nearing nine years

Nearing nine years,
there are days when the tears
are not for missing you
but for the realization
of my failure
in thinking of you
for even a single day.

if not for the sun-bright

lowdownbreakdown-
a funk of which seems
and yet is
not nine non nuf nill

it’s the cold

I hate winter hours when
I am not cocooned
wrapped in the fire of flesh

if not for the sun-bright
I would wither

of that I was unsure

I dreamt last night
you said I love you, soft
of that I was unsure
and came awake knowing
it was wrong, that
I don’t know you at all

I walk about

Bookshelves under the bar;
in the living room near the kitchen;
in the hall to the tiny study
which contains a legal width,
four foot tall WWII file cabinet
that smells of musk and old paper
in drab, drab olive green, a
desk, a printer credenza;
in the too slim hall to the bedroom;
in the bedroom opposite the foot
of the bed -
the bedroom where
dresser, side tables and storage bin
are to be found.

I walk about with bruised
shins, knees, thighs
murmer to myself.

Where are you?
My home feels empty.

in the garden fertile

It didn’t come on
sudden
I’ve watched it
like a lizard on the ledge
in the sun
admitted to
movement below catching
my gaze half-lidded.

I’ve watched it
growing
in the garden fertile

Drawn by the warmth
and the space
it consumes
a’feared to approach
but the burn may be more stronger
than a little lizard
can coolly
walk on by.

A logical progression or when to be sure he absolutely digs you

not forgetting
your laptop needs upgrading
and telling you
he'll make it happen

i admit to nothing yet

Every day I dig
deep into flesh
‘round ribs
to my heart
tug and tug till

I cup you
in my hands
watch you
like a lizard
on the wall
on the
hot concrete sunning

(am I that warm to you?
that you are drawn?
Let me
be that warm to you)

put you back
watch you sleep
walk about with you
in my heart
deep.

into week seven

Chelsea walks from room-to-room
looking, sniffing, checking
couch, bed, patio chair, ash tray
and then some.

I tell her
she’ll see you soon
but the words fall deaf on a dog’s ears
hollow when what she really hears
is my own missing you.

is this falling

When you go
some-bit of good is gone and
I watch over-long
in the light of day left
with imprints of flesh
I touched and tasted taut-wet
left looking past and to
that morrow and morrow
after-morrow when
nothing but a girl am I
that gets lost, wonders…

is this falling
or have I felled?

into the deep blue sky

Too fast
too rushed my life

grey matter gone reckless
to the point of little thought

If I could hold onto you for a moment
hold onto the wishes
I wish on stars

Let my heart race
while the world stills
and dream
with you naked late
into the deep blue sky

of her own accord

She has got through
the hours
on her own accord
taking charge
and charging forth
always
the endeavorance to persevere
always rest
a beacon on the morrow

Some days though
she is weary
and the solid space you possess
beckons like a ballast:
you are new to her
with travails
akin to hers

'tween nurture and slaughter

We women of worth
doubt of which we hold
close, let fester,
how then to lock it away
if not massmurder?

To one,
to which, to whom
of wealth is a lover’s lust
and love
probably-possibly-perhaps
yet not yet counted upon
the doubt of unknowing,
thrills and thwarts.

And her worth?
On the fence
‘tween nurture
and slaughter.

I want...

I want to drive
to the coast and walk the beach
Hear the rain
on a tent as I drift asleep slowly
Take the train
down to carney rides, bolts
loose, I’ll scream
to the thrill of my own heart
beating, ba-boom
Scream for my team, home runs
hit hard, hitting
hard
hard

I want to wake slowly
most days,
teasing
having lingered too long touching
in the eve,
cooing
in the starlight past midnight
Snuggle into
that warm body that takes up
too much
of the bed


I want…

tempura

The onions are best
when they’re sweet
Vidalia or Texas 1015,
the batter mixes best
when the water is ice
cold, and the rings fry
best when the oil is
an inch and half deep…

We have eaten, you have left.

Running my nose
along the length
of wrist and palm,
I can still smell you
on my hands
and on my clothes.

more little things

the little things
overwhich we worry

you make me want to get my oil changed

best laid plans

All she wanted to do is write,
and love, but life
takes-hold-takes-form
something to do while she waits
the motions become her
she scripts her needs
fashioned and formed from thought
will-do-should-do paradigms of
the best laid plan…

Then he walks in
with a swagger and a kiss and
and converses her with an
in-your-face of tugs and pulls
and lengths and widths
and suddenly in the fall,
all she wants to do is write

and love.

I want my life

There are
little things
and there are
little things:
those that matter most
and those
that matter least.

I want my life,
my love to be
all about
the little things…

first

What she thought would be
three weeks out
an eve of fun at the fair
corn dogs and carny rides
suddenly became a quickened heart
and shallow breaths
the desire to touch and
the wonder of
would he kiss me?

all she ever wanted…was everything

remembering the lost lays
of a genX girl
the ballads
as much as the boys
and their names on the tip of her tongue
she never knew as they came
as she suckled and swallowed.
felt
finally feeling
something

how many?
not many.
is one too much?
when all she ever wanted…
was everything
and all she ever got
was cold

she made memories

she made memories
running her cheek, her nose
along his length
the down near his hip
arms gripped as her back tensed
the crease of his neck where
she first put the part of her lips
then bit soft
taut nipples where she tugged
suckled like the blind
starved for sight
her hands slick with soap
along his length
watching him watch her
as the towel caught
cherried moments
of transcendent little deaths
wishes on stars
she made memories

in the starlight where she wishes

in the starlight where she wishes

she walks about with him
behind her gray-green eyes behind
her crooked smile

he rattles like a gris-gris sewn
beneath her shell of flesh beneath
puckered scars

she let him burrow
she let him rest

she let his shadow linger
in the starlight where she wishes

On beauty - Journalesque

Sometimes within the mind there is a disconnect. Reality, actuality are not what is…perceived. And perceived reality, perceived actuality are your truth.

It’s more than difficult to dig yourself out of this hole.

In hindsight, however, I think I may have been an incredibly beautiful child and a lovely young woman. Not in manner, but in looks lacking mainstream ideals.

Yet no matter the affection in youth, no matter the love won or lost in marriage, (sparse and rare, what I recall),

Reality, actuality, and the truth of the matter found me only recently.

To gaze into a lover’s look, to hear one question why he had not seen how beautiful I was until that first moment of passion, to hear appraisal come in friendship from good women…

To see what was in me all along, reflected back from others…

To realize all those years I had been digging…

Finally to see the sun.

Absolute Beginner - Journalesque

Amidst the swell of a hope that springs eternal is the innate sadness of the world, for the world. The feeling first manifested, in my feeble cognition, sometime around age four. Around the same time I became aware of myself juxtaposed against the other. The other being all those people, places, things, and concepts outside me and outside that child-parent bond, that Freudian concept of family. At four I emerged from that child-bond shell, looked about, decided things were all wrong. And what does any sane child do when faced with an innate wrongness of the world? Build a new and improved shell – thicker, stronger, better – and internally weep for years over a thing I could not articulate.

Hey, we do what we do to live and get by.

My friend Matt has said I am so internalized I am unaware of others. Or something like that, though I forget precisely. He said it quite a while back. But since I think to be unaware is to not empathize, I stopped to…well, make myself more aware. My shell having shattered years before when Robert died and further as I grew, perhaps a few shards remained before I could emerge whole, and new?

We do what we do to live and get by.

And I realized that’s what was going on. When I was four and decided in my small vocabulary “the world is wrong”. But just because it was being done doesn’t make it right, what we do to get by.

So I have plucked the slightest of shards clear and licked the wounds to a shiny glow. I have emerged from my shell, not starting over, but an absolute beginner.

Globally Whole - Journalesque

I was born with bright red hair that turned platinum sometime before I was two, and has since – over the years – faded into dark blonde and come around to something akin to motley: blonde, red, black. At forty I have suddenly found two silver strands at my temple and one my brow.

Motley. American mutt of Basque, Cherokee, Irish and Adirondack and a sir-name of Portugal descent. Fourth(?) generation American? Native? With surety I can claim the recessive Irish genes are mine. I can claim them with my hazel eyes and now blonde-red hair. My skin the red of Indian – paternal and maternal. My isolationism, Basque. My passion, Portuguese? The list of labels is endless.

I am fractured. Finding myself late in life. Globally whole perhaps. Without a cultural identity. Compartmentalized.

images imprinted

She'll let the scent of him linger
long past his leaving
and the images imprinted
in the hours
serve her dutifully
on the days,
in the nights
she finds her own release
repeatedly.

now-now

I want to consume you
in the fire of flesh
and knowing,
now-now;

instead I simmer
slow and low
in a tempo
of rhythmic breathing.

I lay still,
soul-strengthened,
as the thing about me
writhes.

little voice

he draws the music
from her womb
through her throat
dancing in her eyes.
Boo, he calls her
calls it forth
and her soul-spirit-
body-mind-libido-thing
sings in a soft little voice.

before and aft

I want to live in the mouth of madness
naked in the days
in the sun
in the slow syllabic utterance of my own mind;
clothed,
draped in his flesh sometime 'round
the witching hour
and through and through
before and aft
impaled while kissing sweet.

he reminds me

She can still feel
the flesh of them gracing
soft across her lips
beauty to weep by,
hard where their minds dwelt
within the womb of her spirit,
their flame drawn to her moth
her silence
how she,
wrapped in her own pleasure,
drew seed from them
with soft suckles
Them both and yet truly
the one really
the one, Ra, from the Latin
educar, he drew from her.

s-crawl

And I am on the brink of a low-down
that thing of my own becoming that spirals

I see my bootstraps
in the corner calling
cooing
wooing
mocking phallic, I salivate

Always in the everworld
a glinted ghost I can never grasp:
life
livable
Leviticus

the bootstraps call,
“YOU KILLED IT ALL
when you left the ball
of burden
of stagnation
of decay

Living in the light
you glow
but should have known
that with it
comes the coming, Eve.
that akin to light a darkness dwells
or at least
a cool funk

and the strength of nations gone to war
their women left behind”

at the speed of light

Time...
little Capricorn-girl...
to make a plan.

Eight years
is a long time to mourn your brother;
so now you know
you can kill a man.
You can look into a helpless eyes and tell him
“You are going to die.”
Now you know you can help him to it.

Eight years
is a long time to mourn yourself;
so now you know
you can kill a feckless girl
one that could only grow so far without Death
You can look into her soul and tell her
more than words convey.

Eight years
is a long time to live
at the speed light.

Time...
little starry-eyes...

the last few splinters of your supernova
are trickling in,
the core is re-forming.
Now you know
you can survive the shatter
and come back another way.

just a girl

She's just-a

outta sight

outta mind girl

potentially dealing with-a

absence makes the heart

grow fonder man

and wants-ta say hey

could we just make-a

baby

and skip the rest

but may be in

for the ride.