EPICENE SCENE

Quite taken by women who go by guys names
Not a conscious decision but a trend I can claim
Feminine handles are lovely and fine
Fall for the Susies, and some Carolines
The Mollys, and Marys, and Guens I adore
of course, there's Michelle, and Danielle and lots more,
The Lisas, the Lizzys, the Lizas and Vals
and the Cindys, the Barbs, I like all of those gals
There's Sallys, the Charlenes, the Colleens and Beths,
The Jens and the Annies and all of the rest
But there’s something intriguing
Bout the Martis and Sams
The Rickies, the Bobbis, the Kellys, hot damn
A Casey, A Tracy, A Stacy or two
There’s Teri and Jeri and Jamie and Drew
A Leslie, a Billie, a Robyn and Jo
Carrie, and Taylor and Pat, don't ya know.
An Alex, a Jordan, a Toni and Kris
A Dusty, a Niki and one named Frances
There's Lynn and there's Sandy and when Sunny gets blue
There's Ashley and Ali and maybe you too.
And even though spellings aren’t always the same
I’m somewhat intrigued by an epicene name.

TO REFUSE THE MUSE IS MISUSE OF THE NEWS

sometimes paper is so much easier than life
night safer than day
waiting easier
than stepping up.

If I were better in the morning
face to face
fearless
lurching
face first
into the fray
perhaps
words
could
rest
comfortably
rebooting their
resonance
but
that would not
be
muse worthy.

so
consequently
our hearts
rumble
paradiddles
and press rolls
until
attraction + obstacles
= excitement
as we import
desired characteristics
from those we yearn for
in others
while the atmosphere
of the moment
loses itself in the tailspin
of
fragile time
blown chances
passing trains.

Sitting down
heart
in hands
scribbling
commences
daring itself
to resist.



~ for Janine, written as a Facebook comment by Brad in response to Rhys’ McClure’s comment on the poem WHY SO SHY BOY? On November 6 at 2:32a

Thanks Rhys for the inspired reading of the previous scrawling. As one in the throes of courting a reluctant but appreciative muse, as when two people try and discuss the same book they are reading at very different paces, I fill in the blanks with what works for me. Solace in the pen, indeed

WOMEN BY THE WINDOW WAITING

the pen is / mightier than / the bored / hello or

rushing conquest / notching a new name
on the list / I scored!
if only more men / knew that words
are so seductive, yes / and captivating
there would be fewer / women by the window waiting
- Rhys McClure

And then there is the dilemma of the men
walking below those filled windows
chasing
scraps of paper
shredded love letters
that spin in the draft
of their yearning
around some blind corner
where only dream shadows
await.

They look up into the rain
fingernail crescent
diving behind rooftop edge
windows empty
shades drawn
night
longer
than most.






~ for Rhys. Thanks for the light that sparked this poem.
Poetic 2nd Comment by Brad on Rhys’ Facebook comment on the poem
WHY SO SHY BOY? November 6, 2:42am

Lucky Stars

We found each other
Lucky stars
Shooting 'cross a Western sky
Two burning planets
intersect

- 2/14/96

9:30a.m.

Your love
Intoxicating. Addictive
it's ease, simplicity
of expression
Engulfs my decaying splendor
As a fog-bound dawn
Surrounds
The first, insistent rays
of morning.

The coming day
Eventually resplendent
Born of dramatic chiaroscuro

The portentous song
The whispering morning dove
Conspire
questioning
angelic eyes
to life.

To be your waking vision
is
to be
Immortal

- 5/7/96

Friend

Cloudy canopy stills the air
A pre-burst calming
of the ardent elements.
You are my illustrious blanket.
Enveloping my frail perception
Strengthening
my tenuous resolve
Cuddling my fragile intensity
Nurturing my delicate candor.

I want to stitch a cloak
From your vigorous passion
Cobble boots
from your streamlined vitality
Fashion my costume
from the millinery
of your spontaneous tenderness.
To wear your giving nature
for all to see
Next to my skin
protecting
and illuminating my being
A talisman of considerable
beauty
and grace.

- 5/7/96

See Spot Run

Little empty spot
Filled to the brim with nothing
Sounds, dull & lifeless
Face, a stone wall stare.
Tight little doors
Slam open and, shit,
Shut
Giftless holiday jeer.

"Hang ten, Cowboy.
One ain't enough."
Is there a point to this avoidance
Or just a slap in the gut?
Too deep to know
Too slow to creep on out of here
out of mind
out of touch
out of my league.
Done.

- 6/6/96 troc

Spigot

I.

stranger;
nemesis to himself
foisting drill-press limitation
hard-edged
guilt by disassociation
fire line discombobulation
on one's own psyche.

not particularly healthy
non-controllable, weirdly osmotic
chemical reaction to heart's conundrums;
not conducive to positive growth potential.
lose the diagnosis
...race for the cure.

II.

there has not been a day
without tears
(waterfall;
glacial trickle > ocean roar
record setting, soaking pearls
of rejected anger, mists of acceptance
beauty's reflected appreciation
longing’s widening, leaking fissure)
raining for 49 humid days
dark, ebony nights.
after 15 years of drought,
thirsting for tear's acknowledgment
of some dab of emotion left floating inside,
the partched earth
rock solid
impenetrable
like my stupidity
my rigorous, inflexible blinders
the spidery flawed face of the self-loathing mirror
turned shamefully to the wall.
Barely a smidgen of moisture crept through.
But what did seeped into the cracked weaknesses
of my hardened self-hatred
created rivulets of hope
positive flow


(beneath the surface,
waterways tinged of reminiscence
just navigable
in the eerie inner darkness,
the memory of passionate language of thought
floating
downstream
toward that light)

III.

my face
flushes briefly with the warmth...
stopping breath
time
memory
flow
only to slip further away
always, unexplainably out of her grasp
always mysteriously in reach
waiting
always for that warm glimmer
upon my saddened brow.

always
the light
she silently calls out
whispering my given name
singing the word "beautiful"
softly on my every breath.

always
a darker reality
than the soul can bear.

IV.

time cradles light like a fragile child
sneering menacingly at the baby's face
calling its hand.
full of love, sustenance and compassion
the light's radiant smile
briefly tickles time's chin
only to dim
in it's powerful stare.

-- 6/23/96


SPIGOT was also published in an early version in the poetry zine, A Hindu, A Buddhist & A Lion Tamer #2 (Folcroft, PA 1996). That early version also made an appearance in the poetry zine, The Children of the Light, Vol. 1 published in Hockessin, DE in Summer 1997. The earlier version can be found here in a blog listing called MORE EARLY PUBLISHED WORK from March 23, 2010.

At Odd Times

at odd times my jagged image
my silly disposition
my soft words drift into your mind
occasionally
with decreasing frequency

at odd times your luxurious being
your shadow love
your soft touch slips out of my mind
briefly.
for the most frightening of moments
I've forgotten about you.
you,
like some reassuring rain cloud
filled with potential thunderclaps
threatening downpours
possible springtime thaw and blossoming seed
the bloom of our short season of growth --
gone for the most sub-divided of seconds
and then
you return.
to define each flickering moment
like the scent defines the rose.

-- 5/96

Peaks

for Paulette.

I.

She sat on the piano bench
Holding court
The memory hazy but for the falling
Away
Of
The


Earth.

II.

Suspicion reigned on her brow
Perfunctory "Hello"
Was I here to steal their boy?
Who was this macho-jock-surf hippy
Traveling incognito with their Carlitos?

Joanne talked of massaging your stomach in a clockwise motion as to better facilitate shitting. "Works every time," she said.
No b.s. this one (Pun up-ended).
He showed me the view from this precarious perch on Twin Peaks. Wide. Bright and vast.
In the undulating heat waves on the window glass
the hills of San Francisco, City of Dreams, moved
like the shimmering bay in the distance... Waves of Victorian edge and psychedelic color. I turned and in the dim unlit room
saw her move out of the corner of my eye
The memory of the decor, the ambiance, the passing of time is hazy but for the falling
Away
Of
The
Earth .



III.

Inadvertently
You broke a rule, a confidence.
The Seal of Approval,
The Panel of Experts was not consulted.
The sacred text opened and in the bob and weave of the road's
playful twisting he offered you a glimpse into my creative heart.
By chance
By fate's kind grace
Pages turned as if by themselves
revealing two women, embracing.
Hazy, art-y, naked.
Your eyes stopped and scanned the red ink handsomely caressing the edge of the photocard. You saw your name. You saw her name.
You saw my knowledge and acceptance and sensitive attraction
To the beauty of your love for each other.
"A-ha...so he's not scouting for Carlitos
He's watching me. He's attracted to me. He's taken by me...
I guess he might not be so bad after all."
Your innate curiosity was tickled
Your cynicism on call.
Your face, eyes, voice, statuesque beauty,
aura, flora, fauna, (do ya wanna?)
etched into my cells for life since the moment I saw you
sitting on the piano bench
holding court
tho' the rest of the details of that fateful moment, like
this road to Stinson beach, are hazy but for the falling
Away
Of The Earth.

IV.

Picnic. Camera. Dune grass
waves us in for a landing.
Sun bright, "Californian, like us," he said.
Our quartet sitting cross-legged in the sand.
She, sarcastic and funny full of mischief.
He, open, naive and trusting
Excited and trepidatious at the same time
And you
Suddenly curious and careful
but pushing the envelope that lies between the two
its glue wet and ready to seal
or not.

I shot you with a fork in your mouth
Lips pursed, no smile...not my best camera work, no doubt,
But those eyes --
Staring straight into me
Dead serious
Like a vow, a four-alarm fire.
You pulled me aside
away from the others.

"Let's walk..."

you said, for the first of many times to come.
A frequent signal
of a special, connective moment
just around the corner,
down the stairs...but the memory is hazy, gleaned from old photographs and the passionate re-telling of the tale
but for the Falling
Away
Of The
Earth.


V.

We walked toward the Pacific.
Verdant, grassy roller-coaster hills challenge our vision
In a race to the churning drama of the sea
As if the drought's powerful hold on their rolling existence
Meant not near as much as the exhilaration of the fall to mother ocean.
"At least I'm enjoying the ride" goes the song,
not yet written here in 1977.
Gray, foaming brine, so distant
So unrepresentative of our young, focused, searching minds.
Our identification with the sea's battering, relentless, insistence...
Its violent, upheaval of all solid matter...
Its mirror's opaque stare, chipping away at time's handiwork
wouldn't wash over us 'til much later in our lives.
For now, the sea was playful, pretty and vastly intriguing.

For now, I became that hill
Tam's hips giving in to gravity.
Gravity = fun, a playful force. Apples and such. Cosmic balance.
Without gravity, Flight = boredom.
For each slow, rising climb there followed an instant of inertia Followed by a swift, giddy decline
A breath at the bottom as the speed sucks in its stomach for the next
Lesser rise...
Only to plunge joyously down, faster
With each dip and gully and mound and...
overhead the treacherously deep, serious blue of the sky
Smiled upon my heart a billowy kaleidoscope of acceptance.


The moment spread before me
diffusing time into something not to be conquered or feared
So deliciously ornate and uncluttered
Uncomplicated
Molasses on granite
Crawling up out of the cracks of the unimpressed stone
Widening our view, buffering our remedies
Scaling peaks we've yet approached.
Time -- a big, forgiving roving pick-up band of starving mariachis
Playing harmonized counter-point:
Two melodies, one spontaneous purr...
Your voice pulls my unfocused eyes from the horizon's indifference
Though the memory of your words is hazy but for the falling
Away Of The Earth.

VI.

Carlitos called in a panic
"You must come out here tonight. She called.
We're celebrating her birthday and she wants to get together with you.
Aren't you excited?" he gushed as I pulled the skin I'd just jumped out of
back on over my head.
She arrived just after I did and our eyes met. It wasn't a spark really that I saw, just something indescribably familiar...irresistibly comfortable...I fell into her spell like a hypnotist's show dog. Easy mark.
Our words danced around each other like moths fully cognizant of the implications of a flame this bright. Carlitos fluttered around us like a proud Mama chattering about his refried beans and folding together burritos with fresh Spinach from his garden while our energies folded together with fresh panache from our candid pantries. We ate and I tasted her interest and prayed she tasted my eager exhilaration.
As I swirled her questioning gaze
over my taste buds for a brief moment longer
the door flew open and St. Theresa Nightingale flew in
on the fragrant breeze breaking our concentration with a cloud of sparkling wrap-around joy. Our private feast was over. Dessert would be served 14 miles west as I sat stunned and interrupted in my reverie.


-- The kitchen of this tiny bayside apartment
was filled to bursting with laughing
loving
beautifully enticing women
none of whom had a pinch of interest in the two men
sitting in the living room adjacent.
Their camaraderie and attentions were reserved for each other
and he and I sat and talked for hours.
Saving the world.
Planning our destinies.
Soliloquies of beauty and madness and youth and passionate confusion.
Of course, I heard not a word that either of us spoke.
Even the turntable's repetitive caress of the same side of this record
Gato Barbieri's caliente tenor lines
blowing sensuous Latin tones into the air
over and over again
went in one ear and out the toe.
My mind was on the kitchen doorway.
She sat, her long legs folded under her on the straight-backed chair
Laughing, talking, glancing every few seconds
out into the room
where my eyes were always waiting for hers.
We spent 3 hours looking at each other
through the bustling haze of swirling conversation around us
talking with our eyes, catching up on way-old times
times even we didn't recall,
lives we could only surmise had been shared between the ancient relatives of these two pair of eyes.


Suddenly, she stood, walked to me as my flesh tingled
-- My heart beat like a Buddy Rich coronary test pattern
"Let's walk..."

We got as far as the bottom of the stairs
She turned and put her long fingers on my arm
She told me that the woman that she loved
Was the only woman she had loved
That she liked men
That she really liked men
That she liked what was going on between us
That she wanted me to know where she stood
That she wanted me to know that she was very much
very sure that she very much
would like to get to know me better
She called me "Bradley" and I think we walked back up the stairs
to an old-boyfriend/"coming-over-tomorrow-may-be-better" party
but of this
my memory is hazy but for the falling
Away
Of
The
Earth.



VII.

My thoughts of her
rose with me in the mornings that followed
Carried me through classes blunting my tired stupors with smiling
certainty,
Ate meals alongside me
Followed me to movies ("cheap date")
Rang their presence around every chiming note of music I heard
Every bit of conversation, every smile and every breath...
My vocabulary increased incrementally by the amount of time I spent in her presence --
reincarnation, inhibition, fascination, imperfection,
unrequited, reunited, love-at-first-sighted...

I lay in a small room off Clayton Street back porch
and wrote a poem, striving to live up to my misguided poetic yearnings
-- in the dawn's light I heard the magnificent whisper
of their lips meeting
the lovers' embrace
and I wrote of an ant carrying two purple flower petals
from under the door
past me and into your room...
an offering.
I wanted to crawl in right behind him
invisible
and luxuriate in the light of your love for each other.
But, I was me...hard to believe
and turned to the other door
silently watching the morning's charm
wink at me
thru the frosted glass
some unknown secret slinking off with the comforting fog
adrift in worlds it would not be my calling to render apart.


We haunted bookstores and restaurants and bars
falling into each others' confidence and trust
with an agile grace not known to either of us before.
With a speed and depth that would have caused
nosebleeds and conniptions and screaming hallucinogenic visions
to lesser humans.
There we were in our invincibility
Our connected, directed, reflected strength
Shivering like babies,
like hairless ducklings sliding on ice
quacking on about fear
patience
uncertainty
as if we couldn't have saved the world
if we'd been able to see past our new roses.

Other than the vision of her from the chest up over cappuccino
or pasta or drinks sitting at a table across from me looking positively gorgeous straight into my eyes and yearning for connection and profundity and that smile and spontaneous laugh making me want to be the funniest man on earth at that very moment...
other than that
the memory is hazy but for the falling
Away
Of the
Earth.


VIII.

Sometimes, late at night
after too much wine
or too much whining
too many decibels
too many hours just plain surviving
I wake in a cold sweat and the only way to fall
back into the comforting shroud only sleeping through dawn can inspire
is to count
...not sheep
not stars
not coins, cars or minutes between the far-off hum of the passing trains
I count words
sentences
silences
fragments of the endless conversation we call friendship
That years ago fell into a pattern
a pattern of miles
initiative
doubts and white hot indecisiveness
kept at a safe but questioning distance
a conversation that began once
and continued through the ether
soaring through space like the path of human thought
all dream and vision
certainty and hope
faith and passion
belief in the rock solid destiny and kindness and grace
that placed you on a piano bench
and me, head heavy on this pillow
and I count
hazy
but for the comforting falling away
of
the Earth.

-- july 1996

Two Poets Circle A Rose

The blush of a crimson rose
Born of the wind
Nourished by its passion for life
Splits the dry cantankerous earth
gasping for air
reaching for the pool of sky
petals uplifted in the dawn's yawning light.
She waits
Searching for some sustaining cloudburst
Flaunting her blushing beauty.
Her heavenly scent
teases the wind's feathery wings.

In a cloud of stifling rust-colored dust
The Yammering Dynamic Duo rolls into town
Pants and guards down.
The nearly expired salt lake
gleaming heat wave exhilaration
at these latest of victims --
heat stroke, sun stroke, havin'-too-much-fun stroke
They broke the ego stroke, spoke
and skidded to a stop
The cool, shadow of the long-stemmed rose
Bites her lip and falls across their squinted, blazing
Half-crazed, bloodstained
Poetic eyes --
Four glistening globes of anticipation
Scanning the horizon like re-con soldiers
Two Smart-bomb brainiacs searching the wild hinterlands
the dusty, foxholes of their shared passions
their tousled liquid vision
animal taste for adventure, lust and the Flame.
Searching
for the muse.


They tumble, landing in an appropriate pile before her
Scrambling to pull themselves off of each other
with enough finesse to catch her eye; they dove for their pencils,
their sketchbooks, their journals;
dove for their sparking electrical outlets in airy,
scented hotel rooms in various climes,
in small dark piss-smelling rooms,
on embankments,
in church pews,
brothels,
weed-ridden drive-in movie theatres
deserted all over America's face like lost ideals,
vanquished morals, defeated humanism, faded love;
dove for their cocks to scribble
hard-earned dedication to craft
their teeming, fetid indecipherable scrawls of agony
their glistening chins and in-bred competitive spirits...
shit or shinola...
grit or granola?...
Nothing matters anymore...
don't care about anything...
you snooze, you muse...
all the hits...
i can't help it...
goddess...
angel...
lifeboat...
they've grown up writing nonsensical gibberish
aimed at their own egos
aimed at their own hard-ons
aimed at their own needy self-esteem...
write, write, write, write, write, write...RIGHT.


Electric bills soar, typewriters roar
politically incorrect p.c.'s throw their overstuffed similes
and metaphors back at them quicker than the monitor's green glow
can reach their drooling faces...
The pressure of coming up with something real to say
day in
day out
suddenly lifted
by a rose --
by any other name
a miracle
dropped into their billowing laps like a sack of golden moths
saved from the flame
fluttering
in baited anticipation of flight...

they each grab a satin corner of the bag
and in one brotherly shake
the sky is filled with the barely discernible sound of
thousands of flapping wings
wings of air and lace
flesh and lash
dream and hope.

circling the rose
in opposite directions
the poets
(as they address themselves in mock-serious tones)
nearly collide at every pass
grazing each others' self-image
imprinting each others' energy-field with a shared solidity
equal parts magic, obsession and trust
as they race to capture the rose's essence
on the open page.

-- for 67 days and nights this goes on one morning
on the dry lake bed
home to nothing but wind and dust and ghostdance sound
two circling poets and the blush of a crimson rose.


II.

The poets sit
Exhausted
their once strong legs twisted beneath them
aching arms around each other
a concessional display of confessional withdrawal.
Their lives, lies, ego-centric eccentricities tossed into a pile
tear-stained empty pages
reflecting light from the full moon's mocking
resonance. The desert chill whispers up a breeze.
In this light they see bursting from the distant trail of a shooting star
a widening glistening glow
slowly easing toward them from some heavenly niche in the
horizon's suit of armor.
there is a distinct purring
an angelic fluttering
of what has to be thousands
of luminescent creatures
floating on wing like a neon blanket of mother's tears
bathing them in radiant warmth and the dizzying perfume of
familiarity
and on the lightest of winds
the soft smile of breath beckons them...

they race to the rose
they each kiss its form with their eyes
they touch its heart with their devotion
the rose cries for more
the rose cries for immortality
the rose cries for lust
for passion
the rose cries for respect
the poets, naked before her
beg
for her mercy --

"Please, let us live without you in our hearts
we cannot be strong enough to love so deeply
to care so completely
to spend our hours wanting only to show your beauty back to you
to nourish and feed and wet your yearning soul with our caring passion
please let us follow the moon away from here
to a place of definition and solid ground
to a place of boredom and predictability
to a world where we can still fool ourselves into believing
that our words are important and not just weak reflections of
the moonlight shining in a drop of dew as it falls
from you
onto our unworthy lips"

she pulls them both into her center
the heart of her character
the essence of her magnitude.
it was easier to draw them in than she expected --
they didn't put up much of a fight:
one came, fast and easy, cock first
toward her...a flash in the night
bouncing her way like a magnetic confident ball of iron
all show of course
but such an exuberant little show
all youthful vigor and confused denial
a wall of carelessness, working hard to incorporate sadness and angst
into his broadening palette
failing to mask the terror of being without her affection, so easy to love,
so hard to be without;

the other, more slowly,
face first
smile full of doubt and tears
surprising himself with his ability to feel anything
to expose his soul so readily
naked wonder of lost identity
poking him awake then jumping back under the cover of night
carrying within his mouth a depth of conscience
deadly only to his fragile self
entwined with a strength of passionate, vulnerable time...
she absorbed him instantly.


Once buried
deep inside her heart
they find gilded streets of heavenly grandeur
paved by their best intentions
swept of their doubting nightmare visions
and graced by their own self-love and its respectful reflection.
They smile at each other
click their heels in a soft thud of naked feet
and soar off
into the rose-tinted sky of dawn's
yawning light.

In the red-dust of morning
Two books lay open catching heat
Pages flutter in the sun, empty but for identical rose petals
tattooed with delicate golden marks left
by butterflies' wings
and in each
a rose-colored inscription reading

"Beautiful"


III.

One poet
makes a mad dash and plucks the rose from the earth
puts it between his teeth and runs
fast and furious with all the speed and false fearlessness becoming youth.
The rose quivers in his grasp
free at last from her own self-preservation
succumbing to his restless fire
his hidden dependence on her essence.

One poet
raggedly staggers behind
follows at an unsafe distance
always keeping the faint blushing glow of their forward motion
in his vision
around every corner
around every brick wall.
waiting
for the call that will never come
crying for the time desperately wasted
cursing fate's dastardly bent sense of humorless spite
but still
walking
crawling
waiting
for that moment of transcendent beauty
that invisible tickle on his pounding heart
reminders of every lovely thought
every mind-boggling vision of beauty and passion and spirit
he has ever had the luck and good fortune to experience
all his long, twisting life.
All contained in the whisper of a scent
the blush of a desert rose
that sat waiting to inspire
waiting to give her radiant heart
to a wandering
floundering
shell of a man
who had forgotten the poet's heart inside.



IV.

One poet
The weight of this relentless beauty
this unforgiving perfection
the scent of this glowing, exuberant flower
blossoming in his presence
blooming a richer, darker red in his grasp
overwhelms his unpolished agenda
overruns his still forming vision of himself.
Scared he sets the flower aside
Gently
Sweetly trying to recall this exact spot for future reference
He turns to walk away spinning
again
to look with each step
unsure of his decision
unsure of his direction
unsure of his heart.

One poet, he finds her
alone, staring into the distance
a rose fading in the summer's heat
not responding to her own tenacious strength
watching the horizon
for the shadow of her heart's memory.


He kisses her softly
brushes his tears across her delicate petals
wishes only that he had the right words
the comforting touch
to bring her radiance back to her.
if only he could grab her attention
and for a slow moving moment in time
catch her glance
let her see reflected there in his moist, puddling eyes
let her see the beautiful
perfect blush of a rose that he holds deep within his heart.
If she could only see
beyond the past
before the future tears another soul away
takes another careening life
and instantly leaves nothing but memory.
If she could only see the deepest
burning fire
love's loyal commitment to defeat
sitting there beside her on the dry desert floor
crying tears for their crossing paths
crying tears for their thinnest of moments
crying tears for their happenstance neglect of
each other's powerful spirits
crying tears for two poets
and the blush
of a crimson rose.


~ summer 1996 (re-edited 10/24/10)

The Lock Up

I'm a criminal.
I feel too strongly.
My plea:

insanity.

They sentenced me to heartbreak.
Dreaming,

my prison cell.

Your eyes are my escape...

~ rtr, spontaneous 8/9/96

The Silent Treatment

so
that's it, huh.
everything is dust.
smiles, rusty
slowly curl at the corners
like old newspaper
holding tightly to yesterday's news
as if to re-read the stories
the names
the crime scenes
the box scores
isn't worth the effort.
as if nostalgia
memory
happiness
incoherent sonnets
dedicated
inspired
and informed
by your very breathing of this air
aren't worth their weight in ink.
what was I thinking?
how could I have thought that even
without the passion
the turmoil
the stifling, steaminess
the liberating thoughtfulness
the slow-motion crawl
of time's winking giggle
without the naivety
the blinders
the one-liners
the stone pillars
the telephones, journals,
the soft-pedaled flashing eyes
the little eveyday choices
what to wear, see, say, do, touch, smell, breath, live;
without the flagship "Insanity"
on which I refuse to hang my rain drenched sails
still floating offshore
how could I have thought that
by becoming reasonable, rational, non-confrontational, passive,
unassumingly respectful of the sanctity of your position, acceptant of my fate
the cards dealt to me, the games and argumentary inner turmoil
seized and dealt with and worked on and mulled over and observed and
discussed and set aside and learned from
how could I have thought that that might reassure you
that I would not be some nemesis
some overwrought loser cowering sheepishly in your misunderstood shadow
that life does go on
that sometimes things just are
that it's all right to just sit and watch the wheels spin sometimes
how could I have thought that your memory would be as selective
as your willingness to just look me in the eye
not like you look at a car speeding toward you
a deadline careening your way
a nearly spent hurricane crushed into a heavy breeze
already blown past
spitting nothing but shade upon your coveted sunsplashed earth,
not the way you crinkle your eyes
at a taste gone sour
a light too bright
a thought too painful
but as you look at a photo from the past
a vacation you took when you were a kid
the beaches, the bee stings,
the postcards, the interminable car ride
the laughter always louder than the tears\
"Smiling uses fewer muscles than frowning."

am I that big of an ogre
a dangerous
ranting fool?
am I not just a sponge of emotion?
a bucket of intensity
a spill of overcooked sensitivity?
oh, how silly of me to finally ignore you
you who would never take the plunge into forgiveness
the dive into sustained civility
the break with your fractured mirror
of my selfishness
my failure
my opaque rose-colored glasses.
how could I have thought that
we could
still be
friends.

what was I thinking?
that you cared
that you understood
that for a glimmer of an instant
what happens to my heart and soul and mind
strikes a tiny note of compassion
that the way you judge a person's humanity
is somehow weighed in relation to the depth of their feeling
their struggle and desire to overcome their demons
their tendency to offer of their hearts and time and ears
to you when you are needy.
so I guess I either don't measure up
or you could give a fuck.
just something else I must accept.
I ask for nothing
no secrets
no revelations
not even that look
or that skin
or that laugh.
no commitment
no loyalty
no payoff
no gamble or risk.
I just refuse
to allow
you to despise
my memory.
as if I had a choice.
what was I thinking?
friend.
look it up.

-- Fall 1996

THE WAKING DREAM

I.
Alone
I live a waking dream
each moment
touched
a truth unseen.
But there she is before me still
as real as evening’s coming thrill

Alone
awake where vision strong
each moment
graced
by sleep’s sweet song
and all I feel surrounding me
as real as dreamed lucidity

Alone
I sleep and she is there
beside me fingers in her hair
pressed warm and close against me, tight
as dawn to day, dream to night

Alone
I live a waking dream
each moment
touched
a truth unseen
and here she is, here safe from harm
a waking dream safe in my arms

II.
What’s that sound of breaking glass?
or shattered hearts
or time that passed
too fast
too soon
too good to last?
What is that sound?

III.
Am I a fool for falling in
your pool of eyes that capture men
to steal their hearts and make them spin.
Am I a fool for falling in?

Was I a fool to just not see
that you could never fall for me
or just a man with hopes and dreams
just wanting love and softer things?
Was I a fool to just not see?

And as a fool, I wait in line
for short, sweet moments that I find
each time your eyes look into mine
so still this fool, he waits in line.

Of course, I just can’t help myself
hope you could want me on your shelf
in spite of all my inner doubts
to sing your praises, shout them out
and so this fool can’t help himself.

I’ll be this fool until I die
for beauty will just catch my eye
and make me hope and dream and cry.
I’ll be this fool until I die.

And as a fool I stand my ground
won’t trade a moment I have found
so while I can, I’ll hang around…
to catch a glimpse, to see you smile
to hear you laugh, to spend a while
to touch your hand, to dream and pray
that maybe once, perhaps someday
I’ll hold you close and feel your skin
against my own and someday when
I’ll taste your lips, so soft and sweet
thank destiny, led us to meet.

IV.
In the aftermath
of your confession
I can
literally
think
of nothing
except the excruciating fact
that we may
never
experience
our
first
kiss
together. This
simple
fact alone
completely
ruins
my day.

V.
“What would you like?” she said to me with her usual rushed but sweetly genuine smile.
Super white tuna, sliced jalapenos, salmon, wasabi tobiko,
wrapped around
cruncy spicy tuna and more jalapenos.

I realize that I just asked you for “A Kiss of Fire.”
You laugh. “Later”
and giggling
walk on to the next waiting table.
My eyes well up
and burn
long
before
the meal
arrives.

VI.
And when I leave town
can I get a picture
too?
Smile pretty
with you
on my arm?
A souvenir
of a heart
that fell
too
fast.

VII.
Soon, I’ll be gone. Distant.
Surrounded by loving family.
Seductive waves of lustful adventure
two glorious women on either side of me
caressing my excitement
my neglected years
realized dreams and fantasies.
But amidst these joyous days
not one will go by unscathed
without yearning
for your passing touch
upon my waiting arm
laid across this sticky table
counting the minutes
until you pass again
always saying, “I’ll be right back”
always a soft touch of your fingertips
or if I’m lucky
a sharp, friendly slap on my bicep
when I say some smart or funny remark.
How I love, miss
and long for those sharp, little slaps
wishing for one
right now
right here
right anywhere
wherever I am.

VIII.
This moment
a realization
that no matter how patient
how slowly we take it
how careful and considered my every move
at this very moment
as you go home to his arms
to your books
your studious nights
that my dreaming is just that,
the void within me cannot be filled
as it has been thus far
with your smiles
glancing touches
quick hello and goodnight hugs
and splattered
half-finished sentences.

In a world of hope
that which seemed enough
Is now just shattered dreams
become real.

But still
with each moment
each look into your eyes,
even if it’s some one-sided connection
I’ve fabricated in my hopeful imagination,
can so change
the definition of beauty and life
as we know it.

And to say I’ve seen something in those eyes
smiling back at me
a blessing
I’ll not soon forget.

IX.
When you told me you were spoken for
a boyfriend there behind your door
oh, how my heart crashed to the floor
surprising me
surprising me.

I wondered how I’d spend my time
instead of looking forward to
our fleeting moments so sublime
I wanted you
so wanted you.

Though lovers, two
I hold so close
with tenderness
and lust and love,
it seems my arms desire the most
embracing, open sharing of
impassioned hearts and minds and souls
of those who can observe me whole,
in all my splendid dignity
to hurt no one, creatively.
In you and them
found those who can
embrace this loving
“Renaissance man.”

Not something that I’d call myself
more like “A Dreaming Realist”
expect that where I am, I’ll be,
for bliss and pain, both sides we see.
The zin, the yang; the good, the bad
And so it goes, the happy, sad
In life, in love, in ecstasy
is also sorrow, hurt and we
accept both sides and become free.

So love, at times comes easily
or grabs us when we least expect.
We pray don’t treat love carelessly
enjoy the thrill with deep respect.
It wavers, drifts, ebbs and flows
so we must grab it when it shines.
However long its fire glows
ignoring so much fleeting time.


~ lyrics and poetics inspired by LS