Follow Through - a love poem

How do I write about something else,

when all that enthralls my mind are thoughts of you.

As you are away visiting family for holidays

I am constantly thinking on what that first moment

will be like when I get to see you again. How wonderful

it will be to get to collect you up in my arms,

twirling you around like we are in the middle of a rom-com

but with a more satisfying ending, and one that stretches

into infinity. How is it you could touch my life

so completely, me, who had guarded myself, and shut off

all possibilities of finding love, but immediately

realizing that you were too perfect to let slide by. I have

never been more happy for being weak in my resolve

I could have easily said nope, the odds are against me,

but every word you typed, and said, every smile spread,

scrunched nose smile created I was mesmerized,

my soul pierced with your beauty, and your intelligence,

I fell into your adoration, and gave you all of mine,

and it has never, never ceased to amaze me, how doubt

is never a word considered when it comes to fantasizing

about our future. I know me, I know my devotion, my loyalty,

my joy, and my stubbornness, and I know I can follow through

to the futures that I dream up, futures

that I dream up,

with you.

DISTANCE SONG - a poem/song with audio

Distance Song

VERSE 1:

Airport, baggage claim chute

a return place for our meet-cute.

the place that return lovers,

who rush each other,

to embrace one another.

CHORUS:

And I’ll say: Katie, Katie, I love you.

Don’t let the sun go down on us tonight,

Lead us home with your guiding light

Where I’ll say: Katie, Katie, I love you.

VERSE 2:

Wonderful you’re thinking on me

thinking of where we will be:

in one month or two months,

or one year or two years,

and so on and so on and so forth.

CHORUS:

And I’ll say: Katie, Katie, I love you.

Don’t let the sun go down on us tonight,

lead us home with your guiding light

Where I’ll say: Katie, Katie, I love you.

VERSE 3:

When you cry, I cry too

and when you laugh I’m laughing with you

To know your heart is as full as mine

and all great things will come in time

Through plane rides, and car rides,

and bus rides

I’ll always feel you inside.

CHORUS:

And I’ll say: Katie, Katie, I love you.

Don’t let the sun go down on us tonight,

bring us home with your guiding light.

Where you’ll say: Oh I love, you, too.

Male Assumptions - a micro-fiction (strong language)

The belligerent boy, named Warren, stopped his verbal assault on his best girl friend, and asked her if she was okay. He had been upset when he suggested that they sleep together, and she had been disgusted at the suggestion. He was offended that she would even think it odd, or awful that she wouldn't want to sleep with him. And, he didn't understand. Surely she had slept with his other friends, two or three of them, but two for sure and he didn't get why she shouldn't also sleep with him. After all, he was the nicest out of all of them, had been by her side so long, and knew all of her deepest secrets and harshest fears. So, why shouldn't she sleep with him too, at the very least he'd treat her better than the others.

Then she laughed, and then when he asked why not, not just once but six times and pestered her, then she got mad, he thought it rather ridiculous of her to blow up on him, and her answer was barely sufficient, because all she said was, "Because I don't want to, you are my friend. I'm just not into you that way." He thought this rather heartless, as if she should have seen how much better he was, but he took it as a strike against his physicality, or her assumptions that he would make a poor lover. He got defensive, and he hollered, and he got self righteous, and he said, "If its just sex with them, why can't it just be sex with me?"

And she simply said it would change things. Warren laughed to himself, for so long he had heard the words of others, how sex could either be something or it couldn't, if you wanted it to mean nothing but the immediate pleasure, you could control that, surely you could, and of course he would with her, she was his best friend. "It won't change anything, we just get along so well, I mean, you slept with Kirk, and he treated you like shit. Why did you do that?"

She shrugged at him, and slouched back in her chair. For they had been sitting in a Starbucks, and what had started as a light discussion, had erupted into shouted whispers. "Is this what you've been hoping for since the start, have you been harboring these feelings for me the whole time, undressing me, and hoping I might touch you, or suck on you, or let you fuck me?" She stared him down, crossing her arms, raising an eyebrow, demanding an answer.

He scoffed, because he was lying, and he said, "Of course not, don't be silly."

Lesson - a poem

LESSON

It is strange to think that you fall into abyss and can't think of anything other than how you got there, and how that pigeon holds you into a certain idea of yourself.

That you know nothing else than what is beyond your grief, but hopefully that only lasts a moment, and doesn't extend out infinitely in a million unhealthy directions.

Be careful how you long for things, especially when you present that you have not had them, and then make declarations of free thinking, are your thoughts really a result of understanding and wanting to help or are they wrought with the need to get inside someones pants.

The abyss is wide, its tunnel vision, an echo chamber, where we bounce off our own thoughts on ourselves, and nod that yes i am feminist, yes i am progressive,

but what if you are not, what if the abyss has resulted in you only believing you are, because it is what you have been striving to be, but not where you are at yet, I say this is okay, for now,

but beware of your motivations, especially when depressed, when drinking, when angry, when anything that isn't your equilibrium because you expose yourself as a fraud, even if you are trying, be careful, on what you say as an ally, when just before you confessed to a need, and a want that seemed, rather too strong for the conversations at hand.

Do not despair your role in the abyss for I have suffered from loneliness before, but know that you are what you think, and you need to think different, not just speak it,

You need to look on your past and learn what you did wrong, and how to grow but don't ever assume that you are above the fallacies of bad men, because you may not be,

but to acknowledge how you grew, and how you learned, is not a weakness, some may abandon you but to say, I was never perfect, and am still capable of learning when i overstep,

and will not assume my new wave of thinking is the new way of thinking, and beware of friends who reinforce those things that are ill informed within you.

It is strange to fall into the abyss and lose your way in the name of progress but we all do it, and we get no where of assuming only the other person is capable of peddling bullshit. Look inward,
while you sit in an abyss,

look unaware, and grow, because we all of us grow, and are never just, grown.

An Order of Things - a flash fiction

An Order of Things

Gerald felt rather ashamed that he couldn't come up with a good name for his dog. It was a chocolate lab, an elderly dog, "on its last leg" as the humane society volunteer had noted, and Gerald had felt an immediate desire to give the dog a good final week, month or year. He had paid the fees, signed the papers and brought the dog home. Howard, his roommate, had felt rather betrayed at the idea that Gerald would bring home an elderly dog.

"You know my cat Sweeney had just passed away," Howard had said.

"I do." Gerald responded. He led the chocolate lab across the small two bedroom apartment, and let the dog get acquainted with the softness of his bed. Gerald could tell that the old animal had spent some time in a human bed before. He walked around in circles, prodding each of his four paws into the comforter before laying down slowly, with a deep and grateful sigh. The dog fell asleep.

"He's sleeping like a baby in there." Gerald told Howard as he came back out into the shared dining space.

"I can't believe you'd bring a already dead in the ground mutt like that here." Howard wrote bitterly in his physics notebook, a page from his jack-priced textbook sitting open in front of him. His eyes had met Gerald's only once before glancing back down at his pages.

"No one was going to adopt him." Gerald had approached the table, gesturing toward the bedroom even though Howard was paying him no mind and wouldn't have seen the direction of Gerald's hands. Gerald wiped his palm down his mouth, as if to give himself a fresh set of words, and then pulled a chair down and sat. "Why are you so upset about this?"

"I'm not. Not in the grand scheme of things." Howard tried to keep his eyes down on the page where his pencil lead scribbled out notes of mass, and velocity or what Gerald had thought were mass and velocity. It was all foreign language to him.

"You just barked at me, the second I walked in the door," Gerald said, his head tilted to the side trying to capture the top of Howard's eyeline, Howard looked up, Gerald continued, "So your cat died. Cats die. Dogs die. He doesn't deserve to rot in that jail cell."

Howard shook his head a moment, he scoffed a second, and turned his attention back down to his ruled paper pages, and set himself to start writing. He tapped his pencil twice against the sheets and tossed his pencil onto the table over his notebook in defeat. "Okay. Gerry."

Gerald sat back in his seat and waited for the onslaught of emotions.

Howard took a deep breath, pinched the bride of his nose, and obliged Gerald with a tirade:

"When Sweeney got hit by that truck, I nearly lost it. He was a young and vibrant animal. A saint. Sure, he pissed in your plants, and liked to track cat litter onto the counter tops, but that was part of his charm. I just, I see him all over, and now you bring a dog here. An emotional needy stray who needs our love as he passes on. It's like were a hospice for canines. After this one, you're going to want to bring another one in. I can't handle all of that death in this place, not right now. Do it on your own time. Let them die with you alone, without me."

Gerald sat back in his chair. He nodded in contemplation to the words Howard had spoken and he said in response, "Wow. Howie, you are one selfish son of a bitch."

Anxiety & ADD Tea - a poem

do you hear slow hums that attract attentions of worker bees
so that a buzz goes along with a hum and a drum comes to bang
beats out against ears that are softened to sounds of conundrums
how the hum-buzz-drum bangs at edges of brain space as if fluid
inside conducted sound to pressurize messages out but multitudes
of hands are collecting it as it leaves to drift endlessly into open airs.
do you, ever think, and answer is, yes, often ever thinking is the cause
of pains that come with busy bees, humming, drumming, and other preposterous
predicaments of overactive minds, even when shortly ago smiles
were plastered on face, smallest twig added to piles of kindling
may fester the humming to become more similar to strumming secluded
to nearest receiver in ear canal, not in tune to drummer beating
but guitar bass, botched as though garage band enthusiast forgot lessons
may have been needed to fulfill criteria of playing, and so accompanied
by a warbling soprano who reaches two notes to high to sing. High-pitched
notes, humming along inside your head, with busy bees buzzing, angry
drummers drumming and strums of bass guitar too quick, or too slow
but never right speeds, and warring soprano, battling to reach sky clouds
beyond rims of outer space. Outer spaces, devoid of sound, and nothing
was ever causing madness inside your brain that was right in front of you,
but rather just yourself, sitting in a puddle of half thoughts, that all want attention
and if one can picture non-music of that place, one might consider themselves
able to understand money-less street performance that goes on behind
closed doors of minds eye, windows to brain matter exploding with over-activity,
that can be silenced, but may just need to let out. Brace oneself for explosion
because it will come but it is not directed at anyone, but just a way to release,
like a tire too full, or a balloon too full, or a bowel too full, and as cup
of tea is jostled too and fro it will spill over onto floor and on neighbor shirts
but once reaching its destination will be fairly full, full just right, full
enough to leave room for cream and sugar, and that is where you want your
mind to be.

Rejected Arguments - a poem

REJECTED ARGUMENTS

If the brutish fish fights the quality control of his stream,
then, will we even bother to ponder the idea that we destroyed
the hope that it had, as salmon seeks to spawn, seeking only
to continue the reign of its species, delayed, detracted, destroyed,
because we couldn't care to stop the world from warming
and didn't bother to turn the thermostat down.

If the penguins all went on strike, in their fancy little business
suits, and were bothered to ooo and aww at their waddles,
would we be more inclined to turn off the water, what if seals
agreed to never eat another emperor again, and polar bears vowed
never to feed on another flightless bird, maybe then we could
bother to take a log off the fire place.

If the spaghetti fingers of sea anemones in the great coral
reefs could bother to grip our wrists and clown fish demand
some answers for what we had done, would be be more inclined
to stop our bomb drops, our factory farms, could we be bothered
to consider that maybe the coral reef growing chalkier might
be reason for alarm.

If human beings were relegated to drift on a piece of iceberg,
a life-raft-glacier that kept them out of freezing waters, but reduced
in size as the sun beat down, and the waters got warmer
because the currents got hottter, would we be inclined to surrender
our automobiles, our jet plane flights, our factory emissions,
would it help us to be floating fatally over a family of starving sharks,
or maybe we'd be more inclined if in addition to floating our hands
were bound with plastic pop can rings, and Pringles cans secured
our hands.

If by some chance we had to carry the product of our carelessness
on our shoulders as we struggled to swim away from dangers,
we might be left to consider that maybe we should have approached
the problem a little differently. Or maybe we would be content to close
our eyes, and swim, and hope for the best, with a thought
and with a prayer.

Appreciation - a poem

sometimes my language trips me up,
as a million thoughts stream out of my mouth
at any given time and the sky is thunder-struck
to open, and there you are, all beautiful and strong
and my words a mumble of incoherent babble
that i hope expresses in some fashion the way
i feel when i'm with you.

the way your dancing catches my eye
and guides me over to you and your eyes
and how they delight in the movements
that seem to come second-nature, like a language
studied, and you fluent and knowing
and there i am mumbling out something
sputtering out words, and trying to sway
to the beat, but you, you are fluent, and fluid
and your movement painted with concision
and I could swear i'd never appreciated dance
more than when i see you appreciating
dancing.

the way you say my name all sweet and delicate
and humorously depending on what the occasion
calls of it. and you call me, i pick up your phone call
and i anticipate, with a skipped breath, that hello
to come to me, unexpected in mornings, or evenings,
the way you chat with me until your ready to fall asleep
or before, when you want to catch up on your show,
and i'm thankful that i get to hear your voice
at all.

the way you touch my hand just because you want
to touch my hand, and draw circles with your fingers
over my fingers, and lay your palm on mine,
and nothing has felt more secure, more safe,
and the way your hand feels as i draw the circles and lay my
palm over yours, and give you my touches, and
how an embrace, full of both arms when i first see you
after not seeing you, and when seeing you guides
me to collect you up and hold you.

the way you dream of future possibilities,
the way you think of all the tomorrows
the way you aren't afraid to share with me the fears
in your heart, and the way you walk me out of my
own doubts and fears, and help me see the light
shining out of your green eyes,
the way you smile, at me, and stare
or when i stare and smile, and you say, what?
as though you don't know that I am in awe
with you.

the way towards our growing romance is lined with evergreens.
plants for all seasons, strong and withstanding the changing
and passing of the seasons, underneath the minor disagreements,
and the passionate heartfelt hopes, there is a foundation
of communications, where we opened our ears, and opened our mouths
and spoke deep, and listened well, and took a moment
to ponder what we, each other, you and i had wanted and said
yes, yes I truly madly deeply want that too.

the way you are impossibly perfect for me,
and the way you say i am perfect for you,
and the ways that each new weekend,
each new moment of clarification sprouts forth
another branch to hang our memories,
and our affections.

sometimes my language trips me up,
but you guide my words thru funnel into your heart
and you let me use them and refine them and speak
my language to you. my fluency in rhythms, and sounds
to highlight that which might sweep your feet,
and i am happily devoted to you,
endlessly devoted to you, taking great pains
to let you know, what your happiness
means to me, my sweet, sweet, beautiful
priority.

Debates Before Dinner - A Micro Fiction

Debates Before Dinner

Roger felt the urge to tell Amelia that she was wrong, but he kept his mouth shut. He turned the steering wheel, his hands firmly at ten and two, and arrived in his driveway. There was a tension in the air as Amelia waited for his response, but he didn't say anything. He wondered if she'd stay that way until he said what he was thinking, but she didn't.

"What do you want to do then?"

Roger didn't think the question was quite that innocent, after all they had just come out of argument on where to send their four year old for kindergarten, and while Roger felt a private school could award their son with a better education, Amelia felt it would alienate the child from diverse experience.

"I don't know what I want for dinner. You obviously don't want Italian, again, and that was my choice, but you didn't sound to sure that's what you wanted." Roger took a breath realizing he had unloaded his response in one breath, without any air to consider his tone, he was sure had come off rather rash, and abrupt.

"I didn't say I didn't want it, again, but you're right, having it, again, would be too soon. You know how your stomach gets when you eat pasta, you have a gluten intolerance."

"I do not have a gluten intolerance." Roger realized he sounded more defensive than he had meant to and he didn't one-hundred percent believe his own statement, he shook his head and took a deep breath, "Let's just do what you want to do?"

"You always pass it off to me. You always want me to make the choice for you."

"Because," Roger stopped, closed his eyes, considered his answer and said, "You will end up making it anyways, I said Italian, you said we already had that, which is fine, though I don't think there's a rule about eating the same thing two days in a row. I said I wanted to sent Walt to that private school uptown and you said you didn't like the atmosphere, so."

Amelia unbuckled her seat belt midway through Rogers rant in anticipation of her retort, she turned her body to face him, "Wait, when did this come back to Walt. You said you didn't mind sending him to public school."

"We aren't talking about that, I just meant it as an example, like lets just talk about dinner." Roger unbuckled his seat belt and went to open his door to leave.

"We weren't talking about that, but apparently its all, connected." Amelia wiggled her fingers in the air to emphasize the magical implications of connectedness. "So, we may have been talking about dinner, and not getting Italian food, again, but apparently we now are talking about Walt."

"You think just because you took an education class in college, and learned the dangers of charter schools, and their segregation, implications, or racism or whatever, that you know all about every single one of them, but the truth is, whether we like it or not public education is gutted, its dead, dying, gone. It doesn't award the same opportunity."

"Oh my god. That's why."

"What?"

"Because of people like you," She sits back with mouth agape, "Because people like you abandon it, shut it out, adopt the bullshit, because of people like you."

Roger scoffs to himself at his wife's absurdity, "I'm not the bad guy here. I just want our kid to have all the opportunities he can have."

"And i don't? You're so full of shit Roger." Amelia lets out an exasperated sigh as Roger stares stoically ahead, she opens her door, eyes still locked on him and steps out of the car. She slams her passenger door and opens the back door.

She leans in and unbuckles little Walt's seat belt and takes him out. "Come on sweetie, lets get you cleaned up."

"Hey don't forget his blanket," Roger says as he opens his door. "You know how he gets without it."
She keeps walking toward the front door, and Roger opens the door to the back seat and collects the knitted blue blanket his mother had made for their son.

He shuts the back door.

And follows them into their home.

Figure 8's, I Figure Infinitely of Thoughts of You - a poem

There is a quality

a quality in people

a quality in them

that quality

of humbleness that illuminates the park benches and makes the trek across that frozen grass that much more bearable

that quality i speak

that i spoke out loud

and have spoken in droves about

well her quality is graceful, humbling how easy it is just to listen, and to offer interests in the interests of your lovelies,

Speaking of that lovely,

or what love can do for the speaker

and love can continue to perform

speaking of love

it is is splendid to wear ice skates and draw figure eights in the ice, and demonstrate how i feel infinity across that glacier earth

seems often silly to love so deeply

how giggles come out because of silliness

how that passage of silly

is written in the scrunch of your nose

how the serious looks you have as you write notes down on devices, and knowing that same focused face will scrunch nose and laugh with silly voices at silly voices

and voices that are not silly

voices that are a bit more serious

with know how and seriousness

and growing ever more appropriate for the seriousness that I feel to give to you,

to love the way you smile,

and give off the love of a smile,

and to smile the love of a smile,

and see it and interpret it and get it so well,

a well deep and fruitfully full of water, that swells up and sustains me, and I wonder why I never felt this full of life giving before I met you

it seems my writing is littered with interpretations,

and explanations,

and exaggerations and not

and just about you,

those qualities spoken as lovely words so serious-silly, and scrunch noses

and all of you,

and all of me

and seeing the road clearly from here,

and the illuminated benches for us to sit on,

and my illuminated shoulders for you to rest your

head on,

and,

to be continued....

Secret Words - a poem

If I told you about her, you might not believe
me. How she stole my heart, but not exactly
because I had gifted it to her enshrouded
in bubble wrap. I could tell you how complete
she makes me feel, as though I were missing
a shark bite sized chunk out of my abdomen
but that she perfectly fills in anytime she is near
me. If I told you all of that you wouldn't believe
me. If I told you that I was just a boy standing
in front of a girl, and other cringe worthy lines
I don't think you'd stand for that sort of cheesi-
ness, but if I told you that the scrunch of her nose
when she's laughing makes my heart melt, as though
it's been set inside a brick oven and reduced
to a gurgling pile of mush, maybe you might possibly
perhaps believe what I feel. If the starlight was yellow
shining on just for her, as though the cosmos mistook
all the other peoples for pieces in the game of her existence
you might consider me a little bananas. If the truth that wise
men tell, about fools falling for each other in a speed course,
you might perchance venture a word of caution, but you need
not do that.

If I could find the words to encompass the sky-high feels
that embed themselves in my bones, I would have no more use
for poetry, or for prose, and letters would become
doodles done by fools. If I knew those words, I'd say them out loud
but then I'd have no where to go. These lines would be blank pages
because I would have found the perfect line, the perfect phrase,
to describe her beauty, her heart, her smarts, her drive.
This is why I do not search for the perfect word,
I do not see that as a goal worthy of pursuit, because I have so many
options to choose from as I try to form the meaning of my heart
out of what letters I have, of what understanding that I know.

If I told the masses through megaphone that blasted the news
headlong into the past and future, and littered the present,
the masses may hush me, I may bother them with my constant
lines of affections, and that would be fine, I do not announce
my feelings for them, I announce them for her, the priority
of my heart, the first and last thoughts before my eyes go to sleep,
the subject of my happiest dreams, I do not announce how I feel
for the people whose cynicism curses the head in the cloud lovers,
I announce them for her, that she should never wonder what she means
to me, and that meaning should not be lost, because to me she is breath,
the slightest inhale, the sharpest exhale, or vice and versa, and so
on and so forth, with an ellipsis, with a to be continued, with a next time
on this show of ours, this life, set up for the sequel, and as each plot
turn of this romance emerges, I will feign shock that my affections
could grow, because I knew they would go, to sky-limits, to heights beyond
clouds, to the farthest ventures that human kind can muster.

If I told them about her,
I might say that she is a woman,
and all that that entails, all that strength,
and drive, and badassery,
she is woman,
driven, divine, dreaming
and she chose to call me
hers. 

If I told that to you, you might cry, and you might smile, you might
cry-smile, and the amount of joyful tears you can drop drop and plop
onto the garden of my heart would grow my adoration exponentially
because there is no where I'd rather be,
than exactly where I am,
planning futures with you.

My First Plane Ride - A poem

Ascent:

plane taxied out on runway
and my heart beat fists against
inside of my chest. you took
my hand, to still it, as it drew
circles on your knee. tried to hide
my panicked tendencies, but of course
you saw through them, because honesty
is best policy and I hard shared
my paranoia with you.

plane drove around slowly,
like a traveler turning around
in a driveway because they'd missed
their stop. you playfully kept
looking at me, seeing how I was doing
kept asking me, how I was doing
and I kept saying I was fine. Mostly
truth, but still my heart kept
drumming in rhythms of distress.

pilot came over intercom said,
he had to get ice off the wings,
we weren't even going off yet,
so many false starts to take off
that my nerves got bored waiting.
you asked me again, if I was okay
and i said, yes, mostly more truth
now, subsiding as splashes of water
hit outside of metal box.

then into position. increase in speed,
throttle forward, raising to invisible
spaces on outside of metal tube,
headlong into,
air, airborne, nose angled upwards
and away, up, up, climbing til
stabilized, and not so bad. you took
my hand and you asked me, if i was okay.
I said, not so bad.

yawn now, you told me, i did, but it was a breath
as though I'd forgotten how to be tired,
so i had to try again, small pop in my left
ear, but right ear didn't cooperate,
once one yawn emitted, another had to come
and you caught in my infectious trademark
of tired beings, yawning back at me.

we stabilized, we centered,
and we flew onward.

Descent:

On approach, dip in the plane,
angling down, roller coaster at its peak
height, open window across aisle revealed
Boston, Mass, far off background character
to the box i resided in and you said
look its Boston, and I looked, and level
plane banked and disoriented itself
and my stomach said weeeee
and my brain scrambled and I pinched fingers
at my temple.

You rubbed hand on my shoulder,
and it calmed me a bit, and you said look
its the ocean, and I looked out window,
same one, same one across aisle,
and I saw the ocean, Atlantic, for first
time and then plane banked again
and i audibly begroaned this disorientation
as it spazzed through my brain matter
feeling i could spill my self into the aisle
and roll around a little and wait
for feeling to pass.

I didn't have to do this. You leaned in
close to my ear, and you sang to me
in whispered little voices, and calmed
me with your voice, with hand on my shoulder
and you sang us down to the earth
literally, you sang me down to earth,
and we landed and we began
and I realized for the 101st time
how much you meant to me
and what power you had inside of you

because you sang from the sky,
caught my wandering balloon strings
and tethered me to you as you space
walked me back to ground.

Beautiful Coffee - a prose poem

Beautiful Coffee

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" He said it to her with such confidence, in such a way that meant that it was on solid foundation. The foundation of stones, and bricks, and mortar. But, it was out of the blue, out of nowhere, out of sync with the moment at hand, and she turned to him and she said, "What's beautiful?"

He looked into her green eyes, level with his own, and if he admitted it, maybe slightly higher than his. And maybe if he admitted he might have been closer to five-six than five-seven, but they were very nearly there, and he looked, and he said, "Us." She smiled broadly and stared out into the spaces outside the cafe windows, and she nodded as though the universe had made the statement, as though the universe were staring at her through her barely there reflection in the window that overlooked the street. She nodded and said, "Yes, yes, that is beautiful."

She turned her eyes to look at him, and she said it first, she said it next, and she said it full of affection-confidence, "You're beautiful." And he became flushed, and he blushed, he looked out the window of the cafe, and saw his barely-there reflection and he saw the broad and full smile on his face, and he felt the emotional weight of her love. A love that made him visibly alive with a glow that he didn't think he could possess. He dropped his eyes, and he smiled knowing that he wore that face, and he looked at her, and he showed her his smile, and his watery eyes, and he said to her,

"Thank-you."

Inktober 30 and 31 - A brief speed round of Poetry

#30 - Catch

isn't that what they say when you meet the love of your life,
oh he's a catch, oh she's a catch, oh they're a catch,
is that what they say, that you caught them, snagged them?

that is the implication, that somehow beyond all possible struggle
you're lure and hook got so they were perfect for capturing
the fish, i mean the guy, i mean the girl, i mean them, you got
your hooks in.

isn't that a little too violent, isn't that a little to morbid,
isn't that a little too strong.

i prefer to think we were bird watching birds, and we had calculated
beyond reasonable doubts that this new species we spied over yonder
in distant nest was the one we were keen to see. so we fluttered
as birds do, and we glided as birds do, not knowing that we were
each of us seeking out the other, and then we perched our selves on the same branch,
and we saw that our colors matched, and that our temperaments
were comparable, then decided we didn't need to go and seek out
the perfect bird over the way,

that is more the catch i want to have,
when the way over there one, was the one
right in front of me one, and vice,
and versa.

#31 - Ripe
that's what this fruit is,
is, is,
ripe, the fruit is that what it is
and that is ripe fruit is what it is.

suspect, simplistic, sordid,
sarcastic, scholastic,
bombastic, bombarded,
combatant,

that's what it wasn't, the fruit, isn't
ripe, it isn't is ripe, but it is is not
ripe, and then

historiography, masculinity,
toxic, tragic, childish,
games with little fingers,
that can't please anyone

that's not what im saying, but what im saying is
ripe isn't the word but it is what this was but is not
is what it isn't or will be,

memoirs and autobiographies
essay outlines, and pissing down
pants legs, drudge up scenarios,
shoot the shit,
that's what it is

ripe.

InkTober 2019 19 - 29 (Another Speed Round of Poetry)

19. SLING

are we talking about the kind,

are we talking about the type,

the ones used for injuries

the ones used for injuring

the ones that might fell giants

or the ones that might mend bones

there's a laundry list of things

that do much harm and much good.

20. TREAD

tires move over roads with the aid of grips

on the outsides of bodies, that latch

onto roads, with aid of motors, and gadgets,

gears, and engines,

combustion and exhaust.

we move forward with aid of feet,

muscles and tendons, and all that animation

gear, that helps us move a step

at a time, and lets us watch, a step

at a time, and our destination,

it maybe be far, and our destination,

it may be near, but our tread is wearing down.

we need to rejuvenate,

reboot sometimes, need to find a moment

of rest, and reprise the trek when we can,

we need to revitalize our worn

wheels, need to rotate our tires,

need to commandeer our steering wheels.

21.  TREASURE

If I had to place a word on it I wouldn't call it treasure,

its not something I plundered from the bottom of the ocean

deep. If I had to place a word on it, I wouldn't place it on

it at all. The words would surround it, and their baselines

would follow all around its edges, it'd permeate through it

not damaging, but like osmosis, symbiotically. If I had to put

a word on it, it wouldn't be called treasure, you are not a treasure,

this love is not a treasure, it is a gift given by you.

22.  GHOST

yeah I have my demons,

they exist in that closet over there by my skeletons

once in awhile I peak in on them

other times they let me know they are still there.

yeah I have my ghosts,

that haunt me from daybreak to sundown, and wish

me ill health. I don't try to focus to much on them,

because they knew me as I was then,

as I was when: heartbreak, jealousy, depression, prevailed.

yeah, they are there.

yeah I have that room,

that hole in my pocket, that when hand is reached inside

seems to fall down forever, but I also

have a large sunrise illuminating my world, my outsides,

and I have no room to linger there,

I'll heed the warning, and caution signs

of transgressions, because we all transgress,

yeah we all transgress,

it matters more that you're willing to see you have,

that your willing to learn a little something

from those you hurt and who hurt you,

and see if you can narrate your own story.

yeah,

I got those,

but im so much more than my

ghosts.

23. ANCIENT

America isn't,

old enough to drink,

isn't old enough to drive,

isn't old enough to smoke,

isn't old enough to purchase lottery ticket,

isn't old enough to travel alone,

is old enough to know better

is old enough to learn

is old enough to mentor

is old enough to grow

but doesn't.

24. DIZZY

Ever play that game?

Place your forehead on the bat,

keep the bat vertical in the dirt

and spin around a bunch,

running around in a little circle

and run off into weeds,

stumbling as you try to dart

across lawn,

and tripping over yourself.

I wonder if that's what he does

in oval office,

in office chair, and then makes

a call to Ukraine, China,

wonder if he's dizzy,

and stumbling through

makes sense. 

Works for children,

not for presidents.

25. TASTY

Some flavors have no name,

they exist in a blank place

we can describe them some ways,

but we know they are inaccurate,

and sometimes they don't have a flavor

which is why they have no name,

but we know they taste good

and we know we want more of them

and we know because we've had our fill

and those flavors never fill us up.

26. DARK

It's what happens when the lights go out

in the middle of the night

and when no one is there to hold you.

27. COAT

I want to wear your love over me like a coat of armor,

I want to march into battle with essays, and video projects

and tire issues, and I want to know that you'll protect me.

I want to wear your love like a lab coat,

something that'll keep all the poisonous thoughts off of my self,

and will build my confidence in my position.

I want to wear your love like a winter coat,

like a thick and warm parka, that insulates me against the bitter stings

of distance, and makes jealousy obsolete,

I want to wear your love like a coat,

maybe a light jacket, that softly touches my neck,

and kisses, "I adore you."

28. RIDE

i think i'll fondly be able to recall our first weeks together,

or months, because it involved so many rides,

it involved plane rides, and car rides, and train rides, 

and bus rides. I think I'll fondly remember

counting down minutes as GPS mumbles out in computer voices

in a quarter mile, in half a mile, in sixty-seven miles,

turn right, turn left, merge right, merge left, slight right,

and slightly onward it directed me. I think i'll fondly be able to see

in vivid details the sight of you meeting me,

at airport terminal, or bus terminal, or at your front door,

or in a meeting room. I will remember you rode shotgun back,

passenger seat, head on my shoulder, fingers atop mine, and singing

songs from DISNEY shows, and wondering,

how beautiful it is that you want me to ride

in airplanes with you.

29. INJURED

ambulances cost a lot of money they say,

so better for you to bleed out than pay to be saved,

ambulances cost a lot of money,

that's just a fact, hang up the phone,

use your thoughts and prayers,

and don't change a thing.

INKtober 2019: 11 - 18 (Speed Round of Poetry)

11: SNOW
Did you ever think to wonder what it might be like to torch the local ice cream store,
how you'd make sure no one was occupying it, and you'd light it on fire, and all those machines
that twirl and make the ice cream smooth and wondrous would grow overheated,
and may have cause to explode.
Logically, that might not make sense, but if so, if it were such a thing as that, and if no one
could get hurt, just think of the snowfall of vanilla that would blanket the perimeter, all those
droplets of chocolate, and green mint chocolate chip layered trees, think how superman
might cascade across telephone lines and a screen of bright colors would stretch-drop down to tippy-touch the ground.
Logically, it would not be like that, but think on it, think about it, but don't think of the mess,
melted along the sidewalks, in the middle of summer.


12: DRAGON
It is fortunate that the sky is crowded,
with clouds and airplanes, and birds feathering
together. It is fortunate that rain might
escape the sky, and lighting might thrash from it, it is
fortunate that the sky is filled with bird shit, and not
raining fire down below. But we can say that here,
snug tightly in our sweet united lines,
but there are other places where our dragons
send fireballs hurling, and the sky is not so much
crowded with clouds, and planes and birds,
but with bomb shit, that whistles down, or silently
falls, and often we have been the ones to unleash it
and what a shame it is, that we have such mystical
power that we don't seem to use it for good,
for what good is fire, if it kills as it warms.

13: ASH
I wrote a letter to a friend of mine,
but burned it right after,
I thought, why should they read my
thoughts when they can't ever take the time
to hear them. So I burned the letter
and swept the ashes onto the floor,
and swept the floor with a broom,
and I never wrote another letter.

14: OVERGROWN
This heart is a tangle of emotions, all zigzagging as they
crazy-climb up the sides of the muscle that gives me life,
that pumps my life through me.
This is overgrowth, this affection, but it is not like weeds,
although some might be appalled by the general tangle
of my emotions, this is not like weeds, this is like ripe vines,
shaping to the walls of their life, and stretching out about them.
I opened up the soil of my heart and said to her,
plant the seeds here, as long as you nurture them,
you can grow them here, and she did, and they grew, and
they are not weeds, this overgrowth, overgrown around me,
is  like sunset with lover constantly asking to speak sweet nothings,
it is like vines, it is like that.

15: LEGEND
It took me a moment to realize you were full of shit,
took me awhile to realize I ate it up,
so who is worst, the shit giver, or the shit eater,
for who lays claim more to societies invasive eye,
the stupid or the carnivorous.
Maybe I'll write it in a book, nope, I won't,
But its a curious thought. For who is it, and the answer is
who cares what the outside world might think. And
besides I left that behind, its just another
legend of mine.

16: WILD
I might be tempted to remind you that I am happy to follow the trajectory
of greatest smiles, for that is the shortest distance between being wanted and being needed,
it is wild to think that airport terminals are not just places in movies for people
to meet, and feel sparks fly. I've felt the anticipation of reality seeping into dreamscapes
and it caused me to duck for cover around wall of elevator, when I spotted you coming near,
and it caused me to know intuitively that I needed to feel lip to lip electricity,
and that you understood this, and that you understand this, is wild,
I feel the warmth returned when my feet get cold, and I turn my furnaces on full blast
and you still, you still return my fuel.

17: ORNAMENT
The ugliest christmas ornament,
is by far a cheetoh atop the christmas tree,
is by far a repugnant shit sack in oval office,
the ugliest christmas ornament has been
the one we've had going on 3 years now,
its time to pack it away, and put it out
with the trash where it belongs.

18: MISFIT
You ended your life,
this is a statement of fact,
maybe a statement of purpose,
maybe just a statement,
you ended your life.
You chose the when, the how,
maybe you chose the why,
but that implies the why was one thing,
the why was one thing, that is not a true
statement, we don't wake up,
and find out that the one thing has happened,
and decide to make our appointment with death,
its a whole shitlist of things,
you ended your life,
you ended your own life,
and to know that you had your reasons,
you had your whys, you had something
that was latched into your soul,
maybe its not there no more,
but neither are you, and that's something
you might have wanted, or maybe you thought
you wanted, but this has happened,
this is a statement of fact,
you ended your life.

I wish I'd known you back.

Anomaly - a poem

I never believed in fate.
I do not believe in fate,
I've witnessed enough rain droplets almost kiss
and then differentiate trajectory to send shock waves
that ripple outwards into the vast oceans of life.
But, then I saw it,
this dance of two droplets of differing speeds,
that graced each other as they twirled down,
and one with elegance matched its pitch to the other
unsure of itself as it careened to be a collection
of water as far as the eye could see. In steps improvised
to the rhythm of the winds the droplets synchronized
and somehow, beyond all possibility, met, and kissed,
and the trajectory was shared, and each kept its dimension,
but they were conjoined, so that even in slow motion,
one would see that they were altogether one but separate,
a tender embrace and when they pittered down in the way
rain drops patter, it wasn't so scary.
What else but fate could do that, but I don't believe in fate,
but I smile at the idea of it,
and I want to believe it, because I have witnessed something
impossible occur, an anomaly among the constants,
that proves that nature is not one-hundred percent
and it is,
beautiful.

InkTober #10: Pattern

Pattern

what happens if you break a chain, that you had used
to restrain yourself back from escaping from this hideaway
you've placed yourself in. well, you are free to choose
to find that paradise you'd always wanted, and its scary
to be greeted by the sun because you'd felt that burn before
but you now feel its warmth, and realize it wasn't just to kill ants.

InkTober #9: SWING

Swing

to and fro motions are what make life a ride, joy or otherwise,
sometimes down right scary because you don't know how you're going
to rise above the top bar, and if you can get the courage built through
the pumping of your feet to send you careening through the air and landing
with the grace of a gymnast. More than likely when i hit the ground I'll twist
my ankle and fumble to the ground, the way a quarterback lunges and grasps
at air and kicks his feet forward trying to recover what he lost, but the audience
won't be standing on edge for me, there will be no audience, and yet, for some
reason as I'd leave the swing I'd imagine flashbulbs of camera, and in those
moments through space to ground it will seem that my most embarrassing
moments has been captured by the the crowd, the crowd being the non-interested
children at recess, the crowd being god, the crowd being me, a party of one
playing on a swing set, hoping i remember how to dismount. this is enough,
as i go to and fro and away in a throw to the earth, maybe that's okay,
but i will always be my harshest critic, and the reviews will be scathing and the point
boards will rise up in the non-judges hands, one, one, and two, but the two will
be for sympathy, and the only reason their ones is because zero was not allowed, nor
negative numbers.

InkTober #8: Frail

FRAIL

it only seems fair to warn you that this skeleton suit is my real self,
and its brittle and has not aged well at all.
when they date my dental build, they will note the extremely weathered
condition they were in, they will see that time was not kind, the worms
considerate, nor the wind calm.
i hope by examining closely the calcium deposits on my joints,
they might determine that milk did not do my body good,
nor grant me the serenity to accept the things that I could
change.
its my deepest, deepest wish to leave behind remains that will stay intact.
that i'd be a good cadaver to lay out on a table and put back together like puzzle
pieces, but i have a sickly feeling where my stomach used to be,
that when they go to lift me up i'll fade away in a dance with the dust
mites.
on second thought, my last will and testament, which you cannot hear, is that
you do not disturb me, treat my body like the door of a hotel, where two
lovers are spending time getting tangled up in one another's flesh, its not polite
to disturb, to interrupt.
it only seems fair to pay me the same respect i paid you, but not reaching a non-muscled
arm out to grab you with these bony boned fingers, lanky and chalky, seeking a hold
on your ankle.
i hope that that courtesy might be enough, might be the ticket to get you onto the train
back to where you came from, or flew on, or drove to, or teleported.
forgive me, i do not know the time,
because i'm dead, and i'm a skeleton in the earth, do what you want with me,
i guess i can't mind.

InkTober: October 7th, 2019 - ENCHANTED

ENCHANTED

Maybe its that you referred to coding, coupled with forest,
a code forest that I imagined was a group of interconnected
root systems somewhere in cyber space that reached out to
take the hand of the fellow flora, and how this reliance
on some under-earth connection helped the trees grow higher
and then they get to extend their branches heavenward
and provide shelter from storms with a canopy of leaves so
dense and whole that no pain could get through. But, in
a computer language, with numbers, and algorithms,
you tried to explain this to me, but the whoosh over my head
was audible, but i swore i heard it in a movie. Maybe it's
still like that, some version of it, and you are out there
planting little trees, and making the timid little tree sprout
up and jut out, and there's all these little trees with family now
because of the connections you created in the computer-brains
synapses. Maybe you are a miracle worker, painting with
statistics, and mathematics, one bio-medical necessity at a time,
or maybe youre just a graduate student attempting to do your
work, and get through till the next project, and hoping you're
appreciated. Maybe that's what it is, but in some symbolic
ethereal place, I think you're making magic. And that,
that is enchantment.

InkTober 2019: October 1st - 6th (speed round of poetry)

October 1st - Ring

Samwise Gamgee could have carried it all the way but
Frodo Baggins was a little selfish. Wanted to save the world,
wanted to be the selfless one. Took it all on himself,
when, not up for argument, he had the real hero standing beside
him the entire time. But we don't have time for great halls, or dark times, even though we live in them as a constant of every minute, of everyday.

The point being if you have a Samwise, who goes about "dropping eaves" while being curious about the general well-being of the garden and his master-friend, do not let that hero go on simply
being your cheerleader, share the load, carry that burden together,
that's what friends are for, so they say.

Each day brings about a bit of nonsense, but don't be a Frodo, don't be an attention hog, and whine about how hard it is, and let your Samwise watch you suffer, he's there to help you, she's there to help you, they're there to help you.

So don't be a Gollum-Smeagol and give up the ring already, you're only making it harder on the both of you.

October 2nd - Mindless

It seems a bit funny,
doesn't it?
To argue with a pumpkin,
with fish lips, and the language of a four-year old,
except for maybe rape, except for tax evasion, except for Ukraine.

But its not funny,
because you can't hold an empty gourd up to any standard,
can't beg it to be civil, when it don't even know how to
speak.
It seems funny,
but it isn't.

Doens't it seem so, though?
As the orange-whatever is rolled out in front of the podium,
unsure of how it got there,
never took the time to watch even a movie, let alone take a course in speech,
to understand you don't have to flail your arms around,
and if you flail your arms in mockery then you should probably
be filleted up in a garbage disposal.
But the orange-whatever,

pumpkin,
gourd,

is left to dangle arms in wild gestures, flailing back and forth, because
the puppeteer didn't get their training as well.

its a little unfair?
comparing a president to a pumpkin, unfair
to the pumpkin,
and unfair to us.

October 3rd - Bait

We catch and release for sport.
Sounds about right.
We are men,
I suppose, men as in mankind,
but it aint so kind.

Hook the jagged little pill into the cheek of some little guppy,
should be a blessing if it aint too big, too small to eat,
to small to bother to be chopped up.

The bigger you go, the more likely you'll be objectified,
stripped, and gutted, but then you gotta be filleted,
gotta be cooked up. but maybe not right away,
maybe you get put on hold, on ice, get locked away in
the dark, till the craving comes along.

i guess that's like men sometimes,
not mankind, but like men, but mankind too.
Catch and release, 
move on to the next fish in the sea,
not all men I suppose, some catch em,
and some toss em back, and some take great care,
admire what makes them unique in a fish tank,
but not as a prison, as a haven-place.

that's like mankind too,
and man, or woman, or them.

Not so black and white in the water,
though it can be murky brown,
there's still some green, some blue,
and if you go deep enough some bio-luminescence.
i think,

I'm not a nautical expert,
but I think we can be better to the fish.

October 4th - Freeze

Isn't that what they told them,
then they did,
they froze. Shot
them anyway,
why not, their frozen,
paralyzed by the light,
by the trained gun.
Considering that the owner
of trigger finger might
might might want to just
try it.
Freeze. You're it, tag, I guess
but no one wins it,
no one does.
October 5th - Build

How do you build for a future,
when the foundation was not there.
Because plans changed, didn't have any cement
to hold me in place.
How do I build this,
discovering self at thirty,
it's strange, isn't it, to think that
the future is finally viable-visible.

Foundation is going down now,
cement is being poured, mixed, I'm transfixed
on the notion that its tangible,
and difficult, but why is difficult
a bad thing.

I've never been a builder, an architect, but maybe
I was all along, after all I've come out someone
elses dream, and miracle, but these extensions
I nailed up myself, painted, and finished,
remodeled, and tour down, maybe I did have a foundation
in the form of a motherly hope,
maybe I did. I think so.
I think I did.

October 6th - Husky

It used to be a euphemism for fat.
"You're not fat, you're husky."
No, you're fat, a husky is a dog.
You are fat. Not as fat as you have been,
but still up there. Personally,
don't find that okay, personally
always wanted to change that, be nice
to walk up to a clothes rack and not have
to settle for what works for my frame.

Husky dogs are cute. Loyal, take charge,
vigilant. But maybe they are not husky,
maybe they are fat.