Tag: Memories

Bayshore

An autumn evening.

But a brief moment the sunset lasts
With a growing chorus of crickets then
Comes the dark

Across the bayou, lights I start to see;
And I hear from far away the sounds
Of the distant high school football game

Autumn wraps its arms around me
Sitting on the side of a hill
Looking at the shadows and lights on the water
Feeling the breeze blow my hair

And a faint smell of wood-smoke is in the air
And the scent brings strong memory
As though reliving moments in the flesh
And not merely in thought
Of bygone days spent by the bayshore
Of your golden hair catching the last rays of sunset

Occasionally, a car goes by
And I watch the headlights trailing off
Around the bend

And life, or at least my life, this life
Has unity

(Photo by me. Originally Posted 11-14-2015. – Owen)

Kitchen Breakaway

That morning, we awoke,
And I remember: runners on the beach,
And there was music, somewhere,
Through the open window,
As we munched our toast,
And drank our drinks in silence.

“What will you do?” I asked,
As though I hadn’t several times before,
And you said, “I arrive in Dallas
Around 6, I think, and then
It’s off to school. The program starts at 8.”

Twenty minutes later,
On the shell driveway,
We said a quite banal goodbye,
Me with my duffel bag,
And my old car was soon back on
The shoreline road, for 23 miles until,
I got back to the Interstate.

A breakup is like a knockout punch:
But this was more like
Us calling off the fight because
You had a better offer out-of-town,
And me understanding, because
It made sense for business.

Of all the mornings we’d spent in that kitchen
The one I remember best is me eating dry toast
And drinking a flat Dr Pepper
And wishing the runners on the beach

Had taken me with them

Looking Back on Forever

Looking back on forever, it’s
Strange to think now
Just how fast
It went

The days
You traversed
The far reaches of my
Soul, and filled the universe –

Like a brighter color than any
I’d ever seen or imagined
That was on and in
Everything

But now —
You are like teal:
A lovely, familiar tinge
I might see on chairs – commonplace

Oh, once, all time bent around you –
All my time, at least – and
Even my breathing was
Full of you

My eyes only
Whole in your presence,
My ears heard only your music,
My hands were warm with your skin’s touch

Life and time, however, are corrosive to
Love: wearing it down, slowly,
Imperceptibly, until
It’s gone.

And we, once
Knowing only love, found
The tide had gone out and had taken
Our forever – someplace – far away & longer ago

Looking back on forever, I can see now that we
Gave and took like waves, and like
Waves, we disappeared into
Nothingness

Forevering
As people will do, for a
Relatively short amount of time, before
All went dark before the slow setting of the sun

 

(“Looking Back On Forever” – 5-6-2016)

daylight tulips

She felt joy
In daylight tulips
Beyond reach

Seen through a window
From a bed
She would never leave

Known to few
As years receded
Fading fire

Flowers that shone, like
Other days
And graceful moments

So sang the meadow

A mom in shadow

A Resonance

I heard across the span of years the sea.
A younger smaller form of you-and-me:
Our latent powers weakened by the storm,
Each pressured in our ways to fold, conform —

But on that shore, we held to skin on skin,
Our bronze desire: to escape again
Into a world we hoped we could make last,
And be unchained from still more distant past.

But on the brink, a sudden hesitance;
The sea-sound of our hearts, a resonance
That echoed over shores where blue turned gray,
And blew our fragile happening

Away

Roni’s Engagement

She called to tell me that she was engaged –
Me, dating some love spasm at the time –
Who I brought with me to meet them for drinks
Which I think were Coronas – yes – with lime

And she still looked a perfect movie star
And so did he, if truth, in fact, be told;
They were so good together: he was kind.
And I was happy for the ring of gold

She wore now on her finger as a sign
That she with him would now forever stay.
A thing I thought unlikely at the time,
Although they’re still together to this day

It’s funny: I write poems all the time.
I dredge these stories up from memory:
And find sometimes I didn’t know my heart
Until I write these down in poetry

We’d flirted with each other, and had tested
The waters of erotic friendliness;
When that part of our friendship was abandoned
I found, I didn’t love her any less

I loved her more as friends; for she was regal,
And meant for kindness as a life reward:
And she was happy now – I know she still is –
With someone who loved her
Who she
Adored

Roni

Roni

When Roni had me pick her up,
I almost lost my mind:
A lonely dude at twenty-three
The restless dating kind

We got dressed up to go to see
The local symphony;
Italian dinner, wine, and then
A drive down by the sea

She touched my face with both her hands
And I’m sure it went scarlet:
If this had been a movie script
She’d be the stunning starlet

And I, the semi-funny schlump
Who somehow gets the girl:
But we weren’t in a movie script
And that was not our world

Instead, we chatted in the dark
Beside the waters glowing;
I’d brush the hair back from her face
So long and brown and flowing

And I don’t know that she could know
Just what that was for me;
For her, some dating throwaway,
For me, a memory

Of moonlight and of Roni
All alone out very late:
As we fogged up the windows,
Just two people, on a date