the walls of metal,
caves of steel,
that we made warm
with our four hands
are now returned
to what they were --
and there is nothing
strange in this:
that fabric, love, and flesh
should make
a living something
out of mineral and dust.
what is this light of loneliness
that brings to bear
significance
of things that passed
unnoticed but for those
who lived within this space?
tell me again
why everything
is singing in
the heart that was
and calling out for someone
who won't answer
i wrestled in my bed with sweat and demons
as madness tore into my febrile mind
the burning from inside that brooks no pretense
the loneliness that’s always there to find
across a rope-bridge chasm you were staring
amid a blaze of red and wild face
but no amount of shouting broke the silence
and no amount of running closed the space
but how your look seared into me with loathing
the river down below was all afire
i longed to bring you back and home to safety
but felt the platitude in my desire
in vision-tangled sheets i woke to humming
the sound of air-conditioned ambience
i rose to splash my face and drink some water
with little hope and little left of sense
i stare now at a screen that sits impassive
i’m not sure who i am or how i feel
it’s strange that after all the things i’ve been through
it’s only in my dreams
that life seems
real
This bayou opened to the bay
Which opened to the sea;
We sat as children in our love
Beneath this lonesome tree
They said we couldn’t know of love
Too young of years were we;
And yet true lovers we were then
If ever lovers be
This spot remains as then it was,
As in my memory;
The smell and taste of love’s first kiss
Beneath
This lonesome
Tree
(“This Lonesome Tree” – 4-21-2015)
she tried to let me down easy, but
there was nothing easy about me then.
she knew i wasn't it for her,
but she seemed all of that for me,
and i wondered where i'd failed, and what
i could have done or said or been
to turn me into what she'd want,
which sadly seemed just "other men",
and truly, not long after, she
began to date the man she wed.
the left behind feel "lesser than"
because we are. it's just a fact.
but being a man, i've found, is mostly
learning to deal with failure.
i failed for years at dating, then
i failed in my first marriage, then
i failed in being a father, then
moved on to my current failures, which
will identify themselves in retrospect.
but all we can do is the best we can,
and let go of the failures and move to the next,
for the dials turn, and the wheels go 'round,
and we cannot know, or perhaps, suspect,
where the next failure may be coming from.
but it all in the end's part of our tale --
for to live is to love,
and to love's, most certainly,
to fail
She asked me to come see her.
We walked beside the bay,
An omnipresent sky above
A fingerpainted day --
She asked me not to leave her.
I said I had to go,
For the sun goes down on everything
We'll ever feel
Or know
... they lived happily,
ever after, though,
further and further removed
from the circumstances and feelings
that had caused them
to come together
gradually replacing
those original emotions with
ones more tied to
present exigencies;
current limitations,
both the urgent, and the pointless,
until such time that,
unweighted by delight,
the fell into failing or maybe
failed at their falling
as the picture yellowed on
what had been
an unfaded love
they kissed inside the copse, and loved within the glade. these words fell out of use; their love's no longer made, for it, too, fell into disuse. but such are life's cruel dealings: we will lose definitions, the same way we lose feelings
If love is what you do, not what you say, and love is how you act, not how you feel, then follow-through is everything, I guess. The choreography is intricate, the moves of two, designed to be so sweet, that taste so bitter when there's only one.
when we have broken something, we first try to repair: we reach for tools, or tape, or glue, to find the rip or tear but sometimes, circumstances rise we cannot fix, because the thing we want so desperately's no longer what it was
