Friday, May 25, 2012

when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story

     - And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes on a
     Wednesday and a Saturday.
And most especially when you have forgotten Sunday -
WHen you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed,
Or me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon
Looking off down the long street
To nowhere,
Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation
And nothing- I-have-to-do and I'm-happy-why?
And if-Monday-never-had-to-come-
When you have forgotten that, I say,
And how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell,
And how my hear played hopscotch if the telephone rang;
And how we finally went in to Sunday dinner,
That is to say, went across the front room floor to the ink-spotted
     table in the southwest corner
To Sunday dinner, which was always chicken and noodles
Or chicken and rice
And salad and rye bread and tea
And chocolate chip cookies -
I say, when you have forgotten that,
When you have forgotten my little presentiment
That the war would be over before they got to you;
And how we finally undressed and whipped out the light and flowed
    into bed,
And lay loose-limbed for a moment in the week-end
Bright bedclothes,
Then gently folded into each other -
When you have, I say, forgotten all that,
Then you may tell,
Then I may believe
You have forgotten me well.

~Gwendolyn Brooks
   1981

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/gwendolyn-brooks

5.25.12

Ultimately,
What will ruin me

Is not the lack of you

But rather,
the presence. 

Thursday, May 24, 2012

¿Un poco mas?



You want more?

Still thirsty?

Well, come on.

I’m a coffered well
Of enduring
Water for you.

I will flow up
And into your long throat.

Just present it to me.

I have gallons to give,
Rivers to revive,
And leagues to layer upon you.

My hand balance pitchers of what you crave.
And your thirst is
Easily quenched with the tilt of my wrist
In your direction.

You want more?

Well, come on. 

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

 Rubio Diablo,

I don't have a way to contact you, but I see you have found me. I welcome your words. I wait for them. Don't keep running. 

Monday, May 7, 2012

ice cream cone


Licked an ice cream cone
As we walked across a bridge.
I loved you even though I didn’t know you.

The bridge was rickety,
Swaying in the Pacific’s winds.
They pushed against our amusement and the fraying wood panels,
Through it’s conspicuous holes dotting the worn out footpath.

The saccharine cream melted quickly,
Prey of the blazing sun hounding high above our heads.

It dripped a steady dribble down the air-puffed cone
And the side of my palm.
In between my fingers,
Sticky and permanent.

I wonder how many ice cream cones we could share?
That first one, so far South.

Repeated in holographic dazzle…
Across countries?
Throughout lifetimes?
In my heart within yours too?

You got sick from the sweet.
Frustrated,
Plopped the pink swirl upside-down on a concrete post but encouraged me to keep on-
Keep licking,
You would watch infinitely.

After the bridge our legs wanted more,
Something more
But not walking.

They longed for another direction,
Another pace.

My mouth craved the taste of yours,
Or the sugar leftover,
Crystallizing
In small temptations throughout the surrounding air.

I could see them
As clearly as your blue eyes.
They danced on the sides of our afternoon stroll
And shadowed our trail in strange familiarity.

More liquid than firm-
With one last lick with flat tongue I launched the treat over the bridge
Onto a sobering pile of terrible rocks and trash.

It flew like my inhibitions and landed like my
Gutted fish belly would a day later when I ran down the street after you,
Hugged by only a pink sarong,
To tell you Goodbye.

What did you put in my ice cream?
Poison?
A spell?

I have not
Licked a cone since or seen a
Blonde head framing a set of crazy passion,
Seen a neon colored tank top,
Or smelled the Pacific

Without hoping to pick up your trace scent,
Without feeling that stickiness in between my fingers
Or the earth swaying below me
As if I were balancing on a bridge. 



Saturday, May 5, 2012

black bird


I dreamt of a small bird last night.

A miniature, darting black bird
Weaving throughout my peripheral,
Jetting in front of my face
and in between my fingers.

I tried to grab at it
Each time missing by an inch.
Or a half
Or a millimeter
It’s all the same.

If I had caught it
I would have either
Stroked its tiny neck
With the pad of my thumb
Or rung it quickly and
Waited for the quiet crack of bones.

It annoyed me
With its unattainable flirting.
And attracted me
With its stylish wings.

So I felt justified
In my desire
To end the disruption;
Enlivened
by the bubbling sputter of feelings
It produced.

Luckily,
Perhaps,
I never caught it.

It just kept zigzagging
And never made up it’s mind.



Thursday, May 3, 2012

within/without it



Goodbye to that feeling



And the memories all wrapped upon themselves.

A ball of woolen yarn.

Easter egg yellow and soft

Easy to play with.


Familiar to push in 

with the tip of my forefinger.


Goodbye to the sense

Of always knowing the scents of each others’ necks.

The value of one anothers’ eye locks.

The price of the other’s forfeit.



Goodbye

Goodbye.


I have not been able to burrow

A hole deep enough in which sprouted roots are

Strong enough to level the uneasiness

Or faceted enough to hook one of your many loose ends.


I have not succeeded in changing anything.



Goodbye

Goodbye.


Is what I say

Because I know no other way to

Articulate this loss.