It’s A Lover’s Question

Let’s not talk about the heart.
We know the heart is never
in charge really;
it’s just
a good metaphor
for how the head
first grooves with
then wars with
the genitals.  

Perhaps there’s a structure within
that holds court when we sleep?
Not quite brain or groin,
perhaps a fulcrum between them?
Dreams after all do seem often
to teeter upon something…

so if we call that balance point “heart,”
are we at all impoverished?
For instance, if
I keep a dream of you
on the point of balance I call
my heart,
am I a fool for believing
my heart will stop moving
without you?

Here I am
speaking of the heart 
as I said I would not…
but as in waking life
it races all the time
for your presence,

I suppose it can’t be helped.

Gladness

this morning
gladness — which is to say

a state of being
almost explosive in nature

as if happiness were a gunpowder
and it was lit by some random spark 

(in this case a memory of how
one body stretched toward another once

and of the smile inside when each settled 
against the other and relaxed)

one spark breaks open the gladness
that swells suddenly within

expanding outward to fill
the hemisphere

(I am trying to keep this impersonal
in order to not disappear into the center of it

in order to be able to come back here to it at will 
and feel it again in this small way 

until it is real in my life again
and I will have no need of this poem

for a glad 
glad moment)

 

Dented Angel

I grew up knowing I had a place in the universe.
As star matter I was perfect in that universal way.
I’ve always known my place both atomic

and galactic. Screw that, though;  
I wanted so much less.  
Wanted a moment, a week, a month, no more,

of acceptance by someone
more particular about who is worthy
than the universe is.

Someone pickier, someone less tolerant
of quirks and foibles.  I wanted to be loved
by a person far less interested in loving another.

I wanted to be held and cherished
on a more intimate scale,
but I wanted the Lover

to be a dented angel
who found a simulacrum of heaven in me
despite their initial skepticism at how unlike heaven

I was on the surface.  What I nakedly wanted
was to be desired by someone
the way Emerson and his gang desired transcendence

except I wanted them to find it hard,
almost not worth struggling for;
it wasn’t going to come easily.

Instead, I got you.  I got you
who loves me daily, as matter-of-factly
as dark matter sweeping through me — the love

unseen but present in every fiber.
I got you, who makes me
want to be good in the kitchen, in bed, and in the 

Milky Way.  Whatever sun storm I rouse
around me, you make me lie down and sleep it off
and the next day it’s forgotten.  I craved turbulence

and you’re having none of that.  
It is a little hard to accept which is why I guess
I sometimes act the part of my imaginary dented angel,

though I can’t fake it:  I can’t lie
to myself for very long
about how hard heaven really is to find.

A Slight Chop

It would not have mattered at all
if I had been  known, unknown,
or mildly known — evil or good or, 
typically human,
mixed and befuddled –
no matter at all.  I still
would have ended up as I have.

I’m today and every day
thankful, in motion still
but no longer restless,
splayed like foam atop
a slight chop 
just beyond sight of land,

thankful because on a latter day
after all the usual questions
were supposed to be
over and settled, I looked into
your damn fine eyes
and understood that questions
are only over and settled once 
in anyone’s life.  I wasn’t there yet,
still am not there, 
not planning on getting there soon
and certainly don’t want
to get there alone.

 

Falling In Love And Cleaning Up After

She is a number of answers,
and not a small number.
Almost too many to count,
and enough to overwhelm you.

It must have been her hair,
tucked behind her ear.
Or it may have been her lip,
and how it twisted when she laughed.

Fifteen answers, twenty answers.
All of them saying yes, of course,
it has to be, it has to happen.
More like one answer stuck on repeat,

more like one answer flashing
over and again and still.
That part is simple enough
to understand.

The hard part is how deeply
every “yes” carves you,
how obvious your bones become
when you expose as much as you have.

Every time you see her
and let her nods and smiles shake you,
you might break open, you might become
a big pile of pieces in front of her.

Fifteen pieces, twenty pieces.
You poor sap, you big shatter-heap!
Thank God she’s shaking with “yes” herself;
the two of you might have a chance.

It has to be, has to happen.
Pick up pieces and put them together.
Put them together together, of course;
hold them together together.

Mistakes

Long years of mistakes
have led me to this one correct moment.
It may be proof of something I don’t understand
which I will not call either
God or luck; all I will gratefully call

is your name, and say that
the road to this moment was crude
and raw and rough but your eyes
and hands are a blessing and 
a prize, and this life I’ve led
has had in fact
no mistakes at all.

 

Banquet

Recall
the finest moment of my life

I’m meat
and potatoes for you

Feebler than is 
good for me
after you’re done 
eating me

I have spasms and
I have chills
I’m bone
and scrap
All the fat’s gone
and I’m hungry enough
to scarf you down

Scarf you right down
to sweetbreads
and poppy

We went feasting
back and forth
all night
like I can’t do now
and try not to remember

I once joined you 
in a banquet
after long starvation

oh tender was I
and you were tender too
and as succulent as the memory remains
it is pain as much as satisfaction

 

Lesson

Her hand moves
from first position
through second
position.  I see

her studied
shift of each finger
settling in,
tenderly precise after
each movement;  see how
her face changes,
how she moves
differently;

in fact if I listen only,
go beyond watching,
forego seeing,

each finger’s placement
still carefully opens
my ear; her
breathing
changes
as she moves into
the new position, how
the song changes;

it is a matter of some
fearful astonishment
to me, as she quickens and
strums; a matter of some
anxiety to me
as she plucks and strokes across,
each finger a small bow drawn across,
and when I open my eyes
to see what is drawn across
her face by this playing –

it is a matter of some concern to me
that I fear I will never learn
how to draw forth 
such music
as she can draw forth.

 

After Fire, Flood, And Love

After
fire, ash. Warmth
under, pale wisp-paper
above, all blown around.

After
flood, muck.  Damp
all the way through,
deep and sucking, holding fast.

After
love — what?  Call that
what? That hot bog
that won’t let you go?

After
love, then? Call it
nothing.  Don’t name it.
Fire, flood, ash, mud, and enough.

 

Your Avatar

Back in the day
when “facebook” meant
“when you are present,
I can read the pages in your eyes”
and “twitter” spoke only of
the prayers of birds,  when “myspace”
meant the aura of my under-rolling skin
expanding toward yours
and “the web” was only 
the net of attraction,

there was the long current
of our holding and our capture,
the way we laid animal
upon each other, turning
over and over, slain and reborn
over and over, again and again
refreshed, and 

the checking and rechecking,
seeking new messages of confirmation,
affirming that our hands talked well for us,
that our limbs had crossed strongly
into fantastic semaphores.

So far off, now, the intimate roar of all that;

yet when you rise unexpected
in avatar before me
in the odd spirit land 
of my screen, 

I can feel a tug in my grandma-purse heart
that holds all the rubble of real life;

a tug of surprise
that it is so full,
so full of my recall
of your actual touch.

 

Skid, Crash

Cars have been skidding this hill all night
but I’m home so no worries plus
our cars are in the driveway
and she’s sleeping
so we’re both safe from idiot drivers

I’ve been skidding
in and out of sleep
feeling that tightness in the seat 
that you get
before a crash

History says skid is always followed by crash
Those idiot drivers
are setting me up for a history lesson

but to hell with them
I’m going to bed soon
where she’s sleeping

reminding myself
that I’m home and safe

the cars are safely off the street

soon we may both be
safely asleep

Whatever heaviness
may come sliding out of control
toward us
I must remember that 

crash
doesn’t always follow
skid

Magellan Song (old poem, revised)

Still not posting new poems, though I’ve been writing them;  I have also been revising some very old ones — this one dates back about 15 years or so.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

when I speak to you of the way it is 
your eyes widen in surprise 

(or is that astonishment – 
the right word makes so much difference 
when one tries to describe the way it is)

how will I make you understand the way it is
when no right words exist 
to form my complete meaning

how will I shape my breath 
to swathe you in a foil of dawn 
that will seal you 
against denial and forgetting 

do you think I would still speak of love 
do you think I would speak of hearts or forever
and set atoms to move in anything 
remotely resembling those dry and familiar forms
if I had language that could make how I feel 
clearer

what I have for you is known and common
a few small words I may have offered too often 

but I promise you 
that if I had been alive in mythic times
I would have invented a language 
that would have the syllables in it I need

every word I built 
would have been a nail 
in the ark that saved all the couples of the world

the covenant bow that was revealed 
after the rain had dried 
would have colors only you 
would be able to see 

and I would have been clear enough to have torn Babel down all on my own 

if I had the right tongue 
I would reform history 
with improbable, impossible words – 

if I had the tongue I need 
to speak my mind today
I swear I would remake the world 
in the corners of my mouth
and offer its fresh contours to you in a song of Magellan – 
the circumnavigator 
now just barely remembered
his name the leading edge of a legend
an arc of hope as we move from known to unknown

if I could speak the words I need
I would conjure him
I would spell him into life this morning 
as we sink our toes into the cold Atlantic sand – 
look at all that horizon out there – 
its dark line the promise of unseen shores –

to reach it we will need a new vocabulary 

but this is all I can bring myself to say: 

come closer
sunrise can’t be too far away

Love Poem For The New Year

Any day can start a year,
and any day can end one.

If any day can be celebrated,
then any day can be regretted,
but you only need to to regret one day for one day
before the celebration of the next can begin.

My New Year’s wish:

just one with whom to celebrate,
just one with whom to commiserate,
every day.

Just one
with whom to share the New Year
of every single day.

Just one
with whom to straighten up after the labor,
one with whom to soothe and be soothed.

Just one to whom the calendar
is merely a suggestion,
and with whom I can start anew
on each daily New Year’s Day.

How To Recognize Love

It’s love if it’s

a politics of
physics and
brutality, bitten skin
soothed by cool breath;

bruise and 
replay.

It’s love if it’s

one day continuous from free coffee
to turn-down service,
walking miles in mist
and fog;

charm and
side-glance.

It’s love when it’s

an arm thrown across
the passenger seat
when the car skids
before the near-crash;

hurry up
and explain.

It’s love: 

that big stone,
that cold wine,
the smoke in a mirror,
the smell of mushrooms
in a closet
wafting out. No one
willing to speak of it.
No one afraid
more than the other.

And it’s love if it’s
slippery and 
different and
always. And it’s love 
if it’s inconsistent.
And it’s love
if it feels like a rocking chair
at the instant it is
tipped too far back.

 

Good Morning

A good Sunday morning:

cold eggs,
cold bacon,
cold hashbrowns,
cold coffee;

pajamas
discarded 
in the bedroom doorway.