It’s Complicated

I wondered if you’d ever ask if,
in these cryptic columns of words,
I’ve drawn portraits of you.
No, I’d say, adding some gibberish
about craft and imagination,
sounding as pretentious as me
in a Bond St. suit and silk cravat.
But I pulled out some of these
heart-stained Rorschach blots,
turning each 360 degrees,
like scanning the whole horizon,
squinting to muddy the bloody,
searching for an expression of you.
Failing, I tossed each to scatter
in an array of wounds, of joys,
of so many of my life’s
moments I’d all but forgotten.
In a momentary glance across
the topography of them upon my desk,
one overlapping another, piles of
disparate drops coagulating into one,
I saw your face in a moment of grace,
and each time I blinked, I saw another.
Once, even my own. So, in answer
to your question, I can only say…
No…
Yes…
Maybe…
It’s complicated.
So goddamn complicated I can only
do it with my eyes closed and
consciousness tied behind my back.

No More To Soar On Eagles’ Wings

Bricks fall daily
from the temple,
mortar crumbling
like stale bread,
raining the crumbs
of best intentions
upon whoever walks in
its proximity.
But so few do now.
Within its walls,
words that stirred
hearts and souls,
echo like dust shrouding
its empty tabernacle.
The book lies on the pulpit,
its leathery covers shut,
gilded pages tarnished,
closed to what small
light teases that eyes
will unlock its words.
Someday.
A pigeon whispers
hosannas where once
verses rose to the steeple
on eagles’ wings,
ignoring the signs
it soon will fall,
unnoticed, silent
as a tree
in an empty forest.

Independence Day

I awoke to the booming thunder,
and a though it was well before dawn,
the room flashed with light like sun-up
even with the bedroom curtains drawn.
I noticed the drumbeat
of rain on the roof,
and even half-asleep
I needed no calendar for proof.
This was no spring shower
I realized with the next flash.
I knew for certain now it had come,
as sure as the accompanying crash
of thunder like a cannon
went off over my head.
And even though you couldn’t sleep
I snuggled comfy in bed.
Such storms with their flashes
lit memories of boyhood so bright,
of when I’d take my pillow and blanket
to the backporch in the night.
and sleep with Nature’s fireworks,
not something pyrotechnically contrived.
Like that school kid, whose Independence Day
had come, I knew Summer had arrived.

My first poem of Summer 2017, I guess. This in response to Annie Fuller’s Writing Outside the Lines prompt for writings inspired by our soon-to-be summer. Forgive me the hideous rhyming. It seems they keep cropping up like ragweed in this old man’s garden of memories.

Baby On Board

Out on the highway,
the drivers think
of There as much
as they do of Here.
They can picture it
as easily as you do
that BMW which just
cut you off trying
to make it to Exit 8A
from the outside lane.
They know the destination
carries more weight
than the journey.
That’s just how the world
ticks when you’re
rolling along at 79 mph.
Sometimes even when
you’re driving that fast.

They probably don’t
care too much to realize
if they were to slow down,
even a little,
they might notice how
things closer to you
take on a sharper focus.
Like a BMW blindly
zipping left to right
might on its journey
toward a destination
more important than
that of the Honda
it just cut off. The one
with the Baby On Board
sticker in its back window.

Let’s see how many of these bits I can crank out in the 20-minute gaps I have in Father’s Day duties today.

Wall of Scars

I got this scar,
the one you can’t see,
when the wall
around my heart
cracked and fell.
Trust me, the wall,
the crack, the debris
and even the heart
exist in there.
I got this scar,
along with the dent
in my forehead,
when I ignored
the wall that jumped
in my path while
I pondered my heart
and damage we did.
I got this scar,
the one running
down this page,
a shadow running
from behind my
new wall I built
not to lock me
away from you,
nor you from me.
No, to keep my
heart to myself.

Night So Long

The nights are so long
when I’m alone in my bed,
sleep having left me for another.
And yet I wait, listening
to the tick-tock of my heart
beat out the stretch of time
between laying my head
on the pillow and when that imposter
embraces me until my eyes open
and I find it wasn’t sleep,
but some ragged shadow held me down
while it sucked more time from
my life than just the few hours
I tossed in her arms. Maybe
it would be different if you
were here, too. But then nights
would be too short.

If You Can’t Stand the Heat

Only mad hogs and English majors
would go out in this midday’s sun.
The bacon on the cloven hoof
gallivant because they’re demented
and likely angry they can’t find
a shady mud hole in which they may
submerge their psychoses and hide
their sensitive pink hides.
We who emerged from college with
a passing acquaintance of Chaucer,
Wharton, Cheever and seducing
steamy allusion between the sheets
of their oeuvres, walk from our
comfortably cool writing bogs
for the blast furnace outside
because to sit here and compose
something only we’ll ever read
seems more demented than strolling
Albany’s Venusian sidewalks.

It’s a hot one here in New York’s Capital Region today. Yet here I am sitting at my writing desk, once again wondering why I continue to do what I do here if not for some madness afflicting writers who don’t finish what they stated. For better or worse, I’m a finisher. Oh, and  that illustration up is the 2:30 PM weather graphic for Albany. Oh, and for my non-American readers, I believe 93°  F converted to Celsius is “too freaking hot.”