FULL HEART, FROM THE START

Empty arms

Full heart

Empty hands

Full heart

Empty head

Full heart

Empty bed

Full heart

Full heart

Full heart

Full of you

Every moment

Full of you

From the start

- Valentine's Day, February 14, 2017

YEAR ONE, B.B.

I can sing to you ‘til I’m blue in the face  

‘til the stars go dim from answering my wishes

and that paper moon defies its nature tells me that you do 

believe in me the way that I believe in you.

I can shout my love from the rooftops

Write songs and poems

Tend to your fragile heart

Like I do my cherished plants and revealing dreams

Nurturing, sharing, supporting our ever-flexing imaginations

adoring your caring and graciousness

as well as our struggles and unanswered questions.

To be a part of your waking thoughts

Your evening dreams

Your glorious plans and anxious doubts

Exhilarates my every moment.

But nothing can ever mean anything more

Than that very first glimpse when I saw you

Felt your presence descend upon my heart

An explosion from heights I’d never dreamed

Instantly

Tossing my depleted soul into sensual

Romantic

Inexplicable overdrive

The likes I’d given up dreaming of.

That we both somehow intuitively knew

The safety of being entwined in each other’s arms

Here on this ragged old lifeboat of a couch

Would repeatedly replace any silly questions

All fragmented doubts

Any distracting expectations

With a rejuvenating embrace of the magnificence

of each moment we find ourselves

smiling

crying

staring

laughing into each other’s eyes

nowhere else we’d rather be

than blanketed by the safe place

of such a real and daring love.

Explanations

Not needed.

Hearts aligned

Beating as one.

How I adore my Beautiful Baby

And the love we hold so dear.

One year

Filling my soul

Each delicious moment

Of every delicate day.

I love my BB.

301, 3/15/16 

TO LOVE AND BE LOVED

Age-old human desires.

The one who needs them most is the one who believes both impossible

The one who believes in them most is the one most prone to heartbreak

The acceptance that there are no guarantees

Having no expectations may indeed be the only way through.





- 301, 11/23/15

THE RIGHT THING TO DO (NOT RIGHT FOR ME)

The right thing to do is to let you go

Back to a life that is functional

To something more predictable

Just because you’re so right for me

Just what I need and all I see

Love comes with no guarantee

The right thing to do is to take no risk

to not be swayed by all of this

the easy laughter, that timeless kiss

for just beneath our passion lies

the tingling tenderness that flies

as lightning bolts between our eyes

And some folks say enjoy the ride

but protect that loving heart inside

perhaps the measure of this man

is giving you the best I can

for all I long for is just this -

your everlasting happiness

The right thing to do is to love you more

And leave behind what I adore

Fall back alone just like before

For truly love is sacrifice

And just as true we roll the dice

Hoping love will strike us twice

Before our hearts turn into ice

- September 3, 2015 for BB

ACHE

Beginning
End.

THE EMPTY GOWN

The tan towels I bought you
Hang like an empty gown
Folded
Waiting
Never worn
As if there was some prom we never went to
Some future we never dove into
Some dream we wake from in bed alone.
Behind my bedroom door
Staring down on the sheets we stained with our love
Our tears
Where our laughter and orgasmic sighs filled the air
Hang my camo pjs and a fleece of mine you wore once
On one of the last nights you spent here
Remnants of some bygone age
When dreams of a glorious future in your arms
Still woke me each morning
Still invaded my waking moments
With hopeful smiles
Emboldened flirtations
Shivering anticipation of every new next time.

And still
Just now at 2:46 a.m.
A car pulls up the street
Probably someone made the wrong turn
Pulling over to check their GPS
Or answer their cell or light their joint
They pause in front of my house
Near the spot in the yard
In the garden named after you
Where I dug through dirt
Sifted rock and sand
Scattered seed, sprinkling new small pools of hope
Putting my focused, attentive, loving care
Towards something outside of me
Some small hole in the ground
And dreaming the idea of some future
Some possible blooming
A hope for color, sound and surprise
An echo of your first real kiss in eleven years
Around some distant corner in time…
But no matter
Those 8 hours I put in on this Wednesday
Not "Our Wednesday" but Wednesday none-the-less
6 months and a day after I first laid eyes on you
Tumbling
Into what likely will be my final stab
At realizing the love I’ve dreamed of
Since I caught wind of such magical ideas
Chasing them nearly 6 decades hence.

Still my heart momentarily races
Even with the knowing that it made no logical sense
That you’d pull into my driveway in the middle of the night
That you’d knock on my door
Or walk in as always jumping at the alarm
Into the house where we consumed each other
Every chance we could
And tonight, again you’d fall into my arms for good
Or for just one more chance ten more minutes
Just one more kiss
But my heart still raced ever so briefly
Hoping
Wishing
Yearning
Loving
The possibility
of you.

 - for my Beautiful Baby, September 17, 2015.
Scribbled on the couch where I lie waiting.

Poem For Three Friends

REASONS

I'm going to the funeral of a woman that I barely knew
Because I believe she was kind to people.
I believe she was a generous spirit
And a giving soul.
So many people I know say the same.

I go because of her smile and laughter
Brightened my day whenever we met
Because her husband, quick with a pun,
Long on fun and good vibes
Always made me feel comfortable
Whenever I was in his sphere.
I believe that part of what makes us human
Able to live with the vicissitudes of this finite life
Is the sharing of our grief
The absorption of each others pain
To help us all lessen the hurt.
A gift of compassion.

I go to her funeral to say goodbye
To praise her life
Send her on her peaceful journey.
Later I will sing songs of joy and sadness
Meditate on transcendence
And living a life of purpose
In the face of the impermanence of time
In the face of all that makes this path
An uphill climb.

I go to her funeral
To share and accept the pain of those I love
Those who loved and will miss her dearly
My good friends, acquaintances,
Familiar faces, estranged lovers,
All of who traveled our wide circle.

I go to hold you all close
To reach out and into our aching hearts
Our need to know things we will never know
Our need to feel connected
To something larger than ourselves.

And I go for you
To bear witness to an important transition
In your life
Not just for the departed,
Her dear husband, children, friends and family
But for you,
The woman I have loved so dearly
Who shared dreams and brief moments
Filled with so much hope
And though we are at a point
In our long friendship
Where patience, understanding,
And closeness are at their most precarious
I feel your pain at this magnanimous loss
That is so close to your heart
This person we say farewell to today
That has been such a force in your life.

And though I had known them
Only peripherally
For years
Dancing around bars, bandstands, and living rooms
What I loved so much was seeing you through their loving eyes.
I admired your dedication to each other
And it helped me to know you better
To love you all more.
What I remember most about her is that
You seemed to always be reintroducing us,
Again and again, to our amusement.
"Do you know Connie?" you'd say,
And we'd laugh
As one of us would always hug the other
And say, "Of course,"
"Absolutely."
We'd smile, feeling a part of your world
A beautiful, warm circle of friends.

I loved that I always knew that no matter
What happened between you and I
That you would always have friends like them
To see you through the hard times
To be there when you needed them most.
I love them for helping me know your heart better
And you for allowing me the joy and pleasure
Of their smiling, joyous company.

~ for Leslie, Connie and Gary, 9/16/06 

First published on my MySpace.com blog

CAMI'S TREE

As a young girl in love
She’d walk through the woods to her tree.
It lay flat on the ground
Bark pulling away from the trunk
Rain and rootlessness
Changing it slowly to a charcoal gray.

She’d hike back to it
Looking up at the morning sky
Perhaps pining for some new boy
Or luxuriating in fresh moments of young love.
She’d dream of futures
Watching the clouds billow and flow
An armada of hopefulness
Sailing across the deep blue expanse above.

She’d feel her tree before she’d even see it
The racing of her pounding young heart
Giving its presence away
Once there she’d sit
Admiring her previous handiwork
A litany of dreams and plans
Realized and dashed possibilities
Represented by the names
Etched in to the wood in front of her.
She tells her youngest daughter
That someday
She will find a tree of her own.

Now, over thirty-five years on
She returns
A new name beating beneath her breast
A ripe and spinning unknown
Laying itself out before her
Surprising
Needed
Teetering on the brink of realization
And she dreams again
That once that name is carved into her log
This new start, this speeding heart
This electric fuzziness she can’t shake
Will manifest before her
A dream made real
A soul tied to her own.
The penknife shakes imperceptibly
With the anticipation of the first
Slow, loving cut.

~ for Cami, June 26, Arden

WHAT DO I SAY

What do I say to someone like you?
I keep to the silly, the sexy, the blue
Everything’s easy, so real and so true
What do I say to someone like you?

How do I keep my emotions in check?
When your touch and your kisses just make me a wreck
All the laughter and glances flow, those legs and that neck
How do I keep my emotions in check?

Where did the years go, how’d they fly by?
You dropped into my lap like some dream from on high
With our past a small river that just never ran dry
Where did the years go, how’d they fly by?

What is this song that I find on my lips?
There’s your name and your heart and your love and your hips
So our melody swings and the harmony drips
What is this song that I find on my lips?

What do I see when I look in your eyes?
I see love, understanding and a stunning surprise
That we both share a passion that just soars as it flies
That’s what I see when I look in your eyes.

~ for Sandy, possible lyric to unwritten melody, Feb. 14, 2007

NEW VISION

Shattered mirrors
Crackle underfoot
When I’m with you.
See me as a twenty-three-year-old
Brown-haired hippie
All lusty and new
Fresh dipped in the magic of lust,
Love and longing.

Your eyes
Green pools
Appreciative of the simple praise
Spewing from my goatee’d craw
Simple in its ease
Falling from my lips like soft, shooting stars
Blazing fuzzy across the heavens
And you
So caring
Smart and generous
Such loving intensity of spirit
Behind those eyes.

Luxuriating in this moment of you
Could I ever give you a glimmer
Of what you deserve.

~ for Sandy, February 10, 2007, Arcadia