other shores.

On the coast
of some different shore
ages and ages ago
we shoved our feet in the hot sand,
and drowned ourselves in the cool waves,
and let the seaweed tangle us up,
like a mother’s blankets.
We’d watch the boats go in and out
and wade and waste away afternoons, child-like.

The blackberry trees were always ripe and full,
sweet and tart,
staining our hands, faces and feet.
And sun would set, 
tired and hungry,
with our pores full of that fishy smell,
we two together, with him in tow,
would climb the hill for our cake.

Days have gotten shorter and cooler.
Nights have gotten longer and darker.
There has been warm wind and stiff breeze
and sun
and sand
and seaweed
and blackberries.

The boats have come and gone,
and their passengers have long departed
and returned,
standing on that bow,
watching the sun go down,
thinking, “my, what a lovely beach”.

Until one day when way made way
amidst the whistle and hum
of a crowded city street.
And eye met eye, and gaze met gaze,
but nothing was spoken between.

You just sat suspended there,
shining orb-like,
red and gold and bright,
like tiny beads of fat in the cans of clams.

You’ve found your way to this day,
and on the journey, other shores,
as delightful, as carefree.

But ne’er to that different shore,
of years of yore,

that belonged to you and me.

contentment.

the reflected star lights in your eye
sparkling on unknown waters
leaned heavily upon my
shoulders, yoke-like,
a load too heavy for my slightness.

I tried to fight this fight
although I’ve known
it ain’t a fair one,
although I’ve known
the odds aren’t betting odds.

but as the lush velvet curtains drew
and the tab was paid
and the cabs were called
and the word was spoken
the band changed its tempo

to that melancholy tune from afar…
the one that is bitter in its sweetness
and lovely in its slowness.
it pierced the air
piano key by piano key

pulling the air, sucking it in,
stabbing and stinging and searching
for that one perfect shot that connects,
the one that remedies,
the one that is just right for the job.

it had gone already
glancing past that strong chin
soaring just beyond that 
delicate brow
and settling right back where it began,

a universally collective sigh.

to whom it may concern:

I should be worried about you right now. I should be thinking about the facts at hand…the distance, the pressure, the pace, the possiblities, the lies and the unadulterated truth. my mind should be racing between calling you, or texting you, or waiting… a day, or two, or twelve. I should be consumed by you…

but I’m not.

all I can think about is the smell of the air blowing through my office window. and vanilla frozen custard dipped in toasted coconut from the freeze. and the beach. and bleachers at wrigley. and how hot vegas is in 105 degree weather. and fall-off-the-bone ribs. and the way the red white and blue fireworks reflect on to lake michigan on the 4th of july. and how beautiful the open road looks under a glaring sun, just glimmering with sights and scenes of americana unknown, yet somehow still foreign and exotic. and fairs with cotton candy and ferris wheels. and cold, cold beer on a boat cruising through the chain. and my birthday.

I truly think that people who live in year-round warm climates cannot possibly understand the feeling that is summer. because it is a feeling, and not just a season. it is nostalgia. it is aphrodesia. it is a three month long, hot, torrid, passionate fling with life. and I love it more than just about anything.

lately on several occasions I’ve recalled those nights I used to spend at the barn. the tailgates down, the bonfires, the strawberry wine, and skinny dipping, and what it meant to be 17 and completely carefree, and have the entire world at my fingertips. to be wanted in ways that I didn’t even understand, and to want nothing. I think it’s time to get back to that. it’s time to get back to that summer.

That summer, I wrote this:

we spoke like two loves of long ago
but with a certain bitterness emanating and diffusing,
from and between the two of us.
amidst the calculated content of our conversation
all that I can recall

are the two a.m. escapades,
so young, throwing beer cans at trains,
crushing quarters smooth on the steel tracks,
and running back to your house breathlessly
with the ghostly whistles ringing in our ears
growing more faint and haunt in the distance.

the sticky summer air
that made our clothes cling
sweetly to our bodies
moist with sweat.
the tops of trees aflame,
sacrifices in our worship to the pregnant august sun.
your index finger wandering slowly along my lower back,
arching in efforts to escape.

the night the eight of us
removed our clothes, and our skin,
bare to each other, and the world, and the freeway,
and everyone else disappeared for some moments
and we made love to each other in our minds.
we swam by starlight, and streetlight,
and savored all the simplicity of shadow
and sunrise, and knew
we were losing ourselves.

Do I dare ask if our thoughts are still connected?

until the music is over

somewhere on the cosmic map
of space and time
there are planets orbiting
and star signs aligning
around a simple truth

a. simple. truth.

somehow I am time traveling
back to a place, wondering what
this world is like
and what I need to do
to be a part of it
before it passes me by
or before the sickness overtakes
and I’m laying there in bed

and it’s all flying so fast
past the windows of the houses
and the passengers on the train
and the lenses of the man on his way,
to wherever he is going.
spinning like a giant carousel
in time
to that music
and I can’t get off, but I want
to. but it won’t let me
until the music is over.

so here I am, with air
filled lungs, and blood
shot eyes, and ink
stained hands, just searching
searching.

and you look at me like maybe
I’m the answer
like it is all together in me
and there is some focus behind
these roving, restless eyes
instead of this racing and vulnerability.

as if I am supposed to know the way,
the way to the end,
the way all of this works
for you and me.
and I just don’t. I want
to. but, it won’t let me
until the music is over.

witching hour

upstairs
the lights are dimmed
to chaste but insinuating
silhouettes adjacent

pink hues of silk
transform honesty
and make the conscience linger
for an instant

too late
for children’s bedtimes
or painted finalities
elicited stroke by stroke

so lie
bare beneath the curtains
exhaling exposed and
concave

skeleton

To look to touch
not with fingers, but eyes only.
Pure and polished
peering into the prism.

While the cicadas,
in seventh-month aubergine twilight
hum quietly, in furtive transformations
below.

Between the complications of
sultry air and sand, and contradictions
of the restive blood and resistant vein,
mingle sighs of relief at the first sight
of skin.

Slowly, gently
the diaphanous shell
tears and spreads, and emerges.
Exposed after seventeen years.

The depths of dormancy broken,
shattering the silence
with the dull roar of remorse,
and absence of resolution.

The fragile carcasses
sit like sullen shadows
in the shade of their disquietude,
a haze of uncertain longing.

Yet, still, I search for a place
where our bones could be buried together.

depression in relief

Deep breath
of wet weight limp upon my limbs,
intruding
a sorrowful goodbye, a sacred place.

wait, Wait.
I have grown old.
Fermented, with weathered palm lines
and wisdom beneath my fingernails,
rotting and splitting,
infested.

Too late to steal away in darkness,
take flight out my window
and meet my counterparts.
No,  they’ve streaked their
renunciation across the sky-
a banner for all eyes.

My cancer grows
in tandem with
shuddering regrets.
I can not carry this load.
I bow to the ground,
polishing that black worry
stone smooth.

just keep telling yourself…

so here it is.  here I am.  still here.  still in the same town, for 23 years. still in the same mindset.  finally with a chance to change it all.  but really, the chance has been here all along, I have nothing keeping me here anymore, except myself.  I’m just finally opening myself to it.  opening myself to the idea of figuring out who I really am, or at least figuring out the parts I don’t already know.  

because really, how do you find yourself in the same place you’ve always been? the same.  but i’m not happy with it.  well, maybe that’s not the right word.  maybe it is.  maybe it depends on the day.  I’m not satisfied. I want more.  I want to know who I am in a different place, where all of the people and places that made me who I am for the last 23 years are gone.  I want to know who I am underneath them all, without them all…just me. only me.  I want to know about what I’m made of.

but I am so scared.  of so many things.  loneliness.failure.silence.disappointedexpectations.life….really that’s it. I’m scared of the life I want to live. or maybe scared that the life I want to live doesn’t exist. or scared that I will go to the wrong place to find it.

one day it’s the west coast, and I’m california dreaming.  the next day it’s the desert, and in my mind I am rolling down a highway in the middle of nowhere the hot sun blaring.  the next day I’m listening to some George Jones and tennessee sounds like a plan.  but, really, it is just anywhere but here.

so I just keep telling myself that my days here are numbered. to exactly 187. because the more I tell myself that, the more it seems like less of a choice and more of an obligation.  the more I tell myself that the more I believe it.  On that note…

Taken

There is nothing left in this

street except shadow cast,

still lingering,

and a cigarette burned out,

still smoldering

and one breath of discontent.

 

That, somehow I miss some changes in time,

a time before mine,

and a place I’ve never known

but have longed for in the pre-dawn

haze that surrounds

and clouds my vision, reminiscing.

 

I want to be taken.

 

Taken with force and pain,

if necessary,

to tenement buildings in history books,

and oyster shell restaurants flanked by waves,

and waves of mountains,

in foreign lands in dreams

of sleepless nights

with subtitles, terrified

but laughing,

to the mattresses of flea infested motels

of ten cent towns,

mystic and misty back alleys

of blues bars in the country

of promise and prostitutes,

where reckless longing

for midnight hours at midday meet

restless lust for lives and places that I hope for

and imagine exist,

and the most perfect song I can imagine

and have heard skipping in my mind

like an old record.

To this, I raise my bottle and my stakes.

 

I run ahead to catch up with you

and walk alongside you,

still out of breath,

and here we are, ages apart

on that nameless street

with your nameless face

and my full, full heart.

Apostates and Apostles

I saw you there, aglow,
in that midwestern, twelfth-month, noon-night,
standing in the snow.
In all your charming beauty fair,
all blue eyes, and white blonde hair,
carrying your parceled heart,
just waiting for a love to call the cross you bear.

It came quickly, and left the same,
just as the season, fleeting,
fleeing with the cold and blame.
And you played it, oh so well…
dressed in black, your shroud laid out
for all to see and all to tell.
Something to hold to their chest so tight,
while reciting all their lovers prayers at night.

In the midst there, I stood alone.
Dark eyes roving, raven hair flowing,
like Death’s Horse known,
galloping onward to a victory so great,
our legacy, the story of our blood and bones.
We can’t refuse, we need each other to create,
for me to give, and you to take,
for me to deliver, and you to break.

Ecclesiastes 7 and 1

it was your birthday.
I took my heels off
and stumbled barefoot
down that city street

homeless, penniliess, careless,
faded, and fading into that kindly chaos.
celebrating, you
followed hesitantly

looking for an escape route,
quick and painless.
by the time you found it, I
was gone, tap dancing on a table

questioning which way was up
and why the blur
of the buzzing and barking
had stopped

suddenly your face illuminated-
those neon lights in your eyes,
and one honest smile
held for more than a moment.