not what the future brings, I have opted against the “where is mine”. And even though I am spectacular in love – all kinds of bright and shiny passion and hope, I feel it may not be best for me.

So when the fourth and I move on and he finds his one, we can say goodbye to the Good Luck Girl who shined albeit brief.


i wish...

I wish you could assume the best of me and not the worst but I think between your past and your impulsive nature and my trying too hard...


July 18, 2005

my EX
I ended the marraige for good reasons though I ended it poorly. I may speak of his selfishness, of being taken advantage of, but I will give him credit here. He has grown since our divorce, come to understand himself and his needs and acknowledges much...
He has found someone much like me, he says, but that will kick his ass when he needs it and make him listen. I could never do that, it's not who I am. He knows I need someone strong enough, that doesn't need thier ass kicked. Someone that will give me the respect I deserve....without my having to demand it. Someone that gives as much as I do.
And I'm thinking to myself, yeah, good luck with that, my dream of publishing looks more realistic in comparison.
today
In elementary school just after the pledge of allegiance, the principal would say the same thing every day: today is the first day of the rest of your lives. Pretty heavy for a first-grader but taken to heart. We are so impressionable that young aren’t we?
So today is the first day of the rest of your lives, what are you going to do with it?
If I can give up caffeine, can you give up smoking or drink less? If I start eating healthier, would you eat healthier with me…now and then? If I were to walk a mile, would you walk two? If I were to think less introspectively, would you think more?
Today is the first day of the rest of your lives, how about just trying not to fuck it up? I think that’s my general plan anyway. Baby steps as my Dad says.


on friendship

What do I want in a man? (Be it lover or mate.) For them to compliment me to their friends but not speak of the emotional things that lie between us. I understand though, that sometimes one feels they can’t speak to the other so they seek input from elsewhere. It’s in our nature. And a friend will always commiserate, support our views.

A good friend, however, will not. They will see things objectively. So if he sought a friend in which to confide? I can only say find one that can be objective or one that knows my nature and can be as true to me as they are to him.


yesterday i was thinking...

I don’t argue and don’t get jealous, though I have a need for understanding. Usually, I back down and walk away. I’m good at that…walking away, cutting people out of my life. Acquiescence is in my nature really. I am the peacemaker, was the glue that held my family together so long after we all dispersed. In fact, there’s not a mean bone in my body – deep cold maybe, but not mean.
Tenderhearted, yes, and as my ex says, big-hearted. Even the cause of my worse heartache from many days past could call and I would come for him. Anywhere anytime with my monetary means. A friend in need and all that sappy crap. That’s me.

Accusations that go against any part of my nature that I know to be true though? They hurt me much like a fist to the face only worse. They hurt my heart, hurt my soul. That which I guard and I don’t give away easy. There’s a point here:”if you don’t know me by now, you will never ever never know me…”

Can’t tell you how many people I went through online in the six months after my divorce. Went through them like burgers fries or cheap romance novels. Men, women, just looking for friends. I can however count on fingers the number I actually met. Two men made the flirt, two others actually got in my heart and burned a hole and left me grasping for air.

Sometimes I get tired of the cursory conversations. Get tired of meeting and greeting. Get tired of the hopes of even friendship shot down, either theirs or mine. It just flat tires me out, becomes overwhelming. I prefer more depth with those who, well, prefer more depth. It’s just intrinsic that I communicate and know a few people at an intrinsic level. I have found not everyone can handle that.

It’s sadly a word of fair-weather friends. Why? Fear I guess. Fear of rejection, of being rejected, of being hurt. I say screw that. I have one life I plan on living, not hiding so I keep caring even though it wears me out sometimes.

Seemingly antithetical aren’t I? Good at walking away yet with family, trying past the bitter end to hold on. I don’t give my heart and soul up easy but still form deep bonds. Well I never said I was consistent did I? But I’m sure I mentioned I’m blonde. *wink

July 15, 2005

it was wednesday...or tuesday maybe

Shoulders slumped, stomp stomp stomp, I threw myself to the bed emphatically for all of no one to see. It was instinctual in context, not done for dramatics, “God damnit, why the hell are you doing this to me!” Yes I was addressing God by the way and the silence that engulfed me was deafening. The night before my wailing accusations, my good friend told me he’s had a familiar since he was thirteen. I wanted to tell him to be glad cause having a direct line sucks ass. But I didn’t, I was in listen and touch mode as I often was with him. Just existing, not thinking.
The only other time I had been that upset with God (ok, that upset plus inifinity) was when my brother died and the agony of despair manifest itself as an invisible thread between heart and gut. It tightened and tightened until I lay in a dazed stupor, physically unable to unbend for what seemed like hours.

No, this wasn’t near that bad but I was pissed off, upset, let down. Why? Because God gave me doubt. Slapped it right down in my lap like a puppy. Doubt in the form of information. Some of it I knew, some I didn’t but what I pieced through left me…sad. the object of doubt and I, we talked it through and got things clarified and I was on top of the world; communication and clarification, we were on the same page. The next day fell hard though and I was hurt. Reached out to that wich stung.

I have rarely reached out before but I did. I can only tell you that grasping air has got to be one of the most horrible experiences ever, the most recognizable and yet surprising thing each time it occurs. Surprising? Yes, because I keep trusting, each time with more depth and one would think four times too many.

It was Wednesday or Tuesday maybe that bled in to Thursday and now Friday. And the evening is almost gone to gray, the storms so bad today. On the morrow I'll go about picking up this and that which the winds tore away and left scattered across the lawn.


July 12, 2005

cowboy

Was the right thing to do, letting that one go, pushing him away cause he never would a gone on his own. But once away he was away too easy. Yeah, you saw how it was. Uh huh, bye bye. Guess you were glad someone had the guts to break your heart – even if that someone was you. Always, girl, doing what others couldn’t. Like daddy, done so much in his time but on his son’s deathbed unable to make a move so you did. Like mom unable to care, now sometimes you know you care to the point of self abatement. Like brother and sister who ran rampant while you worked knuckles to the bone even while still young. Ok yeah, so that one got away and you’re wondering about how tentative is what you got now? What will the future bring and when. But you stop and think back to the morning’s lessons; daydreams are better spent in the planning of attainment than on the fixation of the end desires. So have fun my Peach in the getting (you know the getting’s good right now) and let the end desires unfold when they will. Watch them in your little girl awe...

In her little voice with big eyes
Soft cries she swallowed,
I don’t understand.
Her every try boldly decried
He thought not the best of her.

And her hurt set aside?
Bled all the more.

Someone some day
Is gonna think I’m wonderful.
Someone some way
Is gonna treat me right.

I began to swallow
The pride in which I wallow
And it was thrown at me like dung.
My innate need to emotively communicate
Is someone else’s drama and low debate.

But ner will he change me
For in this manner born
lies oft me curiosite
me verve, me succor
me scorn that is simply me.

And he turned to leave so I said “Thought you wanted to talk?”
“That’s just it, I don’t want to talk. Gave up arguing, I don’t want to argue.”
“I didn’t mean to argue, I wanted to…”
“I’ll see you next week”
And I thought, wait, expressing my feelings, having feelings is arguing, but did I say that? No. like so many things I left it so as not to rock the boat. Instead my gut firmed up.
“See me next week?”
“See you next week, we’ll give it a week then see where we’re at”
“See me next week?” I’m thinking where the fuck are you gonna see me? I’m sure as goddamn fuck not gonna go to su…“I don’t think we should speak for a while,” and I had his attention.
“Let’s just give it a week”
“A week, maybe two at least.” I said and as he turned to leave I shut the door quietly.
No one should ever be made to feel “put in their place”. No one should ever be ignored when they reach out from the heart. And when they swallow their hurt, their pride, they should not be shunned. Then the sadness of loss came. I was pretty sure it would be more than a week. But I couldn’t help think if he were to grow and I were someone other than me, it could have been sweet.

I am the girl that gets things done
loves too sweet, loves too deep
gives too much, not to keep.
I am the girl that does what ought
smiles so bright all the night
says goodbye, lets you fly.
I am the good luck after girl
soon you’ll find that one of kind
for you who is not me.

Oh my darling,
it’s okay, turn away
but I will be the one
to break that streak
of always parting friends.

blush

Lo the way lo and I did sing the smiles a blushingly;
face rendered deeply sweet in demurred
glances under lashes lowered lazily while
soft kisses of lips’ liquored, the lingering scent of smoke
and salt, I did breath quietly labouredly.

lover

In small hands I took him
Hard and firm
His desire for me evident.
Lips parched, throat dry
Cheeks flushed and eyes burning wild
I gulped deep
Wetting soft lips with a pink tongue probing;
Mouth, body, aching
To be fed, my desire for him evident.

Salt

Salt, sweet, smooth
Your skin between my teeth,
My lips
My thighs

I reside in the stillness
Little heart beating away
Pressure smashing in waves.

I remove quite stealthily,
Quite good at it
Little heart bleeding
All turtled up.

I call he come
He my for now man
Not my forever love.

Wish he could
Reach out and drown
In me like I do him.

Hard on myself
I term it in a way so
Never will I fall

Nor cruelly will I crawl
Away.

Ah the doors are many
Swift and sure they move
When just in reach I grasp
Meeting air and gone to
Past or rushed ahead, I
Gaze intent on them in
Wonder and awe of life
And how it flows divine.

I may sing the song
Of melancholy sweet
But in the heart reclines
Soft and southern, joy,
Hard found, hard sought,
Fair parched in a wonder
Of how it all is forming.

I
Ah sweet, and the morrow brings me
Not so low. And soon the house will away
Along with fettered ties to a life that binds;
Time in the white space already creeping
Crosses thresholds of my wakeful sleeping.
So hear the silent joyous breaths, “I am alive…
I am alive,” torn from aching, heaving breasts.
Ah sweet, and the morrow brings me
Newly to the world so deftly.

II
Keep thee child to bosom safe
Thy chastity and love.
Let no man touch treasure’s wraith
Lest be he from above

And yet my council wise and true
Comes from cursed lips like dew
For in my youth I lost so much
To the random takers touch. For

My sister’s council did I keep
Callus, from a youth she never knew
But grown as fast as I.

I
Starlight and moonshine
One for the soul,
T’other for the mind
I sleep in softest down,
Blue skies dreaming…
Wrapped in smiles,
Always smile...

II
Twilight and the dreamscape fades. Something forms just under winded breaths of passions spent. He comes in the night, the sleeping hours, in my dreams, my friend, my lover. He comes to take my soul gently with naught save the salt from my body; blood in veins over swelled and tears gently streaming cheeks paled…

III
And when all is said and done?
I shall recall the callus of your palm,
The sweetness in your rare caress,
Soft supple skin under my tongue,
Between my teeth and how you felt
Along my thighs hitting deep.

Spirit in the galley runs left
Then right, streaking till she falls
Exhausted without thought

Years past came a crashing;
The early years alone content
With her books taking her away
From mums controlling; brothers
Death that tore apart the world
She formed for forming sake,
Growing innately regardless;
Divorce and the bravery of
Facing the future utterly alone.

Spirit in the galley runs left
Then right, streaking till she falls
Exhausted without thought,
Giggling when the man makes
Her and…this is why.

Mortality and the fragility
Of life so short and precious
She enjoys all she can.

I give
In the dark half-light
Of eve, of morn,
Passions sweet.

In sore need
Does the frail hand reach
Out for another beat
Of dark flesh and blood.

happy birthday bubba, r.

And in the end I loved him
Like I never could or should,
Unconditionally, fatuously
He got me through the rough
Just after Stevie Ray died
And yet through not enough,
I needed more. I have more
Now and yet, now I reside
In the white space forming
Where I can see my heart
Aflutter denying nothing
But enjoying all she can.

I
Call her a lady
Sometimes
When
She’s your baby
Sometimes
Just call her
Cause
She’s a good lay
Sometimes.

Though in her heart
She needs a friend
Every now and then.

She embrace the state
Fully knowing
And yet bitter sweetly
At a loss.
Even as stillness comes
The craving.

When she stop asking,
Stop stalking
The verve will be gone,
Her passion spent
And heart too sore again.

She may embrace
Her submission as well
As her aggression
But she lay naked
To no man in subservience.

II
The hours blur into days gone the way of the fey,
Her mind spent off on odd thoughts a pondering
Existence and the state of being stilly
In convergence with the urgence of her needs
Voice low and rough as life beats her down
She will sing away anyway, find her path alone.

III
I just want the words to spill,
Spit forth from lips like venom
Sucked straight from the veins.

The myriad thoughts of all that fall
Are these? While the others stay a fester.

Everyone’s a fucking poet
They write their smallness
In a tight hand. Their lives
Neatly fitting into form
And rhyme while my soul
Bleeds all across the lines
And on into the white space.

Bleed away the day
Gettin’ by on nothing.

I
Tears cool,
Sweet juice dripping
Down skin so smooth
Like blood from a wound…

Streaming in a mad bass line.
She wanders aimlessly why
Her joy fills the empty
Spaces where

Something else should be.
Should, should
She never quite did it right
The way the others say…
She should.

But then again, if she did
Would she be so
Real in the now
Fingers strumming long
Lean lines of him.

She breathes deep
He likes the bright
Laughing Peach.
And keeps her that way.

II
They had stepped back
Moving closer in.
She smiles her way, a
Cool mischevious grin.
Confused yet soaring,
Questioning no one
And nothing, just being.

III
Her god will kill her
Sweetly and with passion
As her heart knows no
Other way. She will let him.

Find me in the willows
Long stemmed where
The snakes gather
In tall grasses of late
Summer in the south,
The shallows warm,
The Mud cool, miring.

Bring to me fey days
Of sweet scents and
Tastes of homespun
Passions and the call
Of cicada deep as night
Comes to meet weary
Flesh and eyes a flutter.

Oh my south my sweet
Texas soil and winds
That meet my upturned
Face the sun has kissed,
My south demure, languid
As fingers stroking soft
The heaven and the skies
That move me to words.

I sing the body,
The soul found not quite
In the autumn of life,
I write the joy
Of being still in stillness
For livings sake.

channeling

It came swift on the winds of early evening
Like a flood across a parched dry Texas.
Feelings so intense, so deep, so sad I wept,
Sweet tears streaming from gentle blinking
Eyes confused and the intensity for him
To hold me close consumed and was gone
In another blink leaving wonder at the happening.

As she lay soft drifting on the sea
Of twilight kissing dreams as wet,
Thoughts of the evening past came
Stirring her need for him sweetly
The same as it had been before,
Hand of it’s own accord feeling
Freely the in and out of things.
Back flush against muscles taught
The depth of her was stroked
Like midnight and she purred.

On the tip of her
Tongue never falling
Were words of a
Complimentary nature,
It being the best yet.
Instead she licked
Her paws purring,
Stretching feet along
His smooth skin.

Pants off…and
In the blink of an eye
She’s on the candy
Like a starving thing
No grace, she fills
Her need.

intention and interpretation

Scrutiny…
She would look for him in the threads
Of conversations so intent her interest
She would check his musings often,
Commenting where no other was found.
She would in jest say she stalked him
In her heart she held genuine interest.
He felt scrutinized.

Pressure…
She finally found the courage to ask
For more time, to go out, to see if
She wanted more than the friendship
That was waning as time slipped so
She panicked grasping what she felt
Already fleeting the month before.
He felt pressured.

Me…
I’m that fly girl
Without the git.
His girl on the fly,
The one he thinks
He want to see
But don’t call.
(That fly on the wall)
Cause she
Distracts from he.

They just words is all
That spill seemingly deep
But my mind lay in factual
Repose and near sleep.
I poke at this like every other
Thing of interest to study.

Oh man my body’s tight
Need some hand to knead me.

Up till one, couldn’t sleep
Though the need was strong
Felt someone restless
Then found the lizard online
But no, wasn’t him a stirring
In my bones, in the ache
Of the evening’s possession.

And a kiss sweet, tender
Like only girl can stir.
I am finding friendship
Where the cobwebs were.

Too tactilly for my own good.

little pill and the rice drink

I
Don’t remember which light I left on
Didn’t think it was that one.
But the door was locked, the light
Streaming down the long hallway
My shirt smelling like cigarettes and you.

II
She alive and free
Turning cold
Crushed
Her heart a bleedin’
Wine that heads
No voice, findin’
No shelters
In the sun of day.

Chance all the lil’
Heart was a wantin’
Fallin’ so fine
In and out of dreams
And the happiness
Of them chances.

III
The picture
Her friends
Humiliation
He sends
And yet my
Heart is cool.

IV
And the possession
After the backing off
I drink in
Like water on long
Hot days without rain.

V
Hand on linens gripping
Other on smooth flesh…

VI
Stop and think.
Pink Floyd streaming…
There must be some mistake
I didn’t mean to let them take
Away my soul and I too old
Is it too late…
Stop and think
Of contradiction in action
And words, what are you really feeling?

Sometimes it is that easy to call a thing that’s been with you so very long.
Other things are simply hard to hold down and they do the calling.

Your lips on my neck…
Your words in the kitchen…
And I lost thought, wanted
To stop thinking suddenly
Awash with desire sealing
What I would ask from you.

I set aside confusion that
Forms tears of inarticulate
Tries. How can I voice
What I don’t know I want.

Lose your dreams and you
could lose your mind…
---Ruby Tuesday, the rolling stones…

My sis and I
We used to sing
To old forty-fives…

Now she’s lost in America
Somewhere on the street,
Our lives having crossed
And parted in loss long ago.

I no longer lose those I love
But keep them close in spirit.

I no longer refrain from voicing
Aything, afraid to look the fool.

streaming little seeds...

Shimmering
The light falls through
A parting in the drapes
And thoughts of you,
Of flesh sweet, unmarred
As I abide in restraint
Flush on cheeks pink
And hands kneading.

After that night I am
– not in censure –
but in constant awareness
of response and action,
analysis of these things
so new and yet I remain
the fresh sliced vein
open to the warmth of you.

Torn I need the balance of me and us
Yet would adore the thrill of pursuit.
I walk the line that lingers sweetly between
My singularity and coupledness of which
Thoughts a fair piece consume my day.
For me there is no struggle, I dive in and deal,
Discover and make things as I need..

Time and the daily dues
Are the only keepers
Of me away from you.

Yes well quite…
I think you adore me
Though I hate to assume
But tummy kisses on the fly
Tell me.

All these tender thoughts, your body steels
Into light caress and tongue filled tastes.
Words stretch into the simplicity of being
Where I am content in touching.

danced with girls...

I had just asked for a divorce before my darling J turned 21. No, not my child, one of my student workers with whom I had become good friends. I took her out to the Art Bar downtown where our friend DJ Vella spun old eighties on Saturday night and he got us in free. When doubleJ and I went dancing it was always an odd group. Me the elder by umpteen years, J, any one or two of her girlfriends that I always thought of as kittens because they seemed so untouched though I knew their lives had hardened much as mine. There was also always a young man in tow. I don’t think the same one went twice actually, but they were fun, no moves to be made, just out for the night. Especially the Russian, Boris, he was the best fun to dance on, to say vodka every time he did, mimicking his slur. They were J’s boys, they flocked to her like a moth to a flame as did I. That winter on until she graduated the following May we hung out off and on. She stayed with me a month before moving to Cali and I helped her buy her first new car. I miss her, she’s my little sis where I never had one and I’m her older sis in the same way. We email and write, but it’s not the same thing as getting a call at 11:30 at night to go dancing, not the same as getting drunk and playing DDR…drunk enough we murmured silly things about boys in Japanese because we suddenly couldn’t remember English. It’s not the same as making sure she had enough to eat or hugging innocently on the couch, saying I love you and meaning just that and nothing more. That J, she is a force of nature. Knowing her story, I see my strength in her quiet beauty. It shines unfalteringly. When I think of that time while my divorce was pending I will always think of it in innocence smiles. I will think of it as the time when I danced with girls.

donna...

I am all that
Beautiful when I cry
It’s a soul deep thing
From knowing
Such loss few
Can stir to thought.

I was lovin’ you
Like a child
In all innocence
Everywhere you went
My true friend…

It’s ok
Everyone is
Always leaving me

Anyway…

They retreat into vagaries
And sweet memories

I can only love them true
When I have them
As I love you…

turn around bright eyes...

Plain grilled cheese and mayonnaise, sliced tomatoes with corned beef hash, left over rice the next day with milk and sugar, sitting on the front porch drinking ice tea late into the sunset. From my roots I may have found some form of gentility and grace and even discovered I like fine things as well. But yes, I am still that girl grown in the seventies when times were not always so good and we would wait in line for gas, when the city had more country close by and there were no pit stops on the highway, you drove straight through. I may have learned proper diction and poise, but that is only my southern self, my southern voice, smooth and languid, sensual and pleasing to even my own ears. That I have come into my own is a surprising thing and one in which I revel. Knowing myself so completely is what allows me to bring a sense of awe to everyday, to laugh in my giggle-box way, and to face each day bright-eyed with hope.

on death...

Flash…
Maybe we have come too close, my crew and I? I cannot say. I only know they saw me through death and divorce; JD through two deaths and the daily struggles of marriage; X through health struggles; JS through the stalking by weird ex-boyfriends of a girl he dated and finally to his wedding of another. It may not be professional to hug and cry at work but we acknowledge we are only human, both frail and strong. If I walk in the office and say I need a hug, six arms surround me. If I see tears forming when passing by, I know to stop and lend a shoulder or provoke a smile.

And when the day is gay, we laugh it up, no holds barred and HR be-damned. JS calls “witness” and I say “oh no, no witness here”. And when I come in grinning, JD says, “don’t you look like the cat that swallowed the canary?” and I say “um yes, I swallowed the canary." Laughing like school girls, JD old enough to be my grandmother in years, young enough to be my sister in her wry wit.

Grief and joy have no time frame; emotions do not understand an 8-5 work day. Sometimes they hit like a ton of bricks and sometimes in gentle smiles. In this life I can truly say I am human, I am a woman and I have not been able to conform to the depths that some desire. In breaking norms and breaking molds, someday I can die knowing I lived in honesty and truth to myself.

Flash…
The man in the back was tall, rail thin, skin hardened and weathered. He was a country man with his gentlemanly ways. I recalled meeting him once, twice I believe and I suppose, like a few others, my simple kindness made an impression as it had on the deceased. The deceased, that I was the bringer of food on the occasion of his wife’s death was cause enough to ask after me time and again, certainly made an impression on me. Well, this tall thin man nodded in kindred spirit, in recognition. I drew hugs from the sister and the niece and nods and smiles from others. The deceased was the father-in-law of one of my employees of almost three years. I had only known her for five and met him as much as his kin. Yet somehow I had been inserted into her life and she in mine. Funerals are not for the dead, they are for the living to come together in common cause, to support, to grieve, to show respect for the deceased I suppose, to talk about faith and god. So JD clung to me with words of love, not my employee, my friend.

Flash…
I cry at funerals, when they finally get around to god. “Whosoever believeth in me shall not perish but having everlasting life…” what the hell, I just bust out. In reading a bit on Buddhism, I have learned that the greatest joy comes from the greatest pain. Maybe that’s why I’m always so happy, so giggly? I have known more than my share and still believe in magic, in spirits, that life is beautiful. I have lent an ear the past year to so many friends who have had losses and each time I am reminded of my own. Daddy says some people are meant to sit with death, to be there for the dying. I have perhaps inherited this from him in a way only I am there for the living.

My body is dying
Even as it eats the
Pill that keeps tiny
Things from invading.
But we are all dying.

Time seems slow and yet
Gone the way of youth.
I am rushed, wanting now,
I am slowed, being sure.

Soul sorrowful no
Idea why it yearns.
Surely the man don’t
Feed it too much for
It is always seemingly
In such great need.
Like crack to the whore,
Candy to the girl.
It is as base a nature as
It is high an intellect.

I
I do not want to fall in love
But crawl into it sweetly
And with decisive measure.
And yet my crush is becoming
More than unassuming.

II
Tired the day fades
In dapple grays,
Sunshine streaming.
I want
I desire
I need
Selfishly
For I do not truly need.
Never having what I want
Nor the nerve to ask or
Pursue, I marvel
At the newness of
Untried emotions.

I fell running in the street
Skinning knees and palms
While turning to look
As I had gotten too far ahead.
Deep breathes I stole from
Will power seeping
As thoughts of
What to do invaded:
Wanted to wipe my heart
Upon my sleeve and turn
Toward home and in to me.
Wanted to reach out and
Pull you to where I am.
Really didn’t wanna think
Didn’t wanna slow down
Wanted you to catch up,
Enjoy me as much as I you.
Instead I…say nothing.

salt

I love the sun and the air and
The taste of a good day's sweat.
Today I reside in stillness
Looking about in warm sublimity.
Yes I have hopes and dreams
For the future but the present is
So very real and alive...

I run nails along its length and
My nose along its belly,
Take in the scent and test a bit
With the tip of the tongue...

mmm...salt.

I
Wednesday,
Thursday,
Twice last week I
Felt the urge to mark
Denoting ownership.

Instead I turned and took
A long deep look
At what
Could be stirring
In my heart...

Happy where I am
Happy where we are
Happy that I know
Not where we’re going
But hope we’ll go
Somewhere…

I can only say
That on that day
My need was great
And you were far
From touching me.

II
Just a little cut to make a scar
The thought of it and I breathe
So very shallow, lids heavy
Half inebriated in passions
Hold I sucked on smooth
Skin thinking…just a little cut.

III
Plain spoken I regret
My reaction that night
Though not what I conveyed,
only the how.
And I have never known
Regret even when
I broke faith or when
I killed my brother.

IV
I worry too damn much
I also feel too deep
And give to a fault…
But I care long and hard
With the need to be clear.
I only know in your embrace
I feel safe and warm, smiling,
Bright bubbly peach conflicted:
The myriad abstract potentials
Playing like fire in the heart;
Commitment or hurt both
Of which would burn forever…
Both of which I fear.

Words don’t come so easy when
Old hurts you thought lay buried
Rise with a thirst

And I wish I could have stopped you
Asked for a moment to think and grasp,
Form the words.

You are not him I know, you are not him.
I regret, having never known regret
Suddenly I do and

My regret is not having stopped you

Touched your face, let you hold me when
You sought to console and touch
And now I need

Your hands on me, arms brushing away
My sorrow for letting old hurts in.
Too late I call

And the words still did not come easy,
This is my first real try, like you,
With someone real.

As you say, all is well…but still….

This has taught me to regret.

You're so cool.

spillway...

Breaking
That Honoria is my strength
Is the why, the how I broke my soul,
And when the mending began
There was debasement of self for sure
But like all things but the breaking of me,
I touched most phases briefly,
Contemplating, understanding, quickly…

Forming
Like no other before me…impossibly
I grew on the words of Dickens and Joyce
I grew without support or input
I grew all my instincts like seeds unique,
The forms that came through anyway,
Breathed in the air, sun-baked in.

Need
I am happy in the now knowing
I stand where I am at and in no other place.
Looking for the knowing of another
“What are you looking for, cher?”
-the other side of me, the similarities,
the…opposites that compliment.

Struggle
I struggle like the deaf girl in me knowing
She heard the word but the pitch is lost,
The nerves were simply weak, gave in.
Some things are just there on the tip of the brain,
Tip of the tounge, the fingertips the smooth back
His hair and trail lightly in the moment…

Cool touch on too hot flesh
And all the thoughts racing lay docile.

Existance.
And being in the moment alive.

She was frightened but curious.
He had warned her “next time…”
And her heart raced a thousand
Beats a breath. So unaccustomed
But desiring the learning to become.
Next time and she was drunk
He let her go, and then lunch
With a kiss that thrilled and that night
Undecided she pushed, pulled, invited
She was frightened but curious.

more to the story...
And the blood was everywhere, dripping like sweat from his pores only it wasn’t sweat, it was blood. No thought, only my need for him inside me anyway, one last time. “One last time, Cher?” but he was already turning, skin ashen beginning to scale.

Sun-kissed gaity then
Feckless the day faded
And back again to find
Body solid aura warm and I
Existing in a moment,
As ear to chest, thump thump
The heart played on,
Rapid in the stillness of me
Simply feeling home.

story premise...

The steel was cold, damp from lying in my hands too much of the night and into the dawn. My hand was numb to the point of rigidity, left arm frozen in support. No way was I dropping that gun. No way was I dying that day. But hopefully my finger would stick when it came time to finally shoot. If I had to shoot. It was not so much cold that day as wet and gray, but anything was cold to me while I prayed for the sun. Mick’s breath was more than warm on the back of my neck but both lying prone in such a small space, him behind me, there was no choice. More than warm. Even as he lay half conscious from loss of blood there was evidence of his arousal in proximity to me…more than warm. Solid, my grip on the gun and Mick pressed against my ass. That’s all that kept me alert, my own loss of blood almost irrelevant. Almost. If I didn’t pass out soon, the craving would take me and I could smell his blood still pulsing under his shallow breathes. Daddy had fought too long to keep me from turning for me to turn now. Fought hard to keep me as I was, his blade of justice. But daddy was getting older and even his hatred couldn’t keep him alive much longer. That I was his seed had barely kept me alive in my infancy. That I was his tool of revenge though, kept me useful. His tool, their tool. And I never once used my own given weapon, always used steel heavy or sharp.

You're so cool.

You're so cool.

Thoughts trip lightly off the tongue
Off the fingertips that searched last eve
For strength stolen without a second’s
Dreaming. She slept well, Candyman.

I step back because I can
Because my thoughts reside
In the tomorrow of his death
In Saturday of his burial
And in two months of his birth
Date and

I step back because thoughts
Of him spur me to live and I
Am afraid of wrong decisions though
I also step back because I can,
Because…it’s alright and feels…
Good in the now like it could be sweet.

Sparkin’ takes a little time though and
It's an in person sort of thing.
It takes a mind and a body,
A smile that does stuff to ya.

I am not the greatness but the sweetness,
And in my independence I am still that girl left
To her own device, making her own way,
In need of cherished words and caress,
That girl that let’s her heart go by the way
For she will not beg, should not have to.

Thoughts that have no meaning more
Than that they tripped forth and others
Bleeding her soul like ink on paper
And the scratch scratch the pen makes..
That she finds so pleasing.

he

He is Daddy
He is Robert
He is God, Thanos, Eros,
He is the tall man
In swirls of aura jet
That holds me strong;
‘He’ often brings me comfort
And refers to many and none.

II
He deals it out
Like candy, like crack
And I the child, the whore
Takes it, craving the next fix
Letting him off.

on divorce and love

I loved you with all of me
As that there was none left, yet
Who can say the day of turning:
The fulcrum at best simply was
Instinctual and you
Were the interruption
Of the forming
That became me.
I loved you with all of me
Would that you could have
Loved me as well,
But now knowing what we do.

I never really took the time to think
Where it went wrong, only that it did.
Never really took the time to place the
Blame, only that it took two and I
Was simply one. Yes I took the time to note
Without you I could not have grown
And finally have said “honey it’s time
To move on…” And then, took the time
To truly know…it was done.

And now?
I love me with all of me
Which paves the way
For loving another
And I will find the one
That loves himself
Just as well, paving
The way for loving me.

Yesterday may have been
Mundane at best and a little stressed
But one of the happiest days
Of my life for the simple reason
I am alive and living,
The future left unknown
As I turn to it gently unassuming.

strings seemingly unrelated?

“Stream me, Poet”, says the words on the tip
in tongues forming, at the back of my mind
As yet inarticulate. In theory they reside,
Recalled when triggered or grasped by brightness
Conceived. They are in me seeking a voice.

Of obsidian he stands
In strengths embrace he holds
There I find I am complete.
Not in duality but in self,
Whole in spirit, whole in me.

Push pull I groove
Only knowing in the now
Soft smiles reach
Eyes of green
And cheeks blushed peach
Enjoying the reason for it.

Time is of the wanting
Time may come…
Settle your debts, your life,
But not your love…
Baby dear, be at peace
And know he’s near.

morning's poem, afternoon I am weary

And in the scheme of things
My darling brother, what,
What in retrospect really,
Really, what mattered?
I know you knew regrets
Whereas I have not.

It has all been just my story
Forming me in soft curves,
Harsh lines and a resilience,
(A perseverance?)
Most leave unmet, unlit.
They are sheep, happy
In their easy way that I
Find unworth living.

I think deep and smile
All the more bright and
Happy because of it.
I live like no other,
Celebrating the day
Of your demise as
The day of my living.

I am
Ever flowing forward,
One-hundred percent
Gloriously beautiful.
Living in the center
Of the sun where
The risk of burn licks
The hemming of my gown
Teasing as I smile
Gently, absently stroke
It’s muzzle soft and warm,
Coo to it softly in my
Soft Southern drawl.

I am
Home in the center
Of the sun where hues
In golden peach prevails
Soft and serene
Bright and giggly
Humming happily in the now.

I
Some things here are simply
Fiction found as soft
The dreamscape fades left
And twilight calls
In brightness dawning.
Some things here are simply
My soul in sweetness
Striving in articulations glare
As some things here are real.

II
Could have been his arms
More likely his mind but I
Was wrapped in safe solidity,
Safety solid of a smile and
Aura deep in royal velveteen
So jet the violet bled through.
He was all
Sparkly, warm.
And I,
Am fighting it.

Weakness so deep in despair
When I was four it was the wrongness
Of the world though then articulation
Was obscured by words as yet unmet.
Weakness so deep I weep
And regardless of its seeming triviality
I would take to keep for my own
The pain and hurt from those I love.
Weakness so deep it’s a joy
For loving strong and censured not
In passionate or emotional claim that
Any loss regret I not but honor know.
These weakness I admit as mine.

For me comes on
The night wind softly
Chill on fevered brow,
Thanos in the dreams
Of my youth so long
Ago seemingly since
I slept so deep.

Last night was two
Bullets to the brain
And I was sunk deep
In panic rising breaths
So shallow and searing
Pain at the skull’s base
But who could be so lost.

When Stevie Ray went
I knew when waking
Soft at peace after visions
Of blood flowing free
In warm water shallow
Leaving his girl waxen
In her broken English
“Is so unfair….”

Thanos’ hand possessive,
Comforting at spines base
As I turned from the grave.
And then…Tiny little O
Flowing from the pink
I mourned the night in
Passions keep and found
My release…Alone.

restless

Walkabout
In my skin and bone
Feel away awhile,
Poke and glean and see
In no measure am I
This façade.
In no measure are any.

And weary
To the screen come the soul
That bleeds like ink,
Vulnerable to the masses
Of censure’s ever
Watching glare

Maybe she wants her will
Abashed, maybe she wants
No one to hurt when she
Dies. Maybe it is time to
Finally let someone take
Care of her, “Get thee to a
Nunnery,” she hears in
Low tones from Thanos
Who came to her as a child
In dark dreams of comfort.

If she could take
A throat out
With teeth bare
Or press a small,
Clean blade to a
Pulse above a
Soft pink nipple,
Tongue testing
Warmth flowing
She could be
Satiated today
Like no other.

“once inside
your afraid they’d find
nothing to hold on
to?
--Cowboy Junkies
Ring on the sill

And what if she
Is not perfect,
Base humor and
Desires uncommon,
Analytical in depths
Undreamed,
Coldness amidst bright
White passions
Would you admire
Her uniquity?
Or run...

And what if she
Is all you wanted once
Perhaps in March 04’,
The profiling eerily
Too like her almost
Even for her own
Obscure tastes.

And what if once
Inside you find…

Something this way whispers
Murmur of the trees and night
Smiles that meet the lips
Fluidity of motion
Flesh
Crush
Flesh
Desire
Something base akin to thirst,
Hunger in the heart beating
Strong, breaths shallow.
Tactile grinding
Crush
Kill
Crush
Need.

Weep me none o’ that,
I am not the prey.

If you could see me.
Pinky, peachy, apricoty
And all bright smiles
Dazzlingly demure.

A call to all:
Send good thoughts
Accross the way
To Mina on this
We'll call hers, the
First March day...

Journal-esque

Happy day
Spent in thoughts
(Streaming ninety-miles to nothing.)
As are the rest.

Thoughts
I think too much but
It’s not like I can
Stop them. I grew
Up alone in a full
House, don’t think
I’d know what to do
Without them. They
Are just who I am;
Words falling out
Filling the white
Space sweetly.

Forgot how to play silly
Somewhere along the way when
I kept trying
But he kept not listening.
No, still knew how, just stopped doing.
I like the doing.

Set mother aside recently – again.
She never understood how her drama
Just keeps killing me or how history
Really, really can’t be rewritten.

Along that line,
When did my past become a story upon
Which I may reflect, knowing it is has
Formed me wondrously and yet no longer
Affectually. I outgrew it, stormed past
On a blazing day looking ahead. Yet it may
Still hold relevance in knowing me.

Yes I just want to live and love,
Write it all down. Feed my soul
Fortune cookies and alliteration.

Hmmm, yes, today
I think I may
Go a darling
Light strawberry
Blonde.