Sunday, June 18, 2006

SAYING “NO.”

I beat around the bush
Like a gardener paid by the hour
And tell her that I’m only
“Sort of interested.”

After all
it was a test.
For power, for control, or maybe
Something far more sinister than that?

I think I wanted
To see how manly I was. And for
A short while I could, simply

By putting something beautiful
On hold. Saying “no.”
For the sake of that one
Sweet syllable moving across
The chapped ridges of my lips

And how far I’ve come
From that stubborn little boy
On the playground, pulling pigtails
And running away.

What kind of person must I be
To spit in the face of perfection,
Dropping to my knees

And then begging for its forgiveness?

Looking back
I simply wanted a reaction,

To test the waters
Of happiness before
Leaping in. Wondering
How many ripples
It could possibly take
To calculate my stupidly

What is it about a man
Who can push such things away?
How can the fear of being loved
So quickly chalk up to weakness?

I can’t stand to stare
At things above or beyond my level.


So instead
I knock them down
and tear them up.
Smiling at the shapes the pieces make.

I’ve been twenty-something forever,
Going on the age of twelve.

All I really need
Is a broom.
SEVEN SECONDS

i work a double on wednesdays and have for quite some time now. when i finally get home after my 22 hour day filled with lifting rocks in the sun, digging holes in the dirt, and socially lubricating the drunks at the bar...i always get to look forward to the best part of my week. i take off my shoes and go to the bathroom, freshen up, and brush my teeth. then glance in the mirror while quietly shrugging before shutting off the light. it's the 7 long seconds I spend in front of my bedroom door that have kept me sane this past year or so. my heart fills up in that time with the kind of warmth that you can only get from hope...the kind of hope that only comes from love. I breathe in long and slow as i turn the doorknob and crack the door with my other hand being sure not to make a sound. closing my eyes i take a long step inside while gently breathing out. it's the time right before i open my eyes that always makes me smile. the short moments before i realize that she isn't there anymore that seems to keep me going. and week after week i make it my routine. not because i have delusions of grandeur or because i have trouble letting go. but rather because those 7 seconds are mine and no one else’s...and because for a short time i get to be in love again. and no body can take that from me or even offer up something better. unless of course, the day arrives, that i find her sleeping in my bed.

Friday, June 16, 2006

CARVE MYSELF A DREAM

some nights i lie awake
and convince myself i'm fine.

that the breeze through
the metal screen is really comfort
calling me for sleep.

though knowing one thing
and pretending another
becomes a cut so fine and deep
it goes unnoticed
until infection.

maybe it's pride
that screams intelligence
is the only help we need.
maybe fooling the mind
enough times can actually
change its make up...to
renegotiate the truth.

but something is telling me
that i'm so very wrong.

that time has never really healed a wound,
just lent itself to getting used to.

the fact is, we're all of us
bleeding from somewhere ripe
desperately trying not to look down.

in the tiny corner of my room
the curtains swell
like giant lungs
then exhale across the bureau,

the book left open
next to the bed stand
has started reading
with a pair unseen hands,

the slightest breeze
which can turn a page stops,
then looks
for a place to keep going.

the night draws out;
a serrated edge on a blade

and i can't remember the last time
i'd met myself
and had something interesting to say.

in the soft quiet of my sheets,
i do the very first thing
that comes to mind, turning
my head ever so slightly,
closing my eyes,

to carve myself a dream.
SELF IMPROVMENT

it's no coincidence
that the number of
heartbreaks each year
is directly proportionate

to the number of Revlon commercials
on television. and it's no accident
that part of us
wants to stop the car
next to a field

and go running out into the landscape
arms flailing in discontent.

for all my meditation
i still feel as insignificant as ever...and
maybe that's the point.

because that's how self improvement goes

you end up answering a question
you don't remember asking
but have always wanted the answer to.

i've been twenty something forever
and have given my love to far too many woman
who couldn't possibly give it back.

and looking back i find myself
just as fucked up as they are
but in different ways...

running through the orchard of my childhood
trying to fetch the tarnished apple of my mothers love.
TO MEET HER AGAIN

one morning in early june
i returned to the forest of my youth
and laid down inside those woods
with no intention of getting up.

the moon like the sun
were still in the sky
as if for the first time
they had ever met, while

inside those places
between my breath
the whole world sighed within me.

the rustle of a squirrel celebrates a win
a centipede’s legs chatter in mandarin
the wind never blows
through branches of trees
but whispers conversation
with needles and leaves.

and when i think of all these things i'm made of,

a pond puts on lipstick in the rearview,
tendrils of light move through skin,
fields foam at the mouth with flowers,
a mountainside defines the place you're in,

and because this is what makes
my body's subtle history,

my eyes can backstretch
to childhood warmth
behold a gust of life
run through that place
that resides just below my clavicle.

i can see the dew tamped paths I have traveled
the overgrown love that i've never met
i can brush back desire within such silence
simply in order to meet her again.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

TEN FOOT POLE


i'm sad after losing a sneeze,
so i can't imagine a child
as i watch the "pro-lifers"
picketing outside planned parenthood.

since signs mean attention,
and attention means power,
and power means importance
and sense importance
is about the most important
thing that anyone can think of--they
all bare signs.

the woman wearing fur
(or should i say
gal gowned in carcasses)
screeches "god is pro-life"
with a false sense of confidence
that only alcohol or religion
can bring.

but in the spring
i will have forgotten ignorance
on the lips of a girl. while
simultaniously remembering
how not to get her kncked up.

because in such cases
forgetfulness can mean marriage,
and marriage that way
means becoming my parents; a fate

we all try to avoid
but strange few of us
succeed in.

it's been a while now
watching women
wail their beliefs
with signs.

passersby honk from their car windows
acoompanied by either
a friendly wave or the middle finger

and i'm left here
as indifferent as ever.

thought decisions were never
my cup of tea.
BLAME IT ON KARMA

they say that animals
take on the personalities
of their owners. so when
i first set foot through
your front door
and your cat started flirting with me,

i should have know that something was up.

but you were so far out of my league
back then. so far from my reach
that the blue/green of the horizon seemed
like an easier catch.
and you proved this by doing
almost anything, how
you made the simplest of things
so very beautiful.

and perhaps you name might be all of this:

pouring a glass full of water, biting
into the red of an apple,
or laughing in such a way
that your whole body lite up.

though who can really resist
the things we can never have?
you can blame on eve, flirting with desire
or on adam whoes pride
made her leave.

but i blame it on the fact
that part of paradise
still resides today
in the form of beautiful women
like Jennifer McLemore.

who to this day
can make the most
dominate of males
swallow down pride
to make room for desire.

still--just once
i want to see
a greyhound pause in mid-stride
pull a 180, and start
to question whether
the rabbits path in linear
or if it will eventually
come back, uninterested
in a professional relationship.

just once,
i'd love to see a donkey
spark a thought, quit hauling
the load and start to wonder
about the string attached
to that goddamn carrot.

but they don't
they're busy
swallowing down what they
have to. comprimising
in the name
of desire.

an how can a woman
take such things from us, and then
act shocked at our reaction? be
the fuel behind
everything that a man might do,
then scoff at the march
of evoloution?

and would anything worth while
have been built, or written, or painted
or said, if that beauty was never
used like a tool?

because a woman can
loosen every screw
in a man, until
he is dosile and kind
and beaten.

the proof is men everywhere
starting to question physics.

they wonder
how beautiful women
can possibly walk in slow motion,
or how when they toss
their hair, it lies
suspended there
a second longer than gravity
normally permits.

we can talk all we want about masculinity,
but a part of the brain still shuts down
as soon us we see something we want,

we'd do anything to get it.

blame it on karma,
several thousand years
in the making.
GREAT SAYING # 613

when i wake up one morning
and scratch the dust off my old, withered bones;
i will finally be outside myself enough
to fall like a single piece of skin
off the back of a sunburned stranger.

Monday, June 12, 2006

THE METAPHOR REGARDING SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP

a shepherd
tends to sheep
in the green hilled
distance, as a woman
cries here in my arms.

I stop,
inside that moment
thinking to myself
something metaphorical
is going on here
but just can't seem
to place it.

the old farm house
bears a rooster
on its roof
who never hesitates
to point east.

in the green
hilled distance
blades of grass
watch a girl
cry in my arms.
snickering as they sway,
understanding the metaphor
but reluctant to let me in.

a tear drop
from the girl
falls on a single blade
and soon the others
are persuaded enough
to whisper
gently.

so i do what any logical gentleman would do,

i turn my head closer,
and listen to grass speak
in million year-old tongue.
HERE WE ARE

halfway between october
and nightime, and back home
the leaves have begun to fall.

i miss the sight
of foliage in vermont
because sometimes we don't
long for things
until they're gone.

it's far too warm to be mid-october
here between nightfall, where
the mountains cut the sky
in such a way, that it seems
courteous and polite.

in the distance
i see a couple lock eyes
and caress...they too
i think, are courteous
and polite.

i wonder if they known
how orange can seduce green
in such a way, to seem
like he's not intruding.

though don't bother
asking those questions
here 'round nighttime
where back home
leaves fall from grace
so very gracefully.

instead i focus my eyes
to the two
whose caresses turn to kisses
and i remember my own jealous lips now,
how they haven't touched another's
in over a year. here,

in between october and nightfall,
where sand seduces stone
and it seems a little cold
for this time of the month.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

CHURCH STREET

how could that woman
walk alone down a street ever?

with a beauty that ferments my lips
with just a thought of their arrival,
to a place where we might kiss
in the dark corners of imagination.

she's the kind of person
that i'd hate to meet.

the fantasy falls at unimaginable speeds
into fragile pieces against
rock hard reality.

so instead i like to watch
her tan breasts reverberate
within a too tight top, as
the gentle bow curve
of a perfect neck
rolls hair across the face,

then return to my drink
where even the possibility
of such things amuse me,

and smile at the threat
of loneliness...with standards

too high for love.
HAPPINESS

and if there are any
flower metaphors left
then i'd like to use one
for happiness.

in the same way
that commenting on a cliché
always lessened it's effect,

i'd love to be right in saying
that happiness is like a flower.

because the more
you fuss and hold to it...the
less you can close your eyes
then step back and smile,

opening them to the beauty
such a simple thing can hold.

i've held it so few times
i'm frightened, like it was a place
i was rowing to with my heart's exhausted oar.

and that tide across an ocean:

the world's enormous lungs
expand and contract,
take something from you

then only dare to give it back
if you promise not to ask...like
a cosmic game of keep away

you play to keep afloat
until sickness taunts too far,
pull a 180 and swim away

only to find happiness again.

as if the whole time
all you had to do was give up
and head for shore.