A Poem For Ben

The first time I met you, I thought your house was neat.
Tucked back in a little jungle,
And you answered the door in your white shirt
(The one with the snaps)
So handsome
Mostly confident
With a hint of shy
Just a touch there around the eyes,
Pomegranate reduction simmering on the stove.
And I knew it would be easy to love someone who made
Pomegranate reductions, for sure.

Your look is piercing,
Molten chill
Shakes me to dust.

I don’t know where your eyes have been
Or your hands all this time,
All the nights I could have used them,
When the black and the lonely
Froze my bones in aching chambers.

But now they’re with me.
And funny, I close my eyes
And try so hard to remember the winter
And all I see is green.

Blades of grass and fat dandelions,
Brittle buds softening towards the sun.

I am transformed.

Your touch.

At the small of my back
And galaxies sprawl out before me.

Time

Time is misbehaving.  

Not that it’s behaving badly,

it’s just…  not behaving at all…

 

It’s total bedlam baby.

 

There are no sixties no twenty-fours

Certainly no sevens or thirties.

And I don’t know yet for sure,

not yet, 

But I’m betting there are no three hundred and sixty fives either.

 

The universe threw up its hands knowing

it  could never explain

How my forever got crammed into the 

shape of two weeks,

Or the laughter that burst up 

and sizzled like stardust

When  a page from the calendar fell to the floor.

Calendars, I laugh!  They are nothing but boxes!

Squares to draw hearts in, but beyond that, a joke.

 

Why a clock, why a sun, when my soul alone can measure eternity?

I have lost my taste for time

Now that I’ve swallowed endless galaxies.

I Said I’m Forgetting

I said I’m forgetting you,

And I am, make no mistake.

I never think about the way you closed your eyes

And turned your head into my hand

That night, the very first time I reached up to touch your face.

Your breath soft between parted lips as you made room for my fingertips,

How you kissed them with such tenderness and allowed them to explore…

I hardly remember that at all.

Or your cadence and the words you whispered

Just before we parted,

Words the sun chased off come morning,

Much too scary for the daylight.

I never think about the way you walk up stairs

or how you hum

Or how I love to see you bundled up

And cozy in your jammies.

I’ve forgotten how you like your whiskey

How you danced with headphones on,

Don’t bother thinking about

Your laugh, a little burst a beat behind.

I said I’m forgetting

Your hands

I love your hands

No, loved

I hardly can recall

How good it felt to feel your fingers 

Feel your palms pressed into mine,

Phantoms now, forgotten, all the lines,

The deep deep lines

Your slender nails on slender fingers

Can’t remember them at all.

I said I’m forgetting you, and I am

But dammit how am I to do it,

When you’re everywhere,

Inside my self…

When I don’t want to, really.

A poem for the loved

So it’s time to let you go, I think…

Not from my heart completely,

Never that,

The love I carry I hold sacred

No, our friendship springs eternal dear,

But there are flowers springing up in fields

That you have dreamed of,

Fields where fragrance heals a wounded soul,

And now I look to see

My own fields,

How I left the flowers wilting there

As I ran off with hopes to bring you back to see

How rich the colors bloomed,

How silly!

No, it’s time to let you go, to free myself

And wish you well

And go on loving both of us,

Content

To do just that,

To love with loosened grip

And sunlight

Lighting both our fields

Which roll along for miles,

How you’ve changed me,

Left me shimmering

My dear

With heart wide open

Wishing you would crawl inside

When never once you asked to,

Still

I thank you love,

But now it’s time for me to go.

Just for Tonight

Where are my sticks?

Buried, splintered, in stairwell under boxes.

Kick drum, tom-toms, snare drum hi-hats

Stacked,

So quiet

When tonight I need their rhythm.

Need to sweat

Eyes closed

Need to lose this world a little,

Need my feet to do their work,

The right one pounding

Left releasing

Need to fill my head with nothing,

Not this heart

And all it’s longings

Keep my wrists loose

Just a moment

Need to slam it out of me

I need to shove it back out to the breeze with

Metal rims

With burning calves

With blazing shoulders

Jungle beats

With 3/4 waltzes

Eighths and quarters 

Breath 

And rides and crashes

Empty.

 

Rock myself empty just for tonight.

Feel free just for tonight.

Liquid Middle

Turned on

Liquid middle

The world is on fire.

Even the tiniest creatures blind me

Out of sleep.

You should see how they glance,

With their mouths full of light.

hand wiping and soap pumping

Alright.  What’s with the folks who hand you paper towels, or pump your soap, or try to spray you up, or lotion you up in public bathrooms and then want you to tip them for it? Guess what folks, I left my wallet in my other pants.  My FUCK OFF pants.  Not that, in a recession, I wish that these vital positions be eliminated; I’m not heartless for god’s sake… just a little irritated.

Like the other night.  I’m at the Belly Up Tavern.  I mean tavern, are you with me?  By definition, I feel lucky they even have stalls and that we’re not all doing our business down a wooden hole somewhere… so who felt fancy enough to hire hand wipers?

It totally ruins the bathroom vibe.  It’s like, I came here to pee, not be judged and manipulated.  But all of a sudden I’m avoiding eye contact with another human being cause I don’t want to feel like a stinge-bot.  Once I thought, fuck it.  I’m going to talk to this person, even though I have no intention of tipping, we’re people, it’s cool.  Not so.  I thought I’d make some light conversation, so I told her that Malcom X used to have her same job.  Now, I realize, that isn’t the coolest thing to say to someone…  but come on, I’m drowning here!  It’s the only thing I could think of to say.  But she wanted none of it.  She didn’t say one-single-word and I felt like an ass, and when you make me feel like an ass, guess what, I don’t tip you.  Not that I had planned to which I’m sure she sensed which encouraged her rude behavior.

So that’s that.  Phew I feel much better  

Lighthouse

Dear one, with clouds moving across crystal eye,

I know you.

Disremembered twin of my souls  birth,

Take heart;

Darkness seems blacker to creatures of light,

Our open hearts so often broken.

Take heart, it’s not the time to fold into your wings,

You’re needed, sweet lighthouse, 

When the fog is at its worst.

The Roots of the Lonely Tree

Loneliness.

I think most would say it’s born of the separation or isolation from each other… Religious men might disagree and say it is the separation from God… What’s the difference?

I’m remembering some ideas I had about God and about the need and purpose of relationships… don’t know where they came from, but I wanted to revisit  them and see if they still felt true to me… this time in trying to understand where loneliness comes from.

Where to begin?  Everything bleeds into every other thing…  I am calling the one great energy “God”… that which includes all of creation, every atom in existence… 

I imagine God like a great mirror.  How does a mirror know it’s true nature?  It can never see itself, but can only see  and understand things outside itself.  UNLESS.  Unless it is shattered, fragmented, made into a million little mirrors… then all of the pieces, lying next to each other can reflect each other… and thus the mirror can finally see itself and what it truly is… a million different shapes, some smooth, some with jagged edge… all of which comprise the whole.

Then it would make sense to me that humans are indeed these fragments… small reflections of God, each possessing a different shape and beauty, all made in the image and carrying the same properties and power of The Creator.

God, through human beings, gets a deeper insight into its true nature; an opportunity to love each piece; the good, the bad and the ugly, and humans, in turn, learn about their own nature, as seen in the reflection of others.

When we are without another person who is close enough to reflect our own beauty, we suffer.  We cannot fully comprehend the nuances of our individual souls and human behaviors by wandering alone; we need others to reflect that back to us.  When we are separated from each other, we are separated from God.  Which can only result in losing sight of ourselves.  The holy trinity, if you ask me.  God.   Others.  Self.  There is no difference, they are all the same thing, we are one, the beat goes on.  

xoOXOOxoOXoxooxoOXoOXo

Weeping

Weeping, I think, is meant for the times

When we can no longer distinguish joy from sorrow,

When one feels as beautiful as the other …

When they are so thoroughly entwined.