A kiss given with sleepy eyes, and soft slightly moist lips,
given when the sky is low, when fog lays on the naked back of the city
pulled over my head like a flannel sheet.
A kiss held just a half a beat longer than the peck I expected,
This is the kiss that I can return.
The faintly cross-eyed look when faces are too close, and noses almost touch,
soft, childish and slightly silly.
That is the look from which I won't avert my eyes
Tonight, I don't want expensive gifts or expansive gestures,
they'll only embarrass me, so put away the strawberries and champagne,
Silk sheets are chilly and lacy lingerie makes my skin itch.
More erotic to me is the touch of your hand on my arm, in passing, at a party.
Once you kissed my elbow, and it wasn't even hurt,
this is what moves me.
I could offer up my heart as a whole burnt offering on some pagan altar,
and take up Tantra or learn the Kama Sutra, and I would if you asked...
But really my love is more like grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup,
familiar, ordinary, and comforting.
My love is dry socks after a slushy walk, the cookie in your lunchbox.
I could perhaps be more profound, but that would only profane something
so easy and clear to me
(even saying profane makes it sound holy, and my love for you is far from holy)
I could speak of velvet skin, long wet kisses, and heated embraces
because my love is this too
My love is crochet really,
one strand of yarn with many twists that build it into something that speaks of loving care
and tender craftsmanship.
My love is like a bright leaf on the last green grass of October
waiting for you to pick it up and tuck it in your buttonhole.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Furniture
We all have that place
Or at least I like to think we all do
Perhaps only I do, and it's my chore to maintain it
Though I'll admit to not doing a very good job
In any case, it's an inappropriate place
where everything is all a-bang with the sharp corners of furniture
Shrouded, but still there to cause you sharp pains
as you stumble through the narrow path
Sometimes you pull things into the light
dust them off and find them valuable
rare, beautiful, authentic
Sometimes you pull things into the light
and under a ray of sunlight or a bright lamp
they look cheap and tacky
and when you show them to other people
they find it in very bad taste
Really though most of it just sits in the dark and moulders.
Sometimes I force myself to open the doors and windows
let light and air in
And it feels good, and I'm afraid of it, and I hate it
and I love it
And by now you know that I'm not speaking of a place inside my house
And by now you know that I'm not speaking to you at all.
Or at least I like to think we all do
Perhaps only I do, and it's my chore to maintain it
Though I'll admit to not doing a very good job
In any case, it's an inappropriate place
where everything is all a-bang with the sharp corners of furniture
Shrouded, but still there to cause you sharp pains
as you stumble through the narrow path
Sometimes you pull things into the light
dust them off and find them valuable
rare, beautiful, authentic
Sometimes you pull things into the light
and under a ray of sunlight or a bright lamp
they look cheap and tacky
and when you show them to other people
they find it in very bad taste
Really though most of it just sits in the dark and moulders.
Sometimes I force myself to open the doors and windows
let light and air in
And it feels good, and I'm afraid of it, and I hate it
and I love it
And by now you know that I'm not speaking of a place inside my house
And by now you know that I'm not speaking to you at all.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Poetry is Embarrassing
Sometimes my writing embarrasses me
It's maudlin, soppy, and a bit sad
I'm ashamed of it a little
Which is funny because I'm not usually ashamed of anything
Not even the shittiest things I've done
Make me cringe like reading an old poem I've written does
Was I really that emotional? Were my thoughts that dramatic?
But I am coming to accept
That I was, and they were
and it's okay
There's nothing wrong with feeling strongly
I am beginning to let my emotions have their path, and it doesn't hurt anyone else much
Do other people have more serious problems than I do? Is writing self-indulgent?
They do, and it is
and it's okay.
I'll know it's the right way when I read this in a year or two
and flinch from how I feel now.
It's maudlin, soppy, and a bit sad
I'm ashamed of it a little
Which is funny because I'm not usually ashamed of anything
Not even the shittiest things I've done
Make me cringe like reading an old poem I've written does
Was I really that emotional? Were my thoughts that dramatic?
But I am coming to accept
That I was, and they were
and it's okay
There's nothing wrong with feeling strongly
I am beginning to let my emotions have their path, and it doesn't hurt anyone else much
Do other people have more serious problems than I do? Is writing self-indulgent?
They do, and it is
and it's okay.
I'll know it's the right way when I read this in a year or two
and flinch from how I feel now.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Sealed and Sound Proof 2009
Silence is a prison sometimes
But I like it that way
It's a prison I've built myself
Brick by brick for years
I talk
Hundreds of thousands of shiny bright words
That wrinkle at a touch like foil
Words that tarnish, ideas that rust
Stories told that oxidize
As soon as they fall from my lips and are exposed to the air
Lift the lid of my heart though
Where the hinges squeak
Where there are no words, only silences
A soundproof-loveproof chamber
A lead box where the radioactive waves of feeling are caught up, all sealed in
Soldered shut, and then locked in a room
Silence is a prison sometimes
But I've built it myself
Brick by brick for years
But I like it that way
It's a prison I've built myself
Brick by brick for years
I talk
Hundreds of thousands of shiny bright words
That wrinkle at a touch like foil
Words that tarnish, ideas that rust
Stories told that oxidize
As soon as they fall from my lips and are exposed to the air
Lift the lid of my heart though
Where the hinges squeak
Where there are no words, only silences
A soundproof-loveproof chamber
A lead box where the radioactive waves of feeling are caught up, all sealed in
Soldered shut, and then locked in a room
Silence is a prison sometimes
But I've built it myself
Brick by brick for years
On Coming North, and Not Liking it Much Sometimes 2009
This hard, flinty North has done me in
I believe there is now something like a shard of winter lodged inside me
I feel cold, wind-chapped, stiffened, perma-frosted
I have chiseled out a piece of my heart and stored it in my freezer
If I put that piece in my mouth and sucked on it like candy
It would taste like a penny
Hard and icy on my lips
Melting coppery-metallic and very bitter between my teeth.
I believe there is now something like a shard of winter lodged inside me
I feel cold, wind-chapped, stiffened, perma-frosted
I have chiseled out a piece of my heart and stored it in my freezer
If I put that piece in my mouth and sucked on it like candy
It would taste like a penny
Hard and icy on my lips
Melting coppery-metallic and very bitter between my teeth.
Shoppinglist 1991/2009
As I stand in the grocery store
vistas
of food all around me
The shelves are so stinking tall
That I cannot reach my favorite cereal
Cap'n Crunch
I think that stinks
My money, greasy bills, sweaty palm-scented coins
Is all balled up in my left jeans pocket
I will reach for my right jeans pocket first
Giving the impression that I've lost my money
I have lost some of it
A Quarter
Lying on a yellow stripe in the parking lot
Weighting down a single fluttering strip of torn paper
Like a dying butterfly
With my mother's handwriting on it.
vistas
of food all around me
The shelves are so stinking tall
That I cannot reach my favorite cereal
Cap'n Crunch
I think that stinks
My money, greasy bills, sweaty palm-scented coins
Is all balled up in my left jeans pocket
I will reach for my right jeans pocket first
Giving the impression that I've lost my money
I have lost some of it
A Quarter
Lying on a yellow stripe in the parking lot
Weighting down a single fluttering strip of torn paper
Like a dying butterfly
With my mother's handwriting on it.
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