Category: poetry

Butterflies today
At the edge of my field of vision
Fluttering and gone
Tantalizing and gone
Leaving me ever wondering
What I’ve just missed

• God is generous with
• Second chances
• I see you in him
• In his intensity and curiosity
• In his determination of what’s
• Right
• For me
• I see how my strength
• Intrigues him
• And incongruously makes him want to
• Fix me

• He’s just as
• Sure
• That I need his
• Guidance
• He’s just as sure
• That he
• Sees me
• Better than I
• See myself
• He’s passionate and
• Hungry and
• He presses me
• Challenges me
• Outright
• Pushing and pulling
• But instead of
• Resisting
• Correcting him
• I’m flowing
• I’m choosing
• Different
• Can I let him
• Be
• The way I couldn’t let you?
• Can I let him
• Wind himself around me
• Without stiffening or flinching?
• Can I let him poke around
• Inside my heart
• Determining for himself
• What is true and false
• Without fear
• Impaling him on my slamming portcullis?
• Is it not too late with him?
• I used all my chances with you
• Can I open myself to him
• So he can walk right in
• Like I couldn’t with you?
• I made so many mistakes
• This time
• I choose to float
• Downstream
• I choose to
• Risk
• For me and for
• Love

 

Can I have nugget of you?
A kernel?
I promise to treat it with the utmost
Care
I will build it a
Velvet box and
Keep it
Warm
And sheltered
And loved
I will hum to it
And watch it sprout
And protect it
From the wind
I will
Nourish it and
Prune it and
Keep it
Close

My calls reverberate

Around the empty space
Echoing sharply off of the
Cold, dead slate walls
Bouncing and bouncing and bouncing
With increasing speed
To rebound and cut my exposed arms

I don’t remember entering
This room
And I can’t see any door out
But it’s very dark
Perhaps if I feel along the wall

But I don’t move
I can’t even be bothered to sit
I just remain
Straining to search the darkness
For

Him

I’m looking for my father
Which is ridiculous
He’s not there
No one is there
Nothing lives here
Nothing can
But I’m convinced that
If I just remain and
Look and look and look
And call and call and call

Nothing will happen

It’s almost academic
My job is just to
Stand there
Searching

• I’m drawing

• Adding colors
• That are bright and

• Evocative
• Rich

• Shading
• Lining

• It’s glowing
• And sensual

• It’s wrong

• I take a black pencil to it

• I dull them
• I deaden them
• I kill them
• The live colors are
• What could be
• But are not

• Of the future

• So I mute them
• Weaken them
• I punish them

• Imprison them
• Drag them to the
• Sticky depths

 

Haunting
Beach towns
In the vacant
Autumn nights
I wonder if my
Footsteps make noise

My passage evaporates
With so much breeze

The chill
My leather jacket and scarf
Collude to make me
Invisible

I pad down the leaf-strewn sidewalks
Wondering if I’m actually
Touching the concrete
Or if I walk elevated across
A cushion of autumnal chill

I roll us over
Onto your back
I look into your eyes
Sky blue crystal
And I tell you how I feel
“I love you.”
And I know it’s true because
I want to cry
You smile and kiss me
“I love you, too, sweetheart.”

And I know I won’t come
And I suspect we’re through

Your phone rings
You let it go to voicemail
“I don’t suppose we can have dinner together.”
“Yeah, I gotta go be Single Dad.”

I take a deep breath
And roll on my back
And stare at the ceiling

For a while you continue to stroke my body
In those long, soft gestures
That would make me purr
If I didn’t know you were
Already gone
“Yeah, you should go.”

And I roll away

The pain in my stomach

The pain in my stomach
Tells me I love you
And tells me

We’re done

My problem is
I want everything

I want to do and
Try and
Taste and
Kiss and
Play and
Touch and
Laugh at and
Laugh with
Everything

I want all the sensations
I want all the experience

All the sights
All the sounds
All the stolen moments

I’m ravenous for it

And I pace and
Pout

And know I also
Would just like a nice
Glass of wine and to
Listen to
The jasmine summer breeze
Tickle my neighbor’s chimes