2.6 Now Here
Hurtling through infinity
black as light’s leaving
it strives to arrive
on time and in fashion
but those of us who sit
and pray grow weary
in this garden of light
eyes straining for boundary
made indecipherable
by glare and gleam
and you are nowhere.
###
2.7 Deteriorata
Your silence fills my mindspace
packing my ears with wax
and sealing the night’s end
a deaf bickering match
over dessert unplanned
but not unrehearsed
where no one can win
but those who wish us ill
and their ilk
and tomorrow
will begin with fresh hurt
and new reasons
for silence when so many words
are dying to be spoken
waiting to go unheard.
###
2.8 A Poem Without Looking
Forced merriment for your sake
breaks my back and shoulders
with want for silence
and a single cool glass
filled three quarters
full of water and one quarter
with ice and in my country
where I don’t scream at you
until my throat fragments
and you don’t insist on being constant
in your vigilance of feeling
that is not too much to ask.
###
2.9 Tarot
The seven of swords
tell me to take
a higher road than he
who lives in same scarcity
while the time is right
for whatever plans
a man at my junction
is supposed to have
and yet even with
a lifetime of choices behind
and nothing but an open field
leading me to a mountain
blue with the glow of success
I shuffle the possibilities
under the table
and hope no one needs
to consult my cards
until I find the Fool.
###
2.10 Ditty
Perhaps mine to envy
to study and to paint
to measure against the present
and to weigh against the fade
but never mine to hold
to hear a heartbeat fast
to make a life inside of
Now you’re only in the past.
###
2.11 For Robb
It’s something about your eyes
the way they gleam
when you’re amused
the crinkles at the corner
and those cheeks
that I can’t always see
because your hands
are over them with fingers
in your nose
and your feet padding in place
It’s something about your shoes
warm and loose
and tucked right nearby
when I just need to run out
to grab the mail
or toss the trash
that makes me feel
like curling up in your lap
and staying there forever
It’s something about your shape
strong and stable
with just enough here
and not too much there
something to hug and to bump against
when words just won’t do
and which makes you look killer
in a pair of jeans
and a backpack
and that sparkle in your eyes.
###
2.12 Miscommunicate
Gloaming glaring catch
of language not delivered
like it was received
each skip a greater bump until
we’re sailing through intersections
barely missing each other
head on and all you can do
is clam up and look at me
as if I’m the one
who has the problem here.
###
2.13 Tremulo
Scissors’ snick
and shearing chill
though BTUs are high
this afternoon an early gift
from sky and sun remote
and I
am transformed from shell
to shell
as if godmother in her blue
and pink
waved it so
instead of planning and pondering
nights without sleep
and you next to me
making sounds you never
make awake.
###
2.14 Valentine
A Saint without a mantle
his own tossed aside
a conglomeration of hearts
and dried petals blown from
who knows everywhere
and this scrap of card leftover
the only thing to make him smile
as if greatest treasure found
in this rubbish heap
were not still out there
waiting on discovery
and an attempt at happiness
today
when I never did despair
another year.
###
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