The Distance, 12/8/10

How can I hold your hand
When you're so far away
Protect you, through your bad nights
with this distance that separates us
The cold comfort of the telephone
cannot make up for the warmth of another
beside you
The distance between us
Not just of space and years
Made of hurt and fear
and all the things that needle the soul
How can I kiss your lips
When you're so very far away

The Kiss of Winter (for K) 11/23/10

The kiss of winter
Passing lightly upon my lips
Not perhaps the extremes of her world
White and hard and clear
Rather it is a shifting
A subtle variation in shade
Slate blue to charcoal gray
A lengthening of shadow
Still I feel the fall
and the coming season
Chilly mornings, short days
In every breath
Steaming from my lips
The kiss of winter
Passing lightly
In the beginning of the day

Common Wisdom, 11/18/10

"Why can't things ever be easy?" She says
In the common wisdom of the everyday
Common wisdom, common truth
As I try to find our place
Three points on a map
Triangulations of the human heart
As we worry about the mundane
Leaving tomorrow to come
Here already, lurking in the bushes
Ready to announce its presence
To tear the world apart
Chemical reactions to unwanted growth
Common wisdom, common truth
I only wish I could release this sadness
Let it flow through my fingers and scatter to the ground
Fling it away with a fury
To be free of it for once
Still it clings, like sand
holding close to the intimate places
Itching and chafing and declaring itself
"Did you think I was gone? I will not be ignored!"
And she says, "Why can't things ever be easy?"
Why indeed

I Do Not Love You, 9/8/10

I do not love you
This much I know
How could I love one such as you
Do I love a star
Shining across the vast distance of time and space
Perhaps gone these thousand years
burst into a flash of supernova
and collapsed in upon itself into an infinite speck of blackness
but still there, in the night sky
When seen on a particular day and time
in this portion of the sky
A beacon used to guide the Traveller home
How could I love such a star
How could I love you
I do not love you
relegated I know
to the coach cabin of your heart
to a center aisle seat
upgraded at times to business class
sneaking past that little curtain
to taste the finer things
before falling back to my proper place
I do not love you

What Remains, 9/7/10

What remains, at the end of the day
The lilt in her voice, about to laugh
As she sings along with Billie Holliday
Carried on a line, across the distance
Tied, like a ribbon, around my heart

9/6/10

Never flinch
and don't get into the ring
if you can't take the hit
but I am love's stumblebum
punch drunk, shuffling gait
victim of another rope-a-dope
Forever playing out of my weight class
featherweight at best
I swing for the heavy bag
As she floats like a butterfly
stings just like a bee
and dances around me with taunting grace
as I wait for the final blow
But you don't get into the ring
unless you can take the hit
and never flinch

my intentions, 9/5/10

Her family worries about my intentions
With grumbled growls and articulate threats
and exasperated shrugs and
"O not another one"
Avuncular disapproval and sisterly menace
They worry about my intentions
which is a laugh
To have intentions is to have a plan
and I'm winging this at best
What I want, what I need
is to keep this thing,
whatever it is,
as long as I can
To give her all the parts of me she wants,
second best though they may be,
as long as she wants,
and to hold the rest in reserve
For maybes and somedays
that thing with feathers
They worry about my intentions
Casual assurances that I can win them over
met with somber shakes of the head
Not on this flat earth,
under this umbrella moon
They worry about my intentions
which are to hold onto this thing,
whatever it is,
for as long as I can,
then to keep what's left
in the soft places
the warm places
where I keep the precious things
the lost things
the irreplaceable things
But her family worries about my intentions
Hell, so do I

Same Sky, Different Hills, 9/4/10

There is a beauty here
not yet ruined by the slipshod and half assed
the abundance of the lowest bidder
A beauty not writ in pastels and soft tint
harsh, in brown and slate, olive and beige
not the beauty of the sparrow's fall
but the beauty of the hawk in flight
Still, one line of hills looks much like another
The only difference is scale
and the horizon is much the same
the sky is the same as the one above her head
Though here it is blue, bold and rough
there it is grey, soft and light
but the same sky nevertheless
Same sky, different hills

9/3/10

I want to stamp my foot
Throw a tantrum in petulant rage
Shake my fist at the gods
Pitch a fit
Hold my breath til I turn blue
But I turned blue long ago
Not Muddy Water blue
Or Howling Wolf blue
but Billie Holliday blue
Bessie Smith, Nina Simone blue
Blue like the color of my eyes
soft and light and maybe deep
perhaps flecked just a little
with yellow like gold
I don't want to stamp my foot any more
I want to listen to someone sing the blues
soft and light and deep
flecked with yellow, like gold

She has her Ghosts, 9/2/10

She has her ghosts
They linger in the shadows
around her bed at night
They haunt not out of malice
but love
She cannot explain it
not in any of her many languages
But they are there
lingering in the shadows
And I believe her
For I have my ghosts as well
Haunting not in malice
but perhaps in love
and the lingering scent
of perfume

In the Still Cool Morning, 9/1/10

I walk around the little park behind my father's house
in pajama bottoms and a black t-shirt
now faded to charcoal grey
in the still cool morning
as I listen to her speak over my cell phone
and she makes me laugh
Is there any joy greater
than a girl who makes you laugh
She has a musical ear
and when she tells a story
takes on the voices of all the people in it
And though I know none of them
they are all as real as if they are standing beside me
Listening to her and nodding and laughing as well
as I walk around the park behind my father's house
looking out across the dry wash
and talk to her on my cell phone
in my pajama bottoms and a black t-shirt
faded now to charcoal grey
in the still cool morning

8/31/10

even while she's breaking my heart
This tough little girl from Siberia
Who carries the weight of the world
but doesn't mind at all
And when she laughs
her voice takes on
a slight Scottish lilt
and breaks my heart again

Dog Days, 8/30/10

Dog Days of Summer
Oven blast heat
fever weather
fevered dreams
Dreams of a girl
How could I expect to hold her
with second hand wisdom
and thrift store charm
Love in the Dog Days of Summer
Never last into the Fall
It would've been nice though
if just once
I Could've made her swoon

8/29/10 (for K)

Fitting together mismatched puzzle pieces
Creating a picture of something like love
If not that, something else, but close
a puzzle of the Grand Canyon
so what if her piece is of the Eiffel Tower
I've always said what the Grand Canyon
really needs is an iron tower
And the pieces almost fit together
round and straight in the right places
Just not quite cut of the same groove
But I still say
what the Grand Canyon really needs
is a giant iron tower

These Days, 8/28/10

Is this how it's done these days
with texts and chats and cell phones
Late night conversations in the stolen hours
But all my hours are hers, stolen or not
and her hours are only borrowed
from another
with fines and interests
penalties and fees
This is how it's done
the same old foolishness
just new forms of communication
Still, I'm awake at the sunrise more often than not
as the new day is born here
hours old where she is
and so far, the sunrises have been the only good thing here
stolen, borrowed, or not
they are her gift to me

That Time at JP's, 8/27/10

I was thinking the other night
about that time at JP's
Drinking shitty wine
because we didn't know any better
playing that stupid trivia game all night
I swore it was Bukowski
at the other end of the bar
and you looked at me, uncomprehending
but we bought him a drink anyway
just in case
while we played crappy music on the juke box
Music that you actually liked
so I liked it too
I whispered the words to "For Jane"
in your ear
as you swooned
and we kissed like there was no tomorrow
How could we know there wasn't
not for us
oh, there was a tomorrow for you
and one for me
but not for us,
not like we were that night
but now, you tell people
you once bought Bukowski a drink
that time at JP's

Odd Man Out, 8/26/10

Odd man out
Yet again,
The kind who's easy to leave behind
in the outskirts of Bohemia
or the ass crack of America
Not likely to live on in your memory
Not the one you keep
To be thought of, maybe
in the years further on
as you live someone else's suburban dream
the wistful question,
I wonder what ever happened to ...
the odd man out,
the kind you leave behind
Not the one you keep
still, this time
I hoped it wouldn't end
with the words, yet again

The Starbucks in Inverness in the Rain 8/25/10

She is in the Starbucks, in Inverness, in the rain
And I am in my apartment, which doesn't sound nearly as romantic
As the Starbucks in Inverness in the rain
But for reasons beyond the knowing
She's talking to me as she argues with the GPS
and sings along to the songs she plays
in a borrowed car
in Inverness,
in the rain
as I watch the sunrise
in my apartment
not in Inverness
not in the rain

Another Stupid Poem about the Moon, 8/24/10

O I hate the moon
O I love the moon
How she comes and goes and comes again
Heaven's mystery
in female form
Vanishing again, as if by design
Leaving nothing but slivers like a blade
And just when I've grown used to her absence
When I no longer expect to see her hanging in the night
when I don't expect to be engulfed in her soft sweet light
When I say, oh, I don't need the moon
not anymore, she's gone, I'm fine
Just when I say these things to the point
I almost believe them
I'll turn a corner in some canyon at dawn
and she will, again, burst into my life
Low in the western sky
full and bright and sweet as the promise of the day
giving one last kiss
and again, she slips away
O how I hate the moon
because I love her so

Cherry Blossoms and Thistle (for K) 8/23/10

Her mother, she says
smelled of cherry blossoms and thistle
and chamomile was the scent of her home
For me, its jasmine, sage and the salt of the sea
and I wonder, which of her many scents
will her son think of, years from now
when he thinks of her
as we think of
Chamomile, cherry blossoms, and thistle
Jasmine, sage, and the salt of the sea

All the Words, 8/22/10

All the words will fall away
like tears of lead, dull, grey, useless
Things said to fill the empty spaces
to prolong the inevitable disconnection
to hang back for a moment
and keep her there, with me
though we are so very far apart
I can say these things to try and make her laugh
Say these things to show her I care
Say anything, something, nothing
just to have another second
For words have always come easy to me
feelings, not so much
They say it's the old wounds that will kill you
but it's the new wounds that make me flinch
Still, I say all the words
and they fall away
like tears of lead
dull and grey and useless

Feather, 8/21/10

A feather
Dancing in the wind
Carried by an updraft
dangling just out of reach
like Tantalus' apple
A taunting glimpse of beauty
caught in the breeze
swirling and swaying
to some unheard tune
Desire
Dancing in the wind

Tangled, 8/20/10

Tangled ...
(like the cord to my earbuds
shoved too quickly into my breast pocket
at the beginning of my shift
wrapped around the sunglasses
that fling themselves to the ground
as I retrieve my iPod at the end of my work day
plummeting to the asphalt of the parking lot
to shattering lense and bent frame
and angry curses at the unfairness of fate
and a journey home squinting in the bright sun)
... are the strings around my heart

All The Different Places

I think of all the different places we shared
So far from where I am now
A foreign land, a distant shore
The far side of this world
I think of all the different places we shared
You and I and our youth
Squandered and scattered and left behind
like hair in the drain after the shower
I think of all the different places we shared
and all the times we should have held to
but couldn't, because to do so we would have to know
And in knowing, we would have changed it
and then it would be lost
as it is lost
as they are all lost
The different places we shared

8/19/10

I will drink from the cup
and taste the sweet nectar
As I see that all knowledge is fleeting
This world, the next, tomorrow, today
All the hours and all the days
Might never be, never have been
or are yet to come,
But this morning, this moment, right now
as i sit here and drink from the cup,
and taste the sweet nectar
I'm okay with that
I'm okay
As I drink from the cup
the sweet nectar
A taste like joy,
though tinged perhaps
with other things,
but that's okay
As I drink from your cup
and taste the sweet nectar

FOR K, 8/18/10

Russian women, she says,
Learn young how to move their hands
She is a dancer
Grace granted human form
and as she swings and sways and flies upon the stage
Each movement plants a flag
and lays claim to another piece of my heart
She is a Traveller
moving through this world
from a place by the mountains
she thinks of as home
Her long fingers and slender arms
dance in a way I've never seen before
Russian women, you see
Learn young how to move their hands

8/17/10

Another Tuesday morning
up before the sun
lights from the development
across the canyon
glitter like a constellation
changing a scar into something of beauty
by the absence of the day
And my eyes search the indigo sky
for a last glimpse of Venus
my constant companion
an old wound
made lovely by the absence of the day

His Silent World, 8/16/10

His silent world
Who is to say it's any less
in its absence of noise
Does his mother's heart beat
any less
as she holds him while he sleeps
His head on her lap
Her love all around
Does he feel it any less
for the lack of sound

The Poet, 8/15/10

See the poet, hard at work
grumbling and scribbling and drinking his tea
In his pajamas for two days straight
his hairs a mess, he needs a shave
most people call it loafing
but the poet is hard at work

Raven, 8/14/10

Raven in the parking lot
Saunters about as he looks for food
Glances in my direction
and I swear, he nods
Two creatures
Both clad in black
Acknowledging each other's existence
And then he flies away
O to have such wings
O to fly away

8/13/10

An old song
picked out on a borrowed guitar
my fingers stiff, calluses gone
by hands know what to do
and no thoughts are needed
I sing the words
in a low throaty voice
to an old song
as I play a borrowed guitar

ALL THIS AND THE WORLD, 8/12/10

I have stood at the edge of the world
and looked south
Tasting the antarctic wind
And I have wandered the Savanah plains
and heard the lion’s roar
And I have rested on sandy beaches
while the waves tickled the shore
climbed mountains as the cut the sky
sharper than any blade
I have done all this and more
I have seen all this …
all this and more
all this and the world
I would give to you

THESE DESERT HILLS, 8/11/10

I walk through these desert hills
beside a highway
In the heat of the day
Here now, but not inside
Inside, I am in a cool place
an old place,
Sitting in an outdoor cafe
in the shivering cool of a drizzling day
on a cobblestoned street
with you
Drinking cheap Spanish wine
huddled in our tattered elegance
warm only in our closeness
and our secondhand coats
You, ageless beauty, still young
me, fading fast to some lesser thing
We would talk of art, words, and music
drinking cheap Spanish wine
on a cobblestoned street
in the drizzling cold
But no,
I am here, in these desert hills
and I have no idea where you are
in some outdoor cafe?
on a cobblestoned street
drinking cheap Spanish wine
with the man you love?
Perhaps so
And I am in these desert hills

8/10/10

See the girl about to fall
Dancing on the wire of her desperation
Falling, to shatter in a thousand jagged shards
that cut my feet and pierce my heart
And all the best intentions, all the pretty words
cannot put back together
the girl about to fall

Irises, 8/9/10

Irises
covering the foot of your bed
in the soft warmth of your down comforter
as we awake in the morning
Irises
Bought by me for you
but brought to us both
in the night
by the small yellow cat
who lay nestled
in irises
and the soft warmth of your comforter
as we awake in the morning

8/8/10

I would make you my religion
and worship at the temple of your body
Taking communion from your lips, your breast, your thighs
I would die in you
and in dying live again
To die a thousand deaths
each more ecstatic than the last
All other women will be a heresy
A blasphemy to what you are
False idols, profane, lesser deities,
and I a disciple to your beauty
an apostle to your soul
Though I should burn forever
Burning would be paradise
to be with you

HER LAUGH, 8/6/10

She laughs over the phone
I used to live to make her laugh
Maybe that was the only thing I was ever good at
Except for making her cry
But now she's laughing over the phone
at something I said
Something that jumped into my head
and out of my mouth and across the distance
to her Bluetooth as she navigates the 5
And I think of all the times I made her laugh
It was when things were best
And I ask myself Is this love
This thing we share
Or is it what is left after love
Is it a monument to foolish endeavors
or just a mediocre tribute band
to something great
But I can still make her laugh
I used to live to make her laugh

8/5/10

She is the whirlwind
dancing across the Painted Desert
She is desire made flesh
slipping away with the tail of the night
She is the wayfarer's dream
as he falls beside the road

8/1 to 8/4/10

8/1/10

The curse of a romantic nature
is to seek beauty
in the ashes and the dust
The blessing is
to sometimes find it
even when it isn't there

8/2/1o

Dawn
In my youth only seen as the end of the night
As a challenge to be faced in the hours
between last call and someone's bed
A finishing line to the rush and the heat
to be confronted with red eyes, sallow skin,
and designer sunglasses
It was a goal to be crossed
without thought, a temple to my follies
For then, my battles were yet to be fought

Dawn
Now seen as a beginning
A lover's kiss upon the neck of the day
And if now, I have no worlds left to conquer
the heat and the rush diminished
Yet the desire remains untouched
The want and the hurt
A different kind of longing
or perhaps the same
but expressed in a new way
How could I not love the dawn
as an ending or beginning

8/3/10

She is the shadows
in a film noir
The mist across the street lamp
on a London night
She is the mystery
that cannot be solved
The question unasked

CORNY, 8/4/10

He was once so strong
He stood taller than the sky
His voice roared like profane thunder
Now, I tower over him
His arms and legs are so thin
And his voice speaks in low grumbles
though still profane
But he taught me how to see the world
He gave me art and soul and hope
He loved always and does still
And without him
Without him I would be lost
Or more lost than I am
And in my mind
He is still so strong
and he stands ...
... taller than the sky

7/22/10

In over my head
For I am drowning
in the cool cool water

7/23/10

The moon,
Two days after full
Pale in the light of morning
Framed between two date palms
Above an empty parking lot
Another day
Fading and falling
In the growing light
A chaste lovers' dance
the sun newborn
The dying moon
Two days after full
Passing glances as they part
Another day

7/24/10

What will fill this emptiness
Whose name will I say
When at last I fade into that good night
Where will I look if not to you
How do I carry on
Why do I miss you so much

7/25/10

A hot dry day
The country scent of my youth
returned to me here,
in this different place
Like hay and ragweed, sage and something more
But until now,
I never fully appreciated
the cool of the morning
And don't have the words to say
How I miss the mist in the morning sky

7/26/10


A year later and I am still lost
How can it be that I was your low point
and you were my high
You ask why I hate him so much
and I say I don't, it's just ...
Just that he's not good enough for me you challenge
Oh darling, I respond
The list of men I don't think are good enough for you
is longer than the list of my regrets
and at the top of that list
the pinacle, the peak
is my name
A year later, and still ...
...I am lost

7/27/10

Where I am now
Might not be the end of the world
but you can see it from here

7/28/10

Like water
Dribbling through the cracks and holes
leaving a puddle on my heart
Like dry ice dropped in a glass of water
filling my eyes with fog
Happiness
like all things transitory
comes and goes on a whim
but is always welcome
for an interlude
a matinee
on a quiet Saturday afternoon

19 weeks, 7/29/10

Sober
or something like it
Not drinking, at least
Though I am still under the influence
of all the things
that led me to drink in the first place
I only wish she would call

7/30/10

A father and son
kicking a soccer ball
in the alley below
while mariachi music
fills my ears
And I think
that's pretty good for now

Haiku 7/31/10

I dream of your kiss
O to die between your lips
but woe to live on

7/21/10

I hate the beauty of the world
The moon, the stars, and all the spaces between
Hell is not a place, it's an absence
And all the beauty just reminds me
of what isn't here
Here or there, ten thousand miles away
The beauty of the world is all just a shadow
dancing on the cave's walls
illuminated by fire
obscured by smoke
but always, always
there is you
And everything else
is just shadows on a wall

7/19/10

I was wondering if maybe
I could have my heart back for a while
I know I gave it to you
but I kind of need it,
you know, to move blood to my limbs
and maybe my brain,
no, not my brain
It'd still be yours and all
I'd just be borrowing it
and to be fair, it's broken anyway
and you're not using it
I'd just need it for a while
until maybe someone else
gives me theirs

7/2/10 to 7/18/10

DIAMONDS, 7/18/10

She keeps a diamond in her heart
It belongs there, she says
Because it’s hard and cold
It fills the empty space
That no man can touch
She keeps a diamond in her heart
It belongs there, I say
Because it’s a precious thing
A tear shed by Venus
In memory of a kiss
She keeps a diamond in her heart
It belongs there, I guess
Because it’s bright and it shines
And fills the empty space
That I could never touch

CANYON ROAD, DAWN, 7/17/10

In the cool of the morning
Just before first light
Walking down a canyon road
and thinking about a girl
lost to the world
It seems like I’ve spent half my life
walking down canyon roads
in the cool of the morning
Just before first light
Thinking about a girl
lost to the world

7/16/10

Age and time
have taken away my high notes
I reach for them
but no sound comes
leaving only
an earthy growl
just right
for honky-tonk blues

7/15/10

Devil on my shoulder
shrugs and shakes his head
while the angel is busy
trying to hail a cab

HOPE, 7/14/10

Hope,
like the condom in an awkward teenage boy’s wallet
is something I carry with me
in case, someday
I need it

7/13/10

Hate is a curse
Love is a promise
And between them
is the whole of the world

SHE IS A DANGER, 7/12/10

She is a danger
To herself and others
but most of all
to my heart

7/11/10

Are you there
or am I just tossing these words out
to an indifferent wind
to be blown apart
scattered like the thoughts
as they echo through my fevered brain
Do you hear me
a voice in the wilderness
calling out to the paradise denied
not now, maybe next year
Is it you I dream about
when sleep comes at last
you, filling the empty place beside me
Only to be gone again
as consciousness returns
Are you there
Do you hear
Is it you

GRACE, 7/10/10

Stumble and fall
for all my life
I have lacked grace

7/9/10

She was the saddest song I never played
A melancholy melody that is my existence
and I, but a footnote in hers
and yet the song plays on
in my head
a waltz in 3/4 time
as she slowly dances away

7/8/10

The song of my life
minor chord to major seventh
A string of notes
a sad melody
but sometimes
the most beautiful notes
are the ones not played

FORGETTING, 7/7/10

Forgetting
I wish I could
but the curse of my memory
is to remember every second
fully situated in time and space
and though sometimes I long to forget
I know I never will
and so with the memories
I will build a wall
behind which I might find shelter
from the onslaught
of everything
but the things I wish I could
…forget

LOVE, 7/6/10

Love, or something like it
in your lips and tongue
the warmth of your body
the feel of your heartbeat
against my own
Here, tonight, now
and the morning,
which might never come
If not love, still something like it
Still to be cherished
when the morning comes

7/6/10

Where do we go from here
Do we struggle and fight
or just walk away
What does it matter
you say
when everything falls away?
And I can’t give you any answers
Still, I want to believe
despite myself.
I just want to hold you
feel your warmth against mine
one last time
that old comfortable thing
and then we go on from here
though neither of us know where
apart

THE BOUNCER’S LAMENT, 7/4/10

I can laugh
It comes easy to me
And I smile readily enough
They say I have a nice smile
the barflies and regulars
the drunk girls and the lonelyhearts
And if I look down
or glance off to the horrizon
to some far off place
As they talk their drunken talk
Don’t think that I can’t smile
It’s just that I feel the longing
as we all do
that whiskey doesn’t kill
I feel it in the cold night air
Yet still I can laugh
You know,
It comes easily to me

LAST CALL, 7/3/10

Is this love
the heat and the rush
or is it just the moment
the kiss and the touch
When I look in your eyes
what is it that I see
And what do you look for
in mine
Is this all a lie
or something else
Not love, but still real
As real as anything can be
in the heat and the rush
and the drunken fondling
of the last call

DENIAL, 7/2/10

I don’t want you any more
No, not very much
No more than I want breath in my lungs
I don’t think of you any more
No, not very often
Except when I do
which is all the time
I don’t care about you any more
No, not with all my heart
Not through my sleepless nights
Not through my pointless days
No, I don’t want you any more
Not all that
until the end of the world
Whatever everyone says

6/30/10 and 7/1/10

7/1/10

I don't want to cry so easily
I don't want to shed tears
for sad songs and tragic endings
I want to be tough and hard
like Mitchum or Bogart
The guys who never show the pain
except for in their eyes
when the dame shoots 'em in the back
I don't want to cry so easily
not now, not any more
I want to save my tears up
to hold them like diamonds
gems amongst the gravel
They should be precious
Tears
So I don't want to cry so easily
except I will
because like love
Tears grow the more you give

Uncomplicated Joy/Independence Day, 6/30/10

Crash and bang
and children shout in pleasure
the uncomplicated joy
of illegal fireworks
It's always fun
until someone blows his hand off
And I feel a thousand miles
from anyplace I love
as another little bomb goes off
to the delight of the crowd
but I'd rather hear the rumbling roar of the ocean
and taste the salt on my tongue
than the gun powder smoke
For it's lost to me
the uncomplicated joy
of illegal fireworks

Three poems, 6/27 to 29/10

Remberance, 6/29/10

I will remember you
through the mornings and the days
against the backdrop of my life
a greenscreen image
as I act the part
written for another
miscast and mistaken
Remembering everything
as is my way
what might have been
If only ...
those saddest of words
Leaving nothing but
my memory
to haunt and perhaps to heal
but never forget
all that is
You

PARADISE, 6/28/10

A promise whispered to the wind
cast loose and forgotten
but still
held in the palm of my hand
dried roses and dust
until the last days of summer
Paradise
Once found
in the eyes of a girl

QUESTIONS, 6/27/10

How can I write a poem
when all I feel is the loss
How can I face the rest of my life
without you as a part of it
How do I find the words
when, like you,
they won't come again
What is the point
when everything comes to an end

Without Malice, 6/26/10

There is no malice in her
All the little wounds she brings
are accidental or providential,
but always inadvertent
symptoms of her misery
And yet I die from a thousand little cuts
but somehow continue to breathe
To walk, to work, to sleep
or not to sleep,
perchance to dream
Living on, if dead
wondering
Is this Hell ...
or just the rest of my life

6/25/10

For you, I would give my life, he said
Yes, she agreed, but ...
would you give something you valued?

Two poems

Vanishing, 6/24/10


She is always
Vanishing
Leaving nothing but a ghostly image
burnt across the retinas
of my imagination
She disappears
until she again returns
If only as a thought, a wish
a longing, a promise
For again,
she has vanished,
has gone,
and again,
I am without

Light from Another Room, 6/23/10

Seen through the crack in a door not fully closed
Creating shadows where it is absent
but no real illumination in its presence
A sliver, a wedge
There only to present a contrast
to the darkness
Nothing more

Numb 6/22/10

Numb
Is how she wants to be
So that she won't have to feel
and everything will fall away
Numb
It's how I have been
but no more
I'd rather live the pain
than know it's there, unnoticed
For pain is the warning against the burn
Better felt
Though it hurts so much
than to be nothing
but numb

6/21/10

APOSTATE 6/21/10

Looking away from Eden's Gates
with a long road before me
and an empty place growing
where once there was ... what?
Belief? Hope? A promise?
Once a fool
Now, a sage?
Hardly
Only an apostate
feeling the vacuum
that was once faith

The Dry Wash, 6/20/10

The expanse
Broader than anything I’ve ever known
Except for maybe the distance between us
Not like the canyons I have loved
But rock strewn and arid
A gulf separating the hills
Waiting for the rains
And what then?
A torrent raging
But now, just a dry place
Broader than anything I have ever known
Except for the distance between us

Regret, 6/19/10

I regret
therefore I am

HAIKU, 6/18/10

And then there is love
Sweet sweet miserable love
It's all that I know

MUSE, 6/17/10

Words strung together
to express a thought as yet unknown
A simple melody
a line of notes
or chord change
A minor to F maj 7th
Simple line across canvas
a dash of paint or a charcoal smudge
to find a way
to move the world
make the girls weep
bringing wonder and marvel
and perhaps, just perhaps
to live on for the ages

SLEEP, 6/16/10

Maybe someday
I'll sleep again
through the night
without waking to look
longingly
at the morning star
Maybe someday
but no time soon
For now I'll be awake
and see the star
Venus as she moves
and think of you

HAIKU, 6/15/10

I would give the world
my life, my heart and my soul
just to hear her laugh

Want, 6/14/10

Want to need
Need to desire
Desire to something more
and always
There is you

6/13/10


We walked the world
like gods and heroes
of another age
What we wanted we took
What we couldn't have
we destroyed
We were young
and we were fools
and now amongst the wreckage of our design
we live on
perhaps not wiser
but closer to wisdom
and at last aware
of our mortality

MORE 6/12/10

It was my first word
and what I have always craved
more booze
more joy
more love
And it is what has been missing
since my first word
What is enough when there is only ...
more

LAMENT 6/11/10

My heart will break
And in breaking I will see the world as it is
not as I want it to be
And that, in the end,
is worse than death

Lost Dreams of the Fallen, 6/10/10

We live on
biding eternity
lounging in outdoor cafes
and all night coffee shops
drinking wine as the morning passes
or cheap cups'o'joe throughout the night
We stay in rented rooms or cheap motels
in the outlands
where we belong
at least in a way
We watch a world we can never have
and cannot love
dreaming of heaven's fall
and all that was lost

Copyright Ryan Cole, 2010

6/6 to 6/9/10

Blue Sky, Sunday Morning 6/9/10

It should've rained
Storms should have raged
against the follies of heaven
Or a dark fog blanketing the world
a grey coat of despair
where we could hide our shame
There should've been mist in the morning sky
to paint things in a softer light
It should've been but no
There was a blue sky
that Sunday morning
bathing the world in warmth and joy
when everything changed
and you told me goodbye

Tom Waits Girl 6/8/10

She will forever be
my Tom Waits girl
Whenever I hear his sad, romantic songs
I will think of her
and whether I weep or smile
will depend on the song
and my memories
of my Tom Waits girl

6/7/10

I love the lonesome sounds
the train whistle
the buoy's bell
the fog horn on a misty night
The passing sound of a lone car
driving on a winding road at 3 a.m.
They are the music of my life
a symphony for all the orphans
in rented rooms and coffee shops
cubicles and cubbyholes
for all the liars and losers and the lost
like me

Exile 6/6/10

Will I someday grow to love
this hot dry place
Will it find its way into my soul
Or will the ocean always claim me
Call to me
Haunt me
For I have known it all my life
The taste of salt on my lips
The damp touch of the spray
The intermitent roar
Perhaps, someday
I will love this hot dry place
but the Pacific will always hold my soul

Copyright Ryan Cole, 2010

6/3-4-5/10

Requiem 6/5/10

I no longer live in Ocean Park
though I am never far from that place
It is always inside me
the foundation upon which everything is built
Santa Monica
Where I was born
Where I watched my mother die
It will always be my home
and if I spend the rest of my life
living in the spaces in between
Still it will remain
a haven, a promise
and as for me,
I will be living in hope even if I no longer live
in Ocean Park

Shelter 6/4/10

Shelter she offered
so briefly given
but how could it be
when she was the tempest
and I was the aftermath

WWTWD 6/3/1o

In the bleakest of times
When the world seems destined
to fall
I ask myself
"What would Tom Waits do?"
And usually
things feel alright

8 poems

6/2/10

What kind of fool decides in his forties
that what he really wants to be
is a poet
Fortune's foe?
A friend to all follies?
What kind of fool?
This kind

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

Balance 6/1/10


Standing on an edge
wondering about the fall
feeling the wind against my face
thinking about a time long ago
if not very far away
perhaps this too shall pass
but for now
I am balanced

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

For Jennifer F. 5/31/10

Motionless
Yet with fire and movement
She holds the pose
relaxed, never stiff f
illing the canvas with life
and creating art
out of stillness

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

A Haiku 5/30/10

Night blooming jasmine
drifting in the air tonight
and I think of you

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

Lets Get Lost 5/29/10

Lets get lost
Lets run away
though there are no circuses left to join
We'll create our own
just you and I
We'll walk the tight rope together
and swing on the trapeze
everyone will say how lovely you are
as they laugh at me
Yes, let's get lost
Let's run away
We'll leave this world behind
to live in castles in Spain

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

Mantra 5/28/10


Like a mantra
the words that always echo inside
make their way to my unwilling lips t
o be asked of the beautiful, stupid moon
"What am I doing with my life?"
The ever present question always
unanswered except for the simple words
finding their way to my unwilling lips
"It's better than the alternative."

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

For C. 5/27/10

She makes her way to the dark woods
the windy moors
The blank places on the map
where dragons be
Not for her the birdsong or the dappled glen
The gentle stream
No, she is the torrent and the tussle
The wild places and barren lands
The world sees only her face
Bewitched and beguiled by the beauty
Desired and demanded
She is just a commodity to be taken and used
and then discarded
No better am I
this much I know
Though perhaps not just by the beauty caught
Seduced instead by the sadness
as is my way,
for I too have dwelt in the dark woods
The windy moors
and the blank places on the map
where dragons be

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

Grapefine, Sunrise, Wildflowers 5/26/10

The sun rises over the harsh mountain landscape
climbing upward
not yet reaching the stink of Bakersfield
brown and grey and dry
When suddenly bursting bright purple
covering the horizon promising hope
that worm in the soul
Maybe this day something good will happen
perhaps this is not the end

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

5/24/10, 5/25/10

HER NAME 5/25/10

I try not to say her name
As if it held some power to cast a spell
I don’t say it aloud though it is in my thoughts all the time
Bouncing around in the empty corners of my head
Resounding like a bell on the door of an old shop
Burrowing deeply into the soft place of my heart
I try not to say her name
For fear that when I do
I will lose that last part
Bouncing around in the empty corners of my head
Burrowing deeply into the soft places
of my heart

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

TEN WEEKS AND TWO DAYS 5/24/10

Ten weeks and two days without a drink
And I can't say I miss it yet
I don't feel the absence of anything
More it is a presence I perceive
How much has changed in that time
How many worlds have risen and fallen
Empires of my folly
Grief and joy and grief again
And the question I'm afraid to ask
Where will I be,
Ten weeks and two days from now ...
Without a drink, perhaps

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

Two pieces

The Parts You Saved 5/23/10

The parts you saved
were not the things you valued most
It was just the stuff that was close at hand
And the things you lost
Were the treasures
that cannot be replaced

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

PERFECTION 5/22/10

"I don't want perfection," I say
"It doesn't exist, and if it did, it'd be boring"
I say these words and she nods and smiles
I say these things but I think she "is" perfect
In all the little ways
The turn of her nose
The shade of her eyes
The shape of her mouth
And the way she calls me on my bullshit
She is perfect the way a Vermeer painting is perfect
made of light ...
Light and shadows

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

A PLACE LIKE HOME

A PLACE LIKE HOME

I have found comfort in this place
Not love perhaps, though it has flittered now and then
At the corners of my vision
Dancing seductively with beguiling grace
And I have rested in this place
While the wounds of a lifetime have healed
To old scars, tough and numb
So that they no longer cause pain
But are reminders of what has been lost
And I have changed in this place
Grown and shrunk waxed and waned
Like the lines of tide at its two extremities
Marked by the detritus left behind
And I have lived in this place
But it has never been my home
Walls and sinks, bed and tables are not home
Shelter and convenience are not the parts
From which home is made
No, home is the things I keep in that tattered tramps suitcase
That is my heart
Held together by packing string, duct tape, and wishful thinking
With scuffs and scratches in the torn vinyl
Water stains, whether from rain or tears I cannot say
But it holds the precious things
The vagabonds tune sung in the night to keep the demons at bay
The lovely melody pieced out on a slightly out of tune piano
And the light of your eyes, when I look into them
Head down and slightly turned to the left
Illuminated by my butane fire as I light your cigarette
And the smile we share
These are what I think of as a place like home

Copyright Ryan Cole 2010

Untitled

Saying all the right words
but only causing her pain
The right words but the wrong lips
My lips, not his lips
What a tragedy
two broken hearts instead of one
Yet I am compelled to throw myself against the rocks of her ambivalence
until she casts me aside
Still I fling myself headlong
down that flight of stairs
that will pass for love
'Til something better comes along

Lullaby

I will write a lullaby
for all the lost and fallen
who linger on barstools until the shout of last call
I will sing a ballad
for the lonely and brave
who face the dawn with tired eyes and chagrined smiles
I will play a dirge
for the sad and scattered
who seek redemption in another's eyes
if only for a moment or a day
And I will compose a sonnet
for all of us who continue
and cling to love
if only as promise unfulfilled

Revenant

I see you
as a reflection in turbulent water
A shattered image across the rippled surface
I hear you
as a melody caught feintly across the canyon
A familiar tune, half remembered
I feel you
as a whispered breath across the back of my neck
a touch along the small of my back
I miss you
with the sad regret of all my failures
and the ache of a phantom limb

The Journey Home

You don't want to cry, not again, not any more, not in this place, so you look out of the bus window at the night sky. your eyes fall onto the Big Dipper, and follow the well known path to the Pole Star, and realize, again, that the heavens have lost their glow. You have no idea where you are, for the country darkness obliterates all landmarks, and you only know you are traveling south. Your thoughts travel back over the day, seeing the sunrise over the Grapevine, in that mad dash northward on a fool's mission, a knight in tarnished armor, already too late, though you wouldn't know that, not then.

Now though, as you face the long journey home, you can only think of her, and that you were too late. You contemplate listening one last time to her final message, but know that you won't. You don't want to hear the sadness, the despair, and the last word, "Goodbye."

You listen to the three skinheads who had, just that morning, been in prison, talking about all the pussy they're going to get when they get back to Fresno, and you wonder at the joys which must be Fresno pussy after who knows how many years in prison.

But always, she is in your thoughts. As you begin to drift off, she comes to you, and the thought of her alone, without any hope left, in those last moments. Did she listen to your frantic messages on her phone, your pleading and bargaining, the promise that you were on your way, or had the ache reached such a point that she wasn't listening.

You should have left earlier. You should have thought of something else. You should have done something, anything, you think. Of course, it's not about you. At best, you were only a minor figure in the drama. Still, you had to act, ineffectually, perhaps, but action was required, and in the end, there was no one else.

You reach into your pocket, and feel the unused ferry ticket, the last part of the journey, not to be taken. At the ferry terminal, you finally had internet access, and you received the email that she had passed away. Your classical education cannot help but think of the coins for the ferryman, to cross that final river, and the ticket in your pocket.

You have no real memory of getting from the ferry terminal back to the bus station, purchasing the ticket and waiting for the Greyhound to board. Until that morning, you'd never been on a Greyhound bus, but today, today, it seems you've been riding it half your lifetime, which is now longer than she will have ever get to live.

JUST THE RIGHT KIND OF CRAZY

CHAPTER ONE

"I'm never going to know you now, but I'm going to love you any how" - Elliott Smith

And as these things usually do, the four of them ended up at an after hours hostess bar in the seedier outskirts of Korea Town. Fallon's suit was a bit more wrinkled than when they'd started out, he'd loosened his tie, and he had a two day growth of beard giving him what he liked to think of as his scruffy but dangerous look Overall, he seemed like a guy looking for a lamppost to lean against. Straw looked like he was a fortnight into a weekend bender, and as if he'd recently spent a good twenty minutes crawling around in bushes barking like a dog, because ... well, he'd recently spent twenty minutes crawling around in bushes barking like a dog.

Naomi, the taller of the two girls was still lovely, in that careless scattered way, her dyed black hair falling becomingly across her eyebrow, while Rose, the short blond girl in the torn stockings and dirty black Ramones' T-shirt (dirty from the bush crawling), was almost as bleary-eyed as Straw, who kept looking at his empty brandy snifter and wondering what the fuck happened to all the Armagnac. both girls were only twenty, and had only gone to the art gallery because someone told them there was a good chance of not being carded. That was Friday night. Now it was Sunday ... or was it Monday ... morning.

Rose was giving Naomi that, "LET'S GO!" look, but Naomi's eyes were glued to Fallon's strikingly pale blue eyes, as they surreptitiously held hands under the table like couple of high school sweethearts.

They were sharing the booth with two Thai "hostesses," one of whom was sound asleep while the other stirred her cola with the bored detachment of a mercenary who was getting paid whatever happened.

Straw glanced away from his empty glass at Fallon, and knew his friend was "falling in love" again. Fallon was always falling in love, at a glance, a smile, a kiss. For his part, Straw, who lacked Fallon's more romantic inclinations, was more miserly with his emotions, and didn't throw them around, as Fallon did, like a drunk at Mardi Gras. Of course, what Fallon and Straw meant by love were quite different, and to be fair of the two, he had less opportunities for "love." Fallon was the opposite, people he'd never met thought they'd known him all their lives. While Straw was happy to find a nice stool at a bar where he could glower into his drink, occasionally looking up at other patrons, and possibly making a few drawings in his Moleskine sketchbook, to Fallon, drinking was only a secondary pursuit, which was why Straw usually had three drinks to any one his friend consumed, but that was only fair, since Straw was usually paying.

Fallon affected an easy charm which was false only in the confidence it pretended. While Straw preferred to find a seat at a bar and stick to it, except for frequent sojourns outside to smoke American Spirit cigarettes, Fallon was more comfortable standing, leaning against the bar with practiced insouciance, if only to emphasis his height.

As stated earlier, Fallon usually had more opportunity for romantic entanglements, though in equal fairness it had to be noted, when it happened, Straw was better at "closing the deal," which was why he was working on his second divorce. Fallon let his emotions get all tangled up in things, mistaking what could only be called a brief interlude with the end of the world. He called it love, but really, it was a desire for love more than the real thing. Straw likened him to a teenage girl with a crush, which was an apt description, but what he really loved was the beauty and the sadness, the romance, the poetry, the wanting and being wanted.

For his part, Straw just wanted to get down and dirty, not because he didn't feel things as deeply, but rather, just the opposite, he placed more value on his emotions, and didn't waste them on every girl with father issues he met at a bar or a gallery. He knew, when these things occurred, what he was after, unlike Fallon, who was always looking for love, when in truth, what he really needed was to fuck.

And now, at this after hours hostess bar in the seedier outskirts of Korea Town, Straw knew full well Rose had no real interest in him, though she seemed to like the brandy, just as his interest in her were strictly recreational. Naomi, on the other hand, was clearly dealing with serious father issues, and in as much danger of mistaking what was just another lost weekend with the romance of a lifetime. Fallon really did have beautiful eyes.

So, eyeing Fallon's untouched brandy with avaricious intent, he reached for his wallet and slipped out a credit card, ordered two more drinks, then ordered one for Rose as well, vaguely remembering the enjoyable experience of crawling around in the bushes barking like a dog, and figuring one more drink couldn't hurt, or two for that matter.

PROSE

INTRODUCTION

I no longer live in Ocean Park, though I am never far from that place, no matter how many miles stand between us. Ocean Park was the place we were young, when we were golden, and the world was a girl, and she was Ocean Park. But she left it long before I did, it was broken for her, like I broke her heart.

These days it seems I spend my time in passing, from somewhere I don’t want to be, to places I have no desire to go. Everything is in between, without sanctuary, and home, well, home is in Ocean Park, which exists now only as a place on a map that I used to know. A nostalgic memory, a kind of poem.

But, oh, in its time, Ocean Park was something beautiful. It was hope and the resurrection, or at least it was mine. Ocean Park was my chance for redemption. It was the light at the end of the world, the safe harbor. Ocean Park was a thousand sunsets, given as gifts to a girl who’d laugh and throw back her head. Ocean Park was a long forgotten but beloved song heard from the radio of a passing car.

Ocean Park was Beth, and Beth, oh, she was the whole wide world.

AUGUST 20

I always thought there were three ways of coming at 4:37 in the morning. The first is coming at it full on, from the night before, raging and on the run. The second, breaking into it from unconsciousness, suddenly awake and alive, facing that moment just before light returns to the world. The third is, well, not at all, sleeping through it, unaware of its existence until it's passed.

That night I discovered a fourth, sitting in a chair at St. John's Hospital, wishing I was asleep, but knowing it won't come, can't come, watching the woman who brought you into this world as she was about to leave it.

My mother was dying.

My sister was asleep in the other bed, trying to catch one or two hours of sweet oblivion that I had sought through wine and women and excess and never come close to.

The things that made her who she was were gone. Her mind, her warmth, her humor, her sadness, those things had been drained away by cancer, pain, and morphine. Still, her body refused to let go of this life, clinging on, refusing to submit.

Earlier that evening, I'd pretended to sleep as my father stood over her, his head hung down and his hand tenatively brushing hers. He'd been in love with her since they were in high school, more than half their lifetimes, although his still had decades to go, hers could be measured in hours. I think for the first time I saw them not as my parents, who had always been there, weak, misguided, uncommunicative, lost at times, but instead as two people who had and did love each other, would always love each other. Yes, my brother, sisters and I were losing our mother, but he was losing the only person he had loved, the only person who had loved him back, the ... well, the one.

Now, he was at home, taking my youngest sister there so they could shower, change clothes, sleep in a bed. My brother was in Long Beach with his wife, who was pregnant with the niece my mother would never know. As I already said, my other sister was sleeping fitfully in the other bed.

So I was the one standing vigil.

A priest came quietly into the room, old, gray balding head on tired stooped shoulders. He jumped slightly when he saw I was awake, as if he expected to be alone with the dying. I knew he had come to give the last rites, to say the blessing of a church my mother had left when she was 14. The priest looked embarrassed, as if he didn't want me to realize what everyone knew, that she was dead already, and only a stuborn perverse physical shell refused to give up. He rushed through a quick prayer, made the proper gestures, and awkwardly hurried out of the room, leaving the two of us alone.

I wanted to tell her it was okay, she could go, we'd be alright without her. I wanted to tell her I'd be okay, she didn't have to worry about me. I'd make it through this life. In other words, I wanted to lie to her, to ease her on her way. I didn't. There was no real point. She was gone.

Instead, I sat in the chair by her bed at St. John's Hospital, at 4:37 in the morning, coming at it from what was definitely the wrong way, standing watch, waiting for my mom to die.

MORGAN

She couldn't sing to save her life, but that didn't stop her. What she lacked in pitch, rhythm, tone, and, well, talent, she more than made up for in enthusiasm and volume. Morgan was why God created Karaoke. Or was it the Japanese who created it?

Her legs were long and straight, and her body had that awkward grace of one who hasn't yet grown into herself. I honestly think she had no idea she was beautiful, high cheekbones, eyes like the wild blue yonder, shoulder length blond hair tinted with orange. There was a regal beauty about her, and I could tell, in a few years, the world would throw itself at her feet.

And when she smiled, there was so much joy in it, I couldn't help but wonder why she was so drunk. Maybe because she was so young.

Her lips tasted like cinnamon, but that was probably the gum. She drank Jameson's, and I don't for a minute doubt she'd never heard of it before I'd ordered mine. Still, she consumed it with swagger, wrinkling her little nose, but downing it like soda pop.

All the songs she sang were by Billie Holliday. Why a tone deaf blonde girl from L.A. chose to sing sultry blues I'll never know, but from that day on, I will always think of her when I hear Billie's songs, particularly if it's a Wednesday night, at some bar, with Karaoke, and silly, sweet, drunk college girls who have no idea how lovely they are.

SHE

She careened into my life like a natural disaster on rollerskates, crashing against the walls and leaving a swath of destruction of biblical proportion. And as I crawled from the wreckage she left in her wake, I saw for the first time that everything I had held as precious was shabby and worthless, gladly abandoned to ruin for another second in her arms.

She loved in sudden bursts, and once her love was spent, she was gone. She laughed with abandoned, raged with fury, forgave in a second, or never at all.

Yet I held her through that night as she wept, our bodies our only shelter, and though I will feel her absence every day for the rest of my life, I will treasure every second we were together.

And I know she's out there now, loving someone else, destroying his life in a good way, opening his eyes to what really matters, and then moving on.

I only wish she'd had better taste in men.

SUMMER INTERLUDE #1

As she peeled the orange, the scent of the fruit filled the room. She places a segment in her mouth, the odor perfumes her breath. I taste the tart sweetness on her lips and tongue, lick the juice from her fingers. Lying beside her, back when things were good, comfortable in our nakedness, our bodies brown from hours wasted lying in the sun, when we were young, I knew love for the first time.

Picking up the bottle of champagne from the floor, she sips the wine, and we kiss again, the cool sparkling liquid fills my mouth from hers, mingling with the lingering taste of the orange.

She laughs, playfully pushes me away, her hair falling back across her shoulders, as she again sips the wine.

That was the summer of champagne and oranges, of sand and the sea. Oh, the sadness was there, even then, but it was held in check, at least for a time, by our joy in discovering each other’s body, by the easy laughter of shared jokes, by love revealed every day in all its confusing, beguiling, overwhelming promise. The past was nonexistent, for as I said before, we were young. The future was a million years away, easily ignored. We were alive for the moment, immortals on Olympus, doomed in our hubris, but unaware of our damnation.

That’s the way it should be, at least once in your life.

And I can still taste the orange and the champagne.

SUMMER INTERLUDE #2

The day was so hot we lay in the bed naked, with the dying fan wanly pushing the air around the bedroom. For some reason that summer, French champagnes were inexpensive, and so we were a little drunk on either Moet or Mumms. Maybe more than a little drunk, but in that soft, blurry way.

Beth slept, fitful and restless, while I tried to read from a book that was lying close to the bed, but the heat and the drone of the wan fan, as well as the champagne, made it impossible to focus on the words.

I wouldn’t say I was happy then, for happiness has never really played a part in my life. So, not happy, but content? Possibly, though that too was a somewhat foreign feeling to me. Still, I didn’t feel the gaping hole of despair, which was about as good as it got.

As for Beth, I knew even then that I would never be enough for her, that I would always fall short of her needs, her expectations. I was nothing more than a stopgap, filling the spaces in between.

And yet … and yet she slept, as I lay beside her, through the heat of a summer day, listening to the slow moan of a dying fan, slightly drunk on French champagne, although I can’t remember if it was Moet, or Mumms.

LOVE, SWEET MISERABLE LOVE

I am love’s fool.

Sweet, miserable, love. It’s bipolar, taking you from the heights of ecstasy to the depths of despair, at least if you’re doing it right. And I, I have climbed that peak and plunged to those lows, a searcher and a vagabond. I have heard the sirens’ sing in my heart, and have thrown myself into the waves, to be flailed upon the rocks. But which is love, the swell, the rocks, or the siren’s call?

Battered, bloody, bruised and broken, I awake on some pebble strewn strand, crippled and scarred, but still I hear the song, it rings in my head like a promise, seducing, calling, laying claim to my heart, lingering in the shadows, whispering my name.

And when my wounds have healed, call me Ishmael, I will again sign on for the next voyage, to seek that elusive prize, love. Sweet, miserable, love.

A CONVERSATION AT PALISADES PARK

And so she said, "Did you ever wonder, you know, like, if maybe we …" she looked away then, the autumn breeze whipping the auburn strands of her hair across her face, "if we had …"

And my heart broke again, as I said, "… got together?" She nodded, not looking at me, sticking her hands deeper into the pockets of her jeans. Suddenly, I was 21 again, madly in love with her as I was at the time. The years fell away like so many promises, and I saw the girl I had loved then, loved first, had always loved, one way or another.

"Oh darling," I said, "if we had gotten together, the heavens would have fallen. The stars would've thrown themselves from the sky in jealous rage, angels would have rebelled…" and here, my voice cracked slightly, "... because if we'd gotten together, it would have been perfect. And perfection was never meant to exist in this world, the sight of it would've ended time itself."

She looked down shyly, then up into my face, our eyes meeting, and she smiled. After a second, she punched me lightly in the arm, and said, "Shut up!" and walked farther along the palisades.

But the smile stayed, the words said, and the moment passed. We walked along the cliffs a little way further. I counted the sailboats cutting across the blue waters of Santa Monica Bay below us, while she studied the clouds drifting across the sky.

"We would have driven each other crazy," She added.

"Yeah," I agreed, "short trip, though."

She laughed again. "Short trip, I like that."

BLUE SKY SUNDAY MORNING

She sent me to get a bottle of wine. It was 6 a.m., and somewhere in Santa Monica, a liquor store had to be opened. I was grateful for a chance to get some air, to escape the bitterness, the anger.

She'd finished the last bottle at about 3, and with it, things had settled into a numb detante, but all the things she wanted to say still simmered, ready to boil over. I'd long given up defending myself, arguing, equivocating, even agreeing. I just sat in the armchair, trying to comfort the two cats lurking in the corners. They hated to see us fight, though by now, they ought to have been used to it.

The day shouldn't have been so perfect. Santa Monica never looked lovelier, the morning sky already glistened though the sun was still to appear from behind the mountains. It should have been cold a gray, with a whisper of rain on the wind, not the promise of summer on the cool ocean breeze.

I walked to the Budget Mart, across from Hollister Park, but the Pakistani man who worked there 20 hours a day was probably sleeping on his cot in the storeroom, so I sat on the grass in the park, looking at the ocean, the curve of the coastline, the outline of Catalina. Once, I had possessed these things, or maybe been possessed by them, but now they were hers. I'd given them to her when I was young and poor and had nothing else to give. She'd laughed then, giving me her smile in exchange. Now, everything in my life was colored through her. I'll never see a sunrise, or a sunset for that matter, which isn't borrowed from her, and must be given back with interest.

Finally, the door opened to the market, and I crossed the street. "Good morning my friend," the clerk said, smiling as he always did. I picked up the cheapest bottle of Sauvignon Blanc I could find. He smiled knowingly as he took the cash, that grin that liquor store clerks have when dealing with alcoholics, though in truth, I'd only had two glasses of the previous three bottles, the last purchased five minutes before he'd closed up four and a half hours earlier. "Have a good day my friend," he said as I waved a world-weary goodbye.

Walking down 4th Street, I felt the sun on my face as it broke above the far hills, its warmth was wasted.

Climbing up the rickety wooden stairs to her apartment above the garage, I saw my overnight bag was sitting on the landing, a bad sign. The door was locked, and I knocked on the glass. She looked up from where she sat on the chez we'd bought at a little store in North Hollywood, wearing the silk dressing gown I'd got her for her birthday two years before, the hurt expression on her face I'd given her so many different times over the years. She looked away without responding, so I placed the bottle on the landing and took up my bag.

As I made my way home, the long walk to the Coast Highway, feeling the breaking of a perfect day, perfect in everything except in the wreckage that was our lives. The blue sky, on a Sunday morning. And I knew that this was not the end of the beginning, or even the beginning of the end, but the end in itself. But still, there was the blue sky, on a Sunday morning.

Random collection

If You Love ...

When I think of something funny, who will I rush to tell?
When I wake up at 3 a.m., who will I feel next to me?
When the sadness comes, as it always does, who will hold me?
When I marvel at all the beauty in this world, with whom will I share it?
When I buy flowers, who will they be for?
If you love someone else now, who will I do these things for?

Walking Home

Walking home from work, on streets I've known my entire life, and yet everything seems different, as if changed in a way that is not readily apparent, same buildings, same road, same trees. But somehow everything seems unreal, like in a dream. I remember a time, long ago, when I was driving with my father, going home from the hospital when my mother was dying. It was the same streets then, the same town, but again, there was a tangible difference that I couldn't name, and still can't.

That's how it felt, walking home from work last night, with only Sirius shining through the overcast night's sky, reaching across a million years to touch me on a strange and wonderful night.

Like Water

For I am like water
Following the path of least resistance
Through stagnant pools and rapids' rage
Like waterI will always find my way
To the sea

A Rarity

I live for the random moments of happiness.
They are the promise that keeps me going.
I just wish they weren't so rare,
but each one is precious,
which only comes with rarity.

Though the storm had passed, it brought heavy swells, and the waves crashing against First Jetty filled the already damp air with a taste of salt. I sat for almost an hour, on the smooth rock atop the jetty, which wasn't really a jetty at all, but rather a stone breakwater, stabbing into the ocean, stopping the eternal shifting of the sand by the current, creating the beach. Whatever, it was First Jetty, that's what everyone called it.

I watched the sun setting between Catalina and Point Dume, though the dark clouds and grey mist diffused the colors to a dull slate, but no matter. I tried to watch the sunset every day that year, and the late fall and early winter always promised the best gloaming. I would walk along the tideline from Chautauqua to Gladstones and back, the breaking waves tickling at my bare feet, wetting the cuffs of my jeans, erasing my footprints as I passed. And always I would stop at First Jetty to watch the waves hurling themselves against the unyielding rock. It was the last year of my youth, the year I lost my mother, and I met Beth. I realize now that I was hiding then, wanting only to drink and fuck and escape the sadness I'd always felt, but drinking only numbed it, and fucking was a poor substitute for love, though at the time I fell in love with every girl I slept with, if only for the moment.

If you'd asked me, I would have told you I had no desire for love. I wanted to be wild and loose and all the things I'd been too timid to experience in high school and my first years of college. I was a fool, and like all fools, I lied to myself. But whether I was looking for it or not, I found love in the mad, brilliant, mercurial form of Beth.

And of course I was lying to myself about my mother. Oh, I knew she was dying. We all did, but I think I saw it first, yet was the last to accept it. I'd felt a shadow clinging to her for a long time, an intangible presence different from the sadness we both shared, which was her legacy to me, perhaps a gift, more likely a curse. The point is I knew that she would be gone soon, but went on in my pointless debauchery, only going home to do laundry, because there was nowhere to do it at my apartment by the beach. I was a coward as well as a fool. I would sit with her, talking and joking, carefully avoiding the grey crepe paper quality to her skin, the dark smudges surrounding her eyes. I would stay as long as I could stand it before fleeing to my hovel and excesses, loud music, easy women, and cheap booze.

Yet still, every afternoon, I would walk along the beach from Chautauqua to Gladstone, and stop at First Jetty, which wasn't really a jetty at all, to watch the last of the day, and let the spray from the crashing waves hide the tears in my eyes from no one but myself.