Category: Poetry

Alignment

after the party last night
we sat on your couch
and you leaned back into me
my arms around you
yours reaching back stroking my hair
I will be away for a few days
and not see you again for a week
and I was already longing for you
and you said, I will miss you also
and my heart got so big
I thought it might burst
and your hand resting gently on my leg
the kiss you gave my palm
your body leaning against mine
all said the same

my inside and outside
don’t always align
I seem some days to say things
that I know I don’t mean exactly
even as I say them
and the greatest gift you give me
is letting me re-align my thought
so that it does, as best words can,
reflect my inner state

in the times I am absent from you
I long for this alignment
inner and outer
touch and thought
heart and mind
heart and fingertips
breath and blankets
silence and darkness and the warmth
of your leg over mine
your heat pressed to my thigh

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Taking Care

You take a photo
of me using
woodworking tools
to take old polish
off your toenails

You can’t reach them
for the splint
my heart is so full
that you let me be
so intimate

helping you shower
rewrapping your splint
bringing you supper in bed
I don’t need lovemaking
when I have this

I know how it isn’t easy
for you to let me
take care of you
support you
enfold you

I take you to work;
at home, folding your clothes
to put in your space
in my closet
my eyes spill over

you said last night
a pillow away
that you love seeing
how every week
people give me things

how they, and you,
all see that I am
better than I feel
I text you
that I’m a silly old man

and go back to putting away
the parts of you
that you leave with me
to be cared for
and cherished

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Longing

You are coming to see me
today
and while I wait
I long for her and her too
such a confused and glorious
life-fullness

your love from so long ago
that we weren’t even grown
their loves from now
all mingled moment to moment
triple-longing

without any way to reconcile this
into one simple thing
I long for that also
the life I tried on
which didn’t fit
one love at a time

the nights I sleep alone
I dream of what seems impossible
waking up with all of you
but I have learned
not to tell the Universe
something isn’t possible

She will laugh at you

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Identity

I ask you
if you would say my name more
with your skin to mine

you whisper in my ear
and my heart unfolds

It’s a little thing
and asking has made me
feel ashamedly needy

then you say my name
again

the way you touch me
gently

the way you look at me
half-open eyes

I long to plunge
into the depths
your love opens

and I am afraid
old fears that really
are not of you

and so I reach out
and with my fingertips
slide along your shoulder

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crossed wires

it seems way too easy
to not hear the intent
but just the words

it seems way too often
that I miss a cue
and feel cut off

it seems like yesterday
that the other shoe
always dropped

waiting for the explosion
that no longer comes
I have to rewire a lifetime of trauma

one wire at a time
but once started
radiance persists

your face and eyes
and yours and yours
smiling in kindness

my heart melts

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Constant Background

I carry all of you
with me everywhere.
One of you said:
doesn’t it get crowded
in your head that way?
Every love fits
nestled together, not Russian dolls
one shell in the other,
but more like spooning;
whoever is physically there
to the foreground
but the rest never absent.
Trembling, I recall
the last time I held a particular
body, kissed a particular
breast or shoulder,
my heart expanding always;
I doubt there is a limit
to the space in it
one love reinforcing, incorporating,
revealing another;
my demons all the more apparent
for each time they rear up
multiplied by all the instances
of jealousy and pettiness
and each of you, seeing my smallness
kisses my back more gently
than I could ever imagine
joy running down my cheeks.
How could it be otherwise?

 

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Wilderness

Bleak landscapes file past the windows
as the sun lowers toward the horizon ahead
sand, tumbleweeds, creosote bushes, cactus
the lights of oncoming trucks temporarily blinding
endlessly varied landscape, shifting colors
of brown, green, grey, violet, bushes bursting with bloom
after an unexpected rain, the desert odors of wetness
blowing in through the opened windows
coolness relieving the long day of driving.
It would be too easy and entirely trite
to try to make this place and time
some kind of metaphor for my life, or anyone’s.
The surface impressions are only that anyway.
Knowing the ecosystem, were I to spend any time
in real observation, there would be the countless
moments of carnivorous action or desiccation
death and life, prey and predator.
Some would make that a metaphor as well,
but the interconnectedness of life in any system
is too complex to be reduced.
No, if there is an image here
it is the solitary driver passing through
aware and unaware of the surroundings
knowing some intellectually, some sensually,
some by inference, some through previous encounter,
some only through trust in mystery.
Desert is not the metaphor, but passage
transition, transformation; because no encounter with raw desert
leaves anyone, no matter how insulated, unscathed.
Bugs fly in and splatter on the rear inside window.
The dryness invades all, chapping lips and shriveling sinuses.
We leave wilderness parched and desolate.
If we choose to leave:
We might remain for love of desolation
or love of what took us into wildness
or simply love without reason, unremitting, inescapable.
Some wilderness is of our own making,
but once made, is the only real choice.
Love’s wilderness, wild and abandoned, blooms unexpectedly
flowers opening into fullness where hope had withered,
life returning from life, senses saturated, hearts thankful.
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Shooting

I saw a photo today
of a female police officer
cradling the head of a man
 who had been shot
in London
his blood staining the pavement around him.
I don’t know if he was dying
I hope not
but if so, bless that woman
who had the bravery to cradle his head
when none of his loved ones were near.
Our aloneness terrifies us
most of us will do almost anything
even things we know are harmful to ourselves
to keep from facing
that aloneness.
I hope that instead
we can find solitude-
the place where strength is given,
where life is renewed;
and maybe if more of us do this
and teach others how to find that place
there won’t need to be as many
brave police women
cradling the head of a man
whose lifes-blood runs into the street.
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Comfort

Sometimes it’s only a simple human connection

head on shoulder, gentle touch

reassurance

Sometimes it’s knowing there is an ear

and heart, and shared pain

listening

Fear keeps us at a distance

but light breaks through

against our will even

Tears come unbidden

not always unwelcome

clearing paths in the heart

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Threes

We sat at my table late at night
talking about your other lover
your assessment of where you are in his heart.
I cried a little for your thought that his priorities had shifted
that the events of life had moved him away a bit.
I didn’t cry because of me
because I inexplicably find myself not jealous, not hurt
but hurting for your ache for him.
Crying, it’s what I do these days.
Joy, grief, it’s all mixed together.
I cried also because sitting with you
in the candlelight talking about another man in your life
brings me such joy that my heart overflows.
If you had told me this even three months ago I would have laughed.
I hope you know that whatever is happening with anyone else
you are now a fixture in my heart.
Your smile is an arch leading into another room of the heart
Unknown before this moment.
Whenever you meet my gaze that door opens and floods come out.
Life is amazing.
I want to be able to say equally: joy, it’s what I do.
Smiling at you, it’s what I do. Touching your face with my palm
it’s what I do.
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