Running Out of Me

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.

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That Last Hug

“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.

You’d Even Knock First

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.

On Hummingbird’s Wings

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.

Wherefore and Why

He thought he’d search today
for that old photograph.
And he was not sure why.
They never talked anymore,
the bloom off that rose like
the youth off that old image.
But still he rummaged,
through notebooks and pens,
books and file folders,
memories and other memories,
real and imagined.
And he was not sure why.
Until then he found it,
dogeared and scuffed,
within a spiral bound
remembrance he’d created
when he wasn’t looking,
not even thinking of it.
And he was not sure why.
But there was the smile
that lit so many dark days
and darker nights, like
the sun continues to glow
in its recalled place
behind his closed eyes.
And then he knew why.
With one smile he knew why.

Orbital Eccentricity

The sun will shine today,
walking its way horizon to horizon
across my provincial little plot,
taking its longest time until next year.
But I know it’s not really moved.
This dust mote rock on which I stand
is the one actually spinning daily
along its elliptical path ‘round
our own little star.

And in our arrogant, top-of-the-foodchain,
in-God’s-own-image way,
we actually prefer to think
the largest entity in this
insignificant portion of the vastness
of the Big Banger’s creation
is the one trudging like a burro
around the mill grinding out
our oh so historic days.

You know that Earth has spent
its millennia trying to escape
from this cosmic servitude, don’t you?
Sun’s tether is just too strong.
keeping our servile ball
of egocentric existence
situated just-so, so Man can believe
the Sun’s the one in Our thrall.

But really, when one day,
out in the indistinct future,
when the great curveball in the sky
goes black, our planet
will slip it’s gravitational leash
and could be hurled, a giant snowball,
into the void. In light of this,
who gives a shit if I mispell “misspell,”
wash new jeans with white sheets,
eat room-temperature potato salad,
or short-hop a bases-loaded 3-2 fastball?
Not the Sun.

I tell you this because
I care about you.
Still.
A little.
On a summer day,
when the Sun takes its own sweet time
walking horizon to horizon.
And here’s the pitch…

Writer’s Digest’s Robert Lee Brewer suggested writing a “summer” poem today. So I sat down and turned loose my creative wolf for the first time in too many months. And along the stream-of-consciousnous way, I remember a story my friend Steve Adamek and I eavesdropped on in a Montreal bar many years ago. A gaggle of Philadelphia Phillies. Late season pennant clinching time. I’ll attribute it to relief pitcher Tug McGraw, but I’m sure he heard from an old pitching coach of his. I’ve always called it the “Tug McGraw Frozen Snowball Theory of Life.” Steve will know better who should get attribution. It’s funny how life and lessons come back to you once you remember life is more than the time spent worrying about what you did yesterday and what will happen tomorrow. Or sooner. Thanks, Steve. Don’t know how I’m gonna integrate “No one sucker-punches Roger Freed,” into a poem or story. But I’m not going to worry about it. Someday I will.

The Halo By the Door

Your face doesn’t register
where your memory resides.
It got lost in my mind’s
last three moves.
Your halo hangs on a hook
by the door and rattles
with each recollection’s
coming and going.

It still glows when the light
hits it right, but the light
doesn’t hit much anymore.
That’s what happens
when you get old
and memories tarnish,
tear and disappear in the dust
of an old man’s mind.

Sometimes I think I hear
the rustle of your wings
in the dark, but we both know
you never left the ground.
You just left, leaving behind
this silly halo I made
that you never wore,
just posed with, holding it
above your head to humor me,
always with one eye on the door.

Sometimes I wish I could remember
the face I thought belonged
wreathed in this ring.
Then I realize I’m better off
with a faded figment
of my own device
than the memory of a fallen angel
who finally learned how to fly.