She was the first one,
back when his armor still shone,
as did the chains that
always dragged him back home.
But for a while,
he held her in his hand,
and she held his,
almost leading him to her promised land.
But promises cut two ways,
like a broadsword drawn.
And swung like a gate,
in two pieces hearts can be sawn.
You can live a long time
on half a heart;
just seems so much longer
when she still holds the other part.
I wish we could talk,
just talk,
but then I realize
talking always
got in the way.
I’d say something
just to fill
the vacuum between us,
and since words
won’t carry across a vacuum,
you’d intuit in your way
that I’d said something
I never meant.
I never blamed you.
I don’t like blame.
Though, if I did,
I’d blame the vacuum,
the nothing we shared
which was everything.
What is a poet to do
when he has nothing left to say?
No matter where I look,
I see nothing that would move me
to some emotional spillover
like a simple blade of grass,
the aroma of bacon on a griddle,
a baby’s smile, or you just existing
once did.
I don’t know why this happened.
Does a painter run out of form,
light and color to paint?
Does a composer run out of tones
to string together? Of course not.
Then why have I lost my capacity
to sense and react with words?
Maybe I’ve just run out of Me.
And I don’t know where
to find Me’s anymore.
“How are you today?”
I ask too often,
speaking it into that empty space
where something of you remains.
Not like a photo,
since my memory is of someone
who probably doesn’t or never did exist.
This is the space where
I’ve kept something you wore that
conveys more than a fuzzy, faded look
of care-less I never did accept.
Even with years of hanging
in the back of my mind’s closet,
I can hold it by the hand,
impart some of my own warmth
to it, hoping it might echo
the sense of a hug and the aroma
of perfume and sweat that’d
mean more to me now than a slight smile
suspended from red-reflected eyes
an Instamatic caught in
a moment of surprise…
or maybe disappointment.
So I ask, “How are you today?”
though I probably wouldn’t
recognize your voice,
just the warm smell of you
from a last hug I made last.
A guy can scour his life
to collect all the keys
so no one can slip into
his heart without asking.
But it seems one or two
will always escape
his protective diligence.
Maybe one fell from his pocket
that day as he walked out
of their heart.
Or perhaps someone purloined it
just to mess with his key count
when he thought he was safe
from anyone looking into
his unmentionables in there.
Or maybe (most likely probably),
he just slid it under their pillow
or at the bottom of a pile of
memories he left with them.
In that case he’s abetted
his own breaking and entering,
which is interesting
when you think almost anyone
can enter what’s already broken.
But only you would use the key.
Probably would even knock first.
A hummingbird’s wing
is a whiz of a thing
should you ever get to see him.
They’ll tear through the air
at speed beyond compare
then perch stock still without a tree limb.
I saw one today
as by the window I lay
idly hoping for some poetic spark.
He went down, left, and right,
but what gave me a new insight
was how he suddenly just put it in PARK.
Little guy hung there in space
as that blur of wings whirred apace
his tongue sipping at a red flower.
But it’s what he did next
is why I wrote down this text.
He showed me a magical power.
I saw him fly in reverse,
his wings made my ennui disperse,
and my sour demeanor took flight.
He was no bigger than my finger
but now the sight of him’ll linger
forever on this page of white.
See, the world’s full of blooms,
more than humans have rooms,
and sometimes the muse just stops singing.
So I ceased my staring there,
got up and backed away from that chair,
sipped of nature and with a whir was I winging.
The wind is a harsh mistress,
pushing the trees away one minute
then caressing and singing songs
older than time to them the next.
She fills their leafy lungs
and billows their chests with
faint whispers and panicked panting,
giving them voice as over decades
they reach skyward, their arms open
to accept as much of her attention
as they dare.
You know that feeling, that sense
of the cold shiver following
the touch that sends your skin
to chattering chill and then heat
like August’s exhalation exultation
when storm is near. You’ve felt
the caress and heard the whispers
that shaped you and carved initials
if not into your skin then for sure
your heartwood.
Thank you, my winds, my zephyrs,
my barely-there passing-throughs,
my gales, my limb-lifting,
branch-breaking darlings.
I bow in your memories as I bent
to your whims. Bent, but never fell.
