Older Poems and Songs by Dr David     Free Verse 1 Free Verse 2 Free Verse 3 Free Verse 4 Free Verse 5 Free Verse 6 Free Verse 7 Metered Poems Family Poems Songs   Free Verse 1   biology women have a secret laugh for all the men they fool feigning inability willingly or under duress, aggrandizing the male ego "you're so big and strong and smart" taking a back seat making way for masculine aggressiveness this behavior the subordination of the female has for better or worse preserved our species to this point a hormonally-driven, biological imperative the laugh a bit of evolution the animal becoming conscious of itself the thinking brain able to look at its instincts embarrassed and superior men also have a secret laugh although being the less introspective sex they often don't get the joke and are usually duped along with the women they fool subject to their own hormones programmed for the preservation of the species they cannot help but find an attractive female fascinating and will gladly suffer hours, nay days, of mediocre even boring company because somewhere down deep buried perhaps beneath social inhibition and taboo there beats the primal, wordless hope that they will be present when she spreads her legs how wonderful is the grand design weak men made to feel strong uninteresting women convinced of their specialness the species assured its progeny. laughing biology makes fools of us all Ulysses even when he had come home and with bloody vengeance reclaimed what was his from those who would usurp it even when he had embraced his son and with relief wept upon faithful Penelope's lap even then the odyssey was not over the sea would not let him be waves crashing in his head ground pitching like a deck beneath his feet until he took an oar and walked inland to a place where men knew not what such a thing was for and left it there standing planted in the earth only then was he free of his wanderings Late August August expires tonight its cool, final breezes already autumnal the dying breaths of some gigantic beast who sleeps exhausted beneath the harvest and dreams of being naked and light. Summer aches her overladen womb weary of its labors craves the withering frost ripeness left too long grows rank and fat upon the bough which cannot bear but breaks. The world slips sighing tired and heavy headlong this evening into the quiet absence of space darkness suddenly usurps the day seasons falter earth's massive axis tips. The heart bleeds irrevocably spilling its impossible lushness out into night's cool, black sea life ends the swell of passion's throbbing pulse grows still and soon recedes. burning wings the MIR space station is losing orbit falling like the Soviet empire that made it it will one day break into pieces hitting earth's atmosphere raining down its fractured parts upon the planet somewhere we are assured over the Pacific Ocean but if as has been recently been the case its Russian masters lose radio contact at the wrong time then its anyone's guess who gets hit London, Moscow, Montreal it could make quite a mess this high-flying ambition is old and in need of repair and its Asiatic coffers are empty the prowess and the glory out of fuel still subject to the gravities of previous millennia what goes up must yet come down we are guilty of spitting in the wind of shitting in the nest of pride which would reach into the heavens our praise and our undoing look up and you may notice something wonderful and weird as the boatman once did spy Icharus falling from the sky Absence The soul cannot survive The air too thin to breathe Cannot be formed Into the kindness of a word. Bodies drift past each other Substanceless Without the density to touch Or be touched. Night implodes Shadows collapsing into a black hole Darkness infinitely turning in upon darkness. Oceans congeal Mountains turn to dust Nothing remains. thursday night I was over at the university's computer room because theirs do what mine doesn't or do it faster having gone there in the late afternoon then gone to synagogue for afternoon prayers then back to finish what I was in the middle of website design being new to me the code a puzzle gradually yielding 6 became 7 then it becomes clear that I'm not going to make it home for dinner before Rabbi Gopin's kabbalah class at 8 but the page is almost doing what I want it to do and the verge of success feels too good to let go and when I delete the last line of code that's jumbling the page (in Navigator, but not in Explorer) it's straight and five after eight and I'm out of there and five minutes later sitting at the table upstairs in the synagogue with Pinchas and Levi and the rabbi just in time to catch a summary of the first paragraph of the chassidic discourse "Come into my garden, my sister, my bride" from the line in the Song of Solomon and I'm not really hungry but still a little altered from my short fast and the discourse is flowing Rabbi Gopin translating more methodically than he usually does and what I get out of it is that there is a hierarchy in the way in which G-d sustains the world, "strength" is the most distant being something a person has or doesn't "life-force" is closer something constantly transmitted through which G-d every instant sustains creation "light" closer yet a more rarefied transmission more spiritual, more G-dly compared to "life-force" like wisdom is to the physical body and "Name" an essential part of G-d the external part of the Crown the way He is for Himself but making ready for creation internal, concealed the way the essence of a person is touched when you call his name and sitting there I am transformed realizing another hierarchy (or the same) as I look at my companions and follow the words of the talk, that is, that the I who am looking and listening is not the physical body so demanding of attention nor is it my emotions waxing and waning like the moon nor even these thoughts and understandings, the observer is the soul a part of G-d clearer now that the body had been a little denied and the spirit fed the soul evoked called forth by a language it understands and which understands it the essence shining forth delivering "life-force" and "strength" morning fog disappearing before the rising sun questions of personal identity are so tricky as the zen master said if you do not understand ask yourself who doesn't understand? love's course at first it was visible from afar like a star falling from the sky an impossible friction consuming itself and all in its path rock and air bursting into flame a blinding heat beheld only for the moment then it shone like the moon swelling and ebbing inconstant in the sky a different face a different time leisurely drifting through the night imperfectly illuminating the earth now it shines like oil rendered into light along the edge of a wick amber light pouring through the air flooding the room a soft flicker animating the shadows now it glows like fire dancing over logs yellow-orange tongues leaping up over red embers warming flesh and blood within love's meteorology I would be for you a cloud coming before the sun on a hot summer day shadowing the earth, a dark breeze blowing through leafy trees cooling the heated atmosphere the ominous celestial rumblings of distant thunder I would be the first drops of rain a gentle wet hand promising relief and the deluge that follows satisfying the thirsty earth sheets of water whipped by wind overwhelming swelling streams and rivers I would be fire from heaven electrifying the air wild streaks brighter than the sun connecting sky and ground the thunder crashing all around the lightening and the storm I would be for you the new day that follows lush and refreshed damp, calm and green birds finding their way home the sky still blue behind parting clouds the orange-gold sun reappearing low in the west the quiet of the evening the secrets of the night Oasis Russian matrons promenade Up and down the avenue But nobody sees you Anymore. Before my house Your garden grows Again Impossibly dense Like some equatorial jungle Flowers blooming where you bled Drunkenly miscarrying Purple, yellow, blue and red Without you. Your kindness Which even before you left Was a memory Smoldering like a lunar eclipse Dimly red among the stars No longer haunts me. My walls still stained with your excess Cacophonous exotic depths Artistic fits of ego Their painted gossamer embrace Which yet for you could not erase The ordinariness of being. "Has she moved away?" Someone asks of me As if I should know I saw you once How many months ago One lazy evening While I rocked on my porch swing. And imagined then That your scowl and your military gait Were in my honor But now I imagine That you never saw me Now I know that our misery is our own And that love is At best A glass of water in the desert. When you left I did not let myself think of you I did not wonder With whom you were Or if you were drinking yourself to death For me you were already dead And I was not bothered By the calumnious whispers from your grave I was glad not to see you on the avenue And soon I forgot. One day I heard While I was planting And tossed away a stone The bells which had lain hidden Silently among the brambles Four seasons Where you threw them From a third floor window When I said that they were mine. Now they sit on my kitchen table (The table that you also painted Adorning it with cosmological hallucinations) Bits of soil From the year before I found them Still clinging to the bronze bellies Of their Tibetan dragons And I ring them now and then To pacify evil spirits And just recently Like some brief oasis Alone I stumbled on the love Which once I thought was yours. Decline Love falls Like snowflakes swirling On the homeless wind. Like songs that banished angels sing Muffledly murmuring Beneath the ice of mountain streams Flowing ever away. Falling as the night also falls From starry heights To wander vast and alone Across these frozen fields On trails of years declining Like footprints in the snow. reverie the leaf has a soul perfectly surrendered, each blade of grass has an angel telling it to grow, clouds reflecting in the pond the water loves the sky, in the city man is alone and comes to think too much of himself westmore, 1am after the city the wedding everything dropping away on the long drive north lights houses finally the road itself, savoring the warm, quiet night fireflies in the meadow in front of the lodge mirroring the stars above, moon-rise over the ridge interrupts the darkness and a few notes from a bird who thinks it must be dawn Semblance I saw you among the flowers Their wild beauty unencumbered by gravity's pull Unearthly, Rising delicately triumphant in summer's early evening air Celestial, Rooted only in the sky Not you, but your semblance Her hair greying as yours might be Falling forward across the blossoms As she bent down to explore the curl of a petal The boldness of a stamen. In that twilight watching From behind I saw you move With slow feline grace Fed and lazy down verdant paths Suspend with you again In the foolish certainty of youth That now is all and forever. I saw you in that garden Amid roses yet impossibly full of a fragrance which had long since ceased to be. Not there, but long before Strolling in unhurried innocence across lawns still dewy with the promise of that first spring Before the winter Before the blight. And I, breathless between two worlds, Transfixed by your apparition, Watched in the fading light of my distant reverie as she turned a stranger's face Not you. Not there. How much has been lost. Dalai Lama listening to the Dalai Lama speaking at the Oakland Coliseum California 1979 addressing in Tibetan tens of thousands of Bay Area Buddhists and the curious like me unable yet to hold his own in English, sitting there in the thirtieth row right before falling asleep (overwhelmed by the spiritual transmission or exhausted from packing my friend's apartment earlier that day into the truck which we drove to the talk) on hearing the interpreter translate an adage, "if there is a problem and there is something you can do about it, then there is no need to worry and if there is a problem and there is nothing you can do about it, then there is also no need to worry," so pushed into sleep's nirvana renouncing consciousness I realized, "man, this guy has been on the mountain too long; if there's something you can do, you do it; if there's nothing you can do, you give up; you worry when you don't know what, if anything to do." the end of everything is, after all, the end. it is the continuation of this nothing that constitutes the real horror cleaning house it won't be long now affairs almost in order dead ladybugs and bees swept neatly off the window sill kitchen counters restored to a primordial emptiness the accumulation of years gathered into purple glass bowls stones and horns carob pods and bits of tortured metal the broken jaw of a fisher cat dried flower petals thrown out onto the wind pieces of wood which have lost their significance out into the yard naked surfaces or almost so dusted it seemed the time would never come the past would never relinquish its hold upon the future the present would always lie buried beneath everything yet to be done last night in my dream she put both legs out the bedroom window sitting precariously on the third story sill then jumped I found her below buried in the earth whispering to me promising "I'll never do that again" things pile up taking every available space useless misplaced forgotten toys and unsolved puzzles documents testifying to what was mementos of lost memories now stored or given or thrown away each one lovingly considered one last time then released I'll never do that again closest things I will take more naps I will lay in the sun like the cat and sleep stay up past midnight regarding the darkness outside my big window and the distant street lights like stars and the stars like nothing else and smoke rising from chimneys of buildings struggling to keep warm and write poems with the cat sitting on my lap I will realize that I am where I wanted to be that the adventure is of my choosing and that it would be insufferably boring if the outcome were already sure the future may not be ours to hold but the moment is in hand a cup of tea Hayden on the radio fingers playing with each other cars driving home along the avenue ordinary mysteries questions without answers I will take more comfort in the asking crows when I reach out she pulls away when I call she doesn't answer it is my fault right from the start she made it clear she keeps coming back but she's not really here the crows don't seem to mind that its 20 degrees their brave silhouettes flapping in long procession across the western sky in twos and tens, eight and twenty eight the sun just set they keep coming a break and then more now fifty they move like notes in some ecstatic symphony written upon the opalescent sky they seem as if they're in a hurry light fading temperature dropping I see them through my big third-floor windows almost as high as they are I know where they're going thousands of crows congregate in the trees behind a supermarket by the highway about a mile south of here their cawing as they come to roost this time of day is magnificent thousands of crows each staking their claim to their little bit of branch coming in from miles around in all directions a huge choir of feathered beings huddling together against the night taking comfort in belonging disregard the L-rd works in mysterious ways writing inscrutably between the lines shifting scenes behind closed curtains changing the world while we sleep hive and herd school and flock humanity but not the individual matters a few villages slaughtered do not change the course of history the symphony plays as well with a few different notes it is the whole and not the parts that is important there is no other explanation for Divinity's disregard it is obscene to say the young deserve to die impossible to believe the innocent (however few there are) merit the punishment received there must be some other perspective which we are not afforded some purpose which is concealed it is easy to lose faith personally the world is often cruel or senseless at best G-d seemingly unconcerned animals keep making animals continuing the species the world keeps spinning madly through the void it is only some trick of gravity that keeps us all from falling off endgame life closes in like wolves for the kill the infinite possibilities of youth narrow again and again fleet hooves pounding the tall grass of the prairie with no where to run. the pack confidently pursuing sure of its prey one day following the other towards an all too definite outcome hot breath and fangs brought down from behind or cornered among the rocks the quarry finds its end. the years conspire against us seasons deceiving us with their regularity losing ground each fateful turn somewhere up ahead the chase is over the run of the hunted finished the trail ends suddenly or slowly howling or without a sound the circle is closing it all falls down enlightenment sooner or later you have to give up certain that there is not going to be a happy ending continually things fall apart refusing the wholeness forced upon them surrender becomes the only option when after a long or shorter while it becomes apparent that something is missing ingredients left out of the recipe wondering what's wrong with the picture doesn't help imagination only fails to encompass reality things will not change not the way you want them to not soon enough you run out of cards to play realizing that the game from the start has been stacked against you the characters don't fit the parts the setting is off the action not right you stop trying somehow then when everything is lost unnoticed something new is born bathed in tears it comes into the world small, insignificant inhabiting the broken places a stranger feeding on the corpse of your dreams entropy it all must fall apart the former ways of doing and being the caterpillar dissolving inside the cocoon into a slippery goo the impossibility of our position not apparent until we are forced out of it the bitter pill swallowed it's the letting go deconstruction the ground quaking slipping away disappearing beneath our feet the night forest waiting for us strange shadows hovering beyond the fire's glow the familiar no longer of service the rules have lost their application all this may yet prove medicinal freedom's steely blade performing the necessary resection in time a butterfly may emerge but that's not the way it feels now F2 yes I want to start a new game I have never wanted anything so much as this to go back to the beginning undo the mistakes play it over again knowing what I now know stay longer leave quicker navigate those turns more decisively we are lulled by the cyber hum entranced by the computer's promise of flawless efficiency of virtual anonymous relationships data masquerading as knowledge knowledge impersonating wisdom hit F2 and get on with it now press Enter and leave the past behind fooled again Abraham ran to greet them out into the sandy heat to lead them back through the thankless desert sun to the shade of his tent mistaking them for men he washed their feet and bade Sarah make them something to eat three angels come one to announce the birth of a laughing boy one two cities to destroy one to save his nephew from destruction they sat with him and for his sake appeared to eat for angels take no food and Sarah laughed when she heard that she would have a son and the one who told went back to where from angels come and two went on to kill and to save what could be saved to Sodom's gate where there again they were mistook for men this time with fiery consequence angels masquerading move among us as though they were of flesh and blood performing wonders vague or clear but look before they disappear they do not really eat nor is there dust upon their feet forty soon at thirty still young and untried he has only his toughness to fall back on a callousness based on naivety allowing for no mistakes in himself or others speaking little smiling less one is free to feel uncomfortable in his presence his moods and opinions often inscrutable one is free to imagine the worst and yet I think that it is he who doesn't understand who somehow cannot imagine his own feelings that he doesn't trust himself that his silence derives not from calculation but from its lack from not knowing what to say someone who knows him well said during commiseration that he would be forty soon no I replied he just turned thirty then he said it again and then I knew what he meant life has a way of catching you puncturing youthful certainty inflicting wounds which won't ever heal maybe he senses it coming maybe it's already started the gazelle feeling the lions closing in the confusion after all that openness of having nowhere to run it's always a mistake to take it personally the discomfort and mistrust the hostility are mostly for himself I just caught the overflow but I'm learning how to avoid that how to stay out of the way a little distance a little time things were easier between us before and I believe they will be again he'll be turning forty soon free floating free of all attribution still it claims its place nowhere to roost it hovers about a sour gas in the stomach a vapor in the atmosphere the day the week contained a strange peace a greater appreciation for the way things are a sprouting of things long dormant a dream forgotten recollected the race continues but the runner finds his pace still it claims its pound of flesh something is very wrong and not within our power to fix even when we are surrounded by laughter our bellies warm and full even when the hope of love presses up through snow like the first flowers of spring it waits for us the earth wobbles on its axis humanity blunders along on its painful course the tragedy is of our own making we are unable to digest the food set before us the sun shines too brightly and so we turn away into the shadows tonight there is nothing to blame objectively there is relief and satisfaction in many facets the future rich with promise still the skinny beggar calls an emptiness gnawing at the soul a cold rain falling from these clouds of glory freedom all is complete there is nothing more each moment and thing perfect unto itself one no longer leading to another the end of desiring a breath expired let go it has all led to this without my knowing birds flown south leaves fallen from the trees the world erased beneath the snow's white forgiveness the sought for reward achieved a strange and horrible peace an equipoise allowing no movement the diamond's static symmetry life compressed into a jewel finished all that came before is over torn and fading slipping away like a dream in the night who will I be when I wake in the morning? human dilemma it's just that we are too close the forest disappearing amidst the trees the required perspective so rarely achieved she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me… who can tell? years and great distances are needed for its unfolding one life is so short what's good is bad what's bad is good we are to be forgiven our confusion and our lack of faith possessing no measure but our hope and fear if you do not cling then you are swept away if you hold fast then you are lost hopelessness is a required ingredient of success freedom is a double-edged sword after all we are permitted our little pleasures moments of quiet comfort signifying nothing and maybe looking back the pieces seem to fit a vague understanding fleetingly dawns the sun appearing momentarily below the overcast as it rises or sets climb a mountain or stand at the edge of the sea lift your eyes from the encircling familiar and regard the unknown stare out into the darkness between the stars look back with the eyes of the stars listen with a different ear to the sound of your heart beating there is greatness within reach but it is not ours we are part of a symphony, but not the player be still, be still I love you more than words can tell moon where before was only darkness and the light of distant stars she rises complete unto herself she rises full and bright the crescent and the gibbous the phases and the fragments made whole within her light from nothing such perfection comes without antecedent incomplete a thing apart whole and pure bears upon her now can claim her for their own suddenly the moon is full shining from her midnight zenith down upon the still fresh snow finds you people said it would happen like this you have to be not looking anymore and then it finds you sweet dreams such things are not of the earth like heaven's moon suddenly full casting its beams down from impossible heights stars arranging our fortunes from distances too great to imagine stories not of this world of heroes and gods of angels who visit man wounding him with their beauty consuming him with their fiery truth hopes which cannot live outside the heart delicate unborn veins sighs of love dispersing like smoke on the wind phantoms which flee the day shadows retreating into the night stranding us on morning's shore with memories of all that never was dreams of what will never be Back to top   Free Verse 2   the flight of birds pigeons take suddenly to flight launching themselves with great vigor from roofs across the avenue circling in the sky wings madly flapping their small flock splits in two flies apart then noticing the other's absence comes together again all this performed against the fleecy overcast of a Sunday afternoon invites our speculation what portents these? what auguries? such arts now lost to man see how they return perching separately on peaks and cornices unruffled patiently awaiting the next strong urge or lightly playful cue the voice of heaven the flight of birds a language we once knew the heart grows fond rest is best when you are tired food when you are hungry home when you have been away quiet after the noise the common things lost in their ordinariness will one day be missed the most sunshine idly lingering on the rug the cat ensconced upon the couch the softness of my father's flesh these are the days now just now this is the place here and here again the right answer during the second world war fleeing Hitler's armies Jews escaped crossing Russia and Siberia finding refuge in China which had not long before been conquered by Japan when the nazis asked their Japanese allies to imprison the Jews Japanese generals called a meeting with leaders of the Jewish community asking what Hitler had against them well the rabbis replied we are an asian people Israel being on the other side of Asia and Hitler hates Asian peoples with that said the meeting was concluded and the Jews lived safely in China for the rest of the war not moon the street light is not the moon unanswered the signs are apparent but their significance eludes us coincidences abound pregnant with meaning which yet refuses to be born the finger of G-d taps us on the shoulder turning our head we see nothing the world was left unfinished to see what we would make of it the riddle incomplete the joke's on us there is no answer there are too many kaleidoscopic permutations yesterday today tomorrow what was the question? the poor dull mind craves certainty desperately attempting to discern what is before us searching for the solid ground wary of the precipice's edge somehow one foot must be placed in front of the other we all need something to believe in a path on which to go philosophies compete for our attention where you hang your hat makes all the difference for now I think I'll keep mine on my head until when? he was a spiritual master the seventh of his line he worked miracles around the world without leaving Brooklyn his intellect astounded great minds his heart overflowed with compassion for his people and the world tirelessly he worked inspiring thousands to do the same thousands of centers opened at his direction around the globe continue reaching out to those who have gone astray the messiah is coming the messiah is here he assured us just open your eyes it is the end of days the signs have all been fulfilled seven years now he is gone dying without a successor and still the messiah has not come his flock carries on without a shepherd moving along well-trodden paths from pasture to pasture sustaining each other and the young who never saw for themselves with stories of his grace and magic new centers open the old work continues tradition and commandments there is a sense that he has not left. his followers bearded men in their long black coats and hats women modestly attired their hair hidden leave prayers and written requests at his grave the years continue their glacial advance with no end in sight the promise remains unfulfilled the fault no doubt our own do we want it badly enough? what of that spiritual vision those eyes which looked into heaven and opened beaming into our own encouraging us exhorting that surely he was coming surely he was here? for you Rebbe but not for us not yet. untried the intervening days have passed but the waiting is not over stars falling westward disappearing from the sky beyond hope and disappointment promises unspoken remain broken the uncounted lights of heaven unconcerned it comes when you no longer need it after you have found your own or learned to live without or stopped believing the moon hiding in shadows the dream recurs vividly almost real within reach yet untenable closeness rendering the pain exquisite tragedy is good practice light from the heart of space after this thaw winter will return valentines not one but all not here but everywhere not now but ever love swells and breaks the heart a bird escaping its shell the wind cannot be kept inside a bottle visitation she is quite delicate at least since her injury two years ago her back twisted somehow out of joint made worse by a vigorous schedule of dance from which she did not soon enough relent she follows now with great faithfulness a program of physical therapy, exercises and guarded forays out into the world her stomach discomforted by many foods her bowels easily poisoned she eats almost only that which her hands have made still when I met her over a year ago coming as she did for her simple lunch of veggies, tofu and rice to the restaurant which was mine making light conversation over the counter I did once when the chef was away cook for her the meal myself a year now the place is closed and I've seen her once or twice walking as I drove by but would not interrupt the measured reverie of her steps then not long ago she looked me up asking for some help with her fragile digestion looking at her I am reminded of all that is fine that which resides in this world only imperfectly or perfectly but only for the moment the dew which falls from heaven and then returns the moon which finds fullness then loses it again an elegant moth whose wings are spoiled by touch the sunshine felt but never held a distant song carried on the breeze a love unbound her smile an angel's wing brushing me in its flight I want to help to return the medicine which she is for me watching her like I watch the sun red setting in the sea who knows? there are offers but I can't decide a host of possibilities but I just don't know the usual predispositions don't have the same attraction old compulsions have lost their thrill the pressure's off and I find myself with more time and less inclination long term strategies present themselves but with variables unclear plans are up in the air who can say? the uncertainty is delicious a variety of flavors the present moment richer now that there's nothing to prove the current scene tastier now that there's nowhere to go a freedom in not knowing it won't last things never do but a corner's been turned and there's no going back I'm in no hurry and maybe that's the point you need to be lost before you can be found but right now I'm not looking you are the world all that you search for is already yours rivers cascading through your veins mountains sculpted in your bones eternity warm within your flesh the young of the forest nurse at your breast deer, rabbit, fox and bear from your eyes the sun shines forth winds issue from the hair of your head in your heart wolves howl at the moon the sky's starry vault and blue expanse revolve within your skull your bowels, veins of ore rooted deeply in the earth lightening flashes up your nerves heaven's gate opening there between your legs there is no lack all is done and done again; in readiness the throne waits only for the queen to sit upon it the miracle lost in its own simplicity is hard to grasp not used to such completeness we doubt the salts of the ocean flow in our blood and tears we are the sea upon which we sail one day you will cease your restless wanderings and come home to yourself     a change of season leaves softly complain to summer's last warm breezes rustling on the boughs anticipating their colorful demise the river will not be pushed the stone will never bleed the old lady is so alone far removed from all relationship resisting any attempt to challenge her isolation rejecting affection and assistance obscenely raging against such imperfect offerings and I am just unlucky enough to be her son it seems so important until it stops seeming so after you left after two years without a visit after a perfect evening watching the sunset from the roof feeling how your confidence has grown sharing a dream for the future after a smooth ride over the mountain in your car to a great meal on the patio of my restaurant after hearing more on the ride home of your love for the two Israeli brothers one with you up in Vermont one in Japan after your polite refusal to come upstairs and the hug we took in my back yard by way of goodbye and you drove away and I carried up the cat who met me halfway down after I folded up the massage table and felt the needs of my flesh still satisfied from some magic in your hands after all this I saw your two rings placed on the desk while you were stroking and stretching me where they sit one stone blue and one green their silver settings reflecting the lamplight like the moon reflects the sun ornaments of your beauty two rings and me left here remembering the sweetness of your finger's touch downward ambition fades reason stumbles strength fails I just want to go to bed anticipation it is easy to mistake one for the other to look ahead with imperfect clairvoyance and imagine that the time has already come to see in other faces reflections of a day which has not yet dawned the certainty of the moment's correctness proving once again premature life unfolding at its own excruciating pace will not be hurried by the accuracy of our prescience wanting it to be does not make it so the wrong hill the wrong dog the wrong love futilely maintaining that which has not been suffering the loss of what is not yet ours repeatedly still now the signs seem so complete the water never looked so sweet oasis or mirage? the desert sun plays cruel games upon our thirsty senses belatedly it's like a joke you don't get until much later laughter erupting out of time a riddle which remains unsolved until some wintry night when you're all alone waiting for sleep to come something forgotten that leaves a tickling trace a thought which won't form a glimpse from the corner of the eye an itch that can't be scratched something is missing but what and where and would it be known if seen if it hit right between the eyes? a kiss on the cheek an hour spent on the front porch after dinner clouds catching fire before the setting sun small pleasures sustaining us until the lost is found until the riddle answers itself and we realize that the joke is on us and we are done with our remembering certainty certainty is the last to go or is it the first who knows? who can remember? the day starts out in clouds but by morning's middle the sky is clear birds flying for fun winging without intention knowledge is death winning is the end of the game moving is only through mystery the hush of night in the forest the hawk gliding effortlessly in slow circles through the lazy, blue suburban sky forget what you know then forget that you have forgotten the clouds do not effect the sun but only block it from our view Daedalus revisited she makes a virtue of her pain down the avenue, around the corner this I have learned not to take personally people are where they are and only rarely leave no matter how unhappy unable to muster the urgency for change life slipping away in unnoticed increments each day appearing remarkably like the last it's hard to see yourself growing older waiting for someone to be someone else this is my fault believing seeing the golden possibility inflamed by a love not yet born earthbound she is not ready for flight still collecting experiences she will not play her hand it is not me not the poverty of what I have to offer it is an aloofness she mistakes for independence not just from me but from all an opposition which defines her an unwillingness to merge a fear of dissolution her mother's daughter she is good at finding fault the thousand inconsistencies apparent with things looked at up close my preference is for the clouds the heights from which all resolves into harmonies of color and form the lightheaded, dizzying skies it is my fault for believing she is someone else for wanting someone to fly with disconnect there's poison in the water there's cancer in the air we don't live like we ought to there's sickness everywhere the food we eat is toxic the planet has been wrecked they're only trying to help you zone out and disconnect the government is stealing your health and liberty their crime and dirty dealing betray the whole country they sell it in the back room the men who you elect their promises all make you zone out and disconnect there's murder in the third world their wealth all drains away the pirate flag has unfurled our army saves the day we're sure that God in heaven approves and will protect we go to church on Sunday zone out and disconnect it all keeps going faster things keep on breaking down we're heading for disaster in our own waste we drown we don't see where we're going solutions we reject life's just one great big party zone out and disconnect our neighbors they are strangers we're lost to our family the city's full of dangers the root's are pulling free each friendly face a come on each person a suspect go home and pull the shades down zone out and disconnect down to this it all comes down to this one perfect act or purpose a song sung together a walk home on a Saturday afternoon in mid-September sitting on the front porch as the day and the summer and our lives ebb away something needs to be said but having been said there is only silence something needs doing but once accomplished nothing remains we are at best a brick in the wall a link in the chain the grandeur rests upon us but is not ours the current flowing passes through us and is gone an onion given to a poor woman care rendered to the aged the act of giving birth there is a long waiting crowned by quiet meaning then it is over somehow I had hoped for something more enough that's all there is the grass isn't greener either side of the fence pulled by hope or pushed by dissatisfaction it doesn't matter it just doesn't get any better that's all she wrote end of story left off from unfair comparisons with an idealized future here becomes enough unmolested by the chorus of desires and fears now increases in value the present again and again imposing its primacy the cat content to sleep away the hot summer afternoon uncertainty forming and dissipating as naturally as clouds in the sky things just right or not so missing and catching mother's anger welling up through the floorboards a breeze from the electric fan take what's offered before going off to look for something else a journey off a thousand miles is only ever a step at a time one foot in front of the other again and again what were you expecting? the greatest philosophical musings metaphysical realms of religious splendor nothing compares with the feeling of a naked foot in the long dewy grass of a summer morning exile watching from outside acted on unknowingly I refuse to dance but am unable to sit still life is beautiful enough but suspect like a dreamer who knows he is asleep I look for the edge of the screen disbelieving the action in front of me others succumb to the drug of their choice or to the opiate ingested unwittingly money, murder, marriage, madness zombies circling around me pursuing desires like dogs chasing their tails there is an order of things a structure to the universe from which I am excluded wisdom lost balance forgotten the train is passing but I cannot get aboard what strange land is this? fragments from such a puny perspective it's impossible to see it coming together or falling apart the forces so large they defy identification the path cannot be apprehended in its entirety a comet speeding out beyond the solar system only to return ellipses, spirals octaves revisited grand cycles unrevealed to the iota inscrutable in the minutia which is our lives our doubt may then be forgiven the equivocation and disbelief waking here amid the loss and senseless clutter unable to distinguish the sacred from the profane which way the earth is turning what story is being told what place we have in its telling we are to be forgiven unable to recognize birth from death the end or the beginning a step forward from reverse we surround ourselves with our own creations taking comfort in the small ways in which we are allowed to know holding fast to the better and worse genie you are away working, living at some undisclosed children's home in Indiana no phone number, no e-mail address electronic media unreliable thrown back on letters I sit down to write you when my phone rings and my heart does a little jump expecting it might be you conjured up like a genie from a lamp by the force of my love projecting out over western Connecticut this night with the moon almost full broadcasting over New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois rubbing up against you somewhere west of Indianapolis like Emmy the cat would if you were here but you're not and it's not you either when I pick up the phone (but Chris calling from Vermont) the last time you called only a whisper on a conference line with your sister leaving a number for the second time which didn't work I called her back to be reassured that I had the number right your voice was so faint and then to complain about how hard you are to reach agreeing that it was somehow appropriate perfectly poetic of you to be so incommunicado agreeing how elusive you were even when you were here (sorry, but it's true) it's all what you make it as pretty as you feel a story we tell each other and our selves a dream in which we believe I think about you every day every night when I go to bed I imagine you here up against my closed eyelids sometimes standing before me sometimes wrapped in my embrace here among the sweetest, warmest treasures that come to soothe me into sleep. a creature of dreams smoke escaping from a magic lamp granting my heart's only wish, to dream along with you here let the days pass as they will there is no grand resolution the scene replays itself again and again the forces at work are much too large we are the fortunate ones winners of the great gamete lottery the lucky sperm and egg in their infinite permutations stopping on our number the offspring of survivors the dream returns salmon swimming upstream to spawn and die where they were born butterflies crossing the continent on impossibly delicate wings to where winter is unknown the end wedged in the beginning the outcome here from the start it is all done and done again it is only we who believe that it is different the story is as old as time generation upon generation dancing to the same old tune lives consumed by the simple act of living home one morning which is every morning one day which is all greenest leaf most blue sky now there can be no other time turning in on itself swallows its tail and disappears. moments of crystalline perfection cease to follow each other, each instant an eternity complete unto itself orientation lost the compass needle spins as everywhere comes to rest quite elegantly here. all roads returning the journey ends where it began ten thousand wishes blown like seeds on the wind ten thousand dim imaginings now taking root in the dark, secret earth. across the threshold the traveler reluctantly lays his burden down. warily like a sleeper wakening from dreams becoming yields to being incomplete it's there close enough to hurt like a splinter pressing a nerve only when the finger tip reaches out to touch something imperfectly forgotten just below the surface a rock in a swift, shallow river disturbing the flow of thoughts without making itself apparent a duty neglected known only by its absence like a black hole perceptible only by the distortions it creates the counterfeit anxieties engendered a fruit not yet ripe promised enticing out of reach something needs doing a cryptic demand gnawing the heart and brain a constellation hovering unseen below the horizon a destiny formed by the slow passage of planets through the star wheel frozen in the glacial movement of time irredeemable in hindsight the mistakes are too clear not enough effort or too much bad choices wrong attitudes roads not taken sorry excuses this looking back is not fair you don't know until you know and by then it's almost always too late the train done gone and she's not coming back and we can live with the regret the bitter taste of all that wasn't and will not be the empty spasm of shame deep in the belly we can eek out our sustenance from the produce of this poor land watered by sweat and tears surviving beneath history's awful weight it is only that it is not over the process not confined to the past blindly we continue in the error of our ways squandering opportunities growing old unable to discern the missteps as we make them oblivious to the blunders until it is too late and it is already too late just goes to show opportunities squandered bubbles burst poor estimates inaccurate appraisals bad guesses talents uncultivated regrets piling up like snowflakes in a blizzard insult adding to injury half-truths alternating with lies mistakes the easiest things to make you start out wanting to believe hoping that this will be the one ignoring the signs to the contrary needing it to be different from all that came before to somehow justify the journey all the false starts the paths not taken still one day without even seeing you know that what's inside is not for you leave the bags at the door turn and walk away it just goes to show as if you didn't know already how wrong you can be legends something needs telling a kernel needing to grow along with the oak in the acorn constrained by youth root-bound by the awkward earth in which it has been seeded an embryo clinging to life multiplying infinitesimally inside some dark womb a story to be told destiny unfolds gradually gaining focus she was born twenty-five her father confided to me after midnight when she was already an hour gone from the play with her kudos and roses back with her friends to her dorm-room and I could forgive myself for forgetting that she was only seventeen there is a time beyond time a life beyond the skin's taut necessity where lost souls come home to roost around a glowing hearth where cycles are complete and tales are all remembered where I can be forgiven for forgetting love letter am I in love or just a fool or just a fool in love? are you a woman or a dream or the woman of my dreams? I see you inside out now as you will one day be and love you there your secrets already revealed to me before you left you were afraid to fall where we were hanging you held fast and only seldom felt the wind beneath your wings and also I was afraid to love you as you deserved afraid to have the dream come true unable too long to endure the exhilaration of flight but now the world has come of age spinning love's threads into a stronger cord binding us together now the heart demands its due commanding us beyond those other false approximations beyond the pain that came before to trust and try once more to fly come, oh Sweetest Breeze my songs will put your mind at ease come and dream with this fool a perfect world of love messages you called while I was out twice your voice left on the machine greeted me from places between Colorado and Indianapolis when I returned much closer to home you are off in some distant spring with your lust for wandering leading you on your voice here to be replayed reminds me again of that infinite embrace easily shared one perfect Saturday afternoon when last you visited how we came together stretched across my wine-colored bed with the sunshine and the cat I believe in love and dreams come true I believe in magic I believe in you as night falls again you are out on the plains darkness creeping westward across that vast expanse two misses you will wait to call again still full of you I wait patiently for your voice on the phone and the touch of your body next to mine I wait keeping the home fires burning meteorology storm watch winter weather advisory flood warning they try to scare the hell out of you and with many they've already succeeded it doesn't matter how many times they're wrong they just keep coming back bold-faced no shame on television it is easy to avoid a sensationalized weather report coming up right after this word from our sponsor just turn the channel but on the radio they sneak it in several times an hour between the music dire predictions impending meteorological crises here in Connecticut we don't have flashfloods I don't give a damn what the national weather service says about it. it's overblown a simple rainstorm is treated like a hurricane three inches of snow is enough to close schools, businesses, and maybe the state people clear off supermarket shelves stock up on batteries as if the Russians were invading suburban housewives creep along a lightly snow-dusted road like they are off-road in Alaska maybe it's a sense of guilt expecting heavenly retribution for our lives lived so far out of balance the world striking back at the insults she has suffered from us but when that comes it will be more than a snowstorm forty days and forty nights might be enough to wash away our sins until then people need a way to explain their insecurity a home for their fear glued to the weather channel they anxiously await the next bulletin the network doing what it does to deliver viewers to sell those commercials the weather report more entertainment than fact and they've got us where they want us a nation of cowards fleeing when no one pursues if it comes right down to it big business can crush an insurrection getting people off the streets just by issuing a winter weather advisory midnight coda half-way through the eleventh hour the night will not get any blacker the musicians on the radio playing syncopating swinging rhythms are all already dead I saw it coming everything the old man told me proving true sometimes years after the telling undeniable no matter how much I tried the apple always falling close the cat is already sleeping on the foot of the bed the jazz show approaches its finale with mournful piano and philosophical trumpet today slipping rapidly towards tomorrow moment after moment note following note harmonies drawing to a close a smattering of applause then the announcer's voice one last time drink up now it's time to close mirrors it's easy to miss it to not see that you are staring at your reflection each surface person and situation mirrors self none other for better or worse the love is your own the oppression self-inflicted Narcissus staring into the water of life everything you like everything that bothers comes from inside like attracts like as the man said "A dog chews on a dry bone until its gums bleed. Tasting the blood he thinks the bone is sweet." this is a once depressing and empowering depressing because we are responsible for our own suffering empowering because we can change our world we are full of ourselves over-spilling projecting self out over the world the ancients recommended the end of self direct, unmediated perception enlightenment namaste Oh, Noble One, you who carry in your heart the imperishable fire of truth, I salute you. Long have you dwelt among profane people who have not recognized the sanctity of your being. I greet you as brother, lover and friend bowing to the wisdom of your soul blossoming within, worshipping the fruits of your compassion. The thunderbolt of our love penetrates dark mists proclaiming liberation with its overwhelming flash and roar. Angels applaud our union destined for all times. Heaven delights in the fountain of our love whose overflowing waters the earth spreading blessings like rivers from Eden. Arise my sister, my bride see how the moon illuminates the city and field come my queen let me delight in the wonders of your presence. no exit it carries over whether you know it or not damned if you do or don't especially if you don't a smell wafting up from the basement musty and sour overpowering when the wind is just right playing hide and seek on the tip of something else a moment ago below the radar out of the corner of the eye blind spots then right up front like it never left which it hasn't the same old same old blocking the view staring you down coming back like a bad penny a dull ache a sharp pain it never goes away circling overhead prowling off in the bush biding its time waiting to pounce again cat and mouse and we're the mouse wounded with no where to run no exit no escape it carries over reminding us when we forget everything else is just a distraction until there is no more distraction until it's everything you have until you have nothing everything you are until you are nothing waking you up in the morning putting you to bed watching over you while you sleep all and nothing the only way out is through and when you're through you're through a constant companion a shadow ignored while you're staring into the sun no takers after trying for two dozen years to change the world I have concluded that the world does not want to be changed, by and large we are an unimaginative lot who want if not more of the same then the same only more all the pretty things we see on TV, it's all sewn up the fix is in and nobody really gives a good damn, intellectually neutered emotionally spayed we've lost the ability to react to another's suffering or even to our own, life as a spectator event comfort in the herd lemmings towards the cliff, after all it seems to be a private thing an experience which can only be grasped by those who have lived it the blessing and curse of the initiated nobody wants to know you can't give it away the truth plays like an orphan in the alley way playing at love she is lonely and so am I we both need a little comfort she wants to believe that it is more I don't want to hurt her feelings I tell her I am incapable of love she maintains that it may grow I like to touch her but there is something desperate in the way she touches back as if she is feeling for something groping clutching I slip away after the passion that drew us together is spent caressing her as I slowly take my leave it is possible to talk yourself into or out of almost anything to screw up a good thing to miss your boat when it finally comes in we have been hurt very badly staggering forward skittishly retreating into each others arms it is an act of kindness succor from her breast the winter in my veins thawing beneath her sun the summer of her touch warming the chill upon my soul a simple, animal giving to fill that empty, primal need the desert beats upon my brain with all its cruel mirages visions inspired by thirst and sand when suddenly she is there stretched before me like some green oasis tall palms blowing in the breeze and I bend down beside her pool to drink from that sweet fountain pure waters from her depths and am revived the ancient hunger demands bread the night requires a candle what's difficult for me for her is ease I am not so hard to please the scraps from off her table I would take more if I were able self-referential it's the height of selfishness or the low point or the norm everyone watching out for their own ass polar icecaps shrinking penguins and polar bears soon to be extinct outside of zoos but my air conditioning is still working unable to see beyond our own immediate comfort except to plan for its continuation. it's nice to be warm and dry with a full belly but what do you do then? bodily gratification wears thin then out and needs time to recover satiety happens and then surfeit still all they want is more but more is never enough to hell with the starving masses the diminishing resources the over-polluted earth I don't care if there's chemicals in it as long as my lettuce is crisp it's the same old game and they're happy to go on winning fascinated, well no, not fascinated but comfortable with the victory hands down no challenge not curious about what lies over the next mountain or in the next heart unless there's something in it for me the smallest definition of self a solipsistic solar system me at the center held together by the gravity of self interest yea, well what else is there and yes that's the problem animals overfeeding at the trough it's the same old song but it's time to change the tune. Back to top   Free Verse 3   uncertain presents God wants something from us but He's not very good at asking maybe He wants to be surprised to see what we come up with on our own maybe He's not sure Himself yes, prayer and acts of kindness justice and thanksgiving but after these requisites something more something creative self-motivated an original composition thinking is merely procuring the supplies canvas, paint and brushes then there is the doing line and form color and negative space boldness and commitment the bird sings in the tree for no other reason the sunset explodes the cat inscrutably purrs upon the carpet God doesn't know what He wants from us and so we are to be forgiven for our uncertain presents and for not knowing just what we want from God. unity parallel lines converge space curves the universe turning in on itself. two thousand years ago the rabbis said that if three people tell you you're drunk you have to lie down significant coincidences wheels within wheels concentric orbits the stuff keeps coming around more when you're closer to the center synchronicities divine taps on the shoulder obscure references repeat the words of a magazine article corroborating premonitions the name of an obscure Egyptian deity written in the corner of the cashier's nametag later jumps off the page of a book on and on and again this must be the essential oneness of existence uniqueness disappearing distinctions merging the field is getting limited plots reduced only a few stories to tell love and war strong men and beautiful women strong women and beautiful men it's all already done all been done before only so many souls to go around souls keep going around reflections in a house of mirrors the knowledge knowing which all is known the philosophers' stone wisdom reaching beyond itself the cornerstone of the Temple it all comes back to your navel back to where it started the umbilical center of the world the dreams of an old man left to himself uprising it rises up a bloated corpse returning to the surface the odor of rot fills living nostrils the scent of its putrefaction penetrating sinuses, skull and brain intoxicating nerves polluting thought overwhelming sense the night ride home air heavy with mist and fog impatient at the red light the stupid delay that wasn't there before then along the back road frogs sprint elated by much-needed rain hopping past crushed amphibian carcasses brown splotches punctuating wet, black, gleaming asphalt tires slow and swerve to save a life and then another in acts of ineffective atonement it rises a sour burp from something eaten long ago fermenting undigested unstomached a noxious gas of guilt a miasma of regret an atmospheric pressure weighing down the very pulse of life it will not be kept down availing itself of grand pretext or the slightest excuse still it has no need of these requiring no invitation naked and dark it triumphs over human intention shadows of the forest stretch across the road vapors congeal amidst the trees obscuring this narrow sylvan way choked air intermingling the sickly sweet smell of life freshly taken with rancid decay of death unrequited we pretend we pretend because there is nothing else to do except to sleep like the full-bellied cat or die like the bee upon the window-sill fantasy taking us beyond deeply-rooted instincts to dominate or brood embellishing at least those animal urges with story and purpose we are engaged belonging to something filling the day with complex mythologies peopling the world with gods to worship to take our minds off nothing cities rise and fall wars are fought and then forgotten the afternoon flows effortlessly through the open window men sing songs because there is nothing else to do what we can we are all wounded some more than others some walking others flat on their backs we grab holding onto what we can we do not need to be reminded of our failings we need to forget the loss the neglect the winds which blew us to this crippled shore to write them down roll tight the page seal it in a bottle and throw it in the sea out past the breakers and watch the current carry it away "it's so hard being me" she confided there on the verge of love her noble face stoic not revealing the storm inside I had already rubbed her back and fed her lunch learned from her that she was when just a child violated and betrayed "so hard being with men now now that sex was forced" there are no answers no healing balm no love to fill a hole torn so wide a wound so deep we are the suffering world the noble path of pain the sea which swallows all and is not full we meet and look into each others eyes and recognize there inside someone looking back we grasp holding onto what we can offering each other the comfort of our wounded embrace x-mas Christmas lights go up across the yards of fine, large homes, reminding me of third world poverty Styrofoam plates hold the holiday meal putting me in mind of ozone depletion caused by their manufacture and dioxin from incinerated plastic one day packaging will be taxed here as it is in Europe one day news that pollution is killing us will make it forward of page 26 one day we will stop eating the drugs we feed the animals we eat cars and medicine will be replaced by mass transit and hygiene people will resist the commodification of their lives one day people will realize that Lincoln's prediction was correct; that corporations have ruined democracy that the C I A murders for American imperialism that it is cheaper and safer to feed the world than it is to maintain armies Americans will realize why the rest of the world hates or laughs at us one day we will act as if our children's future mattered one day we will give the Black Hills back to the Sioux one day the only tigers may be cloned and in the zoo the oceans will flood people will walk on water the dead shall rise water will turn to wine the meek shall inherit the earth meanwhile spread the word be brave have faith in the force of good and right and joy so cover your asses as best you can and have a happy new year 2000 you are the world all that you search for is already yours rivers cascading through your veins mountains sculpted in your bones eternity warm within your flesh the young of the forest nurse at your breast deer, rabbit, fox and bear from your eyes the sun shines forth winds issue from the hair of your head in your heart wolves howl at the moon the sky's starry vault and blue expanse revolve within your skull your bowels, veins of ore rooted deeply in the earth lightening flashes up your nerves heaven's gate opening there between your legs there is no lack all is done and done again; in readiness the throne waits only for the queen to sit upon it the miracle lost in its own simplicity is hard to grasp not used to such completeness we doubt the salts of the ocean flow in our blood and tears we are the sea upon which we sail one day you will cease your restless wanderings and come home to yourself     a summer cold after you left I caught a cold the days of drizzle conspiring and so with my drippy nose and the tickle in my throat I could not have kissed you even if you were here I slept but did not sleep or only shallowly and in snatches throughout the night and the naps I tried in the afternoons waking always unrefreshed last night feeling better I ventured out to our usual spot the band about to play the women were there with their smiles and their hugs and in the first long embrace I felt acutely the great emptiness in my belly and as I surrendered to the lingering enfoldment the ache began to melt the hollow to be filled now it is back vast, interstellar space contained in my bowels a hunger unfilled by the late dinner half-eaten before me an old friend only half welcome now you are back but not and I am somehow more alone than ever tonight I'm going back out to dance high and with a little help from my friends I will pass the night what right have I to simplicity? what do I know of happy endings? as if the source of love as if the source of love became the source of all love and threatened disappearance as if it could be clung to suspended in a drop of amber caged in bars of all that has been coaxed by weightless promises the answer unknown the cure something as yet untried the caterpillar sheds its skin to find a butterfly within the breeze pleasantly passes eyes closed floating upon the ocean relaxing breath and limb bobbing on the waves backing up? this must be what giving birth is like something large inside wanting exit too big for normal means full and ready overly so ripe beyond staying the bearing down contractions pain tissues asked to stretch beyond their means or like drowning pulled down in a whirlpool clutching at all and everything destined to submerge along with you an alchemy in the belly bitterness and sweet the insect splitting open its exoskeleton laboriously extricating a new body and limbs from the old shell unfurling its untried wings in metamorphosis there that first and only night with me inside you trembled and asked if we could "back up" "yes, but slowly," I replied the dawn rising upon us together we lingered through morning until after noon there was your work and a stay at the lake a week passes incommunicado how much stands between us and what we love the labor and the death the closeness and the drawing apart? what is this distance between us? a time to let settle the pot we stirred or dinner growing cold? where are you and why don't you call? born that way a great underground river of doubt a subterranean sea rising frequently in lakes and pools ponds and swamp the sense that something's wrong very wrong flowing subliminally, watery uncertainty suspected beneath each dry footfall flooding the landscape frequently enough to erode all stability what is it when it is everywhere? animal anxiety? racial memory? spiritual phobia? a miasmatic cloud a stain penetrating the core the extra thought distracting the purpose the nagging which tugs the heart pulling threads unraveling dreams of wholeness woven into the fiber of my being clouds the clouds backlit by the fading day turn dark against a sky grown pale contrast reversed everything turns into its opposite love comes with such uncertainty she was here but now she's gone a breeze blowing through the window uncontainable the vivid day fading into gray could this be love? it's better not to believe not to allow desire to disturb those quiet spaces of solitude birds thud into the plate glass wall breaking wings and necks against an invisible barrier flights of good intention aborted too much anticipation of looking forward to the visit is delayed poems never arrive a door bangs in the wind opening and closing with no one there it's just that this time… deja vu it all moves so slowly too many minutes in the hours too many hours in the day the same night over and again the bar, the music, the smoke you standing there on some other shore half-interested in what I have to offer words difficult over the distance over the noise the same steps and you don't want to dance you so controlled afraid to fall afraid of love unsure of who I am, standing high on the ledge uncertain of the waters while I drown below the signs worry me what does your absence tell me? what does your silence say? patience grows thin hope expires the moments pass away the spring will not last forever you're off doing what with whom I'm home writing these love-sick poems dusk stratospheric vapor trails in the western sky catch the red of a sun setting over some distant horizon the sky yet clear and blue while night settles over this town like sediment in a bottle the pink trail of a jet fades dispersing in some unearthly wind eternity it is not you and not someone else not something I have done or something done to me there is no thing nor finger to put on it no space no time I am left swimming alone in the afternoon lake wandering among roses in the dark the sky was clear this morning after almost a week of clouds not just the distant blue but the air close to the earth the atmosphere hovering around houses hanging between trees, it might have been the sun the contrast of light and shadows showing leaves and roofs and even the distant mountain more distinctly everything in greater definition by noon the clouds had returned and a soft blurriness with them a more forgiving vision enveloping the world glimpses at times it becomes overwhelmingly clear a moment standing on its own untrammeled a perfect celebration of all that it is internally coherent without reference implying nothing beyond itself unable to be carried forward or cast back the light configured just so just now complete unto itself and nothing more the sunset fading into dusk big birds flying across the sky alone alone and free humane society before the turnpike down the back road next door to the mental hospital they wait dogs penned up cats behind glass cages of rabbits looking for a home reasons for surrender printed neatly on pink paper hanging there for all to read below names that no one calls anymore "too many cats" "doesn't get along well with other dogs" "moved to an apartment where pets are not allowed" she takes me there to this her place of pilgrimage of compassionate visitation while I am driving her home dispensing our affection as best we can playing with cats and kittens through the plexiglass scratching snouts and muzzles letting wet noses nuzzle our fingers through the bars of doors we are not allowed to open she is a friend to them yipping and woofing exciting puppies and dogs inviting them to play as best they can in their confines offering her face to their pink tongues lifting the animal spirits of those who cannot read or understand the reasons for their surrender wanting only a field to in which to romp a home to call their own barking their protest at our leaving sad to see us go without them out into a summer afternoon driving again light drizzle wetting the day down along the back roads up Fox Hill where we park and nuzzle our goodbyes and as she disappears into the house and as I drive away all I can feel is sad to see her go and these stray cat blues is this the beginning? why then does it seem the end? will you be my lover? are you going to be my friend? unforgivable acts are forgiven or what's worse forgotten low tide I thought it would last forever or rather I didn't think about it only felt immersing myself freshly each time swaying gyrating with the rhythms swept by waves innocent of tides unreckoned but now waters ebbing the keel comes to rest the sea retreats eternity grounds upon the sands of time buoyant pleasures receding leaving the shore too firm beneath my stranded feet now marooned close by the ocean's roar mandate we all need some relief a chance to get high above the usual concerns floating in some airy realm like clouds or birds or celestial bodies we all need a drink thirsty house-plants that we are to be left outside in the rain or at least, phototropic leaves turning towards the window, a visit from the watering-can we need a break a chance to make a mistake and be forgiven by others and ourselves to recognize behind whatever native talents with which we have been endowed beyond whatever privilege conveyed by the accident of our birth that we are in fact quite small and flawed Wednesday nights I go out dancing a great blues band plays a club a short way across town I'm already a regular handshakes and hugs when I walk in the door there on the dance floor I am swept away the molecules of my body resonating with the rhythms there I am frequently successful in forgetting my self closing my eyes and ceasing to be just the music and the molecules we need most of all to change our focus to let go of who we think we are and what we think of who we are and what we think of that to get past ourselves by any and all means on the town we came to the bar together a new place up the road from your parents' house a shot in the dark last night clean and local lots of TVs a few arcade games a couple pool tables a band it turned out you knew (the bass and drums recently joined everyone still learning to play together) your girlfriends found us or you dancing in the entryway and swept you off to the rear with a wave in my direction leaving me swaying solo on the floor eyes closed until a touch on my shoulder and a woman asking if she could join me for a dance returning from the parking lot and the warm spring night smoking on break with the band I found you engaged with the girls at the bar, after a couple of drinks we went up front but soon you were back with them up front Julie wanted to flirt and the guitar was good and when I went back to check you were all now seated at a table, between the songs I asked how you had met and one of them answered somewhat sheepishly "it was with your ex, Matthew back then it was always you and Matthew" and I thought, "Right there's my answer" and went back up front with Julie, the billiards and the band and after a while you all came up front and you asked half-heartedly if I wanted to go downtown and I said with fatal magnanimity why don't you just go on with the girls and you said would that be okay? and of course it was okay seeing as how it was what you wanted to do and how it wouldn't make much difference to me whether you were in the back of the bar or across town anyway and you double checked as I walked you out and I was happy you had found your friends and there between the motorcycles you gave me the best hug yet really holding me inside and out because you knew I wanted you to go have a good time because you knew Julie was back inside and that you had been neglecting me. there in that embrace I whispered for both of us "That's something to hold onto" and that one moment was more than I had expected out of the whole night inside the band was almost finished and after you the flirting was trite so I drove home content and ate the dinner I had brought for you and drank the tequila and left the mango alone what do I know about love? sobriety it's all ridiculous an absurdity a fairy tale a wish upon a star that the obstacles would be overcome that the cool reserve might melt into a warm embrace that somehow I could get there from here stranded your car was stolen out of the parking lot where you work and so you have become dependent on others for rides one week ago it was me (the night sweetly fading into dawn) now I sit in this twilight no longer expecting that you might call wondering who's picking you up tonight? tainted love it's a visceral reaction here in the belly somewhere between a turning of the stomach and a cramp each time I receive her sympathy she would swaddled me away in some padded room safe from every extreme and her tone there on my answering machine her words overladen pregnant as though she were considering some tragedy recently befallen me or about to abject pity as though she were my confidant in some tremendous misfortune it's an aversion to her presumption of intimacy that she understands that we are kindred in craving the numbing tranquility she wishes for me that I am defeated and in need of a place to lick my wounds she would reduce me to an invalid with her concern cripple me with her caresses but I shake of her unwanted gift like a mighty man rousing himself from a stupor she does not know me but only her own imaginings like a mirror I cast them back to her and am free of her tainted love the anatomy of pain it catches the breath up high in the belly a vacuum in the pit of the stomach between the lungs below the heart drawing everything in an emptiness undiminished by all that it consumes there in that closest place an egg forever hatching a beak and talon tearing at the liver a weight on the kidneys and the soul it is the center of everything from which all arises to which all returns the mother devouring her young the snake swallowing its tail faceless among its guises shapeless amidst its forms nameless despite all that it is called the sacrifices have been offered the entrails consulted the rites enacted the sacred songs all sung and still the god remains unappeased the diaphragm freezes the heart misses a beat the first day we drove to the edge of town parking where the road ended got out and took the trail into the woods down the hill past the old quarry and out into the meadows leading to the river the day was warm almost hot in the strong, spring sun purple wildflowers following us on our way out onto the wide plain where the river still floods keeping it out of reach of the creeping suburban sprawl out where early settlers made a go off it their foundation stones, tools and graves buried now beneath river sediment and grass out where troops were bivouacked during the last great war out where lovers had their trysts under the pale moon there where the field had grown up into a wall of bushes and the trail ran down steeply into a ravine in a little clearing we rested you on your back your eyes closed in the soft, tall grass me sitting beside you my hands hovering above you following the axis of your body up from the bottom not touching over belly, solar plexus, heart and throat tracing the contours of your face with the shadow of my finger and when I got to your crown your body flexed legs rising knees bending and you laughed a delighted laugh as though you could feel the hand suspended six inches above your vertex it was there where nature triumphs over things human and the past is all but forgotten there where the river was close but yet unseen where all was well beneath an unhurried, cloudless sky there and then that I first felt the love I love for you the most you can hope for the box too small needs to be thought outside of it must be something different undiscovered or unexplored not this not this something as yet unimagined not just more of the same or variations on the theme but a new way of counting a new integer how we cry when that useless toy is taken away how scared when we turn and realize no one is holding on how frightened to be alone in the dark all your good intentions just get in the way you get to the point where you stop feeling misunderstood and start to feel that you're the one misunderstanding knowing that you don't know is the most you can hope for ubiquity it can't be helped it's all around microwave radiation electro-magnetically penetrating the blood running through our veins the hallowed depths of our DNA a noxious vapor choking the throat filling the head penetrating the skull at the root of the nose an atmospheric pressure bearing down on mind and body causing joints to ache adding insufferably to the weight of being a silent prejudice dominating the pattern of thought corrupting all that is built upon it a contagion like cholera in days gone by drunk with the water or the pox breathed in with the air no pocketful-of-posey to ward off the plague like the debility of advanced age the error of judgment caught after the horse is already out of the barn the mistakes people need to make for themselves nothing to be done waiting that the moon grows from empty to full that half of July's sunny days and warm summer nights pass without you wet dreams good and bad moods descend like rain falling from the sky spilling off roofs washing over earth watering the trees and flowers of a newborn spring. fantasies like clouds enshroud the nearby hills blurring vision with heavenly wisps and somber presences. last week love filled the air last night frustration reigned supreme not one without the other and none truly ours. tentatively leaves unfold immature, baby-green soon the chlorophyll will darken the garden will ripen in summer's lush imagination rivulets join into streams then into rivers and unto the sea flow and currents ever more compelling the drama transpires great cycles of nature brought to life by late April's gentle rain perfection would we know it if we saw it? would we taste it in our mouth? what can such incomplete beings know of completion? certainly it is not what or who or how you thought it should be newness cannot be anticipated wrongly rubbed I'm trying to put my finger on it was it your telling the ladies that I was "full of shit"? an unkind joke humor of a cynical sort not lost on me a counterpoint to the grandiosity with which I was regaling them, yours the only laugh was it your telling them that I was promoting a "Cult of Dave"? funnier this time flattering in a twisted way but still no laughs only their non-comprehending stares was it your offering me your friend suggesting her as a partner instead of yourself on the animated ride to bring her home or the words you then whispered her silencing her for the rest of the trip? is it the laggard realization that the swoon you admit to having "already swooned" was not a swoon for me or that, having offered my heart, you replied that what you really needed was money? am I just another guy buying you drinks? another fool enraptured by your charms who thinks he might have a chance? are you too comfortable saying "no"? and have I been too easy? adjustments and reflections you told me it was an "adjustment" your disappearance after the first time we made love a day of love a week away and then the quiet and coldness after your return you told me when you came by to apologize for some nastiness on the phone showing up at my front door sweaty from some car trouble on a hot summer day and showered and, wearing my boxers and tee shirt, wrapped your legs around me and the magic and love was with us that afternoon sharing the bicycle, the rose garden, the Japanese restaurant and each other through the night you told me the next morning that second time nested in my bed floating on an ocean of bliss between the waves of passion when I asked you about your weeks of distance when I mentioned that I was afraid you would disappear again abandoning me on some desert isle bereft of such ecstasy you told me your absence had been an "adjustment" "one needs to make an adjustment to something as wonderful as you" you smiled then you held me to your naked bosom took pleasure such as you had never known before and disappeared we treat others like we treat ourselves we treat ourselves like we were treated you pull away won't let me take your hand lie next to you or hug you you don't return my calls and when I catch you in at noon you tell me you were napping and want to go back to sleep I see you by accident or by dropping in where I know you'll be to a friend's house in the woods to your awkward surprise. your email tells me "I'm sure that you already know that I care about you a great deal" and that you are "reflecting" I love when we are united, your distance overwhelms me it is impossible to ignore your lack of enthusiasm your refusal to share your withdrawal floating in a boat you will not use the oar or you paddle away from my shore all I ever wanted all I ever needed here and gone unavailable I believe in our love the magic and the healing but you must believe in it too so much that's good and true is also impossible. you wrote "Plant a seed and it sometimes grows" but it needs some water and care you told me once sitting on your couch that I felt stronger about our relationship than did you our coupling awakened a great love (too strong it seems for you) the world is a different place for me a new light illumines a new voice issues forth in song a great love to which I must be true which I want to be with you and in this I may be wrong I can, as you once ordered, back off I can be less concerned with your well being to leave you, as it seems you want to be, alone I can accept the blessing when it comes and not anticipate your coming I am here I am here for you (you know that) where are you? I believe in fairy tales in princesses waking from their spells in the magic of a kiss… I can be such a fool almost spring it's snowing for two days now but it doesn't matter spring has already shown itself, enthusiastic flurries alternating with fat lazy flakes drifting inconsequentially half-hearted and late like soldiers who know that their cause is lost. the frosting accumulated last night by midmorning is mostly gone half way through March the sun journeying its longer way home has already warmed the air and ground stirring sap in the roots of great trees it is snowing the last wave of winter's ebbing tide disappearing on contact like an ocean wave percolating into the sand, the formidable season when such events needed to be reckoned with already fading into memory a souvenir purchased just before departing, a white-haired old man who has lived into another age it is snowing now but it doesn't matter another lost angel it is safer to be misunderstood than to risk the pain of intimacy to dumbly repeat in a thousand crippled ways the horror that was than to creatively inquire to suffer the wound's slow putrid ooze than to boldly excise the necrotic flesh it is about disappointing and being disappointed faces of abandonment my fault is seeing to clearly understanding to well and for this I am disqualified behind the clouds the sun is setting leaves not fully green even in the shadows of this cool, wet, spring day, Sabbath approaches somewhere she runs beside those who cannot even pretend to love her outside, from puddles on my neighbor's roof two cardinals sip rain bright red the male flies toward my window and then away imparting in a flurry of crimson wings the hope I need to carry on beautiful dreamer you fall in and out of love with me like a sleeper on the edge of sleep losing and revisiting a dream hush be still there is nothing in the garish day to match the opium of my kiss waking is only the first disappointment the false dawn the thousand necessities of living untrue promises and demands better to rest and dream with me your head upon the pillow than face the unkind light better the touch of angels' wings than the stones and dust of earth lie undisturbed and weave with me from sleepy strands a world beyond compare cradling heaven in our embrace the bed is warm the covers deep let all resolve in dream and sleep here stay in love with me bittersweet it almost hurts knowing how sweet it could be knowing the simple delight uncomplicated like a child I leave messages but she does not return the call I send emails but she doesn't check her computer the cycles must all coincide the moon school and work and her own strange, inner tides mine is a love that cannot find root an airborne life dropping briefly to drink from her enchanted pool whisked away again upon the breeze skywardly dreaming of the dark, rank earth she might be some wild thing refusing home and hearth an animal that pines inside four walls a plant that will not flower under roof a stone whose glistening fades when taken from the stream I might be a fool to try to catch it in a bottle searching for the formula that turns the lead to gold to think I might prolong the dream by pulling the covers over my head somewhere it is early Sunday afternoon and brightly-colored leaves are falling in autumn's light rain letting go it's a miracle every time the Jews crossing the Red Sea the sun standing still in the sky it's like I always knew it should be but never dared imagine two hours after saying no you call back to say yes and can you bring some schoolwork having two tests to study for soon there you are books spread out on my kitchen table my back to you as I wash dishes warm dinner and try to forget about seducing you then after nibbling the food and admiring my bottom you are ready gentle, slow and free without my effort or contrivance you come to me the less forward I am the bolder you become surrender assuring victory trees now bare will soon be covered in leaves but now we stand naked before you Chanukah party she misses the party sweet potato kugel and all drops out of touch for weeks at a time forgets about the invitation and then calls on the phone upstairs while we're all downstairs at the table "I'm in the neighborhood, do you want to get together? Give me a call." candles, kids family, friends presents and deserts I had a great time and she would have too that's the way it goes with us the story of our affair the non-story of our non-affair only so much hope you can hold out so many near-misses love can sustain I could have called after she blew off our last date to remind her about the Chanukah party (a date which she made) but it's hard to keep pedaling while she's dragging her feet it hurts because we've tasted how easy it can be together and I need some more because her current scenario is unsustainable (working two jobs neither of which suit her hair going gray at twenty-eight) because her alternatives are poor and because her adolescent way her childish certainty of a happily-ever-after outcome is flirting with adult disaster it's a case of my good eye and her incapacity to envision; my fantasy and her lack of it a failure of imagination on both our parts I learned a long time ago that being right doesn't count for much that you can lead a horse to water but you can't stop it from bashing its brains out on the rocks that love is not enough that the devil will have his due that being able to see the future is as much a curse as it is a blessing what I need to learn now is to stop trying to rein in my faith in happy outcomes after the party I return her phone call but her signal is all broken up and I'm up later than I want to be writing this poem to myself, par for the course Chanukah there was no reason to believe no justification for faith the desecration seemingly complete the darkness overwhelming but then the faithful did arise the believers did wage war Matisyahu and his sons and the stubborn Jews who followed them then G-d delivered the many into the hands of the few the mighty into the hands of the weak the wicked into the hands of the righteous and victoriously they cleansed the Temple redeemed they purified G-d's Sanctuary finding there in some dark corner overlooked by the blasphemous Greeks a jar of oil inviolate and lit the sacred candelabra with it (although again there was no logic) and again G-d miraculously intervened to make that one day's worth of oil last the eight it took to make the new oil ready there is an advantage to light which shines in darkness a brightness lacked by a candle in the day a greater illumination there is an advantage to stubborn belief to faith transcending understanding to battle and to inauguration far from confident I light the lamp with my small jar of oil and wonder will it last until I can press more? adulteries faithless woman with your belly full of delicacies you rise from your husband's brightly lit table and run off into the night forgetting your people you parade your treasures among strangers exchanging gold for that which is of no value reveling in the tavern sweet words of truth are trampled beneath boisterous feet made bold by strong drink your dances are for others while your husband waits inside his walls forsaken staring out into the night you turn from purity towards corruption with a rebellious heart from the knowledge of G-d towards that which has no power to save you stumble amidst sinners mistaking the snares of folly for freedom light-heartedness for good much-attached to your drunkenness you recklessly squander great wealth with you there is no discernment wisdom cannot find a place in your bosom you despise good counsel disloyal woman shame will be your reward in the morning when you wake far from home sick from your adulteries fancy's flight colorful visions of you like leaves blown by autumn's wind brightly off the tree five below when it snows I think of you a result no doubt of venturing out in two recent storms to visit tonight it is wintry again clear and very cold and it seems I will see you compelled as we are to conduct our relationship in extremes of meteorology cold fronts hurtling around us the last time I managed to get you alone the skies and roads were full of snow and you of fear afraid of losing of indiscretions and liberties errors of judgment taking us to task for the past relationship falling victim to familial anxieties I am guilty let me concede that here to you now of many things but my capacity for self doubt compensates well for my at times reckless self confidence and I have always been quite amenable to remediation no one can blame you for wondering but the proposition isn't as risky as you might think put your money down when the odds are with you "Papa wants a new pair of shoes" and I'm feeling like your sure thing the man of your dreams if you'd let me I love you because you love the words enough to read them over, because you not only get the joke but sometimes are it because of your wild red hair the thoughts coming out of your mouth your boys and the way you pirouette even in the kitchen. you were supposed to call an hour ago encores no doubt delaying you at that prior engagement. waiting for you and the tea we will share I have at least this poem to keep me company pregnant lines presenting themselves hatchlings lovingly added to the brood imposes how the world imposes the red-headed man you knew from high school with his autistic affect who would have kept you talking (all night?) if I hadn't drawn you away to the place I was saving at the table then when you were returning from washing your hands the child who left you playing with his toy standing there among the bustle of people in the middle of the banquet forgetting that I was waiting for you to break bread and while we are apart your friends your family your schooling your myriad allegiances your father's inconsistency your ex-boyfriend resurfacing like a bloated corpse there in your embrace I must try very hard not to feel abandoned (you are not my mother I am no longer a child) or to feel it, but apart from you not to take your neglect personally the calls you do not return the promised sunny afternoons where you are unavailable if you were happy, I would not be so insistent constancy is it not true that all the loves I loved were you that somewhere deep inside their soul I glimpsed a part of which you're whole and wanting so much to believe allowed myself to be deceived 'til I awoke cut by the shards of dreams which broke to mourn my heart's too eager crimes to say goodbye one thousand times to watch your vision fade away there in the too clear light of day? but did I not preserve in my most sacred spot, where loss and failure can't assail nor disappointment spread its veil, the treasure left unto my keeping love's flower watered by my weeping? please do not fear my feelings are the most sincere like steel that's forged within the fire so tempered is my heart's desire the blade that's pounded by the sledge is bound to hold the sharpest edge with salty breath the sea spits out those marked for death tempestuous waves have washed aground the capsized crew now nearly drowned my storm-tossed heart does love you more than shipwrecked sailors love the shore Back to top   Free Verse 4   gratification it was a substitute one thing for another an approximation of desire what could be had a pair of shoes that don't quite fit an apple instead of an orange things had been going badly for each of them parallel downward spirals courts, divorce and death two snakes descending the caduceus frustrated in the expectation of some glorious resurrection disappointment following disappointment an unrepentant double helix pleasure missing like a name that can't be recalled unencumbered delight the ecstasy of abandon blown out to sea happiness tethered to a schedule life measured and predicted responsibilities piling up like dirty dishes in the sink both were wary drowning casting about among wreckage grasping at straws at counterfeits usurpers come upon an empty throne pretty faces all imitations of something only yet imagined wary already of not finding but also of finding of finding and not knowing the long-awaited promise passing in the night unrecognized by eyes untrained for the dawn the drug had been his lover embracing him when no one else would buoying his heart in that dark sea then leaving him again alone weighed down by black eternity but with her he felt an unaccustomed lightness in her embrace a high unlike the others his stupid heart there next to hers grew clear and pledged itself to love sincere for some reason she finally gave him the chance she never would before, maybe it was pity after his father's death maybe it was knowing that she didn't know anymore maybe it was a simple animal need now they were lying quietly together on her couch her liking the way he touched her restraining herself lest the waves swelling between them sweep her away the brownies she made when he came over sit untasted on the counter after a few kisses the chocolate's not so sweet love's affliction "He whom the L-rd loves, He chastises." Talmud G-d keeps you from me because He knows that given the chance I would love you too much that the pleasures we would share would be too exquisite and that I would perish among them He knows that if you were mine I would come to worship you that you would be for me a sacred shrine a Holy of Holies wherein I would sacrifice myself upon your altar already the angels murmur jealously against us now when like a bird upon my window sill you linger only for a moment and fly away G-d keeps you from me because He wants to keep heaven in heaven because such bliss does not belong here on Earth because my longing is not yet perfect nor is my suffering complete lunatic the days I count turn into weeks the weeks into a month then two and then I stop counting the poems I email bring no response her answering machine is broken when finally she does pick up the phone she is friendly but distracted and brief then she appears like the moon through parting clouds full of night's mysteries miraculously in my bed bringing in her touch all that has been missing since before the beginning striking me with her unearthly fire sweeping me away in her lunar tide and for a while we linger ridiculously complete overwhelmingly loved enjoying that impossible moment then the aperture already narrowing overhead the cloudy window closing she, still smiling gathers her wonders and drives away closing the door to heaven behind her the moon's radiance still visible through the now complete overcast glows faintly then disappears and I am left to count the days and watch the night skies awaiting another revelation midwinter I am left to pet only the cat to snuggle just with the covers to lick my lips and laugh to myself out loud to kiss but holy books to dance alone and run my fingers through my hair scratching my own back as best I can once in my arms you were the object of these affections now there is only imagination footprints disappearing in the snow migration you don't respond but I keep writing leaving these poems in the box by your door orphaned epistles left on your front steps quietly without a knock or a doorbell's imposition waiting silent as the snow I imagine you holding this page in your delicate hands your busy world swirling around suspended for the instant it takes to read the words then folding it and putting it someplace out of the children's reach looking at it again perhaps when the long day is over I am, I'm afraid, a source of worry one more uncertainty in your already too uncertain life calm yourself soon enough they will stop appearing these homeless affections at your door cold straggling birds taking to the sky heading south million dollar smile it couldn't have lasted more than a second but it had all the heat of a February thaw melting winter's snow illuminating the darkness like a hundred thousand watts a bolt of lightning flashing just for an instant last night we arrived at synagogue at the same time me giving you the distance modesty demands despite my curiosity looking but not staring as you walked across the parking lot to where the other women stood your black hat pulled down against the slushy cold your dancer's bearing then, as I held the door for you you turned your head and gave me the prettiest smile I've seen since I don't know when a solar flare obliterating the glacial night I don't know where you keep it but it's nice to be there when you let it out tended I thought we were making progress when across the table you voiced your disbelief that she had let a man like me go I am convinced that you love me it's there in what's spoken and in the sentences not needing to be finished a rare compatibility of mind and spirit and flesh assures me in small ways and in large but your heart is a fickle thing a bird come in through an open window fluttering about the room confused by the limits of human space craving the open sky are you old enough to put away your toys? to leave aside those adolescent joys? to shed that caterpillar skin and find a butterfly within? I know that I love you what you are and what you can be the depth and breadth of our sharing the magic when we are together but love is a fragile thing a garden that must be tended from early spring until summer has ended saturday morning also it is nice to come down from the heights from the peaks and our soarings among them to wake in bed and lifting my head to find you lying there beside me the feel of your hand taking mine in the soft, morning light while I'm trying to fall back asleep is much sweeter than the slumber which eludes me to rise and dress and meet you at the breakfast table sealing a night of tantric bliss with a milky kiss it is good to see you also in a more ordinary way free of the evening's intoxication to see you down on level earth still with the stars in your eyes self-appointed joy answers without questions songs without tunes the birds have quit the sky there is just the lightest dusting of snow and even that is melting off staring through the naked trees one-eyed among the blind imagination leads me on to all that never was and what can't ever be searching for the phrase he does not cry lying in the hospital bed robbed of his right side holes in his mind he taught me inadvertently (and does so yet) and now that he cannot resist accepts the caresses I bestow on his wasted form holes in my heart stuffed with poems a father recreated in verse she does not call busy with the holidays the countless friends who do not understand her half as well as I what place is there for G-d and love for the last days of freedom? rows of houses cars in line the common good the daily grind other words not sung so sweet poems left at her door to be content with ordinary ways the schedule of days life's gettings up and goings forth the incidental pleasures the world of weight and measure what good is there in asking more in searching for that self-appointed joy in writing poems that no one reads songs that no one sings? the Ari Rabbi Yitzchak Luria the Ari who revealed himself as the greatest kabbalist of all time when he lived in Safed in northern Israel some 400 plus years ago was repeatedly petitioned by a resident of Safed who wanted to be his student and repeatedly he refused until one Friday when he agreed telling the man to wait that afternoon by the road where he and his students would pass on their way to study in preparation for the Sabbath. excitedly the man readied himself for the Sabbath positioning himself early by the side of the road immersing himself in his own study while he waited but as the eagerly expected moment drew near he was overcome by sleep and missed the Ari who on returning following his studies along the same road on his way to shul told his students to wake the man up because the hour for prayer had arrived you want what I have as much as I want to give it to you it is the key to the lock on your door but when I knock you are asleep dreaming, I suppose, of freedom density the walls close in the air becomes dense a thickness inhibiting movement and thought while night itself spread wide outside the window is only empty and dark there is nothing to do nothing that could be done the phone does not ring there is no power of speech the cat eyes the scene warily prayer becomes ineffective thunderstorm you come like a cloudburst pouring around and over me heavy and wet blankets of water erupting from your dark heaven thunder rolling lightening flashing between us on and on you flood me one crescendo surpassing another buckets of rain rivers, oceans of bliss spill from the unimaginable heart of the storm and you borne aloft riding transfixed upon the tempest swirling wild and free upon the gusting wind then after an eternity it is over the sky exhausts its passion clouds part then the still-shy sun casts its rainbow eye streams gush ponds and lakes brim but the earth could not drink fast enough and the ground still thirsts for more turtle blues it's hard (knowing how possible it is) to live without you knowing you are just fifteen minutes away to stay here alone the simple force of love I hoped would bring you back to me I now believe is keeping you away I'm glad you think of me when you want to let out the softness inside your shell the vulnerability retracted I'm glad I make you want to expose yourself I love you as you are on those occasions when you let yourself be loved but foolishly I want you to do something for me that you don't even do for yourself hopelessly I want a regularity from you who takes such refuge in irregularity it's hard knowing how impossible it is maybe maybe I could not love you forever maybe your voice will cease to entrance me its soft and sharp its lilt and weight maybe in time the spell will expire and I will stop this fascination with its innocent curiosity and swift conviction the depth of its laughter its wry cynical turnings someday perhaps your insights will cease to stimulate me striking my mind like lightening creating new life in some primeval ocean I will stop being tantalized by your mystery wondering what came before or what is yet to be revealed maybe the poems will stop flowing when I just think of you maybe I would grow weary of the garden of your body its seeds and fruit the seasons and the ever-richening earth maybe I would grow tired of the many beauties of your face the transformations of your visage the ease with which your soul shows across your features your moods made flesh the intricate nuances of your voice will cease to enchant me the floods of feeling will dry up I will stop feeling that you are I and I am you you are my dreams made flesh I will have had enough of the comfort I feel beside you the joy just knowing that you exist maybe I would not feel so at home in your ideas such fellowship with your manners maybe the mountains will crumble maybe the sea will dry maybe the sun will cease to shine maybe the moon will fall from the sky meanings the humor and cynicism which overlie your words the curiosity and conviction which wrap themselves around your meanings need to believe will it be sustained take root flower and fruit and taste will our hopes have been misplaced the dream is at odds with reality this happily ever after but I need to believe maybe you are not up to it to be the other half of my whole you can't get there from here which meant, when you asked the farmer for directions up there in Maine, that the road was really just a cow-path and not a fit route to your destination but on you go ignoring the sober, agrarian appraisal banging up the undercarriage tires spinning car sliding sideways in the mud stuck in a rut you are unsuspecting like the supermarket's beautiful cashier girl wasting her hours handling other people's money and food stupidly confident in her youth and I would rescue you from the weight of days slowly bearing down but you are unconvinced that you need rescuing happy in your adolescent ways still obsessed at thirty by what your parents did or didn't do for you blinded to the future by the past I had already let go not hearing from you for months when you called suggesting dinner enticing me with your delicious possibilities but it's another cow-path that we're on ruts, mud and spinning tires and I know it only gets worse up ahead and 'though I hate to leave you stranded you will not turn around please forgive me my retreat it's just that I've realized we can't get there from here coda you owe me nothing and that's what I get the shadow you keep hidden in your heart I wanted to be with you but there was no time consumed as you are by something missed as a child my phone calls are not returned my poems go unanswered the crumbs you left outside your door are eaten or covered by freshly fallen snow the birds have all flown off your lady friends all smile and laugh and give me their babies to hold but when you come to dinner I am not invited (still I try to get Noah to tuck in his shirt against the cold) the last time we spoke you were concerned with wallboard and insurance policies sounding ridiculous even to yourself projecting emotional insecurity out onto my building and I would leave you alone with your sons your interminable responsibilities leaving you no time to consider the passing months and years mothering obscuring the loss of your youth leave you to find the predictability you imagine you want. I should not display myself before your indifference yesterday in synagogue it hurt too much to look at you your "Good Shabbos" as you walked by startled me you disappearing before I looked up from my plate then coming upon me as I was making my get-away I answered your inquiry as to my well-being as if you cared convinced of the futility even before we were interrupted "we'll talk later," you apologized and for a while I believed that courtesy now I believe I should take a hint and leave you alone as you have already left me should follow you in dissembling that intimacy that contact made some few winter nights in a year already past you told me then you didn't want to break my heart but, my dear that's what hearts do best your GPA I'm good for your grade point average my cracked, but reliable honesty is good at making complexity plain I'm the study partner of your dreams but it seems you want neither partner nor dreams you are some rare bug an insect living underground for years who emerges metamorphosized one long summer day taking to the sky on new-found wings gloriously but only for that afternoon and I am cursed to have seen you fly and to want to see again there is something wonderful about your impossibility a problem that refuses to be solved a preciousness too dear for this world the grain of sand that yields the pearl the pressure that forms the diamond you are across town practicing trigonometry involved in lessons of biology or earning your living disinclined to write me into your equation to entwine our biologies into a new living I am bored with the independence that so attracts you dreaming in November of recess and long summer days     archeology that something should be redeemed a treasure stubbornly buried in the earth a primal joy covered by dust; that life has been arranged for me to stare out this window at half past noon to feel the breeze and write these lines seems not enough each word, a shovel-full of soil tossed away deepening the hole; that I am free to speculate on purpose and G-d feels now a burdensome liberty a jazzman's improvisation requiring some form rocks pried and hefted out of the way; something has been forgotten entombed by the detritus of time, the mound giving no clue to what if aught is locked beneath, bones and shards leading on my fruitless excavation a grave in which to lie down? the gate of some lost city? aria Sibelius' seventh on the radio Emmy on her pillow outside my window the leaves are off the trees revealing an extended horizon in the distance the sky is baby blue overhead a perfect azure elephantine clouds drift slowly by notations of some celestial song yesterday I dug a trench in my back yard to help the water down the hill this morning surveying my work I noticed among the soil and stones which the shovel turned up a glass marble a cloudy-green pearl buried how many decades? you are the first snowfall yielding to the warmth of autumn's earth you are the yellow leaves piled high about to take flight you are the distant horizon the humus of the newly-furrowed soil the aria of the clouds August's resolution don't let anything get in the way the pain in the hand grasping the pen the thousand details of living the distance between two hearts between what is and what is coming to be rising late from an afternoon nap on a cloudy Sunday in August the mind is particularly calm rain on the pavement rain on the lawn being right doesn't count for much even without the childish opposition going left because I say right petty assertions of self rebelliousness like Pharaoh's, "I am the River and I made myself" and then blaming me for the consequence, even so I would grow weary of explaining even without the misplaced certainty the pride in knowing what you know and giving no sign of surrender without your extraneous revelations and questions which interrupt the learning I would come to resent having to finish my sentences even if you were compelled by the necessity of your circumstance and unenamored of your independence were I not subject to the anger you reserve for intimates and had access to your hidden love still it would not be enough tonight the moon has already set stars twinkling in the brutal cold of January's night this evening unclouded by the imagination of how things could be I saw how they are I have made myself too cheap no wonder you disrespect me brushstrokes I am jealous of your simple life no larcenous shadow trailing no threat of further prosecution no bitter mother to console no worries about the kids no building program in Vermont no lumber to be milled no pasture to be cleared this cloudy afternoon (one day after my father would have turned eighty-seven) the beech tree's limbs just beginning to leaf appear like some primitive calligraphy against the rice paper sky an ancient, undecipherable tongue no conflict in the synagogue no rivalrous siblings no stone to carve for the grave there are no more considerations of forward and reverse the cat on my lap wants nothing more than her own heat reflecting up with my own and my hand to stroke her back. these are the fruits of my labor the reward of my inquiry no one said it was going to be pretty coronation after a long time wondering why you won't last night I finally realized that you can't a long time wondering what more needs to be added to the perfection we manage on those irregular occasions when you come to me what is needed to make it last to keep you from leaving how it is that you turn away from the fullness to the lack choosing the past over all that is and could be maybe it was your brother's recent institutionalization putting you more in touch with your own imbalance maybe I just got smart but last night I saw the contrast between the woman of my dreams and the you that doesn't want to live anymore last night I saw the suicide refusing the crown I am no longer confused by the facts the logic of your situation no longer compels me to believe in my dreams it is not a question of will but ability not that you are refusing the cure but that you cannot swallow the medicine I used to admonish certain of my lovelorn patients baffled as they were by why their boyfriend or husband would not respond with the sensitivity they craved saying "you think that he has what you want and he's not giving it to you, but what if he just doesn't have it?" I think I need to take my own advice. extraterrestrials it had to snow half-hearted flakes lightly falling from the sky tiny, white visitors from another planet meandering on our wayward breezes the overcast could no longer be contained winter's cloudy crown spilling over the atmospheric pressure demanding some relief in the distance the mountain is already wrapped in snowy fog here too the storm will soon begin in earnest the air becomes much whiter roof and ground acquire a frosting a blanket woven by crystalline guests emissaries from a world much purer than our own finale it rained all day lightly or, dark and thundering, in buckets after lunch in a borrowed coat a walk back from the other side of town (hat still drying on the back of this chair) through colors emboldened by wetness the green of August trees dripping, double yellow lines gleaming along the blackest pavement the sky unrelentingly gray now just moments after sunset the western heavens open clouds erupting into gold then orange now pink an unexpected revelation consummation ...and then the night genesis so many things have to be just right gravity electromagnetism the forces that operate inside atomic nuclei as well as the masses and relative abundance of particles therein everything needs to be perfect absolutely as it is not a little weaker or stronger or tuned slightly differently in order for life to exist this universe's defying of all the odds is, by embarrassed scientists, referred to as the anthropic principal. on the street it's called divine creation that G-d arranged the world perfectly positioning it for life makes it easy to believe that He wanted us to meet fear of death I am the fear of death Mongol hordes sweeping in off the steppe the cornered beast the cowboy outgunned I am all that remains to be done and its undoing the infant sensing its demise the terminal disease diagnosed the vision dimmed the final breath the person I imagine I keep imagining you but I have to admit you're not the person I imagine or you are but only rarely; I keep imagining that we can recreate those extraordinary moments we've shared but you are not always in the mood for miracles; be careful how you let yourself go sometimes it's impossible to get back, if you cross your eyes and someone slaps you on your back you might always see double; be careful what you pretend to be because that's what you are; I am a pool of love on a hot summer day you are sweating in the sun, whatever it is you are trying to prove you can get back to it after a little swim. no one can love you more than you love yourself, I found that out the hard way; that you cannot love others instead of yourself is another recent insight; playing together is usually a lot more fun than playing alone or not playing at all; it's easier to notice the years passing by the more years that have passed; no longer trying to get into your pants I find myself still concerned about your well-being; stop trying to help others and save your self, as Buddha advised, "Work out your own salvation diligently." rise it depends what was expected somehow to rise above this overcast sky up through these wrinkled underbellies of interminably gray clouds and then? what was imagined justice, fairness, a level playing field something more jet age love you say you will visit one day after another but you don't. it is understood that you are very busy when you do arrive each time like a fighter pilot returning from a mission there is a debriefing unwinding the stress coming back to earth from unfriendly skies it is my fault for wanting to take you away from the war for imagining a cottage in the country with dogs and kids meanwhile the sun is setting orange through the dark green leaves impossibly lush leaves and I am cooking dinner for one wondering if that is you I hear roaring overhead limits I don't take it personally it's just what you do or don't do that you can't accept the love from the one who knows you "best" is not due to a flaw in the one who offers it when asked to lend your words to the project of your dreams you are silent the money isn't delivered the charity unapplied I see you as you could be you are consumed with how things were personal, professional and spiritual goals are elusive but it's summer now and the weather is so fine it could be that I am mistaken your resistance might be justified your refusal to join the vision you are your brother and I am you and no one wants to change or admit they're wrong but I know that I've been fooled before and the fact that you haven't responded to my professional offer puts your personal refusals in perspective when you are young the opportunities appear endless luxury in parts of Bombay people live over one million per square mile, there the greatest luxury is solitude. here it's not so easy to say back in school Robert opined "free time is the most important commodity." these days there's a glut on the market time to think time to dream however too much can be as bad as too little then there's Mammon but as dad was wont to say "money's only important when you don't have it" that first five hundred dollar handbag spends the night in bed with you right next to the pillow but when it's your fifth one you find yourself wondering what to do after lunch? it gets to where money can't buy can't buy a thrill food's only important when you're hungry with satiety it's merely an indulgence or worse entertainment sex drives then after the hormones have had their way it seems silly leaving you by the side of the road stupidly waking up from some biological Svengali fame all the evidence suggests does more harm than good especially for those who achieve it the cult of celebrity working better for fans than for the objects of their adoration insight has enduring worth but the practice of reading between the lines leads to some pretty anxious conclusions the world being unkind to a thinking person some things are better left unknown fill in the blank the phenomenon is universal desire leads us on giving us direction and purpose while attainment yields disillusionment, ennui the solution, of course as Buddha proclaimed is an end of desiring of commodities and attainment; an unpleasant, inescapable conclusion for a thoughtful man whose got the time and solitude for such luxurious considerations. noon morning dawned lead-gray yesterday's heat replaced by thankless cool the car has been delivered for repair requiring only three jumps on the way to the garage mom is on her way to her monthly lunch with her sisters in for her the strange newness of my subaru calls have been made to the proper authorities mail sorted business conducted lunch packed dirty clothes have found their way into the hamper dirty dishes into the sink my daughter has visited now it's cross-town on the bicycle for religious obligations and the computer room at the university it is an itch that can't be scratched a migrating pain here today there tomorrow a pleomorphic complaint rampantly shape-shifting perhaps it is the species demanding its due some faceless urge coaxing perhaps existence's angst the animal sensing its end the edge of the precipice exhilaration and fear morning's hurdles cleared a day's worth of accomplishment it's mostly downhill from here a pleasant pedal through tree-lined lanes mid-day, mid-june. perhaps it is the rain waiting patiently to fall persuade oh you to whom life hardly matters why are you so afraid? your hair unkempt your clothes in tatters why can I not persuade? pupa the old categories do not apply it's not a question of new ideas but of new ways of thinking the caterpillar knows nothing of the butterfly's wing spring's first week winter is over birds are returning from the south. here and there in piles of exotic whiteness snow lingers souvenirs from another clime of a journey already completed coaxed by the sun's warm hand the earth awakens. the ground still wet from last week's thaw needing reassurance that the deep freeze is gone when stirred the breeze is cool grumpy like some bear roused from hibernation. hips and remnant leaves still cling to thorny stems in this empty garden, the rose yet unimaginable coyly the sun retreats behind clouds an uncertain lover who yet extends her visits each day rendering cold, long nights now only a dream behind the house facing north by the hatchway door where water running down the hill pools and freezes the last, smallish patch of still thick ice breaks up beneath the blade there is a sense of victory of survival even as that over which we triumph is forgotten sullen smile the day hangs like a sullen smile light gray overcast obscuring a pale blue sky rain falling briefly this mid-afternoon half-heartedly into puddles left by morning's storm an old joke a story told to illustrate a point already made a hunger without an object. the sun tries to come out but like a child who hasn't finished cleaning her room cannot her yellow disc peering through the curtain of a window that the clouds left open July is asleep today a well-fed cat napping on the rug there is an end of desiring an equipoise achieved by lack of expectation, nowhere to go twilight settling among the trees summer fancy it was the night the wine the loneliness of two people not yet given up hope the candlelit porch the coolness of the evening after a hot summer day she stood and walked over placing herself next to his seated form leaning down onto him as she traced with her finger the juncture of the leafy canopy and the sky opened up when the great tree fell making sure that he could see what was missing secretly pressing her need against his it was the hint of longing in her voice when she asked if he'd be staying until after the call scheduled to come from California the time spent finishing dinner with her husband and their daughter while she was inside on the phone it was the way she came so eagerly upon them when her call was over the embrace much more than friendly with which she said goodbye the enthusiasm with which she bid him to return and he enjoyed returning her flirtations his hand gently clasping her calf as she leaned over him on the deck herself part of the forest canopy losing himself in that parting hug his hands playing provocatively across her back scratching along her spine her daughter, who brought him there, at 27 skittish and unsure her womanhood dwarfed by mother's readiness her husband, a decent chap a little helpless or weary the guest poised to intrude trying to gauge the happiness of the home and whether she really wanted him or wanted just to know that he wanted her or whether it was only the night suspension the ordinary is not enough while the exceptional has its own schedule not to be conjured up like some genie from a bottle, the day passes overcast and brutally humid, a breeze through the trees promises relief clouds gathering in the west remind one of rain, simple projects are lacking a garden of cucumbers and leeks a shed to be built, ancient truths lie strewn across the desk pages holding their breath, invited guests do not arrive everything awaiting the storm tea brewing tea brewing on the stove smoke rising from the chimney cat on my lap purring trees just giving up their green first hints of red and yellows autumn's early chill reminds us of all that still needs doing morning's fog is burning off I've been away for a long time but I'm back now victory it's not a question of rearranging what already is nor of substituting this for that somehow finally getting it right it is a different way of seeing something not yet thought of a revolution of imagination an unknown sonata a door not opened cherishing the empty hours no one nothing cat nestling on my lap time to think to dream and write to wake to the sound of thunder in the late afternoon appreciating something before it is gone each instant the world is recreated everything forever expiring and coming into being new sun orange-pink between evening's clouds new breeze rustling August's deep green leaves the sky grows dark as if to storm but still there is no rain White Antelope White Antelope stood in front of his lodge singing his death song Nothing lasts long Nothing lasts long Except the mountains and the sky     animal, vegetable, mineral your preference for the cat in your mother's basement rather than a life above ground eludes me that you would root transforming like Daphne into a tree choose an immobile, vegetable ideal over the running touch of god on your flesh some atavistic alchemy turning blood to sap perplexes me that ordinary stones present beauty to you unafforded by things human renders null my hopes one day you may find your beloved nature not so innocent nor yourself so guilty and understand that while you shrink from the dark winds within you the world waits only for you to be borne aloft autumn fire the trees are all yellow, orange, red brilliant colors of the sun captured by leaves... how wonderful this new world you come like autumn adding bursts of color until one day the green is gone nothing is the same love revealing the fire within forests of flaming color how wonderfully I burn cataclysm, sunday morning it is a miracle in reverse a mountain hovering overhead stones falling from treetops boulders sloughed off against broken branches murderously pelting the ground raw underbelly of the earth grinding down on hill and roof. cool subterranean breath poisoning the atmosphere with the chthonic scent of death the moist odor of minerals and decay. the vast, hidden foundation revealed blocking the sun eclipsing the sky featureless clay and rock threatening to crush and then crushing scraping the planet clear of its thin layer of life and the noise the horrible, deafening rumble charm I wish I knew the words to say I wish I knew the charm the magic or the prayers to pray to keep you all from harm to bring you to my arms. collision the cat yeowled at five am not once but three or four times and after I got up to hit her with my pillow I couldn't fall back asleep now it is almost seven and sitting up in bed I notice outside my window the dawn my heart is bruised within me like a deer colliding with your pickup waiting in the quiet night beside the empty road the humming of your engine heard and then the headlights seen far away like two jewels in the night growing brighter and bigger the humming louder and suddenly it is too late the machine roaring too loud and close confusion turns to panic in an instant the only safety in the woods on the other side of the road the blow comes on the final bound the deer launched upward almost away when it is met by the front end of your truck the initial bang of metal buckling and ribs cracking then the thudding of flesh and the clatter of hoof and antler across the hood and windshield and roof then flight over the bed crashing to the road. the windshield broken the brakes too slow the tires already stop their screeching but before you have time to realize you are not hurt and open the door the creature propelled by fright is on its legs miraculously unbroken and hobbling off into the trees sitting here under the covers I hear the cars now rumbling down the avenue their tires swishing along the pavement still wet with last night's rain their headlights on in the lingering darkness it is just that now seemingly on the verge of great joy the sorrow speaks up wanting not to be forgotten reminding me of the foolish certainty of youth that there is time enough to waste hours and days to spend untying the knots of the past instead of meeting the future remembering other waitings by the dark roadside other hopeful fascinations growing brighter in the night ending with hide and blood ornamenting the grill somewhere behind these clouds the sun is already up the shadows now retreated to the corners of this room the blackness of my heart now gray like this overcast sky covering my dreams and view of heaven declaration yellow leaves sparkle golden in the sunshine a small flock of birds swoop and spin on the wind black dancers against the blue sky I come home for an afternoon nap before I return to the communal celebration all I can do is dream of you discourteously day fades into twilight gray clouds yet unmoved yesterday's rain still saturating the ground finding its way into parched rivers and lakes it is a little death this evening which approaches quiet sunday october afternoon imperceptibly disappearing it should be worse has been the solitary hours conjuring the muse the expectation of human reprieve the knock on the door that doesn't come a silent telephone there is no urgency no sense of things not done no worry over opportunities missed only a dawning in reverse inexorable darkness unhurriedly displacing the light substituting one set of dreams for another it's time to turn on the lamp and prepare supper the poem writes itself diving in your words embrace me like the waters of a summer lake deliciously smooth against my skin all is calm and silence beneath their surface sunlight and green shadows buoyed up by the sweet tongue that spoke them I float there a fish in their currents fairytale it happens as if in a dream unfolding night after night like a storybook the plot deepening page by page the dangerous road the wounded princess her noble companion these words spells to strengthen them and guide them home conjurings to bring to life the fairytale to make the dream come true fireflies after the wedding for better or worse halfway through the party it was already late just after dark nine o'clock to start the four hour drive north (three and a half, if you don't get out of the car) but the carpenter would be there in the morning and the drive would be harder in the AM. crossing the lawn in front of the shul where the chupa had been shards of a broken glass sat in a tiny pile the night was warm the car was on a side street Sunday, June 25th Vermont the Northeast Kingdom and Bald Mountain Retreat are straight up Interstate 91. just north of Springfield the street lights disappear leaving only headlights at 75 miles per hour to split the darkne... only for a moment. past the Amherst exit the traffic, light as it is northbound on a Sunday night, evaporates the country begins and crossing the line into Vermont the mountains the geography of another state Brattleboro, White River Junction with books on tape, The Razor's Edge to keep me company until just before midnight and St Johnsbury and the first hints of fatigue on the back roads the darkness is complete everyone is asleep the curves and hills to Lake Willoughby the farms and houses by now are all familiar but stay awake and watch for moose strolling across the road. up the mountain from the lake the asphalt stops the dirt road freshly graded cows lying black and white boulders just on the other side of the fence then onto a smaller road a dead end heaven and earth ash leaves falling yellow through the pine tumble and sound upon the needles like a chipmunk walking on the forest floor dry leaves crackling under tiny feet strange this earthy sound coming down from above yellow acrobats floating against the gray sky dancing their descent through the sparse young evergreen sounding like rain just beginning to fall single drops plopping. why is it that I am not getting wet? homecoming I feel you like a season approaching autumn's harvest or winter's cold work to be done canning jars and firewood spring's seedlings started in the south window before the snow is off the ground or like the playfulness of summer I feel you coming I hear the song of your words melody of birds babbling brook rustling of squirrel and chipmunk along the forest floor snap and pop of someone's hooves upon a fallen branch I am the child you carry in your arms nursing at your breast who you teach the ways of the people the original ways drinking in the milk of your words and your silences I see you in the green of growing things blue dome of sky orange of setting sun blackness of night flickering of the candle's flame a great burden has just been put down an empty stomach filled after much lost wandering a path towards home is found the seasons are approaching the wind is in the trees blowing your scent to me luminosity scientists in Japan have now detected light being emitted from the palms, feet and foreheads of human beings this is only belated confirmation of something lovers and saints have known for eons oh, the brightness of your eyes the aurora of your lips mid-October held in the air of yesterday's sunshine water condenses this grey morning into clouds of mist upon the mountain wet veils lazily sweeping the tops of autumn trees surprised by weight and form vapors fall back to earth wispy grey ribbons twining through leaves also falling red, orange and gold victims of their own impossible brilliance so far summer has survived the last streams of her warm tide ebbing softly into October's sea but now faintly the traces are all of winter moonstruck my heart swells like the moon shining behind a thin veil of cloud tonight in the October sky. with you the fullness will be complete the circle will be unbroken reasons I cannot count the times you've left me cannot measure your goodbyes your dreams of a pristine world pull you away from the flesh and blood I offer there is no way I can compete with your peopleless retreat the monastic wilderness within you are you not a forest creature at home under a canopy of trees bedding down among the grass and leaves? that some wildness of my own calls you to me some animal sympathy drawing you across the threshold into my house luxuriantly covered in vines that from my hand you fed that I took you to my bed never guaranteed that you would stay these are not earthly sounds you play a melody so sweet and yet defiant the notes a flock of birds upon the breeze rising up from golden leaves one autumn afternoon outside my window and then I can no longer hear the song you sing the bow still moving on the string the pitch above the human range the other day I surprised you arriving unannounced through your backdoor catching you unready no cross-town pilgrimage upon the bicycle no wind in your hair to ripen you for the moment no waiting for the most auspicious time… love is blind I realize still then staring in your eyes I could see the many reasons for your leaving now I wonder who is wise and which of us is the bigger dreamer? Back to top   Free Verse 5   relativity if black holes and neutron stars bend time and space then doesn't our coming together on my third floor warp the neighborhood; cars misdirected down the avenue birds over these rooftops veering mysteriously in their flights the breeze more wayward through the trees? and as our bond grows the dark matter of our union increasing might not the hidden mass of our love effect those on the sidewalks below drawing their sad faces up into smiles? revelation spring lustily unveils herself, melting the last patches of snow from shadowed hollows upon the mountain swelling the brook the sun chooses a bolder path longer and higher through the sky a weary traveler wakes from a dream of the road to find himself at home after all is said the redolent silence inspiration's gathering swell tabula rasa to sort between the sadnesses the violins and hunger the personal and that shared by the species that from all the words of a lifetime's speaking might be culled a single poem you called on my birthday among your nervous stammerings less than the half minute allowed by my answering machine there is only the melody of your voice comfort beyond thought a mother cooing to her child two weeks on there is no word the mail has been getting lost showing up in wet clumps in the bushes blowing away in the wind already it is the ninth of September you are saying goodbye to your summer island my mind sees you incongruently on an airplane the seaweed you harvested along the shore still wet under your fingernails a wild creature assuming human form compliantly buckling her seatbelt for takeoff and landing yesterday again there was no letter from you no announcement of the date of your return (your mother is not answering her phone) but also it was the birthday of our dear Arvo Part and today, …now his Tabula Rasa on my stereo demonstrates some greater, inhuman good a beauty culled from cooing and seaweed and violins ocean waves and leaves already turning autumn colors the music you left for me your epistle absence makes the heart grow this summer without you clears the eye it is not about babies or judaism patriarchy or civilization but a rare elegance that resonates between us a sanctuary a home for delicate wings I love you without time or self before you were born the violin you would play sang to me the sensitivity that would be ours announced your coming come to me just one more time now or forever thaw lonely years melt. great sheets of ice retreat from off the springtime lake, floating islands of winter lapped by waves already free. upon the water's still solid back rippling puddles sparkle in the sun newborn pools overflow frozen cradles spilling into the fluid deep. now inescapably the lonely years all melt kissed by the warmth of your smile no surrender there is nothing to be done about it the last day of august thicker than molasses has penetrated my being syrupy in my veins dank and heavy in my lungs something is very wrong but it will not show itself the day before yesterday a hurricane blew in off the gulf category four flooding new Orleans under ten to twenty feet of water the levees are broken lake ponchatraine drains into the city today is Yitzchak Perlman's sixtieth birthday I want to retreat pull into a shell snail-like but there is no refuge I want to give up but there is nowhere to surrender unforeseen tired of omniscience the All Knowing endowed man with uncertainty, craving the unknown our Maker freed us to wonder and to fail. that we have imparted our wonder to the Creator is clear from His questions in the Garden on that first day, where are you? and, why did you eat the fruit of the Tree whereof I told you not to eat? (as if we might know what eludes Divinity) and all the many questions since. our own perplexity a small price to pay for the success of our novel mission surprising G-d with our unanticipated produce our unexpected needs the unforeseen consequences of creation wanting you my knives long to find their edge rubbing against your stone this food waits to become your flesh the rug expects your footfall sheets yearn to measure the smoothness of your skin against their flannel my bed anticipates the weight of your woman's body these mirrors desire to hold you inside them the cat hungers to purr warmly on your lap in the distance the snowy cliff hopes to have you admire it through the window which is happy only to be as nothing before you across the horizon it's something not done not for others or for ourselves not forbidden, but denied a room unvisited drapes drawn against the light beyond imagination jumbled like a dream a song imperfectly remembered sung to us when we were too young to know the difference a fable half recalled sheets thrown over the furniture to keep away the dust music to the deaf colors to the blind home to the wanderer books silent upon the shelf a road not taken a call unanswered the door creaking on touch how could you not think me mad asking you to step across the horizon april's showers the weather and my moods keep changing spring appearing and slipping away ice forming on the puddles in the driveway overnight an artic breeze keeping buds whorled on the trees a week of sun warming the ground then clouds and rain mostly it's the waiting for forces beyond my control the earth to tilt the sap to rise the lilac doesn't bloom without winter's cold may's flowers need the rain still, it pays to have something to do circumambulation it brought us back to the beginning there after yoga on the floor and sweating in the sauna and showering not quite together sharing carrot juice and mango speaking sorrows and ideals while our simple dinner cooked then, after dinner the playful innocence of our touching the yoga and tomfoolery the weight and mass of physical form spinning tantric webs around us leading us to dessert spooned lovingly into each others mouth and then, quite wisely the walk you suggested setting off around the hill I took your hand then you put your arm around me mansions and long grass wet with evening's rain the seminary's quiet, glory "Goodness, Discipline and Knowledge Lead Me to G-d" the path at the end of the cul-de-sac leading us through the park then up Vanderbilt Road and back through my side door for tea and poetry a little snuggle on the couch and the rest of the night neither of us wanted to end the Buddhists circumambulate their stupas walking around their shrines to honor the holiness within, their steps returning them transformed to where they started. circling the hill we celebrate the wisdom uncovered along our ways leading us, holy sister, to G-d and to each other, bringing us back to our new beginning my heart a prayer wheel still spinning from your touch may it's been cold and gray for weeks still somehow the leaves have emerged fledgling green against the overcast all that there is proves insufficient the world is not enough the animal urge for food and procreation for shelter for light against the darkness only arouses disdain, the calculus does not add up like a story without an ending or a hole in the bottom of your pocket. the cat just wants to eat mom watches colorized reruns of bonanza visiting I am impressed with the rich tones truer that life. if you have the time and quiet you cannot fail to notice the inconsistencies nature's only virtue is that she is unapologetic. back in high school English class addressing my comment that it is always better to know the truth Harvey Knowles observed "that's very greek of you." it's lonely in the monastery everything has been stripped bare still somehow the leaves have managed to emerge memorial day death, injury, battle fatigue everyone has their reasons the walking wounded fear still fresh in their eyes are the lucky ones silence deafening after the war bandaged limbs and broken hearts reaching out into a painful embrace there is too much gambled too much already lost the pang of contact senses unable to sustain another direct hit raw and festered flesh barely clinging to the bone yet something far from human compels us on one foot in front of the other a primal motive forcing us to look into each others eyes for something long ago we had stopped hoping to find the day started out sunny but now a blanket of wooly-gray clouds brings an early twilight it is the end of May but the weather turns cool the dead in their graves are worthy of our remembrance lives cut short by war physicality the flower is all the more beautiful because it does not last the full moon brighter in the night sky because of its waning the sheer impossibility of the moment renders it precious this Spring is unique unlike all others leaves baby-green upon the trees sky of blue clouds so white love showing in our eyes in the courtyard where we cannot help but smile I would make of you a temple circumambulating your holiness worshiping at your altar it is as simple as a cat stretched out on the rug in the sun petals dropping from the flower ovules swelling into seeds stars falling from the sky I am unbothered by eternity seasons it is a fullness that needs no other no different or more lying in a clearing on Rattlesnake Mountain one lazy autumn afternoon the leaves exploding into color an everywhere beyond all limit the perfect heart of space snow falling in the twilit woods at winter's end a now of infinite eternity of every breath breathed new shoots uncovered green and still furled in the garden beneath the blanket of last year's leaves a union all-inclusive the truest purpose the sweetest gift summer's breeze blowing heavenly through the window you putting on my clothes when it's time for you to leave the last day of school each time we meet is like a poem yesterday in the park the frisbee's varied lines of flight the scent of first roses in the garden spring's luxuriant lawn visits to those special trees maple and oak and cedar strolling arm in arm or holding hands in evening's warm sun bicycling like a couple of kids there is a love which would overwhelm us both a flood which would sweep clean the face of the earth a current irresistible which would draw us down to live like fishes at the bottom of the deep blue sea you stand there upon the shore watching me already splashing among the waves your last you promise yourself that it will be your last but it wont be you feel yourself sinking deeper but somehow it doesn't matter if fact there is some perverse satisfaction just deserts this is where you belong the world outside seems so far away endlessly, endlessly retreating even if you wanted to reach out to grab it to take hold which you don't. you are beyond space beyond time not tomorrow not yesterday not now what goal? what rationale? balance the house is too big empty rooms left unheated bedrooms turned into closets living space choked with the residue of years plenty of room for the unused past hung and shelved and piled high on unused chairs and for ghosts lost spirits still trying to imagine significance unwilling to admit their lack of substance pleased to be free of the disturbance of human occupation they invite our neglect left to their own hauntings coolly languid among the webs and dust we do our best on the door's other side to people the warm space with the signs of life music the smell of food cats and conversations sleep and love and plants the big house absorbs all and is not full maintaining a balance between what is and was footsteps of the living and the dead echoing down hallways swirling dust in vacant rooms bedtime it doesn't matter now what I've done or haven't done how deep the hole or high the mountain there is no fixing it no way to break the spell the wound admits no balm the lock rusted shut the promised key unturning the building collapses and we build on top of the rubble cities are buried left for future generations of archeologists to wonder at the night flows by my window an ocean of darkness here on the other side of midnight I want only sleep distractions cease to distract the profit and the loss day's garish ornaments now but a dream here is the end of fixing and building an end of doing the beast sinks beneath the weight exhausted the spirit wants only to be done the weary eye to close I reach out to nothing and nothing comforts me mega-force G-d is a mega-force the mega-force encompassing planets, stars and galaxies stretching to the ends of the universe and beyond creation a cosmic intelligence manifesting form we are within that Universal Mind part of G-d's neuroanatomy He imagines us we are a part of His dreams a phenomenon in His brain no doubt the angels are fields of energy that our scientists are just beginning to conceptualize immutable laws of physics and light gravity and subatomic principles the countless miracles that govern life and rule the heavenly bodies and the vastness of intergalactic space everything matter and energy in a way both intimate and inhuman resolving into a grand design Einstein's unified field hear o Israel, the Mega-force our G-d, the Mega-force is one Back to top   Free Verse 6   not life feed the cat water the plants sometimes it's hard just putting one foot in front of the other some days are worse than others after forty years I still can't tell why astrology, basal body temperature who know? it doesn't figure sitting blank like the page the atmosphere a gluey miasma stuck, everything stuck frozen like a snake in its den like flies on the sill deathlike until spring fighting only makes it worse worrying about everything that I should be doing grand plans, noble intentions it's hard enough to wash the dishes or take out the trash forget about composition poems and essays will have to wait for the end of this creative constipation bad luck up on the wrong side of the bed short days at the end of the year lack of sunshine the damn holidays there are plenty of explanations none of which help rain won't fall and the sun don't shine all potential lost I am reduced to a reptilian existence a lizard on a stone contemplating nothing feeling nothing except the ache of some dimly remembered humanity ambition, as gray as the day, flops helplessly gasping stupidly like a fish out of water a primal, thoughtless pain the instinct to survive frustrated boredom would be a peaceful relief failure a welcome finale an end to the trying there is no success only the hope of winning only the game and not even that today icy visions encircle me spectral forms blowing snowy gusts of wind my hands too cold to strike the match to make the fire the air too thick to breath my heart too tired to beat an end to dreams an end to strife this life which is not life over it's time to say goodbye to empty rooms to realize that I'm the one who haunts them peopled by years the hallway with so many doors no longer echoes to my footsteps spectral faces of those who've passed the ebb and flow the rooms now quiet I am the last lingering, doing some small good they come now so infrequently to tell me of their woes and seek a cure and usually they are not disappointed but I haven't the heart for it refusing to wear the finery they have come to expect I am an antiquarian I am an antique warm oak instead of aseptic chrome and formica my hair too long my demeanor too loose too familiar it is hard to be ahead of your time I spit on the authoritarianism they have come to expect the disempowering professionalism that medicalizes their problems that labels them diseased and me the dispenser of grace not finding the trappings to which they've been accustomed many go elsewhere and truthfully my heart is not in it the phone calls unreturned it shows, it shows rather I be a prophet or mad a ragged professor of the occult there is a sound yearning to be heard a page to be turned a chapter, a book to close is it possible to stay?/to leave?/to leave behind?/to change? the eye becomes opaque before the snake sheds its skin nothing to lose or win a pirouette, a turning inside out a revelation in the doing taking leave planets I've turned my back so many times walked away leaving what was in hand or almost so for some dimly imagined noble adventure called onward away from the promise of security and ease unready for comfort not fit for love planets wandering through the sky changing their positions moving through constellations finding no home among the stars now empty-handed my beard turning grey I stare out into the night and wonder about the paths I've taken possessed it seems by mirages shimmering over horizons distant or near keeping true to a truth which always yet eludes me so far from simple things a warm and happy bed the pleasant fullness of a meal laughter on the wind strange hungers denying me such common satisfactions fortune written there among the stars but not for human eyes to read destiny heaven's distant light yet leaves the earth in shadows religion it is an obsessive compulsive's dream rules piled on top of rules fences around prohibitions so that you don't even come close detail and nuance to the nth degree custom, tradition and law rote and routine cherished legal technicalities accumulating over millennia but where is the spirit? the participation mystique? the revolution has become the establishment turning in on itself running dry the magic lost somewhere among the tractates how many angels on the head of a pin? rituals lose their significance actions performed automatically without understanding words recited without knowledge we each serve according to our capacity some sit like an audience at a show some play just the way it's written some improvise some need to be out before they come in and after they come they go it's a lonely, slippery road but nothing else seems to work no comfort in the crowd the solution will not come from within the tribe strange fire is needed to light the lamps lost sparks to illuminate the darkness rising blind it's the simple things closing the door behind and going up the stairs in the dark fingers sliding along the wall the pressure of bare feet on naked stairs turning the head to look at nothing in the perfect blackness these are the things the soul will miss when it's no longer in a body ordinary miracles easily overlooked air welcomed into the lungs and expelled the virtuosity of fingers touching the darkness of ascension the soft smell of old worn wood stepping up blindly there where there is no light opening the door at the top emerging after all it's not so special so common that we usually miss it fascinated with our own contrivances following our own flawed logic we miss the natural gift treasures with no takers lost in our complicated questions we miss the simple truth setback he has danced on stages around the world fathered a movement preferring now the peopleless calm of the distant north thanking heaven for the barrier of the cold in summer his gardens grow fecund where the farmer used to dump the manure his lithe body swaying in the field scything grass for the compost he so dutifully tends there past dance studio and the annex where he lives behind and down the hill he had a proper home built windows and angles and pure blonde wood the day was hot and the workman applying linseed oil to all the thirsty wood broke for lunch tossing the oily rag down inside the window it all happened very fast the sun brought the rag to flame and the fire spread effortlessly across the freshly oiled wood in a flash there was nothing to save looking down now into the corner of that field one notices nothing only the fire scarred trees he lives now when not off dancing in some near or far corner of the world in the annex sleeping sometimes on a mattress in the studio one can come say hello but it's best to keep the visit short the story is as old as time the elements it seems conspire against our dreams reducing them to ashes the garden in its season green now lost beneath the snow she's gone ten months in Colorado then who knows what or where before she left she cried I'll miss you you won't be here when I get back maybe I'll never see you again still she really never was here a part of her always missing withheld as if she were proving something to herself at first I thought love would conquer she'd get used to the water stop wading and come for a swim but she never ventured away from the shore content to splash in the shallows she'd turn away pull back fight the feeling she'd give her body, but not her heart and a heartless act gets old fast I needed something to believe in some fantasy she wasn't having any of it she would look in the mirror and not recognize what she saw whose body is that in the glass? her detachment a wet rag in my face relationships require work working together or against in the end her contrariness won I quit stepped back stopped wooing but she wasn't happy with the victory when I yielded the field all I had to offer broken in the mud she came forward surprised by the end of the game by the lack of opposition she was waiting for a vision and assumed since none came that it was she who needed to go I was part of what was left behind the last night we were together she held me like she never did before maybe it was the love she had been holding back maybe it was her fear of going forward the wheels turning the train leaving the station it was already too late still just for that evening in her arms I was content to dream again sometimes you just can't get the prescription filled even if you know what it is you need sometimes you just can't get the prescription filled can't translate the perfect thought into action no way to get out of the box the bird flew in the backdoor up the stairs to the second floor porch where the window were all closed fluttering helplessly against the glass it's a different kind of pain when it's up close when you can see what's on the other side within reach but out of touch that's when it really hurts you never really forget but distance has a way of making it dull like a song remembered only imperfectly smelling the food only makes the hunger worse I saw it there from my kitchen window futilely searching for some way out unable to imagine its captivity still sure of the freedom of the Sunday morning sky I was less convinced of my own freedom couldn't find what I was looking for couldn't make ends meet no way out of the cage the horse just didn't want to pull the load slogging through the muck of a too ordinary day I went through my neighbor's still open back porch door and up the stairs (were they home?) opened the window and guided the bird out with the screen I had removed imagining what I might say if they came upon me climbing over their stuff I am still trapped by uncounted necessities a prisoner of half-born dreams crying for life not awake, yet unable to sleep the comfort I am ready to forget keeps appearing and receding from view the bird flew off leaving me to close the window, replace the screen and go back home at least one of us is free still hungry when it finally arrives it is unrecognized an unopened letter sitting on the table an unanswered knock at the door not this, not this the mistaken expectation that somehow it would be other persists so long imbued to war one cannot imagine peace how could it be otherwise? when love finally comes we are ashamed this disquieting urge has become the most familiar thing a relentless search precluding satisfaction the work continues of itself after the task is accomplished the journey continuing past the goal the answer comes in a language we cannot understand victory awkward after so much struggle it is hard to leave off to put aside unsettled by the quiet after so much noise sun pouring through the window strangely warm on the back of my neck the cat asleep on the sofa comfortable in one hundred different positions lunch waits for me in the kitchen why am I still hungry? Sunday night stratagem this morning it was snowing tonight the stars are out last night I couldn't fall asleep this morning I couldn't wake up it's a question of timing and configuration the right thing at the right time or not great mysteries exist (when they do) due to great ignorance it's really quite simple once you get the hang of it once they show you how it's done find yourself a teacher strive to be a good student admit that you don't know four inches of snow upon the ground and still falling hard when I woke added silence on a Sunday morning tomorrow I'll be tired again when the alarm goes off I'd better go to sleep before I get my second wind Monday is a lot less forgiving than the weekend the dividing line the road was closed outside of town where the suburbs began to yield to country closed there on top of the hill all four lanes somber looking police men intently blocked the way not heeding my pleading u-turn and off on the back roads that the recent arrivals don't know around to find the road blocked back the other way this time my destination is okayed by a serious looking young man with a rectangular, badge on his raincoat who moves an orange cone and lets me make a left where everyone else goes right down the road, around the curve, up the other side of the hill emergency vehicles have swarmed cops, fire, ambulances the man, pronounced dead and covered by a blanket has already been lifted from the pavement others have been pried from their cars victims all spirited medically away to whatever fate awaits them there is an eerie stillness fog or is it smoke rising sparingly cars with flashing lights parked across the wide, empty road the flow interrupted a moment suspended the crumpled wrecks sitting stupidly and guilty in the late overcast afternoon, mid-December as the sun sets somewhere behind the clouds making way for the night blame it on the freezing rain which fell the night before blame it on the sand and salt spread to melt the ice blame it on a moment's inattention someone swerved across the double yellow and everything went to hell it's never more than a couple feet that separate the living from the dead the rabbi's wife we are to be forgiven for loving her the nobility of her form aloofness hers by birth she can trace her lineage back to the prophet Samuel before there was a king over Israel heir to some former glory lost now to the world, witness to that truer truth she is unable to abide this poorer existence the laughter deep and full in those moments when it comes turns her again into a girl there across the table crowded with guests and children crowned with delicacies and candelabras so human a voice kindly surprising our ear one would like to hold her to take her hand and there is something about her which would like to be held in a way not yet found to warm her cool repose to melt that imperial demeanor but for us such things are not possible only to watch like an audience regarding a dancer on the stage a distant love a bow, a courtesy, a smile, a laugh, a word across the table we are to be forgiven The union evades him The union evades him gravity refuses to pull there is no joy in being right, alone the end of days is not a pretty sight a kind word, a human touch did not seem like all that much to ask for she is after all quite young not yet having shed her adolescent desires like a skin scraped off against the unforgiving granite of life she imagines that the living is something yet to come instead of all that is sure that magic resides more fully in some other town she blindly points her finger at a map prognosticating El Dorado sure that her place and people are somewhere far and other than where she was born He is a fool if not quite old, then old enough to know of loss and almost and how the aching in his belly is here to stay And after all her mistake is not as big as his he has had so many years to practice his dreams, rooted deep, refuse to die surviving drought, and blight, and sharp-edged steel stubbornly they sprout anew beneath some gently rain that April in her cruelness brings and foolishly begin to flower Yet when he held her head upon his belly he felt that old pain sigh a crack of light, an opening into a dark, stale room stirring shadows on the wall cobwebs on the breeze somehow in her arms the ancient tensions ease persuading him against all he knew with all already lost to try the corpse, long cold, seeming to stir She was, in truth, always removed her body yielding to his touch a sacrifice upon the altar a bridge that could not be crossed failing mid-stream the heaven there between her legs was stolen impossible to coincide juxtaposed by his urgent need a gift unreceived a moment disbelieved And then there was nothing left to do but wish her well star-crossed journeyer unburdening himself of the disease she carried and the unwanted cure watching the blossom turn in upon itself in perfect narcissism a cloistered realm undisturbed in its pale purity impermeable a hard-won prize, now one not worth the fighting the vigilant defense against all comers no one in or out Wish her well even as he gathers up the aid and comfort she refused as she refused him the comfort he requested content in her isolation the freedom of not needing as she dreamt of journeys not anywhere but away of unencumbered flight of helping people, but not him Cassandra knew the blessing and the curse what good is it to see the future when no one else believes? the psychic's blessing blows away like scraps of paper on the wind those that dangle must fall the lost will not be returned one can't undo the choices done the voices in the night will not stop their haunting it's hard to learn from mistakes until they're made and even then not easy to see reflected in someone else your own before it is too late our pain is our ours with no one there to save us from it to force us to but look again to thaw the ice with their embrace a kingdom of our making the door quietly closes the dust resettles the flower withers even before it is plucked gravity fails, the moon drifts away into the night finally free of the earth. there's plenty of time for regrets there's plenty of time for regrets possibilities left to die by the side of the road ghosts wandering between "if only" and "it might have been" it's easy to forget why you came this way when you're up against a dead end easy to envy the safe and warm when you're wet and cold independence is a wonderful ideal, but practically it makes for some hard times wondering, how it would have been if you played it differently if you stayed longer or left sooner or at all wondering what you were trying to prove or how you could be so blind or stupid hindsight may not be 20/20 or golden, but it sure does romanticize the one that got away the whole fantasy of a right choice or a better option is suspect as if we were in a position to judge as if we knew what lay down that path the grass always seems greener still you wonder, what if you knew then what you know now? what if you had another chance? it's a silly game, but one we can't help playing no one wins losers all around time out the bible does not tell us about the last years of Abraham or Isaac or how Moses spent the sixty years from when he first fled Egypt until he returned and so we are left to wonder… I imagine that these awesome characters were happy to be off stage Moses did not want to go back send someone else I have a speech impediment Isaac didn't want to get involved with the disappearance of Joseph figuring that if Jacob didn't know what happened then it wasn't his place to tell him who can blame Abraham for taking a rest after all that he'd been through being the chosen one is no laughing matter being at the center of history is pretty stressful if exciting the glory is outstanding but there's no room for error when G-d calls the tune, you'd best dance and well I think they were happy to have some time off to be able to sit out a few to let someone else have the glory there is I suppose enough of potency and meaning a point where the ordinariness of being human is to be preferred over the power and the glory significance weighs heavy and anonymity is a relief I see them happily engaged in simple things wives and flocks sunsets and rises deserts and oases singing softly beneath the stars G-d watching them as one watches a baby sleep enjoying through them the quiet pleasures of the world which He created Tired of the seduction I grew tired of the seduction tired of the game even while I was winning everything was on my shoulders I had to convince myself and then I had to convince her each time. She'd walk in the door carrying everything I wanted the answer to some long-term needs but she needed to be persuaded the challenge finally got to me the uncertainty I knew to well never being sure no guarantee. She always wanted to say "no" for her it was dirty the more I made love to her the less she respected me it was always like that for her some wires got crossed each time we did it her body was more facile the path clearer, we pushed deeper into the jungle she could feel herself falling and she didn't want to fall her pleasure increased as her body let go but her head held on turning away upon the pillow she couldn't get out of her head and she wouldn't let me in a matter of principle for her preserving some kind of integrity keeping the race pure and I did try charming, witty and wise I did care and I let her know how much I saw her high above it all, beautiful and strong but she refused to fly a goddess who would not bless least of all herself she feels trapped here condemned to some irrevocable fate an ordinariness to which all others have already succumbed she needs to breathe a different air and go she must but was she ever here? last night my father frail and hospitalized, pathetic on the bed the ambulance and emergency room still fresh from the night before her offer of assistance proved as empty as the feeling in my belly a stiff embrace which only increased my loneliness her anger that I could not support her decision to flee precluded the warmth I needed fists clenched she held me to her cold breast then got up and left a bird in hand may be worth the two in the bush but those are the ones we want we want what we can't have or don't have yet the grass is always greener… it may be simple jealousy it may be a noble drive to explore the unknown it may be something in between absence or at least distance makes the heart grow fonder but when you get up close it loses it's luster that which is desired may not be worthy of the desire which is focused upon it love seeks an object but it may not be a good fit imagination enhances reality while reality acts like a cold wet towel in imagination's face it's easier with money but only up to a point money's only important when you don't have it when you've got it all you can't buy a thrill mostly we want the unattainable or at least the unattained uncounted if you stop to count the losses you won't be able to carry on you'll never be through with the tally the reasonable gamble gone wrong the foolish waste the unfortunate coincidence a thousand variations stretching back to before you were born the brain has a special place for these failures remote from calculation far from memory occasionally they bob to the surface and quickly submerge leaving only ripples to consider circles radiating out from a point already disappeared they are the price of doing business the detritus of being human the silent cry of the heart the world is redundant and so are we the waste is allowed for like spoilage on the shelf far more than are needed come as standard equipment extra pieces provided don't stop don't look back we all get hit but the show goes on one thousand and one one thousand and two one thousand and three… undelivered she doesn't want to be helped her complaint is not a plea for assistance she does not want it set right she wants most of all to bewail her fate to curse the gods for the indignity of her existence to cry from beneath the burden alone I need to listen without rushing to action to accept that I am inadequate and too late to know how far it is beyond me a storm cloud darkening the horizon a boat drifting out to sea a diamond behind the shop window there is some strange relief in failure a peace unimagined and terrible the feeling of discharge of emptiness' comfort of eyes washed clean by a good cry there is nothing to be done about it just let it bleed now what? I'm running short of ways to pass the time days evaporate from sheer neglect melting like snow beneath the rain night brings no relief the simple things will no longer do a woman's touch smoke curling towards the ceiling a glass of wine and song poisoned by surfeit satisfaction has ruined the joy of anticipation I am not happy with their baubles cannot believe their promises take no comfort in their assurances something is demanded but what? like a dreamer who knows he dreams and yet cannot awaken I have come to envy those who do not know they are asleep something strange beckons there just beyond the corner of the eye it cannot be seen, but felt I have touched the web that runs below the face of this world often enough to know that another exists I have felt G-d's hand, but what does he want? somehow I have survived afloat while others drown buoyed through storms and the night sea how strange the land feels now beneath my feet to what purpose? to sleep like the cat curled up upon the pillow retreat into some deep animal brain far beyond the reach of thought where urge makes everything simple feed, mate, fight or flight the instinctual imperatives captainless with no destination there is no port called home I am free and tormented by my freedom all is left behind in the struggle to be born you could see that the man had delivered too many lectures you could see that the man had delivered too many lectures the same lecture too many times bored, tired he didn't care he spoke soft and slow not for dramatic effect but because he was out of gas coasting down the hill on vapors it was all wind-up and no pitch nothing to swing at once upon a time he had something to say and had made a name for himself on the circuit but now it was plain that he'd rather be somewhere else his routine was worn like an old joke he worked the crowd with an obvious disinterest like he was thinking about something else and no doubt he was sleepwalking even a cushy gig like his becomes a trap when you do it to many times novelty may not last, but it sure beats death maybe I had too much of a head start knew too much about the subject what had I expected? originality? enthusiasm? authenticity? he was just an old man trying to make a buck you couldn't hate him for that still I was glad I had crashed the gate Back to top   Free Verse 7   a fine repast already noon breakfast seems unimportant when inspiration presents itself phone calls go unanswered letters remain unopened the sun breaking through the clouds draws me outside whose stomach is that growling? all the way to the grave he was a great poet translated into fourteen languages hard drinking, hard living nothing was easy for him but he gave as good as he got even better tough, tough, tough finally got some breaks late in life published a lot of poems many volumes of poetry and I've read every one I could get my hands on now he's dead ten years anyway and the lady who graced his last years along with this publishing house keeps coming out with new volumes posthumous but the poems lack the zing of the stuff that came out while he was alive and I guess that's why he kept them in the closet instead of sending them to the publisher I mean if I can tell why can't they? his Mrs. and the printer don't they know that they're diluting his opus? maybe they don't give a damn maybe he doesn't but I somehow imagine him rolling in his grave no rest for the weary. Assassin This then is death The fading light The weakening heart Falling back and down away Dimness and dissolution Silence Rest Sweet oblivion Darkness Regret Pain. the anatomy of pain it catches the breath up high in the belly a vacuum in the pit of the stomach between the lungs below the heart drawing everything in an emptiness undiminished by all that it consumes there in that closest place an egg forever hatching a beak and talon tearing at the liver a weight on the kidneys and the soul it is the center of everything from which all arises to which all returns the mother devouring her young the snake swallowing its tail faceless among its guises shapeless amidst its forms nameless despite all that it is called the sacrifices have been offered the entrails consulted the rites enacted the sacred songs all sung and still the god remains unappeased the diaphragm freezes the heart misses a beat   amer-indian love she came in one day off the street cold call trying to sell me insurance we started talking about herbs and before you know it I was giving her the tour she was three quarters Sioux her sons seven eighths ‘tho you're not supposed to count at eight and eleven years old I gave them their first sweat in my Finnish, electric sauna it's all sacred to them with or without the trappings it was winter she was living in a house in suburbia the furnace broke and she couldn't afford to fix it or she couldn't pay the gas so she started heating the place with the electric oven but when that bill went through the roof the company turned her off and the only time I visited her house there was a tree sticking out of the fireplace lying ten or twelve feet across the livingroom she didn't have a saw to cut it up so they were just feeding it in we had to step over it on our way into the kitchen to fetch the last exotic bird her friend had smuggled in from South America for sale keeping the emeralds for himself figuring they had the right seeing as how they themselves were natives a beautiful head of coarse brown reddish hair that woman had a streak of bad luck when I knew her waiting at a light with her window down someone flicked a cigarette butt from a passing car and hit her in the eye her skin was hairless smooth like a snake and she was always ready to pull her pants down or her skirt up she loved in a thoughtless, primitive way like a beautiful animal in heat and I was I'm afraid too often, too white my human cortex befuddled by ideas she came back to get some herbs engaged to be married a year or so after we had stopped seeing one another and took back when I was out of the room from off my shelf I noticed when she was gone the little red tobacco pouch she had given me to burn with a prayer because I hadn't and scolded me before she left about the beaded earrings she made to give to my daughter which I sent back because the new woman I had started up with who wound up costing me a lot of money and grief was threatened by the gift white people I among them can be so stupid boycott plastic there is no away no place to throw all that plastic you throw in the trash it's taken to the incinerator and burned with the rest of the garbage except that the plastic combusted gives off dioxin a strongly carcinogenic chemical into the air which is breathed by you and those you love and the rest of us also one day as it already is in parts of Europe packaging will be taxed meanwhile if everyone would just refuse when they make a purchase to accept a plastic bag that they don't really need the world really would be a better or at least cleaner place as grandma said about cancer it's something we do everyday don't do it briefly last night briefly in my dreams it all became clear quickly sequentially like dominos dropping in a row and branching everything fell into place concept after concept made plain a flurry of revelation reason cascading in a geometry of truth proportion and rhythm uncertainty made sure knowledge snapping together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fitting exposing the bigger picture last night in my dreams it all made sense the light of understanding illuminating the darkness wisdom shining in a way which transcended mere words and thought exhilarated and at peace briefly I witnessed a bit of infinity the ongoing connectedness of being strands of the web underlying existence briefly and not the whole the movement was glimpsed in a dream and not with eyes of flesh this is how the truth is granted us we could not survive any more last night briefly in a dream I saw and then still dreaming I saw no more cattitude the cat has nowhere to go wandering between rooms sleeping comfortably on the pillow on the couch occasionally venturing outdoors she is in no hurry the slayer and consumer of mice her prowess confirmed she has nothing to prove glorying in her nature confident in her existence she wants nothing more than to be what she already is not content to lie in my lap she meows now at my feet disdainful of these feline observations certainty I believe in her not more strongly now that we have met a faith already perfect admits no augmentation that I have heard the music of her laugh imbibed the cadence of her words renders me not more subject to the spell that was complete before seeing her eyes smiling into mine has not made me more sure I knew the dream was real and now that she is gone things are not less or more the star fell brightly through the night burning in some exalted atmosphere a love already certain suddenly revealed shining only briefly on this earth I am content yet for a while I hoped that she might stay chess the game demands a lot of foresight one must think many moves ahead each move giving rise to multiple possible next moves each of those possibilities opening up its own set of moves to follow the choices increasing exponentially all the while keeping in mind what your opponent might do and he has as many possibilities (more or less) as you do there comes a time when even the best mind cannot think anymore and must move all of this thinking is guided by the prime strategic factor mobility your pieces should be unblocked free to move this of course maximizes the possibilities of where they might move to defend or do damage these fundamentals apply equally well to life think ahead consider well all the possibilities realizing that you can't think of everything if you've got a great move make it if not move in a way which keeps your options open maximize your freedom to initiate and respond and oh yes, enjoy yourself while you're at it remember it's only a game grace tower poor folks mostly old mostly black (in this building) skip the elevator to get some exercise nine flights to the tenth floor mumbling prayers up the dirty stairs Mr. Ortega my first stop door always open beautiful Spanish anchor-women on channel thirteen explaining how it is legs crossed under short skirts beautiful view out the window over a branch of the Park River and the surrounding woods which somehow so far have escaped the city's development he likes to walk likes the snow likes garlic, vitamin E and multis then down the hall to Mary H. rods and pins and screw and her foot won't heal vitamins E and C symphytum 30c she has a jewish prayer book proudly shown to me from the family she assisted when she was quite young Donaldson down the end only seems to be out of his mind a heavy island accent and a thick tongue make it hard to understand more than a couple of words per sentence one time a day okay mahn down a floor at 905 Elsie needs a double dose of arnica oil for her back ever since I started using those little bitty bottles a big woman my flirtations always leave her laughing loudly down on the eighth Fredrick's got a television with no picture and the radio playing loud I've got to knock hard or he won't hear come on in bones on the stove cooking down into soup a real man's room like a cabin back up in some Carolina woods organized without decor efficient like a workshop his foot healed up real good eight eleven Miss Bey likes to play rummy with her daughters or granddaughters or son one hand with me which she won 175 to 165 but I wasn't used to playing with deuces wild at fifty points a piece her arthritis is driving her to despair seventh floor Emma W. doesn't open her door much anymore I don't need nothing today Elizabeth up the hall has been through a lot but remains philosophical her wrist finally healing after her fall Ivory in 603 is almost as playful as her little white cat I think she gives him the garlic I leave the fifth floor I skip because Miss Jones I will have seen on my way into the building at her security post watching the door coming down with a cold today the fourth floor has Jesse with his bottle of vodka and those curious scars all over his torso like multiple stab wounds which they probably are a deep basso come on in the door always unlocked milk thistle for his liver Miss Holden on the third floor always laughing down the hallway after me at my teasing the arnica oil fine for her aches Miss Perkins on the second floor like some baby whale spread out in her chair a child or grandchild always around to answer the door a nice lady but there's too much of her last there's the chief on the first at the end who always answers the door with a big blade in his hand hidden just a little behind his behind so that he's got the drop on you even if you think you've got it on him emphysema's got him bad but he's still smoking long hallways long stories whistling down the corridors carrying my big black bag the herb doctor the medicine man vitamins and minerals a story, a joke a knock on the door and a sympathetic ear relieve a little suffering delay the inevitable then pack up my bag and go lawyers it is easy to make the mistake of believing that they are human their speech so calm and reassuring you come to expect a human response and just then you are lost anything you say can and will be used against you right and wrong don't enter into the picture it's all got to do with the plausibility of the argument would you believe…? their whole lives are reduced to positioning themselves their spouses suffer their wrangling legal relativity discussion prized over substance the matter lost in billable hours they should stick to marrying each other and not give birth it's just as easy to err in believing that the court system has something to do with dispensing justice maybe once upon a time it did but the machine is overwhelmed and it's all about expediency getting rid of the tens of thousands of cases jamming the docket anything goes and everyone is guilty just for being there for taking the judge's time shoot them all and let G-d sort them out and G-d help you if you don't have a lawyer it's like a minefield without a map you're bound to misstep to miss some legal deadline or fine point and then you're dead and then they eat you growing fat on your distress you can believe what you want until you enter the system then it hits you in the face like a wet, smelly towel remember that old joke about lawyers and sperm each having a one in a million chance of becoming a human being don't believe it the smart money's on the sperm telemarketing the phone rang someone who couldn't quite pronounce my name wanted to speak with me I'm Larry from MCI, how are you today? let's not get into that. I'd like to save you money on your long distance. there's too much going on in my life to even think about changing my phone company. well, because there's so much going on in your life you should think about changing your phone company. look, Larry (I always try to remember the telemarketer's name), you really don't understand go onto the next name on the list then I hung up sometimes there's no easy way to say goodbye love on the phone one does not return my calls but when she does pick up the phone invites me over transforming the little she has into much and giving it all to me one calls from a great distance when I am away from the phone and doesn't leave a number she has very much but when she was in the house she wouldn't or couldn't share one engages me in heartfelt conversations but is shy to come out of her cloistered cell she suffers her refinement like an angel trapped on earth we have yet to touch it's all so imperfect and yet it's the best we can do the phone providing the illusion of closeness a voice right in your ear our crippled love providing the illusion of intimacy so near and yet so far moods morning's mottled sky clouds covering the sun moody vapors condensing congealing up from the sodden earth gray with an occasional patch of blue how often the wind changes strength or direction. there is no way to tell what the afternoon will bring n.b. she is a port of refuge a calm harbor for my ship a soothing voice on the other end of the phone a smiling face greeting me at the door I am guilty of taking comfort in her arms sheltering there in her free embrace drunk on the love she so readily pours guilty of the innocence of her affection the fantasy of her being her passion slipping into madness her madness fitting neatly with my own she is a bird upon my open window's sill a wild creature regarding the interior but unwilling to enter at home in the open sky there she circles against the clouds now back to taste my seed her heart beating rapidly coming into my hands rubbing her feathered body against my fingers then off again her waters yield wondrously sweet and dark to my sea-weary bow what mysteries they conceal I do not know nor of them am I worth but tossed by waves this sailor craves that deep and gentle berth in the beginning are there grades of infinity? is infinity tripled larger than infinity twice? how big is big? G-d created the whole universe with just a few words without lifting a finger no sweat no problem now that's cool it's all so disappointing it's all so disappointing so much less in the getting distance makes the heart grow fond carrots hanging from imagination's stick but to once gain the proper perspective to see ourselves so small clinging barely to the planet wildly hurtling through the darkness of infinite space at twenty one it seems that one will live forever for years unimaginable in their duration she pulls away when I draw close her concern keeps me at arms length she doesn't commit, not even to the moment making a great virtue of her independence the law of separation covering her face with her arms turning her head away we are, beyond all doubt, quite fragile and lost without hope of finding to be forgiven for taking shelter in embrace and for forsaking that shelter so much is lost in the translation of dream into reality poorly flesh holds fantasy how could the fact compare with all the long anticipation? I go along yet unconvinced unsure I will recognize that for which I search the cold finds its way into the soles of my feet up into my thighs lined up in a row some great indecision a mind which cannot be made up around too little information who am I to play the part, and yet there is no other hope eclipsing fear the imprudence of youth the sure belief that spring will come that death is just for birth that somehow a poem will be born from these words upon a page it is over it is over as such things end leaving me wondering if it had ever begun from the start it had been more me than her crossing the divide trekking where there was no path never, it seems, arriving the promise better than the getting forcing the matter victory without the sweetness at first the wonder of her body was enough full and new and even now it sings to me vanishing as I approach. she practices the distance far even when she is in my arms she wears it like a badge a trophy won by the prowess of reserve I have had enough of inflation of making things into more than they are of pretending that people are better or other of wanting them to do for me what they don't do for themselves I can smell the food but I can't get in the kitchen the signs all say that I should go, or let her go let go the tether and watch her drift away pulled slowly by some subtle tide to nowhere, just away we need so much more than we have so much more than there is the parts cannot be made whole the damage done, without hope of repair it is not possible to escape we go to sleep hungry and dream of fullness there is a song that in the singing ennobles the pain a story whose telling comforts the heart and mind a prayer which strengthens the birds in their flight but now all is still and quiet it's a slow process it's a slow process putting him to bed lifting him up off the coach onto his feet after the blanket is put aside helping his hands find the walker "I got it" then the creep across the big room short tentative steps then balance then move the walker then more steps starting and stopping and starting and stopping again and again my hand on his back to catch him should he start to topple to feel the critical imbalance before it becomes visible then through the kitchen and a hundred and eighty turn into the hallway starting and stopping short, choppy steps turning into the bathroom gripping the grab bar by the toilet "I got it" down with his pants and diaper off they come change his shirt for a pajama top and let him sit there for a while while I go fetch the dry diapers (he needs two on for the night) if I'm gone for too long he'll call out asking "can I have a dry diaper?" his hands back on the bar he pulls himself up off the pot with a little boost maybe he needs some washing up a little or a lot then the dry diapers go on and the pajama bottoms then we head out the door holding onto the bars on the wall into the hall where he picks up the walker again "I got it" then a short walk creep, creep, creep turning into the bedroom step, step, step until he can back up and sit down on the bed help his legs up and his back down pivoting him on his butt until he's lying spread the covers over him and say our goodnights night after night and in the morning it pretty much runs in reverse it's a different sense of time a different world where everything's already done already over and there's no need to rush nowhere to rush it's a slow process this awkward, final dance minutes like days days like years january a quarter full the orange moon sets a crescent boat down through leafless trees run aground on a distant hill it sinks beneath the horizon into the night's black sea out west she is on her way to Texas she is already there leaving Colorado where she was out of place for what promises to be more hard work planting trees sounds romantic until the bag is slung heavy across your back on some inhospitable slope hands already aching before noon she needed to wander she needed to move unsure why or where leaving me behind unable to compete with a dream it's hard to know the end at the beginning hard to know what you've got until it's already too late until it's gone youth wastes and is wasted I sit at home and miss her or my dream of her I am not sure she was only ever half here her mind in southern Utah her heart in Africa an apple or a peach dangling out of reach a flower that refused to bloom it was hard having her so close and far easier somehow to have her do her wandering while she is away readiness it can't be done neither can we stop doing it trying to do it the impossible has its own appeal sometimes you get close near enough to feel it just a little more but always it refuses to gel to be brought down the crystal should but won't precipitate it's hard to sense it so clearly to anticipate always that which will not come it's hard to be ahead looking forward to a time which is not ever yet you can hear it in the music there just there if we all come together and sing and hold hands and believe but the circle remains broken pieces which will not be joined spinning away the house was prepared the ceremony complete purity of purpose achieved still the expected one did not arrive always the bridesmaid never the bride sitting all dressed up with nowhere to go seeing focus shifts the view remains the same but the viewing is different foreground and back changing places shadows and light reconfiguring new figures born from the eye's realignment unnoticed details now prominent old significances lost seeing is a learned process an interpretive act of brain and heart subject as is so much to stereotype and habit years ago films were brought out into the African bush to edify the natives who fortunately or not were unable to recognize anything among the dancing lights on the two-dimensional screen to see without restraint without the neural filters which our survival-bound brain imposes without the weighing and measuring of preassumed importance not through a glass darkly that would be enough and all to recognize that which we have overlooked that which has been all the while before us the masters say that enlightenment is like the bright sun in the clear blue sky and that we keep asking where is it? shooting stars she came to me almost twenty-one years old pure and disbelieving unaware of the treasure that was hers she could not understand my longing my intoxicated stumblings under her perfumed spell; raised among the godless she could not accept my homage she is off now searching for something already hers mailing me love poems from someone else's pen the dream seems so real my body reacting in love's dance to the impossible fullness of her being as if her place were here among us as if she were a woman and not a shower of meteors streaking across the sky suburban adventures the snow started at noon falling heavy like a curtain she came early for her 2:30 appointment nutritional consultation we had met at my restaurant over a year ago she used to come by regularly once when the cook was AWOL I made her her favorite dish I remember what I felt not what I said it couldn't have been much anyway I remember the way she looked red wavy hair delicate and refined somehow not a part of the physical world angelic something she said when she called to make the appointment that she needed a note to continue physical therapy and then that she'd be walking over made me think that it was her when she came I was glad to see that I was right she seemed happy to see me also she told me she had kept my business card in her wallet it's good to make contact again with someone I thought could be a friend her cab didn't arrive at 3:30 as it was scheduled which gave us more time to talk but by 4:00 it obviously wasn't going to show inconvenient but you couldn't blame them in the storm she needed to get home and the cabs wouldn't come out in the storm so we jump in my little toyota and make it about halfway up the driveway she gets out and walks which is okay I don't want to leave it there because they're going to come plow the driveway and going back is impossible so after getting stuck several times I shovel ahead and burst out onto the avenue before the city plows blocked the driveway exit so now there's nowhere to park the thing the avenue is half clear just down the middle where the traffic flows the side streets are worse the parking lot at the senior center across from me where I usually park at times like these isn't plowed yet either as I discover when I pull in the snow is falling in sheets as I back out I'm trying to make some forward progress planning my next move when I'm rear-ended he's out of his car and after exchanging a few words I pull off the avenue onto a side street park walk back the guy berates me for backing out while he was coming and when I ask him why he didn't see me and stop claims that he tried to for forty feet uphill check out his car some two inch square lamp housing or reflector has been knocked out of kilter I give him my name and number and a push to get him started back to my car which is stuck shovel and rock it out down the street turning onto another which is even less plowed back towards almost making it to the avenue when for some foolish reason I stop instead of carelessly pulling out into the stream of creeping along traffic well one accident per day is enough but now I'm stuck again and the car just moves sideways into the deeper snow when I try to free myself more shoveling and as forward progress is impossible I find myself able to move in reverse back and forth until my car has turned itself almost all the way around and while I've still got some mobility and nowhere else to go I decide to ditch it facing the wrong way into a space left with left snow because someone had parked there a short walk back home to the sauna I had started up when I was stuck in the driveway nothing like a good sweat shower dinner out to check on the car plowed into place with a lot of snow back inside a call to the cops I'm informed by the woman who answers the phone that I'm lucky they haven't towed me and that I'm looking at a $35 dollar fine if I leave it there overnight figuring that I'll pay somebody less than that to plow or pull me out now or in the morning on top of the ticket so back out to where the brothers who run the market next to where I'm stuck have been clearing the walks when their plowman drives up to take care of their parking lot he agrees to try to help me get out while he's surveying the job the brothers looking at my poor car ask one another whose it is thinking maybe it's one of their customers mine I claim whereupon the younger brother produces a heavy duty strap hooking his truck to my car and pulls me up and over the low wall of snow that had me trapped down the side street under my own power turn turn out onto the avenue the senior center lot is clear I find a space kill the engine and walk away back to the brothers thanking them I notice that the guy stuck up by the next corner is trying to shovel out with a windshield brush so I go offer him my shovel turns out to be this school teacher I've treated and socialized with he digs out and the brothers come over to help push him out that's enough for me slogging through the foot and a half of snow to my front door and inside where the snow isn't falling I'm glad I tried to help the red-headed woman (she called to tell me she made it home and to make another appointment) hopeless chivalry I'm glad for the help from my neighbor pulling me out of a jam literally it was good to be out in the snow this afternoon when there was some thunder and lightening and tonight when the quiet of the snow was deeper still now it's midnight and the snow has stopped falling the challenges of the day are met and over success in small things and a pleasant reacquaintance Back to top   Metered Poems   Alchemy The river does not leave its course Nor waken from its bed But dreams with all unerring force Of oceans widely sread, Titanicly the mountain broods Its stoney crown enshrouded Soft vagaries of misty moods Have gravity beclouded, Inviolable the star wheels turn Through destiny's dark heights As falling wayward angels burn In meteoric flights, Fickle the heart whose beating wing Unreachable above Has left me here earthbound to sing My lonely songs of love. The Laureate for James Merrill High-built walls of stony girth Hold prisoner amorphous earth Protecting with their cool, grey pardon Recesses of that sunken garden, Whose lawns were filled as every walk By congregants to hear the talk And render in that evening's shade The poet greater accolade. And there the aged laureate Ensconced in a gazebo sat A weathered Buddha wizened wise Staring out with complacent eyes, Over the throng who'd gathered round Across the flowered and sculpted ground Taking it seemed recondite pleasure In rhythms with those walls did measure. Then read his rhymes to their applause An hour forced to take a pause When with a cough his voice did harden As cool night sank into the garden. While all the while from treetop's towers Indifferent to the poems and flowers Unbridled nature's voice rang strong As one bird sang its sunset song. For poems are made like garden walls In patterns wrought from what befalls Enclosures fashioned poor or grand From just whatever lay at hand. Their words restraining shapeless earth Have won a place of human worth From nature brutal and sublime Who little cares for mortal rhyme. The Kabbalist I have reached the end of thinking And of things which can be thought And my mind has finished drinking In the answers I have sought. I have found the sacred number Through the secret of the counts Learned to set free and encumber By permuting the amounts. I have pondered myst'ries scripted In dense symbols writ aflame And those cypher's I decrypted So pronounced the holy name. But each answer yields a query Whose solution stands aloof From the mind which does grow weary In establishing its proof. The end's wedged in the beginning And the last is in the first Loss accompanies each winning And the best have been the worst. As the holy is impious So the sacred is profane The mysterious is obvious The mundane is most arcane. Life's a riddle whose unraveling I have searched to understand While the object of my traveling From the start was in my hand. When The World Was Young I loved you when the world was young The day still wet with dew When out of earth's warm womb life sprung Bold, innocent, and new. I loved you in that land of youth Where care no furrows plowed Where worry's drought was drowned by truth And want was disavowed. Where storm clouds never swept the sky And sorrow held no sway Where love and hope were wings to fly And life a game to play. But games do end and wings do fail When storm clouds cruelly come With rain to worry and assail And snow to render numb. Here now more wounded and more wise That distant youthful shore I see reflected in your eyes And love you there once more. If Only The bird whose heart longs for the north Compelled by nature's passioned force Would follow fast it's homeward course On sure and tireless wing If only it were spring. The serpent in its icy den Would supple grow and writhe again To bask reborn in sunny glen Warm, soft awakening If only it were spring. Great rivers frozen in their bed Would thawing tumble on ahead Where joyously their waters wed The sea's wide wandering If only it were spring. Then would the tightly whorled bud Its veins engorged with life's sweet blood Burst open in a scented flood Love's lusty blossoming If only it were spring. Beware Walking through the sea dry-shod Staring at the face of G-d Dancing on a lightening rod Beware the slightest wink or nod Your soul's already dazed and overloaded Fed well on forbidden fruit Plugged into the absolute Digging for the hidden root Bailing out without a chute The ground you stood has all now been eroded Speaking the unuttered name Gazing at the sacred flame There is nobody else to blame The angel's touch has made you lame You'd better leave before he has reloaded Stone drunk on some holy wine Starstruck in a hallowed shrine You stand before the grand design The awesome presence so divine One false move and you will be exploded Don't Reckon Dear Don't reckon dear that far off goal Which ever slips beyond control Don't grieve the laurels yet unwon Nor sorrow for the race not run The flowers that refuse to bloom The life that's locked inside the womb Need not our plaintive dirgeful mourn No requiem for the unborn Too fast the fickle heart does fly Too broad the compass of the eye And most remains outside our grasp Between life's first and final gasp But mis'ry's rank and bitter fruit Draws darkly from a deeper root And pale all our infertile toil Beside her black and bloody soil. Early Spring There's something of the early spring Before the leaves have sprouted When life's long promised offering Unseen is yet undoubted The earth's dark womb then growing warm Awakens sleeping seeds towards form Bestirring them from frozen dreams To births in worlds where sunlight gleams While flowered embryos lay curled On leafless boughs foretelling The blossomed swell of life unfurled In bowers sweetly smelling And sunbeams splashing on the lake Into ten thousand shards do break Igniting there like autumn's straw The waters flush with winter's thaw Then innocent imagining Flies up on some great unborn wing Before becoming turns to being There in those early days of spring Escape Leave off the expectation of Your frustrated ideals Let heaven hover high above With all that it conceals. Renounce your noble search for truth Those passionate forays Of strategem and cunning sleuth In living's endless maze. From soft dreams of love awaken From sleep whose promise swells Phantom hopes of hearts forsaken Sweet opiated hells. Escape that frantic race with death For that which doesn't rust And savor well your mortal breath Among the ash and dust. Eurydice Eurydice, come back to me There is no song without you Life broods in silent misery Since cruel death closed about you. Let poet's voice now find the verse To free you from cold Hade's curse, Let lyre's tune now break the spell That keeps us in immortal hell. Eurydice, come flee with me The way is clear before us Make haste while dark Persephone Agrees yet to restore us Rise up now like some grand phoenix Take flight across the wine-dark Styx While Charon waiting in his bow A passage back does yet allow. Eurydice, ascend with me And keep your eyes ahead now Lest turning we abysmally Fall back among the dead now Those wretched ghosts of life's decay Who call us back towards disarray And so distracted from our height We gaze down on eternal night. Eurydice, remember me Although death has us parted There in your somber reverie I too am broken-hearted 'Though silence stays this poet's tongue And sadness ends the joy once sung Your hell below and mine above Still echo with our tortured love. Evermore A place of quiet amidst the noise The perfect rest of equipoise Where I can savor heaven's joys Washed up upon that shore Elusive evermore. The innocent embrace of love A present from the gods above Which far too fast did let go of This mortal heart I wore Forsaken evermore. Some overarching paradigm Which weaves the reason with the rhyme Into a tapestry divine That angels might adore Evasive evermore. A small respite from living's storm A shelter from the maddened swarm Where nocturne's mists may yet give form To dreams dreamed long before Receding evermore. Flotsam What tiny light is this to hold Against the night's black tide? What ray of hope that rises bold? What vain and foolish pride? Adrift upon this wine-dark sea Small comfort to the touch This flotsam of sad life's debris These straws at which we clutch. Enchanted by sweet Siren's song We struggle through the waves And buoyed so plunge on headlong Into abysmal graves. A candle in a hurricane A bark on stormy swell A promise sounding sweet in vain Through oceanic hells. Hopeful Hours Those hopeful hours all laid to waste Those years reclined in ruin Those hollowed haunts of trust misplaced Where love lies wracked and strewn. Where mem'ry spreads its tattered shroud Across the face of truth Beguiling with its smoke and cloud The innocence of youth. Where disappointment stings the heart Made numb to simple joy Her comforts leached from every part Through misery's employ Where hunger feeds upon the soul Whom poverty does claim Where loneliness exacts its toll Among the sick and lame. Those shattered dreams, those fractured ghosts Who taunt the living day Exalt themselves with obscene boasts Over this world's decay. I Will Not Struggle I will not struggle against night's sea The dark, hollow waves which engulf me No fear, no hero, no sad regret, No futile opposition I'm tired of swimming, Tired of clinging to the shore, Sand slipping through the hour-glass of my fists. Be then my companion or my bride I accept you whom I cannot refuse I will set you a place at my table and a bed by the fire Who has been more constant? Who more familiar? Come in, the light will not extinguish you I cannot hope to civilize you who've made me wild I have not failed to realize you who are my child. The sun will rise again And I will join in the song of that new day But I will not hide from the darkness From the pulse of the wild and the fangs of death I have my own fierceness to protect me now. Come and take my hand I will not try to understand, If Only Once If only once the tireless sun Rose brilliant in the east And with that single day's course run Its fiery orbit ceased, Still endless night would be outdone By memory's bright feast. If starry veil but once was spread Across the night's black vault Then ever left the dark unwed When that nocturne made halt, Still men would follow where fate led Unerring, without fault. If just one time the moon grew round Her beauty magnified Then waning left the night uncrowned A groom without a bride, Forever we would drift spellbound On that brief lunar tide. If like a comet love burns bright One night in ninety years If heaven's grand immortal light Shines once then disappears If my beloved stays the night And leaves as morning nears, Still then my heart would be requite Awash in wine-dark tears. Indecision In slow gray arcs the morning swung Between sunshine and rain Ambivalent the sky was hung Quite restless 'twixt the twain. Tossed high the seeded maple wing Spins down towards forest floor Then atmospheric wave does fling It up to sink once more. Vicissitude, the fruit begot From passion's heated womb; "She loves me," then, "She loves me not" Torn petals from the bloom. Uncertain there where roads do cross Mark well each parting way In choosing one the other's lost As ever on we stray. Like I Love the Sea I love you like I love the sea Your currents deep with mystery Your tidal moods that ebb and flow Away and back to me I hold you like the perfumed night Holds secrets far too pure for sight Dark jungle flowers whose scented tales No telling can requite My heart struck by your lightning's fire Explodes with thunderous desire Your stormy winds rage through my soul Consuming me entire I love you with the twilit love That homeward guides the wayward dove I love you like the moon above You are the stuff my dreams are of Merely Life If merely life might be enough A diamond left uncut and rough Whose beauty proud and plainly stands Without the work of human hands. Aloft among the faceless flocks Find refuge from the eye that mocks And urges on to higher heights These wings more made for aimless flights. Content to graze in fields of dreams To harvest from fantastic schemes The spices which help palate bear The humbler tastes of common fare. Then glory in the rising sun And lie you down when day is done Embracing all the joy and strife Wove in this tangled web of life. Olympus Once fair Olympus came to earth Once gods walked here with men And scattered broad the seeds of worth That fruits of their numen Might ease the pangs of mortal birth When off they flew again. Bold Dionysus brought the vine (Him whom the Maenads nursed) And taught the art of making wine To slake that human thirst For visions of a world divine Far from this land accursed. Good Demeter of boundless grace Gave free her golden grain, At Eleusis that sacred place Taught mysteries arcane To sate the hunger of man's race Here mired in the profane. Of he who spread his mother's spell Of Eros I would sing Whose arrows caused the heart to swell With love's imagining And made sweet heaven of this hell By virtue of their sting. Yes once on earth Olympus trod To raise the low estate Of those formed from this ground's damp clod Impressed by heaven's weight With mem'ries of a passing god To mitigate their fate. Pity Pity the heart that beats too long Its unrelenting rhythmic song Compelling with those sad refrains This tired blood through tortured veins. Beware the thoughts which dive profound In waters where deep truths abound Lest they uncover hidden there Leviathan's titanic lair Accursed that providential star Whose fateful light leads us afar Towards destinies which all betray Our bright hopes held along the way. For petty is the pride of man And poverty consumes his span Devouring every hour that's torn From him much better left unborn. Remnants I live among the remnant flowers Sown by the hand of youth Which flourished here in fragrant bowers Before the scythe of truth. Among the few who stood the blight That struck their sapling root The lasting boughs whose frailness might Yet yield some sparse-hung fruit. Where come the storms whose ragings oft Denude this verdant glade That windswept wrath of heaven's loft Makes poor my earthly shade. Lost now the dreams of distant spring Their falsehoods all laid bare By seasons which in passing bring A harvest of despair. Autumn Red now the leaves and yellow-gold That out of summer's green explode Upsetting with their wild rampage The lush growth of a younger age Those leaves which fluttered in one place In falling find a deeper grace And casting off without regrets Set sail in perfect pirouettes Quick squirrels scurry 'cross the floor Of forests to increase their store And fatten on the small acorn From which these mighty oak are born Those birds which idled on the breeze Directionless with wayward ease Encouraged by day's shrinking light Find purpose now in southward flight And now on bough and curling vines Where blushing ripeness brightly shines That fruit which hung aloof and chaste Yields lustily its richest taste Sweet flesh enclothed by supple skin Sustaining seeds of life within The subtle pulse of fertile womb Beneath this swollen harvest moon Bold autumn wields its brazen brush Transforming with that Midas touch A world too steady, staid and old With leaves of red and yellow-gold. Resignation I've learned to feed on solitude To nourish from my own In famine dire to take as food The flesh from off my bone. I've learned to live beneath the waves To float amidst the weeds To drift among these sodden graves Suspended in the reeds. I've learned the silence of the mute The cry without a sound That deafens heart and renders moot The poignant and profound. How then dare light disturb my night This lot which I have drawn With thoughts I might yet glimpse the sight Of rosey-fingered dawn. Self-Immolation Writhing in self-immolation It helps not to disclaim The fiery price; revelation Engulfs my life in flame. I did the things best left undone Grave warnings were all spurned And flying too close too the sun My feathered wings were burned. I've cheated death one thousand times Gone now that golden wit Which lit my way one thousand climbs Up from this sulphured pit. Yea I have compassed heavens vault And plumbed the depths of hell And 'though my burning proves my fault Still few can burn so well. Simple Things Things are much simpler than they seem A dream is after all a dream Love lost is lost, be sure of this A kiss is nothing but a kiss. Emotions which dive dark and deep Or clamber cliffs abruptly steep Make poor and breathlessly confound A heart attuned to level ground. Grant fantasy an open rein Imagination wide domain Still in the end their strength must yield As sober doubt retakes the field. The ornate spiralings of youth The riddles which embroider truth Unravel their profound estate In certainties laid hard and straight. Untempered expectations waste The moment far best proved by taste Let tongue be judge and palate savor And come what may know now the flavor. Yet I once drunk on love's sweet wine Dared hope to make that vintage mine Still all my dreams can't make it so There's nothing more to say, please go. Small Reptiles Your hands small reptiles soft and warm Lie basking in the sun Press firmly now their pulsing form Then lithely dart and run. Your breasts two fragrant mounds of spice Piled on some perfumed shore Intoxicants whose scents entice Me towards a dark amour. Your voice cascades, clear mountain streams Into a sylvan pool Whose eddies weave sonorous dreams From waters deep and cool. Yours are the passions of the wild The fierce tongues of love's fire And mine the heart on which you smiled Now burns hot with desire. Summer's Night She came upon a summer's night My thoughts made soft by wine A dream or vision borne in flight Upon a breeze divine. My soul lay hushed, wondrous, and weird Transfixed by lunar tide Upon my bed as she appeared Within my window wide. A jungle cat with restless eyes I felt her heated breath And watched her move, her muscles wise Like one whose tasted death. A sleek strong mare with wild black mane And flesh made sweet by sweat Who'd known no human touch nor rein Yet my hand she did let. And I mad fool whose phantoms fade Like dew before the sun Still in that land of dream and shade With her my soul does run. Ten Thousand Ten thousand voices has the breeze All whispering they tell A storied love to rustling trees Who fall beneath their spell Eternally the mountain lifts Its face up towards the sky As heaven parting with her gifts Drifts cloudy kisses by The babbling rush of rippling stream Incessant overhead Intoxicates the stones who dream Contented in her bed There is no end to nature's art But I whose days are few Must sing with mortal tongue and heart A storied love for you The Sacrifice Beneath gray clouds of tufted wool The day hung fattened, rank, and full Swollen with its pregnant pull Like some gigantic tethered bull. Spun from those clouds so darkly fleeced A damp wind lumbered from the east As its wet labored weight increased A burdened sacrificial beast. Then some great blow of awe and pain Broke through that atmospheric strain Bled from the clouds their shrouds of rain The mighty bovine has been slain. So sound the curled and festive horn Which some proud head did once adorn Yet in your mirth this you may mourn That just from death new life is born. To A Friend Of My Youth Then well we wore those wondered years When manhood's buddings bloomed And beckoned on from childhood's cheers Towards where life largely loomed. Then billowed with the blush of youth Our sails sought distant seas For treasures of a pirate truth And love along the lees. Yes boldly bore we banners high Unfurling in the sun The derring-do of deeds to try On journeys just begun. And now dear friend my sails still set My head already gray Rejoices yet in one well met One wondered yesterday. Utopia Utopia your scented shore Wafts sweetly 'cross the ocean's roar Perfumes that make tired sailors brave The frothing pitch of churning wave Arcadia's warm rustic breast Whereon the grapes of faith are pressed Exudes a vintage which inspires Those huddled cold 'round distant fires The rivers which from Eden flow Bring promises of long ago And hope that prayer may yet placate The firery angels at her gate Those dreams which outlast morning's dew Embolden us to struggle through And search among day's sacrifice For sleep's elusive paradise What Hell Is This What hell is this that follows me Whichever way I fly A darkness over all I see A shadow ever nigh A cloud that comes before the sun Eclipsing golden rays An umber haunting all things done Until the end of days A thief who sneaks in from the night And leaves the heart a husk Replacing heat and bloody might With cool vapors of dusk Each passing day my torment worse No charm to break the spell No flight of refuge from this curse For I myself am hell. Without Disguise I held you once without disguise When pain broke down our fear And from the longing in your eyes Dared draw your body near. You are the fluid scent-filled wind Which flooded me one night The raven dark immortal wing Which brushed me in its flight. I am the fool who dreamt and pray That we might stay asleep Than meet the false light of the day That robs us of the deep. There are more winds and wings and dreams And other tears to cry I loved you well (or so it seems) Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Without Words Against this augered sky The homeward flight of twilit birds Reveals mute reasons why The simplest things are without words. Hushed voices of the breeze Here wafting through the trees do each Conspire in symphonies Their zephyrous tongues too pure for speech. Night's star-encrusted vault Whose turning's spin fate's silent web Weaves merit with the fault The flush of fortune with the ebb. Coy heaven's cryptic signs But quietly reflect on earth Those elegant designs Of simple and unspoken worth. Deepest Night I sing the praise of deepest night The hour of the witch When shards of reason's failing light Mire in nocturnal pitch. Gray phantoms in that umbra haunt Enchanted atmosphere And make things once familiar daunt The common seem quite queer. Black fear whose damned and deadly art Allows no disavowal Does seize upon the timid heart And sicken in the bowel. Hollow the hopes which once flushed full Day's dreams which once swelled proud Now wither in the lunar pull Beneath dark shadow's shroud. Homage This emptiness, this deep black hole This hunger gaping wide That swallows heart and breath and soul Remains unsatisfied. This silence which makes destitute Each song and word and cry Does deafen ear and render mute Each voice which would defy. This stillness with its spastic rein And sharp unyielding bit Does flesh and spirit both restrain All motion made forfeit. And death which holds all life prey Our master and our host Removes from us each passing day And makes of it a ghost. Twilight See how the solar orb has set Behind that distant hill It's skyward beauty falling yet Below broad heaven's sill. See how those rays which once ranged free Now gather towards the west As they from growing shadows flee Like sparrows to their nest. Like sailors drawn down by their ship Into a sunken grave Those wrecked remnants of daylight slip Beneath horizon's wave. See that last embered indigo Yet dimly phosphoresce The final breath of afterglow Expired in night's caress. rapture your beauty flowers like a rose your gypsy eyes, your lips, your nose the perfumed scent around you the way you move, your hair, your clothes the deepest grace of nature shows there perfectly upon you red petals in the ratios your softly-spoken words compose sing symphonies about you your bud unfurling swells and grows and does to reverent eye expose dark mysteries within you pierced by the thorns of love's arrows the redness of my life-blood flows quite happily before you pefect metaphor it seems a perfect metaphor to me here sitting on this shore the fountain rising from this pond and all of life do correspond up from the water's tranquil face with fluid geometric grace a hundred streams arc wide through space then plunge back in a frothy lace it's not the droplets, sunlight kissed refracting rainbows through their mist to crown late summer's lazy bliss although life too has some of this golden peach is not your golden peach ripe now nestled in the crotch of your limbs does not its blushing flesh crave my tasting the embrace of my lips to drink in little sips the sweetness beading up upon it does not your secret place now yield the perfumed urge that draws me on the lusty scent of honeyed sap the river of delights whose fragrances excites and bids me come yet closer is now not time to share at last nature to part that soft and fuzzy skin to lick the lusciousness within your nectar dripping down my chin from fountains deep inside you Back to top   Family Poems   Gone The signs are disappearing The cars, the road, the walks The flowers are disappearing One plant after another Security guards come into view and vanish First the man and then the woman The doors are gone Now row by row the brick wall evaporates The woman walking across the parking lot, gone Her little one trailing along, gone (The wind blows) Cloud by cloud the sky is erased Three garbage cans disappear, one returns The woman security guard reappears, but the wall on which she leans on is gone It's all just drying up Trees and doctors and a lifetime ending The gate is gone, the fence, the struggle to survive Birds disappear The deli across the street returns to nothingness The driveway is gone The entrance cannot be found Bicycles and riders are lost Failures, nightmares and dreams dissolve Men carrying boxes to a van disappear Then the van Grievance and disappointment Hunger, longing and loss, Gone, gone Neighborhoods, family and the tortured march of years vanish Summer, then September, gone (Still the wind blows) Childhood's last foolish embers are extinguished Trash blowing through a vacant lot disappears along with the lot Grass and children and leaves already colored and falling, gone God and country and the way, bombs falling, all finished Lines, edges, curbs, dogs, crap tables, business deals, card games, long drives, arguments, sevens, elevens, the slow burden of being, windows, roofs, columns, hospitals, gone And this poem, all gone. family portrait a visiting friend picked up a photo of me my father and two of his brothers and grunted ominously uh oh! when I identified the grizzled old men in the picture yes, you have no idea what I have overcome I was not always as you see me now still the legacy is with me the family inheritance that ruined my brother and worries my sister I am not immune but I've got a handle on it I've learned how to hold on how to compensate how to get in and out of the way I've got my eyes open and I can admit I'm wrong I'm watching for it looking for those blind spots like Socrates I know that I don't know and maybe that's the only kind of wisdom allowed that photo is still on the counter where my friend found it a strength in their faces those men who came before me a toughness I can only admire old school they cleared the way so that I can look back only vaguely aware of the traumas of the past I there in the picture smiling among them barking up the wrong tree there is no understanding available her words and actions are incompatible with relationship this is clear to all who have left before me siblings, children, grandchildren friends no one visits no one calls I too would have already left except for the old man her husband my father who at eighty-three after a disabling stroke can no longer defend himself against her strange brand of attention and that I live in the apartment upstairs she is compelled to prove her oppression inflexible in her failing routine going down with the ship following the dictates of a schedule where ten minutes are critical so that he must eat his breakfast by 9:30 and not 9:45 while the rest of their day lies before them without appointment or constraint performing her duties with the greatest resentment unable to establish a common bond to feel the basic ties of family or humanity nursing the once-proud man like a disobedient child reprimanding resenting his incapacity resenting my assistance embarrassed by the proximity into which his illness has drawn us it is not the yelling coming up the stairway penetrating the floor her anger blending with the struggle to overcome his deafness it is not the rigidity insisting that things despite their persistent noncompliance should happen her way that circumstance should accommodate her point of view and not the other way around it is the viciousness erupting when her vulnerability is exposed the attacks which fly back from my offers to help pouncing when I move to take the thorn from her paw there is I see now no way to bridge the gap my attempts to move close register as a threat to her aloneness my assistance contradicts her frustration and she doesn't like to be contradicted the river will not turn around there is no help for it never much of a mother she is less so now I am the fool for still wanting to be her son no more a child for Sefira to see you there near fully grown still ours, but now not ours alone a fledgling freshly from the nest departing on a winged quest a treasure of enduring worth an angel better than this earth a Shining Blessing from above who shows us how to truly love time is a mistress bittersweet whom human heart cannot entreat still there's no chance to mourn what's passed with you new joys rush in so fast we thank you for just being you and wish G-d's help in all you do your kindly eyes, your knowing smile have made our lives more than worthwhile 36 Sommerset Drive goodbye emily smunck's old house goodbye bethany's old house goodbye place where you buy thanksgiving turkeys goodbye governor's horses goodbye pine grove school goodbye buckminister fuller goodbye middle school goodbye hill where we used to sled goodbye house with the nice flowers goodbye church of satan goodbye goodbye goodbye the day that was (not necessarily in order) dad's diaper changed my mother angrily refuses my help struggling up the stairs with her bundles the former tenant threatened with the intervention of the police finally brings back my massage table the takeout menu for the restaurant is composed and copied I pay the parking ticket down at city hall picking my daughter up from school we go shopping for sunglasses two pair for three dollars later crying in her dark room she tells me to close the door my lawyer leaves a message about a "productive" conversation with the US attorney letters are mailed the ex-wife is counseled about legal problems and confides her disease the news is gathered a story read the e-mail account is purged prayers are recited the darkness of night is regarded outside my window the cat stretches and yawns upon her pillow past midnight it is already tomorrow and time to sleep the ghost is given up the ghost is given up incrementally so gradually that it is not possible for me who visits every day to see the change yet I remember him not so long ago a different man gradually he passed beyond words he who never did too much talking anyway what was left to say was parsed out a phrase or two every second or third visit words somehow superfluous to our silent understandings our inviolate communion of the flesh left hands clasped as men exchange greetings and goodbyes but motionless on the bed next to his crippled body our modest embrace as day by day I mumble over him Hebrew psalms too far from his good ear for him to hear finishing the book month by month "it's October," I tell him "the Yankees are in the World Series" "everybody is okay you can go if you need to" as if he needed my permission to die not so long ago he would manage a short phrase in response to my story "you're learning" then later a word when on leaving to go to work I told him as he used to say, "I've got to go fight the dragons," "go," he said releasing my hand now he lies there his good hand limp in mine, mostly gone, mostly gone his eyes barely opening his lungs barely able to draw in and expel the breath I know that he still appreciates my hand rubbing his chest but there is no sign of it he is already far away his body no longer able to contain the soul not so long ago I had a vision of his mostly disembodied soul reproving me for my sadness and my tears disapproving of my sentimentality reassuring me in that tone that always meant I should have known better should have known already, without being told reassuring me that everything is okay that the inevitable is inevitable that the indignity of decay is the usual way ancient Mesopotamia brightly colored autumn leaves the biggest fish the truest heart everything turning to manure "you're learning" the strength has not entirely left him the flame still clinging to the wick after the wax has all been consumed setting an example of strength to the last a quiet, hopeless dignity "be strong," his ghost mostly given up admonishes me "be strong," his stoic face commands embarrassed as he always was by such displays of emotion "be strong," but still I can't stop crying. he is dying he is dying this man who gave me birth even as the seeds he carelessly tossed my way yet sprout and bear fruit the cryptic messages which stuck in mind that in my youth I took for an old man's cynicism but now I take for truth like some blind, lame bear he stumbles across the floor to or from the toilet, table, bed wanting nothing more than to be led to a warm place to lie and a little bread this pathetic resolve to go on when there is nothing left when all that remains undone remains undone nothing lost or won no place left for hope mother's frustration she yells because he's hard of hearing because what's wrong cannot be fixed because justice has not been served she complains not because she wants help but because complaint is all that's left to her everything the man next door who cuts the lawn and plows the snow husband, daughter, son and sisters newspaper delivery and contents the quality of bananas certain brands of disposable diapers everything is a cause of complaint an opportunity for complaint not that she wants assistance she prefers to go it alone possessing advanced training in a host of scientific disciplines I am still not qualified to run her washing machine it is not a lack of practical solutions it is simply that he should not wet the bed that he continues to do so is for her a personal affront she knows the way things should be her way we have been brought together again after decades apart over an old man's illness husband and father who always had himself been difficult to get along with passive now he presents different problems but mother's still playing by the old rules a former world, imagined somehow as better her vision blinds her to another point of view unable to accept the concept of team calling all the shots she is sure that the failure is someone else's the emotional gulf cannot be leapt too much lies between cooperation too foreign an idea the medicine is on the shelf the cure within reach is wasted because she didn't think of it father twilight came first to his bedroom on the east side of the house the day leaking out through shear curtains between the blinds eight PM at the end of August summer already broken the cool of autumn the cool of evening yet to come him wanting to talk there lying in bed tucked in beneath a pink sheet wanting some reassurance that he would not be left behind I sat next to the bed pulling up a small chair on which I had never sat before and spoke loudly leaning over him speaking to his good ear worried he was that he would be left alone blind as he is and crippled by the stroke that the house would be sold and his position rendered precarious "When I go you're coming with me" I assured him "That's good to hear" he relaxed imagining that he had a million dollars imagining that he was fifty and not eight-three "If you don't tell me things, I won't know what's happening. It gets light. It gets dark. I just lie here. It's all the same." and so I told him some family news about my daughter his granddaughter visiting Cape Cod about to start high school and he listened not so much to the content as to the telling his hands under the sheet fiddling with the plastic diaper. he never talked very much never asked for help his infirmity forcing us to explore the uncharted lands between us I am reminded to be more attentive to care in other ways for him he needs more company he doesn't want to be left so alone he's asking which is a big step for him there sitting as dusk fills the room I feel the moment becoming a memory taking significant space in my brain already I am nostalgic looking back on the moment which has not yet passed tears brimming my eyes taking my hand from his shoulder I stroke his thick white hair and wish him good night good boy he is like a baby wearing diapers needing someone to move the spoon from the plate to his mouth to wash and dress him the stroke hit six years ago scrambling his vision and balance 82 years old he walks now only with assistance our hands gripping each other's arms as I shuffle backwards down the hall leading him on his steps hesitant uncertain afraid to fall he often leans back resisting my forward pull he needs a great deal of encouragement to get beyond his two-steps-and-stop routine to keep his legs moving in a continuous rhythm "don't stop, don't stop keep those legs moving, that's it, good be brave good job" and this morning for the first time "good boy" and this morning interlocked in our awkward dance appreciating the irony of calling my white-haired father a good boy I understood that that was something new from the stories of his childhood and the memories of my own I understood that such easy praise had never been his no one had held him and called him a good boy he was no stranger to admiration but the compliments offered him were poorly received and there at the root of his toughness of his isolated independence there this lack of animal warmth and simplest affirmation and it seems somehow a perverse perfection that he should be rendered now so dependent and returned as it were to a childhood deficient to make good that lack even after the fact the fundament of love here where the end folds back to beginning crippled waltz It is a crippled waltz we do. My father and I. Facing. His hand gripping my shoulder. Mine, passed snuggly under his armpit, anchored across his back. Our other arms clasping each other at the elbow. Like crabs learning to waltz, steps hesitant and halting. I attempting to provide the balance and vision he lost four years ago to the stroke. Shuffling backwards, leading his tottering, eighty-two year old, once-powerful frame forward down the hallway. His desire to "take it easy," to lean away from me, to stop, his fear of the now-awkward, rhythmic momentum of walking, his fear of falling greatly compounding the risk. There is always the wheelchair. Mother, herself over eighty, uses it to move him when I am away, when she is on her own in the middle of the day, after I have helped him up from bed and performed his toilette with him and led him in our music-less dance to the breakfast table, until I come in the early evening collecting him from the couch to change his diapers and put him to bed. But walking, however imperfectly performed, is a sign of life the old man and I struggle to maintain. We live, almost together, in a Neo-Victorian house which time has rendered elegant. A two-family house on the former site of the Vanderbilt estate; the mansion consumed by fire shortly after it was finished more than one hundred years ago left only the gatehouse standing even now anonymously beside our own. My practice is on the first floor; my parents are on the second; the third floor, once cramped servants' quarters, was remodeled into my airy abode through the addition of a kitchen and the removal of eighty feet of wall. Following my divorce, in a therapeutic move, I took an axe and started swinging, breaking down the walls. My westward view, through a twelve foot expanse of glass stretches over tree and roof tops for miles out to what in these parts we take for a mountain. Unimpeded the breeze always finds us; the winds sometimes flapping the artwork on the walls. The neglect which as a boy I suffered from my parents now renders our proximity convenient. In excess of my daily duties my privacy is only rarely interrupted by mother's call up the closeted stairs asking for assistance or offering part of her dinner or more frequently by a note of crisis, heard through the floor, in her frustrated tirades against my father and his incapacity. I am able to visit and leave with no great ado. Intervening and escaping like the Israeli secret service, in and out. I am, outside of my fixed filial obligations, able to entertain and carry on the life of an independent, free-standing adult. Of course, those "fixed filial obligations" amount to a grand proviso. Changing my daughter's diaper, if less than charming, was natural; changing my father's is another matter all together. As has been interacting with my overstressed, ridiculously independent mother, who until recently considered any but her own, however ineffective, solution to a problem to be an intolerable compromise. Impervious to criticism, suggestion and assistance she would, in feats of negation which rivaled the greatest magicians, make me disappear; tearfully screaming, even as I was cleaning up the matter at hand, that no one helped her. Things with mom are recently not so dire. Suffering her emotional needs has become less taxing then caring for my father's physical ones. The old man's decline is hard for her in ways different than it is for me; a husband vs. a father. Futilely, imposing order on the decompensation. Insisting on a silly punctuality, that we run our lives according to this man who doesn't have one anymore, who doesn't know if it's morning or afternoon, midday or midnight. Doing too much for him and turning irate when her efforts are rebuffed or unappreciated. Trying to mend a relationship which for so long, even before his stroke, was beyond mending. Wrestling with the sure, inevitable approach of death. The old man fades the old man fades returning from the hospital after a week away a few pounds gone from his frame weaker, less steady on his feet the inevitable shows itself with even greater clarity positioning itself more prominently the lead horse in the home stretch a guaranteed winner necessity provides the direction we do what we have to do somehow getting the strength mustering resolve to keep him home to hoist him from the chair and clean his bottom while he holds the bar a fresh diaper then off to bed he's happy to be back in his own house and chair and bed without the catheter and IV this ghost of a man still clinging to life can't see, can't balance, right side impaired weak dependent as he hasn't been since he was a young boy softer now this tough old man a wise guy like from the movies Bogart and Edward G. Robinson and W.C. Fields with a style his own just traces of the old fight left in him now he needs people now in a way he never did before or never admitted he did forced into it, he's discovering some new terrain blind and lame he floats along a young boy he was already stealing fruit from the pushcarts to feed the family that his father couldn't the younger brothers and sister and mother depression times he lied to his mother about how he got the food or she wouldn't take it then he learned how to throw the dice learned better than most he bet against which numbers came up and which didn't gambling until the stroke made him stop he sits now, a silent buddha supremely withdrawn habiting a world of his own dreaming without the need to wake beyond all common concerns the thousand details of living out of the game waiting for nothing in particular waiting for nothing sooner or later it will claim him completely mother copes only she knows how focusing on the physical tasks at hand her emotions are unclear to me and to her the surface of a lake rippled by the wind concealing the depths shattering the reflection of what? she breaks down periodically crying for comfort, for relief, for things she cannot say her imperfect companion of fifty plus years needing her in ways not before failing her again and newly she is strong, with the strength of a different age when times demanded more of us before we were lulled by the convenience of modernity no choice I help consistently getting him up in the morning and to bed at night shaving and showering washing his hands and face and whatever else needs it a baby's is one thing but changing your father's diaper changes you turns something around deep inside. never much one for physical contact I've touched him more these last four years than in all the years before helping him to his feet or rarely up the stairs holding him steady in and out of the shower guiding him from behind down the hallway with his walker steering, keeping a hand on his back, catching the occasional stumble aborting the fall off his feet for a week he's shakier than before but we'll try to get him back using that walker expecting too much or not enough about a week before the ambulance took him away he woke calling out in the middle of the night lying there with his hand on his bare belly he proclaimed with religious conviction "the touch of flesh on flesh rejuvenates" again and again. I held his sleeve-covered arm and he insisted as he took my hand in his "it must be flesh on flesh" I knew then that I must give him the massage I had been intending but somehow amid the mundane urgencies of life I never found the time. in the hospital I rubbed his back and neck occasionally finding "the spot." now that he's home I won't delay do and say what needs to be said and done and don't take all day about it like the man said "if not now, when?" the chances are there if you take them but often there aren't any second ones and even then they don't last too long. put your money down and roll the dice, papa needs a new pair of shoes. lost and found they were right were I left them but just where that was I couldn't say no one to blame but my self yesterday it snowed all day the first snow of the season this morning on my way to meet my daughter I turned around because I thought in addition to playing in the snow we might go skiing together the cross country skis easy to locate were already in the car in the car and I was without much luck looking for the boots that went with them typically they lived in the old pantry but I had partially cleared out that cluttered space moving items to new locations but now the logic of that redistribution was lost to me at least regarding the shoes where had I put them? I'm late and getting later for breakfast and the day tearing through every closet in the place unwilling to surrender even after forty minutes of failure looking for a sign an inkling an idea of where they might be meet mom in the basement doing her laundry and she asks if I've looked down there I've just asked G-d to help very rarely bother Him about specific problems especially such trivial ones so I figure maybe He's speaking through mom one more look through some relocated pantry items piled on a skid and there inside of an overturned paper bag are those funny-looking, black and white boots relief and a kiss on her cheek and minutes later in the car while I'm speeding to my destination I remember the comfort and assurance I took as a child from my mother's seemingly magical ability to locate things she knew she helped me find what I was looking for it was good to find the ski boots it was good to find again that confidence in my mother it gives me hope that one day I'll be found probably right where I left me holding on the dog needs to be put down too old and arthritic to make it up the stairs on her own can't control her bladder pissing all over the floor she looks up worried with knowing, sad, brown eyes what a bitch. dad is in much the same condition sitting in diapers on the couch balance and vision lost his physical disability rendering him quieter still not any more eager to die than the dog clinging to whatever little life that's left euthanasia not an option for him after a drought of six weeks it's rained seven days running farmers can't get out into the fields to replant spring crops already dead from thirst too little then too much she had cancer a recurrence of something from years before after the chemo her hair fell out started to grow back then fell out again then her furnace stopped working and her roof started leaking then her brother-in-law with whom she was quite close died. I held her there on her living-room floor her drunken misery creating the entry that had always eluded me eluded us before held her and rubbed her until she came back from the brink until the life which flowed again through her battered body and mind made it so she wanted at least a little less to die my mother tending her sick dog and husband finds it hard to carry on her nerves are stretched tight snapping into anger unable to sleep frequently she breaks down into tears having imagined a more dignified ending to her life than piles of shit and pools of piss the unpleasantness of life's decay and I know now how nothing comes to matter how the joy only lightly touches the heart and all the good appears to be only a children's game a make-believe the eye having seen too much the heart too often broken. I am afraid that love is some vast inhuman thing which burns as much as it heals afraid that everything the old man said with or without words is coming true afraid to see both him and the dog wanting only the occasional bowl of food and a warm, quiet place to hold on apparitions the green is leaving uncovering the red and gold of autumn's touch the oranges and yellow Friday two nights before my father died he came to his sister in a dream to tell her he was dying his baby sister the youngest in the family of which he was the oldest ten years his junior was there anyone he loved more? seventy-five across the continent incommunicado for six or eight years she did not even know he was sick until the dream waking hurting at 4am with the wind howling one of their brothers emailing her two sad days later that he was dead and when I tell my sister this she tells me that our father also came to her was there anyone he loved more? Saturday night to tell her he was dying I saw him Sunday morning my visits to the nursing home increased to twice a day as the end drew near his hand limp in mine that morning and was planning to return when the rabbi asked me that evening to go to a kitchen to make sure the cooks weren't mixing the milk with the meat to relieve the watcher who had been there since the morning and sitting there as potatoes were frying and hens were being stuffed for the big dinner next evening sitting with next to nothing to do I found a pad and took my pen and wrote the poem I knew I had to write I knew I had to write for weeks but hadn't and there among the banter and the humor and the trays and trays of preparation the walk-in and the ovens the ranges and the deep fryers the Spanish and the sinks and the broken eggs I wrote it with tears (always ready this last year) rising to my eyes letting the words find their own way up from my heart until it was finished 9:45pm at ten after ten I was relieved came home and on a hunch called to check on dad to be informed matter-of-factly (is there any unawkward way to say it?) "The nurse tried to call you. He's passed on." he died at 9:45 days earlier in simple words I had already told him speaking loudly into his better ear "everything is okay. you can go if you need to." but I think the poem convinced him we buried him two days later on a sunny Tuesday the last days of October at noon the green sap of life drained away the leaves freed of their purpose exploding in their outrageous colors just beginning to fall from the trees buried him in the crowded cemetery almost full where his mother's grave is buried him in a plot miraculously empty for forty-seven years one away from hers was there anyone he loved more? lucky on the final roll the final place of rest then while driving away my daughter at the wheel close to home I recognize the woman walking down the middle of the road balancing on the double yellow as if it were a high wire a friend gone back to Moscow years before returned to visit her mother a friend who meets me by the side of the road kisses me and sneaks a crimson leaf like a handkerchief in my breast pocket a friend who tells me two days hence that my father came to her the day before to tell her that he was worried about me a pleasant change now that I am no longer worried about him there is life after death a soul which is freed as the body crumbles colors which come into view only as life is fading returning from the branches down into the roots to weather the winter returning to the earth waiting for spring and some green rebirth but now the leaves are falling after hours except for the trees the quad was empty two or three a.m. some peopleless hour I don't remember it was so long ago let's say that the moon shone down from an unobserved angle bathing the bricks and lawn and leaves gray and other-worldly or that the scene was unevenly illuminated yellowish by electric lights along the perimeter walkways I am there fifteen years old in a third floor dorm room window looking out my roommate peacefully breathing sleepy dreams I am awake and away from home meditating on the quiet night the scene below truer without the comings and goings of academic pursuit an empty stage in a theater after hours fit for dreams everything is suspended thoughts, geometry, colors, Latin, family, English, sex, the years stretching out before me, history, science, breakfast, dinner, lunch asleep all asleep and why am I up? maybe I've just returned from the bathroom down the hall perhaps the fullness of the moon has pulled me out of bed I don't remember it was so long ago it doesn't really matter I do remember talking with my father later about sitting there on the window seat looking out through the divided pane onto the tranquil night and the feeling which was more the absence of feeling and his telling me to write about it and like so many other things he said I didn't listen until much later until now Shining Blessing just now 14 years ago her mother nudged me from sleep to tell me that she was coming slightly then at midnight the contractions had begun we waited hours and then called the midwives who did not come for hours more wise as they were arriving as the day dawned sunny and deep in snow a cold, peaceful Sunday we ate (what else was there to do?) and tended to the miracle transpiring in the other room keeping her company amid her groans and laughter and went out for a walk she and I because her cervix had stalled its dilation while the sun shone brightly leaning heavily on me nightgown flowing out under her coat a short stroll down the block (were we ever closer?) and then the matter began in earnest and carried on until the day was gone until the darkness which is at once according to the Jews the end of one and the beginning of another day until amid the hope and groans and laughter she was born three minutes before eight (that was if such moments do exist the beginning of the end having performed my biological function I was no longer needed by the female who had given birth but over the years my fathering has endured her mother's venom the unbridled disdain that has taken generations to perfect the child and I sharing an inner bond that matches our striking look alike) she was born on the day he died 174 years after his passing the death anniversary of the Old Rebbe mystic and scholar extraordinaire the fullness of a life well lived completing the greatness of a new life just beginning birth and death and death and birth new roots reaching down into ground made fertile by the life that came before driving lesson the automatic was a pleasure for her after learning on my standard no more of my coaching regarding the perfect reciprocal relationship between accelerator and clutch just put it in gear, step on the gas and steer she was intent, both hands on the wheel eyes forward conveying herself and a backseated friend to the store for supplies for a model for biology class and me incidentally along for the ride the yet necessary adult before the permit becomes a license admiring her from the front passenger seat never having seen her sit so tall her friend in the backseat chuckling when I told her, "Good girl" for accelerating to make it through a yellow light it was exactly this time of year thirty years ago that I got my driver's license and my father started letting me drive him whenever we were by ourselves in the car now I too prefer the passenger seat to be chauffeured around by someone who not that many years before pedaled ahead on her first bicycle not knowing I had already let go it was a rite of passage the first time she felt fully competent behind the wheel the first time I could just sit back and enjoy the ride and notice that she was becoming an adult "not as much pick-up as the Toyota," she observed and I had to agree we must enjoy the moments even as they speed away happy birthday seventeen years ago I also hadn't had much sleep the night before. you beginning your entrance around two AM and your mother-to-be waking me to let me know that you were coming, like today, it was a Sunday with snow on the ground the midwives took their time in coming arriving around six with appetites. the three of us spending the day eating and visiting the bedroom where you were giving your mother a hard time (as all children then do.) around three because her cervix was slow to stretch to get her out of bed and to break up the psychology of the day I took your mother for a walk a short stroll with her leaning heavily on me up and down the sidewalk in front of the apartment on Skyview Drive the sun shining brightly, then it was back to bed for her her labor starting in earnest. she was brave and good-humored with nary a complaint and right now at 7:46 seventeen years ago you were squeezing your way out being pushed out (you never did want to get any older) until there (right now at 7:57) you were and with the snip of a cord you were your own person and have been ever since. and as happy and proud as your mother and I were holding your swaddled, new life neither of us could imagine how wonderful you were and would be seventeen years ago. happy birthday, baby absolution when she was a little girl six years old my daughter trying to come to terms with the major conflict in her life asked, or stated, I suppose, I know Mommy is mad at you but I don't know why. you'll understand when you're older I deferred tucking her into bed two years went by the conflict no better resolved she asked again I know Mommy is mad at you but I don't know why and all I could manage was the same reply you'll understand when you're older quick as a whip she snapped back that's what you told me before but at eight she still needed her mother in ways which precluded further explanation now at fourteen the vacuous nature of her mother's anger is apparent a rage whose motive has little if anything to do with what has triggered it commiserating now that she is also its victim she observed that her mother likes to get angry there is no way to avoid it it walks in the door with her at the end of the day looking for provocation a target a pretense we are born into it grow up with it and if we are lucky some of us leave passage my daughter grows up my father returns to childhood loss and gain the balance weirdly maintained another chance for him to receive the love he's lived without child and father and father and child parenting each other in turn another chance elegantly sad childhood passed like an old coat between the generations the girl becoming a young woman the man becoming an old child we are presented with opportunities to make up for lost time to turn back the page to stop making the same mistakes to witness if only in a glimpse a glorious future which we have helped engender we live also outside ourselves simultaneously sitting by the side of the road and driving away in two places at once staring back and forth at our divided self across a distance which is also the closest embrace vigil we stay awake as midnight imperceptibly changes September into October autumn's first cold rain falling unhurriedly upon the roofs and lawns and streets of this sleepy town a voice here in the night coming wishing to be heard a whisper from the grave the echo of a song a dream compelling us to listen downstairs my father half awake in his bed imagines that he is on some lonely mountain top and cries for help we stay awake because something or someone needs us because life reveals itself in night's intimacies softly calling across the seasons keeping us awake hoping for rescue you're it it's hard but there's no one else to do it no one to do it for you father's large, strong hand smaller now and frail mother in her second childhood the job needs doing grab a hold you'll figure it out as you go along because there's no other choice because the consequences of failure are unacceptable because it had to be this way unprotected and alone the experts are remiss the authorities are strangely silent impossible to know before the fact what will be required forward push on it's all that you can do pretty girls I'm looking for a woman to save my life ... A woman with the feeling of losing once or twice... -Neil Young little girls are mostly all beautiful watching my daughter's first grade classmates I observed second grade confirmed this truth but less so and in third grade the prettiness quotient had declined even further by fourth grade the balance was equal by fifth grade I had stopped noticing life has a way of working its magic psychological abuse becoming incarnate the budding realization of life's tragedy shriveling the rose, people just get uglier boys and girls it is a spiritual disease some just aren't exposed and some have better immune systems their resistance preserving them through adolescence into their twenties or early thirties ah, these beautiful young ladies unscathed by worldly concerns buoyed above the waves by an optimism which demands our admiration their triumph is so precious and so unstable something happens they fall for the wrong guy they get pregnant a black cat crosses their path they get hurt cynical or afraid their wings get clipped someone gets sick or dies their stride falters I've seen it happen too many times before broadsided and they never see it coming trying to warn them you might as well be speaking Chinese "where have all the young girls gone? when will they ever learn?" too late is too late in any language the eyes have it they show the pain even when a superficial beauty is maintained and they reveal beneath a careworn face a deeper beauty sometimes gained through suffering it's hard to watch it happen but the protest is in vain ah, those pretty girls the shame of it all that youth is wasted on the young missing it's never enough not fifty or seventy or even one hundred percent not the sun rising on the perfect last Saturday of summer not a nap after an afternoon of love not hours spent with dad at the close of his life or a daughter proudly making her own way not words flowing freely leaving images on the page not even assurances of the divine some kind of wounds they don't heal what's gone is gone and it isn't coming back there's no way to fill that hole not with all the tea in China Back to top   Songs   Saint Annie Through the window open wide Night slips quietly inside Turning memories of you A much deeper shade of blue. Saint Annie took her dress off As she walked across the beach The conversation was too polite and formal. Then she dove into the water Drifting further out of reach She was tired of solid earth and acting normal. Staying up all night she painted Seven wonders on the wall And in the morning left to go and join the circus. She's at home up on the highwire 'Cause there’s no place left to fall She has balance, but she’s got no sense of purpose. Whirling through the kitchen Like a dervish in her dance She paused to make the food appear upon the table Then sitting down to eat She fell back deeply in a trance She was willing, but she wasn't always able. Annie saw the angels floating All around the bed Then on silver wings she floated out the window Following the line Between the living and the dead She had reasons, but she never really said so. All is lost, there’s no returning Bridges crossed are brightly burning Man, it's never really clear Somehow things just disappear. Regret I know you feel cheated/ Deceived and mistreated By people you thought you could trust The love that you bartered/ Betrayed now lies martyred Returning to ashes and dust That door you were hopin'/ Would one day spring open Has sealed 'neath a layer of rust With all of their lying/ There's no use in trying Still sometimes you feel that you must. Some fright keeps you frozen/ A sacrifice chosen To pay back your family’s debt That old guilt that binds you/ Speaks up to remind you Of things that you’d rather forget You cherish the notion/ That childish devotion Will ransom you from your regret But beg, steal, or borrow/ Your fear and your sorrow Cannot pay the price that's been set. The game that you're playing/ The rules you're obeying Have left you without any sense This losing and winning/ Right from the beginning Have made you uncomfortably tense The walls you erected/ To keep you protected Have locked you within your defense They've all been outsmarted/ But now you have started Believing in your own pretense. These words which I've spoken/ Lie lifeless and broken Outside on the steps by your door Your arrogant shoulder/ Has gotten much colder Sometimes even I can't ignore You've battered and blamed me/ Abandoned and shamed me But that's all just part of the score Still I'm sick of this grieving/ I'm tired and I’m leaving I don't want to play anymore. Abandon Abandon all hope you who pass through this door Say goodbye to the life you won't live anymore For the signs that direct you are to clear to ignore And there's no turning back if you'd want to Because nothing's the same as it once seemed before For your whole damn world is changing. Sickness rages around you without any cure Their drugs and addictions make you numb and obscure While the fountains of water all run dry or impure Don't worry 'bout the chances you're taking Just get out while you can 'cause you’re dying there for sure For your whole damn world is changing. Those you do love have been cruelly unkind They've convinced you to search in the land of the blind For a comfort and home that you can never find As they stumble and fall right beside you But now keep your eyes open and don't look behind For your whole damn world is changing. Your castles and temples have turned into sand And they've all washed away with the dreams that you've planned And they've left you there floating with no ground to stand Amid dark waves that threaten to drown you Just forget what you've lost and start swimming for land For you whole damn world is changing. The storm outside raging does batter and blast And blow open that old door which you had held fast And it sucks you along as the threshold is past Out into the cyclone your spinning Now you'd better start living like each moment's your last For your whole damn world is changing. Give Me A Call When you've lost or forgotten whatever you came for And your guilt seeps like rain through the cracks in the wall But you don't know which crime you've accepted the blame for Won't you please give me a call. When you've let go of the threads by which you've been hanging And you tumble through the darkness as you fall Into another tangled web wove of lifeless haranguing Won't you please give me a call. When you can't find the ground that you used to stand on And you're not sure which way that you ought to crawl But you know that you wont reach the goal that you planned on Won't you please give me a call. When your reason takes the veil from your eyes and deserts you And your nakedness leaves you no room to barter or stall With the hungry embrace which surrounds and perverts you Won't you please give me a call. Sad To Tell Oh children it's sad to tell That you like me were born in hell And those who claim to wish you well Have hung your soul to dry and sell. Crucified by mother's pain Chafing from your father's rein Your heart is broken and in chain I wish somehow I could explain. There is no way to count the cost The love you crave is ever lost You're brutalized and double crossed That fragile spring betrayed by frost. They feed you on their unfilled dreams To fence you in their selfish schemes And justify by any means Ignoring all your muffled screams. ***** Darling it's sad and lonely In this world you left behind Blue skies these days are only Distant mem'ries in my mind Chorus: Life goes on without you The night still follows day Dreams I dreamed about you Still carry me away Happiness still and silent Stares from photos on the shelf Transformed by passion's violence I'm a stranger to myself Dazed I'm dazed and confused Clear out of control Amazed and abused Worried 'bout my soul. Don't dare to call you You're harder than stone Nowhere to fall to I feel so alone. I'm trying to cope But I can't stand this pain I'm dying with hope To see you again. Someone stole the night And the promise of dawn The sun isn't bright Ever since you've been gone. Down for the third time And can't catch my breath Life seems absurd, I'm Just flirting with death. Your deep grace I miss The spell of your charms I weep for your kiss Come back to my arms. Fool for Your Love Negated, violated, I've really been frustrated The way you act is so unfair Stagnated, checkmated, totally aggravated I'm so weary of this sad affair. I'm working way too hard I've played each and very card It's so clear that we're not going anywhere I'm not getting your respect Still don't know what you expect And right now I just don't seem to care Won't ever know just what you were thinking of But I've sure been a fool for your love. Disputed, refuted, my thoughts are convoluted So uptight that they can't unwind Uprooted, polluted, I feel so persecuted The way you act is so unkind Now you're heading for a fall Yes the writing's on the wall There's just one thing shining clearly in my mind Maybe we had a chance before But I can't take it anymore I've just got to leave this craziness behind. Won't ever know just what you were thinking of But I've sure been a fool for your love. Mistreated, depleted, been lied to and been cheated You're not half the woman you pretend Defeated, unseated, I've almost been deleted Why do you do those things you can't defend? I've used every last resort And my temper's running short There is nothing left for me to lose or spend Now my heart's already broken Every word's already spoken We're on empty baby it's the end Won't ever know just what you were thinking of But I've sure been a fool for your love. Defied, hogtied, hung up and crucified That's too many dues for anyone to pay Denied, shanghaied, I've been misidentified Please excuse me but I really cannot stay Girl yout treat me so damn cruel Yes you've broken every rule That's your game now go find someone else to play Leave you sitting on your throne I'm much better off alone You'll have other lovers to betray. Won't ever know just what you were thinking of But I've sure been a fool for your love. I Know I know that I'm much better than the way you're treating me And I know that there's a long hard road ahead before I'm free Still I know that at this moment I'm right where I'm s'pposed to be And 'though I know there's nothing more to do or say Baby somehow it's still so hard to walk away. One day maybe I'll understand the crazy things you do One day maybe you'll find the strength and nerve to pull you through One day maybe I won't be sad when my thoughts turn to you But that one day's such a long long way away And I just can't take the sadness here today. I feel so many things I've never dared to feel before I feel just like some shipwrecked fool washed up upon the shore I feel so much I've worked for doesn't matter anymore I feel sick and tired of paying all these dues And I'm free because there's nothing left to lose. Goodbye now there's no turning back it's time for me to go Goodbye it really doesn't help to swim against the flow Goodbye there's no one else to blame we reap just what we sow Goodbye that happiness that I kept dreaming of Farewell that heartache which I once mistook for love. Love Hurts Baby love hurts/There's a lot to go through Some sweet deserts/ But there's bitterness too Still when your heart flirts/Nothing else you can do Baby love hurts/And now I'm hurting you Darling love dies/Like a flower or a tree Cry out your eyes/It's a damn misery After all of your tries/That's how it's got to be Darling love dies/And now it's killing me Honey love bleeds/All the way from the heart Love has its needs/Which you just can't outsmart It seldom succeeds/It's a dangerous art Honey love bleeds/Every time that we part Sweetheart love breaks/It's a dark, dirty shame The chances one takes/Are just part of the game We all make mistakes/In that we're all the same Sweetheart love breaks/I guess I'll take the blame Cemetery Song I've heard enough of your sad refrain With its poisonous seduction I'm sick to death of this stupid pain And this senseless self-destruction. I've been listening far too long To your cemetery song. Been disappointed one too many times By the lies you pass for truth Your twisted reasons and your fatal rhymes Haunt the lost years of my youth. Everything keeps working out wrong In your cemetery song. Your elegantly savage rage Wove the cords of my self-doubt Into a labyrinthine cage With no path leading out. I'm certain now that I don't belong In your cemetery song. All the kindnesses you've laid to waste Lie shattered among broken dreams Brilliant promises all now replaced By your cruel, inhuman schemes. Lately I'm feeling much to strong For your cemetery song. I've heard enough of your howling beast With its catastrophic urge I want nothing but to be released From that rabid funeral dirge. I've been listening far too long To your cemetery song. Funeral Train When you're trying to go forward, but everything keeps moving in reverse And that train you ride to glory has come to feel much more like a hearse You'd better stop pretending that this is all somebody elses curse Because it's yours and believe me everything can still get much worse. I can see how you're hanging; I think I can tell where you'll fall There is no one who can save you, nobody left for you to call We've all been impressed with how you stand so proud and straight and tall It's sad to find that all the time your back was pressed hard up against the wall. Once living seemed so certain, but now your deep confusion is quite clear As your sanity deserts you taking with it all the things that you held dear And that courage you relied on is shown to be just stubbornness and fear You're heading right into the light, but your shadow keeps on pulling from the rear. The sirens of your doom resounded but you never paid them any heed Trusting that your consequence, your position, and your greed Could borrow, win, or steal for you anything that you would ever need Now their mournful tone cuts to the bone leaving you to shiver there and bleed. The engine's driving hard and fast on through the darkness and the rain The rythms of the wheels and track merge with the pounding in your brain You watch the drops come down like tears outside on the window pane Across the face of someone staring back at you trapped on that funeral train. all the sweetness left untasted all the sweetness left untasted all the loving that you've wasted how I wish that you had faced it faced the demon at your door not for G-d and not for pleasure not for wisdom or for treasure stubbornly you would not measure all the pain that came before stop the games, you're growing older and your world a little colder fires once bright now dimly smolder gone the flaming and the roar time to go, no good in waiting frustrated anticipating I would only end up hating that which once I did adore you weren't real I only dreamed you t'was my heart and only seemed you and however bright it gleamed you could not see the love I bore for the folly undertaken pardon me, I was mistaken now I find as I awaken all the blankets on the floor love is just a form of madness paper shields against the sadness leaving us bereft of gladness pierced by arrows to the core guess I knew before I started still I thought we could outsmart it here among the broken-hearted who ought hope for nothing more what is cruel and what is crueler? who's the fool and who the fooler? is experience a school or what is all the effort for? it's your life, it's yours to squander from the truth you're free to wander but you'll never find one fonder of the secrets there in store of the gold within the ore of the pretty smile you wore Too Late Really don't know how things turned out this way The price they demanded was too high to pay I don't want to leave, but I'm sure I can't stay When the curtain comes down it's the close of the play. There's so much to lose and so little to gain The years have beclouded what once was so plain I'm tired and I'm broken and I can't stand the strain All my hopes are like bubbles now washed down the drain. The truth is much deeper than my eyes can see It's too late to argue, too soon to agree The question of blame is just one of degree The promises given were no gaurantee. Too hungry to hold back, too foolish to warn The colorful coat now lies bloodied and torn My deaths are too many for one man to mourn Accursed was the day that such misery was born. Back to top

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