Category: Poetry

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The Lover’s Leap

  

I am sorry.
 
I brought her into bed with us again, she who worries 
too much about her breath and her b.o.
 
all the wrinkles of offense, she who cringes at the thought,
the very idea that she may be seen,
 
imperfect as the smoke hiding the fireworks the other day,
left a trail of sooty stink looming,
 
threatening to mar our view, dim the shiny glee of us.
And now you know.
 
Though the end is not the all, not the being or culminating cause,
we were groomed to believe so,
 
such that her presence stays me, stems the flow, ebbing waves,
impenetrable shield, a barrier, firm and illusory, still
 
and empty as the notion that we need to be THE image
the key to keyhole fit
 
when with a flick of a switch, lights on to view the truth
veins and skin and twisted mouth
 
invisibly drawn to be erased in one full sweeping hearty sigh
honestly gut-of-the-mind uttered
 
by body belief in beauty larger than sight
holier than the mountain
 
we delve in for deliverance in undeniably desirous delight
release and respite, fulfilling
 
in its wholeness, this acceptance, this release, 
this trust in blind care
 
for the principle, for the knowledge of us we share 
enfolded, in threaded limbs
 
that nothing but fear she wedges between permeable doors
open-shut as the thought leaping over the falls
 
cascading down an embracing grip caught in the pupils’ deep
in careful sense, fragile fortitude as the spine of a lover.
 
 
photo credit:  static.yourtango.com 

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Professor of Cups

  

Professor of cups picks off the dust from chairs
and washes the filth from sieves and tunnels
when once she polished prose and persuasion.
 

Professor of swedish fish, marshmallow bits,
coconut hairs and pillow cushioned seats, she
bleaches the silverware shiny sterile grade A.
 

Professor of mourning the days of harrowed fear
salting agonizing dread and jittery legged angst
when dirt dwelled only in systemic sly dealings.

 

photo credit:  https://pondermortality.files.wordpress.com/

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Stitched Poem of Lost Word

  

A word came to my mind today in chimes

where wood reeds stood sand tall in pairs

like lovers spun in airy tales of olden times

when hearts sang of heather seed prayers.
 

But the word flew past as echoes’ remains,

rang void vacuumed sound inside the gaps,

hollows down from which arise sad refrains,

and compressed steely safes, worded traps.
 

No words came by today in orange branches

only windy specks prickling chapped cheeks;

a sun stole glitter flecks on roofs of mansions

and barren pop songs dribbled old lyric leaks.
 

Language lost mourns words gone dry before

a poem’s purl through a keyhole’s open door.

 

photo credit: http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/

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My Dating Site

credit: thememeguy.com

Espresso shots, Open tables, a shoulder-slunked mind in a cafe quips:
Sighed out on Dating sites with their Show me yours I’ll show you mine. 

Only I don’t want to play that Gut exhausting, Happy sapping game.
The one of Cliché’d glass cases with a mime Silently howling inside. 

The trick is this, I’m told: Be direct or be alluring, No in between.
Play the sex card or go fish, for All else covers as time wasting. 

So practically practical this world, A missing blessing, A cursory look.
Human exploration dead, Gone the way of humanities–disrespect. 

The machine pumps all now, Post people-ism, Peddling wares of wear,
Faces incomplete, Bodies disembodied, Intentions at Cross sections. 

Arms hugging an example, a harried voice, wincing thought, clarifies
That which makes him/her/it/us/them truly tick, Gather up and hallelujah.

Just once, Wanting to reply a brutal truth-biting of words honestly pled:
Not wanting to down you, Respondent, Just that friends don’t do friends. 

Can you Be a being, like me, like you? Exist with me just for a while?
Feel the feeling of feeling? In a combinatory presence, Can we just walk? 

See how the air circulates, By and between us flaring Scent and Sound.
The air does. See? In the gaps of words, We speak, While we walk 

In sensorial immemorial blind sight of touch-less touch–My dating site. 

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Writing Poems Amid Artificial Sounds of Trains and Falling Snow While Pipes Burst and Birthday Boys Skated

  

The train traveled far today so the whistle sounds faint
tired, perhaps, of the snow-muffled shrill of un-restraint.
 
A cool stove lay undisturbed, cool iron clean, all the day
while the ground leaked, forming my father’s bed a lake.
 
Two daughters slept and awoke to buy birthday boy gifts,
then flew home the helicopter, remote, controlled, adrift.
 
A husband fished for answers in a plumber’s busy way
only for rejection’s sake he pleaded dearly for his case.
 
For tomorrow can right itself in rhythmic steel drumming
and pulse below a calm repose in boredom’s humming.
 
For neither burst of pipe nor creativity’s pace may shatter
the week end’s closing call to the summer’s opening gala.
 
The hours longer and shorter still when poetry awakes
in bed the daylight long with trains, pipes, snow, skates.
 
An inspired screen tortured hard frozen bits slow falling
while thunderous trains traveled ever on, never stalling.
 
Words dry up, writing sours, turned to poetical blather
time to gather up my wits and return to other matters.

(and so ended my poetry half marathon)

 

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Another Ode to Witness

 
  
Old friend, we’ve gone this route before,
you, witness, wag shaking by the door
seeking, waiting, leaping and running
never late nor early, always just coming
arriving just before me, eagerly unsure
hot and breathing heavy, somewhat sore
when we go long and distant, you, me
running by the beach, cooled by the sea
those days we both were stronger then
me with solid knees, you, a leaner bend
back high and haunches thickly sturdy
unlike now as we hack and sweat dirty
dripping salty stains down our backs
your mouth sweating along the tracks
we no longer run, you and me, my pal
my faithful fan knee high wagging tail.
I call you witness for a nose knows all
those you wait for, scraps to ever fall
side by your keeper, quiet, ready sight
the world tethered to sense and fright.
We who savor your riches watch you
watching us awaiting the familiar cue
“Come to me, Kiah.” Let vigilance rest,
in settled dreams, my furry ever-guest.

Photo credit: Chris Clevely

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Nose for Flight

  

Resounding pounding booming voices,

we walk as tribe towering through town–

big women, muscular and thick.

Known for our beakish noses and long necks,

the women in our family walk tall and short

thin and squat, spoon and saucer, some

tea and coffee drinkers, sweet and savory,

all manner of political persuasion, religions

zealots and atheists all, strong and quiet

loud and soft, self-realized and delusional,

married and single, childless and family’d,

but we share too bountiful brows and thin

lips or thin, hairless arcs with thick bottoms.

No one escaped freckles, some splotched

others speckled like paint splatter, touched.

Hair painted blonde, brown, blue, red or rust

from birth or bottle, we live color and light.

Our faces trace aspect of notable signature

only ours and fragmented chromosomal bits

of all those big feet that marched soils’ exile

from Siberia to Spain’s royal anti semites

of centuries past onto gypsies roaming free

dancing to the colors of a rhythmic breath

breathed in noses shaped for soaring flight.

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Oranges (haiku)

 
Tree dropped oranges

blistered, rent, bloated sweet

nature blight pavement.

 
(This was hour 9, poem 9, and I needed a brain re-charge reprieve, so I punted–haiku)

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Leotard

  

 
On my dresser, crumpled like sin lies a leotard,
gold lamé scarab’d like a 24 carat snake skin,
black lycra arms tightly tubed, trimmed in lace
sewn to this gay garment celebrating costumes
and splayed over orderly folder’d paper stacks
inches thick with frayed efforts, struggling pens
of students composing in discomposed anguish
for the A’s, B’s and C’s drifting over their heads
hovering above their walking shadows at the go
as trudging destiny to seats betraying no means
that end in hours sipped in blind ears and minds
mending time in threaded thimbles of mothers
who cajole and credit them with bygone myths,
those about education and scaling mountains,
inheritances emptied from bank accounts dried
long ago spent by the crackhead loan pirates
and bank note worshipers of voodoo financiers.

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