Archive for August, 2007
August 28, 2007
this day, this rawness
sinks into my skin
and leaves me craving
tastes and smells.
It is not the cold outside
that clamors and worries
at heartstrings stretched
across miles of gray sky.
The creeping numbness attacks, retreats.
The naked cherub on the shelf sleeps
and does not see
how close I am to breaking
it-or me, and which I choose
will not matter to either of us.
There is a stronger wind today
tugging at my soul, stringed like a kite…
Weighed down by gray stone cloud
and heavy thoughts, I do not lift
at the winds beckoning.
The heart’s fires are banked against the night.
August 27, 2007
( for Laurel )
She passes almost silently
through my day,
leaving little to mark her passage
but the elusive scent
of the green plants
she touches as she goes.
Quick flashes of emerald
punctuate her movements.
Her wings are gossamer-
only half visible, delicate.
She shelters hurt puppies
and teary children within them.
She whistles birds from the trees
they land at her feet,
eat from her hand.
She says she loves me
as she darts away.
I call her dragonfly,
and wing my love after her.
August 26, 2007
He did not bleed when
the sword thrust pierced his side;
Already dead, he wept not.
The heavens part, and this snow,
this quieting
dances around in eddying gusts
and melts so fast
it scarcely seems to land.
She’s severed those ties-
some slit closely, filleted heart
grilled in fires of torment.
Others merely slipped away,
quietly and far downstream.
Silence, these nights,
is more mercy than she hoped for.
August 25, 2007
( a poet I know )
He says:
“Watch yourself, one day I will write
as well as you”
Laughing, I reply:
“One day, you will write
as well as yourself.”
August 25, 2007
Bare feet are always cold
coming down the stairs.
Cool, dark quiet of early morning…
The dreams, not of sugarplums,
faded away with the opening
of my eyes.
There is never enough time
for this quiet,
it melts away like shadow
at the coming of the light.
August 23, 2007
Forgive me that my words are slow,
cold my heart has been
so long- so long
I have forgotten.
Witty repartee I have none.
Your words must bubble
their warmth
through layers and years
of frost and unfeeling.
It isn’t that Im cruel
or don’t care,
its just been so very long
August 22, 2007
As the sun slips over
the edge of the world…
crickets sing of love
as yet unconsummated.
Children yell out the ritual words
as they play the ancient games.
Fireflies spark tiny suns
as they navigate the dusk.
Her light is on in the corner window.
My heart is thick in my throat.
August 22, 2007
(Love at first sight)
I know how the butterfly felt, captured;
stuck through with a pin,
struggling.
One night there I was
and there you were,
and stuck on the head of a pin
here we are.
122202
August 19, 2007
Elvis
died long ago
thirty fucking years even
and I wish to God you all would let
him lie.
***********
Mama
loved Elvis more
and more as years passed,more
than anything, even her children or
husband.
************
He was
smoking tinder
catching fire in girl’s hearts
smoldering, blazing up, sudden
ashes.
*************
He died
young, like only
the good supposedly die
the young arent supposed to do,and
Mom cried.
August 19, 2007
Who will hold you tightly
when your scream echoes in the night?
Who knows how to quiet you
with a hand against your heart?
I want to tell her these things.
I hold no grudge,
even in dreams
I watch you go without tears.
But I wonder if she knows
about things like that.