The Vortex...

{Image to come}

Debating shoes was pointless – we were both in bare feet –

but it was fun to make dilemmas for solving:

I heard echoes of her challenges whoosh past my eyes

beneath the hum of my bike-tires revolving.

And really I just wanted to argue again,

              “Let's have lunch.”

She agreed,                               “The cafe,”

and at five-after-two called            “I'm here, where are you?”

from a patio ten miles away.

After this crash, then that crash, I learned to be far;

just to listen and believe she was good.

Every fist fracture, cracked rib and stiff scar she showed me

was an alien – aged, understood

only barely in my daylight (she was inked, sun-cooked, upright;

I was unbroken, shade-white, and falling

through firsts, and then nexts, and then more firsts with her).

Does she feel alone when she's calling;

when she talks at my eyes and they stare back for weeks.

            “Does their silence mean

                         judgment?”Oh, darling –

                                                                    “For all that they know,

                                                                    you began a black hole—but

                                                                              their opinion of you is evolving.”

Our ends & centers...

{Griffin Observatory photo: C. Vanderstouwe}

 It's a well-worn image: two lovers

pressed together, skin on skin, waist

over thigh & cheek on chest, hands

finger-laced & breaths trading.

It's a tired idea: a dissolution

of distance, after having  seen,

tasted, touched every tissue;where

all that remains is to purr & wonder ...

     *

She assumes I am thinking—behind

my calm, seriously bent eyes—

something deeper than “I wonder

what my fingertips feel like on her.”

And she means—oh I don't know—

something like {I want you made into

part of me} when she laughs & hums

“You're funny” into my short ribs...

And we are both unsure of anything

in this fragile-membraned combination

 of mundane forms—

cliché as time, as the universe.

                                                  *

Impetigo...

{wrists photo credit: D. Cote}

The infection begins to clear

off my arms (where it looked like acne;

now looks dry and barely

red), With healing-itches.

And that is a call for

Celebration, for eating just past full:

to where I can forget what

hunger is and don't really

want anything, But just am—

On a couch, with a cat

(dog-like in his affection for my

hand along his fur-socked

skull) and with crumbs

I will leave resting

on the table

'Til tomorrow,

Where they will be

Wanted (tasting sweet again, oh

desire Makes my senses full)—

This tickle of salt and slip

of oil will raise, again,

a dimple. I think

All pleasures

In life are

          dark on the backside,

        gone as they come,

       all as they are: just

     just echoes of some-

   thing

simple.

Spirit...

{plank-people photo credit: B. Hamadey}

At the start

was an explosion;

that was the

beginning

of spirit.

Earth,

the spirit of weight,

Pulls down,

roots in itself

solidly, solid. Solid.

Wind,

the spirit of momentum,

seems a trifle in brief

but then persists,

constant and total in its direction.

Lightning,

the spirit of opportunity,

seeks out the surest

path, finds the high point

in a field and is THERE

so soon that

              the ground

       sparkles

    on end

         before

 it ever

arrives.

Water,

the spirit of flexibility,

follows what channels

the obstinate provide:

between rocks,

over walls,

a patient trickle,

a potent tide.

Life,

the spirit of madness,

compels itself to be here,

to spread and to die,

to eat to make waste to

be eaten, in any and every

direction, just to fly.

People are

vessels for spirit—

artful storytellers

and justifiers, but still—

we cannot create,

conceive of,

states without motion:

there was no 'before'

spirit; is nothing after

its come-to-rest

As we settle, the world grows dark.

Like the still before a spark.

A plane passes the kitchen...

{planes photo credit: J. Holst}

Thrusts roar,

filling in the sky:

a scream and a rumble,

braided echoes, by

this flight.

Small girl sits,

stiller and still:

hushed and humble,

watching the sill

gather shadows.

Sounds fade;

high-end falls

away and all that's left

is a bumble-wake

and daylight.

The Honest Irony...

I sang loud once about Jesus loving me.

But all I ever heard of him

Was secondhand and shadowed

By the planks he bled away on.

I promised myself I was in love

When I was in kindergarten.

I married her by holding hands;

She left me by calling us what

We were (a game). And still

She's right – in a muddy echo,

At 30 – loving means too many

passing things to be a promise.

*

At 12 it was strange and hot,

Formless. Just the memory of a

Horror-film succubus, then a

flash of a May-pole waking me.

By 15 that physical tack collected

pretense and I asked myself what I'd

Do to prove my love – I decided on

Pain. A non sequitur; just a release.

At 18, 20, 22, my love was a fairy-

Tale. Each one was the only one (

Ever, every time) past girls were

Follies. But she was perfect.

*

I think I've decided to under-

Stand: my love is only as good

As I am. My love: a game, a

hot flash, then a story. My love

At 30, quite pragmatic: a smile,

a hug, a brush of tongue that comes

back basking, true as I give out.

Simple, real, better than alone.

That's the one thing that love has

Always been (over childhood toil,

wilting angst, and existential lostness):

Better than, better than, better than.