Intermission

We sit with the gods
But steal out early
After our souls have been temporarily filled
The vase is small
But has no cracks
And what was once a
Night scene now flows
Through the day.

Amputee

Amputations
Do not wear the same
As the strike of pistons
In rusted cylinders.

Amputations
Wear the same
Rusted cylinders
And strike out

Pistons burn and purr
Rust ridden and stuck
Amputations of a grand machinery

True Love Albeit Platonic

We beat around in the dusky malt.
It dries and leaves its residue;
Wait. The rotund morning drop takes shape
And I smile and lick my arms.
A reawakening in soft, slow strokes.
A refusal to release such sweet dreams.
Pour back, salt filled cup. For Another year.
And another, and another, and
Hundreds of days later, uncorking the night
With or without bodies, two hearts unchanged
Floating in a river of malty salt.
Licking their arms in hopes that the other’s taste the same.
Feasting despite the tongues tender notes.

She

Fragrant rises the leaf
Returns to its tree
Even briefly the familiar shape
Am I the lily, the lilac
Or the bee?
The hall bred from noble
Blood not worthy of she.
A lover is the shade underneath
The tree.

Return

With tracks
Winding through passages
Unavailable to human eyes

A crest into a hillock
Then out again

Lingering between
Madman moments and
The serene

Indulge in
Mint mornings
To cover up the tang
Of pure iron will

Years of wear
Why do you worry?
We climb with the rises.

Broken Wine

Cedar vault
Wine from where
Raspberry's culled
In salty air
And obliterated
In one fell swoop
Left a vacuous
Gash where none
Used to grow
For the sake of
A tiny sip
That alternates
Between warmth and
A sugary hell

Four

Did time?
Insert loneliness
In togetherness
I slept
With time
She promised
That the wave of love
Would be different
And when that tune
Turns slightly the same
They cower in their corners
They used to flirt between lines
They flitted from smiles to frowns
Was it the steadiness that drew
The risen down?
(this is just a poem)
She watched him from across the room
(I am still insanely in love)
Going through motions that were familiar
A hundred times his hair combed
and a hundred chances for a passing glance
Hearts or flutes he said
(still? do you anticipate anything else?)
But just dont do that with cats and dogs
(anything other than satisfied boredom?)
(do u find satisfaction in boredom?)
I expect our mouths to flick past words
With a bite and a tang
And a banter he said
I expect to hold the heart away
With a steel cage against the unsaid
Perhaps electrify it
Add poisoned spokes
A wired mesh
He admits to being cruel
Don't forget the sound proofing
And the suspension
And makind demands
Dont forget the insurance policy
And she to letting her worries ripen
And the backup from lloyds
Until they fall by themselves onto the ground
I love you
And i will hurt you
But I will also make you happy
She practices telling him she is leaving
Not for fear but for the lilt of the words
He practices telling her he loves her
Not for fear
But for the warmth in her eyes
She leaves one side of herself unoccupied by him
So that their separation will be quick
He looks out from the pool of her with his nose above
Another lovelorn tale to tell
And books upon books we'll SELL we'll SELL!

Three

Did sweet moments turn
Into long lost memories
The grain of romance already
Sprouted and cracked a thousand buds
Our tacit agreements
To lift each others spirit
And the seat
And to trim the fern
Browning at the tips of its thin leaves
Promises that echo louder undone
Words when launched
Without meaning
Fester the lover
Goodhearted hand-holder


Slow soldier
a straight faced
Assassin

A squint
the difference
Between life
and a lost limb

Your trigger
aimed directly
Towards me

We're alone now
In the woods
And out of ear shot

No one to find us
Brick soldier
And his wounded
love worn soul

Two

Two trunks beside
A steamengine
Fret not for sturdy
Arms in sepia tones
Arrive
To embrace the fragile
(whatever happens - remember i am here)
(what will happen?)
Moments in tumult
Little boats capsizing
(nothing - but the anticipation of anything that you can't describe can be solved by knowing that worst comes to worst there is someone that will solve it for you)
(i was watching you yesterday)
Straight again
In lamplight
(last night, i looked at you in the mirror)
The sea changes its breeze
(besides the love - you have a friend in me that sits beside and worried when you worry and rests on the moments of your happiness)
And sharp dots of rain
Speckle worried brows
Ironed straight in time
And time remains
Two trunks lay beside
One another
And arms and lonely hands grip collars
Unmoving for trains, planes, or whims
Stay still like a photograph
(this about us)
Turning and yellowing evenly
On each corner
And the lovers kiss over and over
But the trunks sit up
In the rain
Beside each other.

One

Face down, I breathe into sheets
The skin of your thighs against my ears
Thinking something devotional
That I don't say
a paralysis of the tongue
that strikes so frequently
On the edge of such simple words,
To me you are...
Infinite and syllable confounding
I will this and I will that all these beginnings
Without subjects that can suffice
We skip over in our haste
The small pleasure we derive
We slowly accumulate all the things we ought to say
And more and more we make love the way we do in my mind
How do I give you the knowledge
That I submit my soul to you?
Do i slip my hand in yours often
Or pine after you in the in-between hours
Do I close my eyes for you on distant mornings
Do i enter back into the skin of friendship
That i so easily slip into with you
How do I express the pleasure of being at your feet
(by not yelling at me for not cleaning up)
Or explain to you the tears in my eyes right now?
Love, something wrought from freedom
Bears us full of another person
That we drink and drink
Of their bodies all our lives
And listen to their words ring in our ears
Maybe you make
Smaller promises
Maybe you go with her
To buy ice cream at night
Or you forgive her a day
Maybe you moisturize him
When ants crawl in her veins instead of blood, and she will forgive you that day too
And maybe she misses a train
Because her alarm clock is in his car
I love you
me?
I am for you what I am for me

What?

Green grows the grass

All the way to its feathered end

It's humid out there isn't it?

A slight whistle as the reeds bend, then bend

I am from India.

Choosing as if its a choice, not nature's way

It's humid out there?

Even the soil seems to roll

It's not so bad.

Long Time Coming

Tea and toast
A breeze, creaky bed
Yellow flowers
Teardrop petals
Firelight, molten spectacle
Unexpected blackness
Shivers escape
A warmed sphere
Slate grey and fountain water
From a window
Mirth becomes myth
Bends the shapes
What happened to the flowers
They stand there still
What happened to the flowers
Still, they stand

Ahead

Did sweet moments turn
Into long lost memories

The grain of romance already

Sprouted and cracked a thousand buds

Our tacit agreements

To lift each others spirit

And the seat
And to trim the fern

Browning at the tips of its thin leaves

Promises that echo louder undone

Words when launched

Without meaning

Fester the lover
Goodhearted hand-holder

First Spring

Long grass, swaying

like a devout on sunday

bend down and carefully brush
The tired and sad from my face
Blissful amber stripes where the
Sun draped its gauzy arms

Across ribs, a silent zylophone plays

As the boule rolls into a deep blue
And a breathy breeze whispers
Stories drawn through like a rhythmic

song: waves of cloud accumulate
Too cool for words to float
Alongside the gathering gloam

You & Me

(A room lit by light that enters through a crack – yellow and bright but not enough to make the room light up fully. Two people.)

Edward: What did we do last night?
He is lying on his back looking up at the ceiling, spangled with rings of brown light.
Cynthia: Why? Don’t you remember?
She is curled up next to him, but on her side, speaking into the cold air just outside the bed.
Edward: I think I could.
He turns his head and looks over at her.
Cynthia turns her head towards him to meet his eyes. She is disappointed; not because of what happened, but because she was hoping he’d offer her some comfort or explanation.
Edward: I remember the circus and your mother getting wet, and a child I didn’t know.
Cynthia: Yea, I remember you spilled your soup on my skirt. It was the red corduroy one you hated touching.
Edward: Fat ribs give me the heebie-jeebies.
Cynthia: You don’t seem to mind reaching under it though.
Edward: Was that why the child cried?
Cynthia is now facing him. She placed a hand on his bare chest. He’s slightly damp from being asleep.
Cynthia: You never shared your toys when you were little.
Edward: I shared them with you.
Cynthia: Only when I came over with Taf or with Wham bars.
Edward: Remember when I puked blue?
Cynthia: Edward?
Edward: You never came over with Wham bars. There were other things. Things you liked poking me and prodding me with. You were a dirty little girl.
Cynthia: Edward.
She looks at him like he is being silly.
Edward: What? You were. The glorious Cyn in her teal dress with pink stockings. Your mother is color blind and I didn’t even think women could be.
Cynthia: I never had pink stockings. I never wore stockings. You have a bizarre memory.
Edward: But I’m not wrong about the closet am I? That happened.
Cynthia squirms gleefully.
Cynthia: That happened. That happened.
Edward: Yea.
He sighs loudly.
They are both quiet for a long time. Cynthia looks and him now and then, expecting him to talk about last night. She is disappointed he is taking so long. Maybe these memories are just memories. Things that happened, like Wham bars, they were ok then. It was ok to puke blue if you were eight.
Cynthia: Ed?
Edward: Yea?
Another two minutes pass. To Cynthia it feels like 20 minutes.
Cynthia: Ed?
Edward: I don’t know Cyn – I just don’t know… But I know you had pink stockings and I know that you beat me up once, and I know that you put the toothbrush down the wrong way before you put the paste on.
Cynthia: What does that mean?
Edward: How long ago did we wake up? How am I supposed to know already? Why don’t you tell me what you think.
In the dark Cynthia allows tears to well up her eyes and she reaches up to her face to contain the tears, and scratches her head a little so that Edward doesn’t look over.
He’s occupied, anyway. She sees he is still staring up at the ceiling. Running his hands through his hair over and over.
He’s elsewhere, clearly, thinks Cynthia. She thinks hard and deliberately about his shortcomings. His scars, his strange nose, his thin legs. But the tears well up again. Despite.
Edward: Cynthia…Cynthia…how long has it been since you learned you can’t fake tears for a head scratch. You might as well be turned over writhing and yelping. I am not saying anything at all – remember we take different amounts of time to process different things.
His words seem to make sense but she is already on her way to an all out bawl.
Edward: Plus when you cry the tears get all salty and then you turn red and break out the next day. After which I have to assure you that you are pretty – and tomorrow I have to go to Florida for a day trip and don’t know whether you’ll be willing to come along.
Cynthia: Really?
Edward: Yea, I told you so many times, if you need to get away, you can always tell me. I’m usually always going somewhere.
Cynthia: Mmhmm.
It wasn’t what she expected. She never knew where she was with Edward. He pulled her in, then let her out again. As easy as a deep spring breath.
Cynthia: I’m not sure I can go.
Edward: Ok.
Cynthia: I’d like to, you know. But I have to work.
She carefully runs a finger up and down a part of his shoulder. To test him. To see if he is really there.
Edward: Its ok, Cyn, I understand. Work is important.
Cynthia: But you know, I could be convinced.
She looks directly at him, trying to discern some flicker of happiness. Something. Edward.
Edward: Nah, I’m not going to push you. What time is it?
Cynthia: Its…..3:45.
Edward: aaaaarrrghh. Eary, but almost there.
Cynthia: The best part of the night.
Edward: mmhmm.
She notices he’s closed his eyes again and pulled up the sheets. Ready to fall back asleep. No part of their bodies is touching. She can feel the faint heat coming from him. But it is faint. She leans over and kisses his chest and he opens his eyes.
Cynthia: Why can’t I ever read your face? What is it that sits behind there?
Edward: There are a lot of things that I know about, that I am comfortable with, that I can work through, but they still play in my mind. And when I disappear think of it as me rolling a coin over my knuckles, knowing that it won’t help.
Cynthia looks away. She just wants to know. Once and for all. All the words in between don’t really matter.
Cynthia: Yea, I think I know.
She broaches the subject again, tentatively. It takes almost all her effort. She notices now how her mouth tastes: a little old tasting. It could be better. She notices her legs are in an awkward position, but she doesn’t dare move.
Cynthia: So, what happened last night?
Edward: You know just as well as I do Cyn. We’ve known each other, we know each other, and last night was about two people who know each other stepping over the boundaries and now the big question isn’t what happened last night but what are we going to do today.
Edward stays silent for a bit – he is nervous and finds himself feeling too much, caring too much, and wants to be certain it isn’t a conveyor belt.
Cynthia: I don’t know Edward. I never know what you are thinking or what you want. Well, I do. Sorry, I do.
She doesn’t want to anger him. She’s got him here. Next to her. What else does she want anyway? He’s unavailable. Even when he’s next to her, he’s planning his life. His thoughts are about his work and his next girl, or his new car.
Edward: Let’s do what we did last night and see if it works again…
Even as he says it – he realizes that she won’t receive it the way he thinks it. He wants her to lighten up – to realize that he cares but they have to go slow. That he wants the same thing she does, perhaps even more, but…
Cynthia stays quiet.
Edward: Look at me. Don’t think like you. Think like me. And not the way you think I think but the way I think. Lose your interpretations and watch my words. I want to be…
Cynthia: You want to do what we did last night?
Edward: Yea.
He jumps out of bed and to the telescope standing by the window.
Edward: Let’s see if they are up to something boring old fucks.
Cynthia: Oh. Yea, ok.
She was thinking that perhaps they would re-enact the second part of the night. Maybe he was sleepwalking. Words and elaborate plays didn’t fill in the space she wanted filled. She wanted him.
She got up and stood a foot away from him as he squinted into the scope.
Cynthia: So, is our happy couple doing the deed?
Edward: Nah, seems like they left some candles burning on the kitchen table and went to sleep.
Cynthia reaches around his waist and slips her hand into his boxers. She slides them down. She presses up against him as she slips in front of him and feels him slide up against her thigh.
Her heart is racing. What if he doesn’t want her? It’s a chance, but she forces herself to take it. She stands there, pressed to him, waiting for him to step back; to say no; to say “Cyyyyn” the way he does when he is done. Done for now. For months, for a year or two. Another surprise, he slides his hand down her side and says: “if you want it, take it, don’t beat around your bush.” She looks up at him and gives him the dirty look. He wraps his arms around her.
Edward: Just tonight, Cyn. Nothing more. Do you want it?
Cynthia: I see it now. You’re scared that you’ll make the same mistake here as you did before. That you will stop seeing me as me. You can’t be cold to me, you’ve never been before. There’s something more to it. You’re defending yourself.
Edward: Don’t be silly Cyn.
Cynthia: Call me Cynthia and stop looking at me like that. You love me.
Edward: Cynthia.
Cynthia: That’s better – now start acting like a man and take what you got. What you get- what you have. Here.
Edward: Cyn. Cynthia. We have a history.
Cynthia: Ok, Edward. Here it is. Here are my cards, and I don’t care if you never want to see me again, or if I ruin your memories and if you want to return my Greenbird bike with the training wheels still on them. I am in love with you. I don’t know why. Its not the familiarity, I thought it was. I tried 5 years ago when you first left. Then I thought it was just that you weren’t like the other guys I dated. You’re so…different from them. Matt, he had this dark hair and really big muscles. Or, like Frank who was so popular and so, I was so, just so many girls were jealous of me. No – what I’m saying is that I know your ugly bits and the things that made my run the past. But I can’t deny it. I just love you.
Cynthia looks down now. She is exhausted. She should just have said yes, and they would have been in bed right now, breathing hard. Feeling his hands on her. Even temporarily, they knew where to go. She could have broached his all later, maybe next summer. Or maybe when they were older.
Edward: I do too.
Cynthia: Do what?
She looks at him. He is standing by the window. His boxers a little askew. He suddenly appears a little unattractive to her. Is this who she really wants?
Edward: I want us too. I want this, Cyn.
Cynthia: I think I’ll go now.
She turns and walks out the door.
Edward: No, Cyn. Wait.
Cynthia: Why?
So that he can reject her again? At least this way, she was closing the door herself.
Edward: Just wait.
They faced each other in the dark room. The sun was edging its way up now across the horizon and a reddish glow lit up the corners of the room and edges of furniture they couldn’t see before.
Edward: Cyn, just wait.
Cynthia: Ok, Ed.
Edward: Cynthia, I was looking at your lips this morning and thought to myself, I would like if my children had those lips. Perhaps my chin, but they should have those lips.
Cynthia takes a step towards him. She feels the pinprick of tears starting again. She tries to control them. But then she just lets them fall. And Ed is just a few feet away.

Darkness In Happy Mood

Gristly earth between heat cracked toes
Emanations of gazes, a hundred of them
Men with shoulders edged, fenced faces
And girls with straight bangs and licked lips
Crimson coated with smooth black skin
I look up, i look down, i look up
And again I dig in, mistook for
Aged, ugly brethren
Of midnight frosted fingers
Endless back and forth, quagmire earth
I fall on tired knees gristly earth in ripped fingernails
All the pneumatic doors shut, and shut and shut
And i hear them all
Minutes in seconds
Day to day the sun barely sets and then is up again
Forbidden from ways and cut paths
I pull to a halt
Only to start, mercilessly onwards
Hushed, and bent, step to step to step.

Queenish

The queen rests bored in a garden
spades and squires at her elbows
and yet she dreams of that delinquent
all rags and bones and slings and stones

Oozin

Lanterns remind me of ponies and ponies of puritans
(In a lake with suds of lye and lines of panned gold)
Puritans create images of hats that sound like
hannibal and hannibal of carthaginian flats
(before they were swallowed up and sold)

Lust

Misty eyed ladies
Hiding behind fronds
In bark thongs
Fitful and trembling
Cuticles split and eyes aglaze
Are the warm limbs and melodies
Of my hurried teenage fantasies

Was it me?

Sentences finished by willpower
Punctuated by quirks in my personality
Perhaps cause mommy was a quiet girl
Or my love was lacking or didn't hug me enough
Or perhaps daddy was lost and a little scared
And i did too much to cover it up with words

Alice

A lonely sheep speaks to a woman with large ears
Short from the war
An unbilicus uncut
Come she says I have a present

Grass as green as grasshoppers
Willows that smile
And a tasty treat too
Of women in heat
And rays of sun
Warm but salty

Our Image

We bathed together today
You dragged the tub into the heather
I arched and you pulled
Wellies to make the naked dash
To screen doors and closed shutters
Covered thickly with bluebird shellac.

It's Not For You

words, sharp like
mistakes, memories, and you
crawl in to make amends

oil slicks prevent
the life-bloom again

cuts thin and deep
barely cradling our
brittle frames

You.

Once back to back
we swivel to meet
cheek to cheek
in an unlit place

By effort of earth
and travelling light
we see the rotund
tracks of our trip

Long, precipitous,
sometimes endless
plains and green
slowly rusting to
a robust Fall

Dawn drags the soft lilt
of a temperate tune
like a flip of a coin
so enduring
and also mired
in furrows of concern

What neatly
nature lays
Also, mischief
displays itself
in winters ices
and wordy silence

With you, ivy
climbs its mottled
pace, serenly
and allows itself
to display
the kinks of time

Does It Have To?

you are
all but mythical

a blur sometimes
in and out
a vision

not really real
but real nonetheless

born of brain
fed by time

but a brush
of fingertips

welcomed more
today than yesterday

Escape

Fealty overrated
A self forgotten
I recapture moments
Between the gulf
And the gut.

Pairs

She had good bedside manner

Her figure was lithe and thin

A gust from the east of nowhere

Five ominous rain soaked brumes

Ship up ship down and whisky

Thick-fingered men with bronzed ears

N said to her there is beauty in a squall

S said to him let's lean over the wet rails

Departure Days

Departure days childhood beats torn
Lights are lit fever subsided
Rigamortis
Drum beats death tatoo
A smile, no, a smirk - a thought
Fear dissipates then snaps back
A dip, a trench, a well, no choice
Those old languid thoughts distant
My shadow falls in their direction
Ribs strain, cornea burn, a choke hold

Parade

Seven turns on trumpets worn
With silver bells and faces shorn
Penguin suits and prettly flutes
Women wearing flitty skirts

Tassles drawn and kites aloft
Helium haze, men in brass and buttons unfazed
Undone laces, merry eyes and squinty faces
Boy at home, to fill my spaces