THE DECEPTION OF PASSING TIME

Six months is nothing

Flies by

Weightless

Unless you’re in jail

Or 12-years-old and anxious for the summer to end

All weekdays at the beach

Kicking sand on your brother

Enjoying new bodies

Worn by new girls

You’ve never laid eyes on before.

But at this ripe old age

Careening slowly towards extinction

6 months

All we had

Sped by in a dream of reckless love

Compliant kisses

Teenaged tumescence rekindled

By the surprise writ with a capital “Us.”

Our eyes first met

Yesterday

or was it 186 days ago

And poof! Now it’s over.

No reasons explain the depth of this loss

The magnitude of this kinetic, chemical kismet.

The impossibility of language

To concretize any cohesive meaning

From the importance of that first moment

Luck-of-the-draw

One-in-a-million

Lightning strike chance meeting

Nor the severities of its posthumous dissolve.

In this lathered town of fickle nothingness

The vision of the two of you

Going through the motions

The ritualistic touches

Forced smiles

Emotionless, practiced appearances

Driven by memory of how it is “supposed to be”

Is it the living of a long lie?

Or the distorted funhouse mirror rationality

The ease of familiarity’s dulling draw

The Siren’s willowy call

Trading a possible life song of adventure, passion, risk

For a interminable sound bite of feeling unseen

Disrespected, taken for granted

Free of everything but the emptiness of what’s missing.

And oddly, time finds me

Under the sheet

Fucked

Ignored and under whelmed.

Desperate not for love

For we have found that without trying

Instead 

Believing and attempting to hold this delicate premise dear

Amidst the rancorous confusion

Wanting only to leave the hurt behind

Before the lie that love does not exist

Bludgeons us all into a life of true submission.

You claim prowess at departures

Being “good at disconnecting”

So forgive me if I have a hard time processing that.

I was busy listening to your racing heart against my chest

My hand on the small of your back

Your neck still wet from my kisses

Your eyes inches from me telling the truth

Like yesterday

Six months ago.

- For Beautiful Baby, Big Bear City, 9/16/15 

FAVORITE DREAM

Rolling over
The essential smell of your hair
embedded in my memory
as I staggered awake
clouded this dream's detail indescribably.
Frowning at the ceiling
a thin slice of sunlight
slipping through a hairline crack
along the roof beam edge
quickly disappears
proving the turning of the planet to greet the day
dissolving my night's vision:

some kind of clamshell
I struggle to pry open
trying at first delicately, softly with my fingertips
glimmers of progress
when applying Liquid Wrench
or oyster soup
there's a glimpse of a secret
peering out, winking at me
until the tip of my tongue
returns with the pearl
precious
accompanied by your giggle
your back to me
pulling the envelope
of my arms up and around you
as the pearl slips from my mouth
lands precariously
all slippery grace
perched in the hollow of your clavicle
while I whisper
"Favorite"
into your hair.

- for the Favorite, Sept. 17, 2015

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.

COLLECTING YOU

Like Lespere

I hold my memories

To my chest

Boxes

Volumes

Moments

Words

Song

Trysts

Scandals

Tiny

Small

Breaths

And observations

From

Afar

Across rooms

Tables

Galaxies.

And

Still

You

Sit there

Not knowing

Just 

Exactly

What

You

Feel.

~ Road Runner Club, Borrego Springs, CA – 6/20/12
previously unpublished. Dedicated to Ray Bradbury.

WITHOUT PROVISIONS

Obsessed with love
From opposite poles
You with your redemption of revenge
Running from tri-pronged words
Lovers in your wake,
Leaping into the arms of Brave New Girl,
My own lust for love’s Medusian forms
Disparate, but quite desperate
For any slight permutation
To the point of self-hypnosis
Confusion of what is
And what will never be.
Two delusionists procrastinating their way
Through long, lonely patches
Of sloth-like self-immolation and deception
Missing boats, points, shivering seminal connections
Hanging from the rafters around us
Hungry for a little heartbeat
And slipping past us on the wings
Of my indecision
And your books of rules.

So you seek
Those beneath you
Those you can save
Those you can ache to understand
Hoping
In the race to walk away
That the very thing which attracts you
Will make them easier to leave.
The big boned, the old daddies,
The misfit, artistic, needy and dysfunctional
Who contribute
To your own self-worth
Add texture and drama and inspiration and obstacle
To your daily grind
Some sense of being needed
Some sense of being flawed enough
To allow you to shine.

I seek the illusive beauty
The perfect smile
Round, young ass of a teen
On a full-grown, genius guruette
Someone I can worship
Bend over.
Walking dictionary goddesses
Wanting nothing more than to live their lives to fill my head
My bed
My waking moments with discovery
Sinful fire-breathing naughtiness
Accepting my genuflection
With my dominant stare,
Physical largess matching
Serve for serve
My passionate heart
My servitude
And enveloping embrace
With my self-flagellating doubt.
Iron filaments gather around me
Pulled with me toward the magnetic sphere
Of those not ready
To trust their own ability to love,
Pulled t’ward those damaged by
Fathers, boyfriends
Con men and hypocrites
All unable to hold tightly to their responsibilities
Express their love for anything but their own myopic screeds
Or those who take the first train out of Daddyville
By choice or fate
Leaving their sad, little girls to wonder why
Sitting on steps each night
Waiting for his big hands to sweep them up;
Impaled on the bitterness of cheating lovers
Harsh and ignorant men
Their own spiritless souls seeking
More than is willing to be given
Brothers gone on with life
Boyfriends greedy with lust
Girlfriends neck deep in temptation
Misunderstanding
Insecurity and
All of those mismatched,
Mistakes
Discarded moments
Miscalculated
Maligned
Possibilities
Tossed into the flames
Fear
Laziness
The drive for the perfect
Beast
Love’s precarious reputation
Holding the match.

And there we sit
Needing and wanting
What we cannot accept
What we will not fully give--
Everything.
There are those of us
Who cannot handle the torturous
Self-exposure
Seeking the restitution of revenge
Conscious and unconscious gaming
Positioning
Manipulations
The outward blaming
Replacing the outpouring of love’s unbridled
Flow
And all of us ego-driven
To the brink of self-delusion.

So the thoughtful of us
Hunker down in our solitude
Rolling a fatty
A phalanx of equations, probabilities, deceptions and epiphanies
Around in our heads
Before we touch a match to it
Inhaling its smokescreen with hope
A candy drop you cannot resist biting into too soon.
We fail to be godlike
Use timing as our alibi
Being misunderstood as our cloak
Our cover.
We stand alone
Surrounded by God’s love
The universal bliss of our very existence as proof
Ignored in the cannonball leap
Looking for that big splash
Courting the deep end.
Just not damn sure.
Just wanting more.
Just needing
Our arms
Around the elusive
One
Forever
Loved.

~ for Molly, 1/4/09 Big Bear City
also collected in MOLVESTED.doc
also collected in POETICS 2008/2009.doc
also published at FMBS.C

JESSICA ELIZABETH

 

We met over pasta when you were 18

And I was more than a tad older.

You waited on me

And while I waited on you

We spoke of my ever-present reading material

Something on meditation and desire.

You spoke of your mother

And how she was the spiritual type

Sounded like a hippie sort to me

Just friendly and wise

And obviously sexy like you.

I didn’t know that she was gone.

But I knew that you were here

Now

In the present moment

The most alive creature I had ever known

All tangled between innocence and loss

Experience and discovery

And I yearned for more.

Your smile

Radiant and electric

From the moment our eyes met

And not just that practiced

“Please tip me, sir”

smile of a waitress dressed up

alluring and serving

just enough to entice

a few extra percentage points from my wallet.

This smile said, “Teach me.

I’m ready for more.

What can you tell me of life

That will make all this pain

Go away

All of these questions

Make sense.”

The smile that began answering

those same questions for me.

~ for Ms. Mitchell

SELECTED POEMS FROM 2006

The poems posted here on JANUARY 27, 2012 were all written in 2006. They are not the only poems written in 2006 but are selected from what has been previously published/posted on my MySpace.com blog during that year.  There were also two complete collections not included in this current collection, posted in the MySpace blog in 2006 which were written in previous years -- MEET THE BEATS (poems dedicated to the Beat Generation writers and written over the preceding 30 years and collected on this blog here), and NATASHA'S PERIL (poems written in 2004 and published privately in a limited edition until their appearance in 2006 on MySpace).

The collection here features predominantly spontaneous, fairly unedited work that was written and almost immediately put into the MySpace blog. Not the most polished or ethereal scribblings ever but the energy and urging of the present moment makes their inclusion illustrative of the writing mind in a tumultuous, transistional, roller-coaster period.

The titles that appear are listed below appear in reverse chronological order than written.  If you are the orderly type read from the bottom up. Don't ask.

APPETIZER
GRAPHIC ART
TIMES TWO
COMPASS POINTS
ESSENCE
POEM FOR THREE FRIENDS
TRAIN 186, AUGUST 29
SWIMMING HOLE
THE TAO OF BUTTERFLIES
THE POLITICS OF DESIRE
FAREWELL CODY BOY
CRUEL WORDS

all poems listed above (c) 2006 Brad Riesau