Self-Indulgence in a Poetic Vein

...but isn't poetry supposed to, you know, rhyme?

Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.
We fell them down to make paper on which to record our emptiness.
--Khalil Gibran.

Index

Twenty Cigarettes Ago

Don't Say It

A Rock, an Island

This Won't Last

Your Quiet Spirit

Cold Grey Day

Spring into Fall

The Midnight Mist Seeks Mourning

Use As Needed

An Opus for Robert

Clean Sheets

Brush Lightly By [Rose's Sonnet]

Truck Stop Diner

My dead mother

Rush Hour Epiphany

Twenty Cigarettes Ago

Twenty cigarettes ago

we lay in each other's arms

listening to the mulberry trees

and the rain

Twenty cigarettes ago

I asked if you needed a ride

You said you'd rather walk

under the mulberry trees

in the rain

Twenty cigarettes from now

you won't remember my name

or the scar on my back

or saying his name in your sleep

Twenty cigarettes ago

1978

Don't Say It

You told me once

"don't say it"

but I do

and I will

We're always laughing

and three years later

we share a plethora

of people, places and things

and still he clings

to a promise of nothing

and nothing promised

is nothing gained

and still I remain

in sharing daring

and faring well

our private Hells

open to each other

we can reach each other

so I won't say it

but I do

1975

A Rock, an Island

Ah, to be a rock, an island

to lie empty for uncounted æons

to ultimately have a shipwrecked sailor

crawl from the sea's cold slapping grasp

onto the friendly beach

between my navel and my knees

and walk the warm sand for a day

or a month

or three years

only to be rescued by a passing ship

and taken away

leaving me

leaving

gone

alone

again

12/3/74

This Won't Last

I know this won't last --

maybe that's why I want to spend every moment

with you now

For the first time I can remember

I'm camera-happy

trying to capture today's smiles and sunburns

and trying to get a picture

of the look of love in your eyes

I'm not being pessimistic

just realistic.

What you give me

and what I take from you

gives us only a brighter flame

to burn as us

it'll soon be over --

enjoy every minute

before we both grow up

5/30/75

Clean Sheets

Young man yet boy

fuzz-whiskered

nailbitten hands so gentle

that touch my soul

you know my bed and body

as you know and explore your own

in the forbidden hours

of self-enlightenment

underneath your spotted sheets

so come to my clean sheets

and encircling arms

touch your rosepetal lips

to my fevered cheek

and warm my side

and give me something to throw my leg across

and a downy cheek to nestle my nose in

in the morning

1975

Your Quiet Spirit

Your quiet spirit brushes mine like two people at a party

saying "excuse me" and moving on--

Later that night I lie in bed near a cold, empty place

that even now knows your name and waits for your warmth

You maintain your distance and I my walls

and as an exercise in futility we'll wait to see which falls

My moments with you are unguarded — your unaffected elegance

and your effective style your character touched me in a trusting/trusted way

We're new to each other and like blind acquaintances

we must feel each other's faces to imagine each other's minds

My guard is down, my walls are breached

Come pillage me while I can still be reached

1974

Cold Grey Day

It's a cold grey day

and the cold grey way

I want you

touches the root of my soul

And as I drink my coffee

I think of you beside me

under an antique quilt

your warm and rhythmic breathing

calming my chaotic mind

Without a how or a why or a because

you come to my thoughts

as an uninvited guest

and linger a while before moving on

but your visit will remain

as a welcome gift

in my sometimes/not often life

5/7/76

Spring into Fall

The unreasonable touch of autumn

intrudes into summer

making the trees and the grass glow

with an unseasonable ripeness

not yet physically evident

but sensuously known.

The strangely wet summer

left her produce fuller and lusher

than August should be shown

The brown which could be wasn't

The green which was there shouldn't

and the whole month's motion

was an uneasy spring into fall

8/18/74

The Midnight Mist Seeks Mourning

The midnight mist seeks mourning

as the moon's grey bruise dims through the clouds

motors whir through the murmur

of the music of the forest

lightning scars the sky

but the trees triumph unscathed

the ruffled bird bitches at the intrusive sound

then sinks again into lethargic sleep

the drip from the wet, drowned leaves to the swollen stream

punctuates the oily glide of the water

depression comes easily enough

to those who can afford it

1/15/75

Use As Needed

I don't know what to say...

Our wrestling match seemed

unexpectedly expected

My life has changed

No more flowers for anyone

Holding to the last branch

we took the lovers' leap

Hand, touch, kiss

There's got to be a better place

but never a better way

Your gift to me

My gift to you

Memories

to be taken out, dusted off, turned in the hand

and put back on the shelf

fondly

fondlingly

lovingly

Use as needed

4/4/74

An Opus for Robert

Wednesday morning before dawn

Prelude

I could write for you beautiful apostrophes to Love "Oh, dream too sweet..." Or bitter laments of the blindness of Fate but none would bring you to me now.

I.

I went walking tonight wearing that old blue sweatshirt of mine — the one you wore that night when we were walking and you got cold. Remember? It smells of sweat and cigarettes and me. Did it then?

II.

I drank coffee at 3:00 am at that horrid cafe where the waitresses wear orange and blue uniforms and braces. The coffee wasn't a foolish move you see, I wouldn't have slept anyway.

III.

What will you do when I go away? The library can't be that entertaining. Will you go to that little pancake house and chat with the waitress that sniffs? I don't think that I could go there without you.

IV.

Your light was off when I walked by your window. Was Schubert that boring? It was only 11:00. I guess your roommate has gotten you into good habits I never could have taught you. Sleep tight.

V.

I still have the opera program. Remember? You had to keep poking me to keep me awake. Figaro should have gotten a divorce. But then I had to poke you at the good places in Fantasia. You made me appreciate Bartok. I gave you Seals and Crofts. Personal tastes even out in the long run.

VI.

I wish I had the money to give you expensive things — books, rings, Steinways, and apartment. Instead you buy me hamburgers and I write you poems and give you cards. They are all signs of affection, I guess.

VII.

I don't know when I'll give this to you. Maybe this will be my going-away present to you. Six more weeks...

VIII.

I just watched my digital clock flip over for the twentieth time. See what you do to me?

IX.

The elephant's legs broke off from rattling around in my trunk for so long. That seems rather ironic.

X.

I think I'll give you an eraser to remember me by. It seems like they were always worn off your pencils. A big pink eraser.

Coda

You can keep the Christina Rossetti book. Read "when I am gone away" for me. I love you.

3/20/74

Brush Lightly By [Rose's Sonnet]

Brush lightly by the flickering flames

You child of summers now far past,

And stay unsullied by the games

Of glittering gold that cannot last.

We know too soon we live too fast —

And fan the flame so dear, so dear;

We see too well the lot that's cast

That says we cry to hide our fear.

Our confidence is in the beer:

The lights show up the things we are —

And sometimes show it all too clear.

So hear me now, stay back afar

To set your goals Olympian high —

you'll one day have your piece of sky.

8/7/74

Truck Stop Diner

Is it the heat lightning or the moon coming full

that has me in the truck stop diner at this hour

wanting bodily companionship

Thank you honey, I'll leave a tip

The orange booths

and the sky-blue china

make me feel like some old wino

with the ‘nother-week-till-payday blues

He left his shoes, now call the family

poor old geezer sure could ramble

down his well-worn paths of righteousness

but persistent dysfunction

came in conjunction

and Death had the right-of-way

So I'm drinking coffee in the truck stop diner

postcards from the Red Star Line

and good old boys up early with the cows

drinking coffee in the truck stop diner

Thank you honey, the caffeine helps

Maybe when the sun comes up

I'll rest or maybe just sleep —

my eyes won't close

with all the blows to my head

a job well done or medium rare

Success/impress/undress

the two or three I want to see

in darkness

and just a little warmness

and a butt to snuggle against

and all the rest

To live happily ever after —

I can almost see it shatter

I'm cursed with keeping apart

my head and my heart

so I'm drinking coffee in the truck stop diner

Thank you, honey, I'm just fine

Thank you, honey, I'm just fine

Or at least adequate

considering the circumstances,

happenstances, incidences

leading me to 4:00 AM being

drinking coffee in the truck stop diner

Come sit with me

and we'll watch the moon go down

and spinning ‘round to daylight

we'll make each other all right

A night together

would make up for tonight alone

drinking coffee in the truck stop diner

Borrowed cigarettes

— I think that once tonight I was stoned

but now I'm just exhausted.

What I'd give to be accosted

but I'm drinking coffee at the truck stop diner

Thank you, honey, I'm just fine

Thank you, honey, I'm just fine

1979

My dead mother

My dead mother rode with me

in the rain a while tonight

as the quickening dark fell.

She sat in my peripheral vision

and said she was worried for me

because she remembered how easily

the blues could overtake her

when the dark started coming so early.

I told her the blues had a name

and there were pills for it now

and I was learning to see them coming

as well as seeing them go.

She smiled and patted my knee

and disappeared as a light turned red

in front of me.

11/23/98

Rush Hour Epiphany

I saw the sun rise suddenly

as I crested a high arching bridge

in the early morning traffic

A huge red oval of flaming fusion energy

that made me feel vertigo

as the planet tumbled under me

The physics of hydrogen and the

mathematics of distance and the

vertigo and the light and the beauty

Made me lose a moment, feeling the immensity

of reality and the insignificance of effort

and the unmoving mover's hand

But brake lights brought me back

to a critical here and now

leaving only my wonder and these words

11/30/98

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