In the Dim Day Afternoon

 We are an enclave of two, me in my wool sweater bunched big over my shoulders and you in that mottled  calico talc fur slung silkily about you like steam covered hot linen hung to dry in the crisp morning. 

While the rain whispers rumors of quiet mountain tops billowing powder mists, we settle the dark day in motel rhymes and figures, you curled stilly into yourself, me in half open heavy lids of thick thoughts.

Dripping gray afternoons go like this sometimes, lamp light and halogen halos smoldering light in echoes across the gritty wall as if the moon had been kept eons in a closet but then finally sprung.

The haunting mesh of daylight dim and nighttime kindle lit fuses daymares and nightdreams–you flinching in confused sleep, me somnambulantly signing a screen–prompting trees to twitch lies.

Outside the torrents settle into a storm’s afterthought, the sieve of fury dying out in mere frowns and hisses like the dancing crickets scraping leg music behind your closed lids audible to half mast mine.

Willow and me, no one else telepaths the wind’s significance, the rain’s history, nor the weather’s detritus quite like we two in certain dusty climes and time of day, when the nodding light slants true.

What’s in a name?

  

Achunal the aleuts call it. Israelis say רוּחַ.

In Spain, they curse el viento tearing at hats and dresses 

but matacabras, goat killer, infuriates the shepherd

while angin or lilit in Malay mystifies most outsiders: 

Are there distinct names for degree, duration or character? 

Like a picnic zephyr delights an English gent or ahe a Hawaiian.

Puhe denotes the ordinary, common or imperceptible island condition.

When apples fly forcefully, a Russian complains of ветреный ветер.

What is the word for the puff left leafing pages in a book?

The sea brings Kadja in Bali sweeping aside sand softly

like a cat’s paw over the pond in the back bay.

But no, I’d never be caught dead in a Cock-Eyed-Bob down under.

Not while the night coromell caresses California’s toes this time of year

past Diablo and the doldrums thrumming silence into an ear 

merely at the thought of a place where nothing tossles hair, moves air

carries a wink and knowing stare caught glimpsing a drifting folded paper:

unraveled, it reveals your name, wordless moan escaping a window.

What is the name of your child, Shu?
 

Orange and Blue

  

I colored your feet orange and blue while you called me names like “whore” and “cunt”, 

your toes brimming like the koi pond pressed in a steely concrete commercial center, juxtaposed erupted urchins of God’s flashing tongue dimmed by man’s dull blunt greed.

You promised me a cutting inscription of flesh, bled poem to my thighs, while I raised my glass to meet your eyes, full of razor smiles and pinned suggestion.

And while we slashed each other’s will, the poison mist encircled our ears, making rhymes echo, fall flat down the canals and pool in pelvic hollows of warm, viscous amethyst paramnesia.

“Get lost!” you roared. Startled, I gazed upon you, the words traversing lacrimal streams teleprompting your dread: Lose me inside and bring me home to your harbors, belly deep in the will of cabined fear and vicious distraint.

Aloud, my response came: “Let me paint the coraled sea around you orange and blue.” 

War

  

The war raged a life time, blood and brains dashed to the ground only to be resurrected repeatedly like an ungrateful Lazarus or an unrepentant Prometheus caught in an eternal circle.

One side fought for the good of progress, bravery, cleverness and right action. This side delivered the goods, made the world go round and fed the hungry, sheltered the vulnerable from the elements by sheer will to control.

The other side ceded control, refused to fight and surrendered before the battle began. This side stomped itself invisible, passive and weakly withdrawn, drawn to a light no one could see, a lost vision never achieved, destination never reached.

While one side won the battle, the other won the war. While one side walked in the light, the other created it. However, neither side rested in confidence nor in peace, both sides claiming no victory in vanquishing the other.

Cheers to You

  

 

“Have a good day. Stay out of trouble,” she says as she pats his naked ass and then flies out the door, already late for work.

Here’s to a year of self-possession and comfort, independence and fulfilling your own expectations. Here’s to love and familiarity, trained fingers and lips finding all the right grooves. Here’s to kindness of kin, those who have your back and keep you no matter what. Here’s to the empathy of strangers and believers. Here’s to compassion and good samaritans, accidental heroes and intentional fools. Here’s to health and good cheer. Here’s to you.

To another year with you in it. 

Pinwheel Day

  
Arbitrary framework the hours make; 

the shadows perform tragedies on screen-less walls.

When I was 12 I discovered an ache inside me,

one only quelled by singing the love song antidote

in lilting swallows warbling trills at the edges.

Nature offset flame in cool wind balancing my moods

 that hatched my youth to full fledged childlessness.

Today is just a day; life expels to slowly turn pinwheels.