Sorrow
does not appear merely when
something terrible occurs.
It is what fills the soul
when there is an absence
of a particular joy.
Sometimes
I just want someone to run
their fingers through my hair,
because, God knows,
it’s been so long since I slept well
and a warm thigh will always trump a cold pillow.
I woke up this morning
weeping
I don’t know why
perhaps
it was over
a dream I can’t
remember
or
a dream never
realized
Tonight I am restless,
and tomorrow I will be incomplete;
Last week I had lunch with a ghost,
and perhaps some weekend soon
I’ll take a drive alone,
my passenger seat burdened
with heavy baggage.
I have so many books,
that I use the skinny ones as placeholders
for the bigger, heftier tomes.
They were once small,
everyday surprises, presents waiting to be opened
with the notes she left between the pages
that fit more snugly than
what I’ve replaced them with.
More and more I fill my days with
distractions, work, and time wasters
hoping to mute the booming silence
echoing off the walls and
filling my moments of solitude
with tension and terror and
spine crushing sadness
that will last for as long as
these words remain alive in us.
I saw it in a dream
or maybe on the internet.
The year I die is 2055.
I have forty two years left.
There are many things I need to do before then.
I want to travel around the world,
set foot on every continent, including Antarctica,
I’ll make naked snow angels, my body unfurled.
I will get cold undeniably,
but no one can stop me, not even the penguins.
They’ll waddle by knowing they have nothing to fear
for I have nothing growing on me resembling a dark grey fin.
Though this poem may seem odd,
full of gibberish and silly lines,
at least I did one of the things I wanted to do before I die.
I wrote about both penguins and my nudity and made it rhyme.
After he has chewed the scenery,
After he has sucked on a cigarette,
Out comes the gum.
Pop
Into his mouth it goes.
She’ll be there soon.
He awaits what comes next,
Kiss
Think back now,
Careful with those teeth
That’s not the way the teat likes to be treated
Suck
No, further back
He misses popsicles and lollipops and
Gum in the shape of cigarettes
Puff
No, back,
Mother’s milk, when sour
Cannot nourish the
Mouth
These are not Halcyon days and nights
for those wearing exposed hearts
stitched clumsily to their arms.
They should be afraid
or at least alert;
put up your guard!
I say.
The hospital volunteer in her vermilion stripes and exhibitionist skirt,
offers to help the ailing and hapless but even worse
our body’s defenses are low.
She infects this vulnerable man,
an unprotected soldier sans armor
caught in her barbed wire,
destitute.
Like a dentist, she comes in grinning, porcelain, smiling innocence
brandishing tools and clamps and other things that are good for my health.
And if I’m a good boy, here’s a sweet, except
my molars shatter every time
they bite down on your
hard candy,
doctor.
Another role, another face, she fills the shoes gracefully, a glass slipper
forms around her foot, molten glass never burning the skin.
Instead the clear membrane embraces it, thankful to have been chosen.
Until the day the scuffs and the dullness
become embarrassing
and she kicks it off
shattering it.
At last, a waitress comes around to deliver the check,
and the price is hefty, perhaps too high to pay.
She knocks over a bottle of wine yet
her charm is disarming so
I don’t mind the stain.
It all trickles down
to the bottom.
Tonight the moon looks like a flashlight peeking out from a closet bulging with grey suits.
Tonight the moon looks like a night light obscured by cobwebs in spooled loops.
Tonight the moon looks like a pupil less eye judging our every move.
Tonight the moon looks like the only clear spot on a magnificent bruise.
Tomorrow the sun will shine like the second hand cufflinks on a poor man’s suit.
Tomorrow the sun will burn like not being kept in the loop.
Tomorrow the sun will warm like an awkward first kiss when you make your move.
Tomorrow the sun will heal all but a damaged heart’s bruise.
What am I giving away here?
Interwoven memories or
Merely stitched fabrics.
The smells have washed away
As have the dirt and the filth.
Hard as I try
I can’t roll around in that soil again
It wouldn’t be the same stains and grime.
What am I giving away here?
Gifts I never appreciated,
Items I’ve outgrown.
In size and scale
And humor and personality.
There were trips I never took
But falsely advertised.
And regretful acts.
And vacations taken as someone else.
I once tried to hide an unintentional publicized shame
That I now cringe at the thought of releasing.
What am I giving away here?
Control.
Over myself.
Over my past.
Over the history that is told.
They may not fit me anymore
But I am inclined to squeeze into them again.
Those roles and moments and snapshots and lives I miss living.
What am I giving away here?
The first time I truly understood what a woman felt like;
The first time I attempted (and failed) at having people take me seriously;
My innocuous attempt at revenge you’ll never know about;
My drunken attempt at reinventing myself;
No, these shall still be mine.
They will become someone else’s costume
They will tear
And rip
And mend
And love
And assemble a new life out of these rags
And perhaps they will ask themselves
What am I getting here?
Your secret name is Karintha
known only to me.
Like Toomer’s nymph
who grew into a woman wild with freedom
and made the men lascivious.
You are
irresistible.
You are free
in a world you feel trapped by.
The souls of your feet never touch the ground
as you dance through the air.
Thick fingers paw at the hem of your dress.
You are
elusive.
You attack with a smile
targeting only me.
I have married you fifty times
in my dreams, in yours, and raised a family with you by my side.
But I am like all the rest of those men who were enamored.
I am
mistaken.
Stupid Children 