Occasional Chaos

Come Home

Come home soon to me
I promise we'll spend
a weekend's eternity
naked and in bed
following John and Yoko
(but without the journalists)
it'll be just like
starting over.

Lost

A poor sailor lost at sea
strains his heart and eyes
searching for land
or at least an omen
- a bird on the mast.

But he knows he is lost 
as all he can see
are endless waves
and the pitiless sky above.

A poor man lost in the city
strains his heart and soul
searching for meaning
or at least a reason
- an angel in a shopfront. 

But I know I am lost
as all I can see
is the shimmering reflection
of your merciless beauty.

Hollow Morning

I woke early this morning
To an eerily quiet city
No cars in the streets
joggers taking a rare day off
even the dogs begged off their walks, preferring the undisturbed comfort
of familiar floorbeds.

The sky was empty 
Hollow clouds and songless birds lacking any will to dance
In the muted light of dawn
The air was stale and morbid
A listless breeze failing to rustle
Even the dying leaves
Of the sycamore trees.

I searched for your embrace, a kiss,
Or a dove, maybe, offering peace and
Lending meaning to my breaths
That came only with effort
From cold foreign lungs 
But I found nothing
There was just me 
And the heaviness of heart 
That yesterday had wrought.

Tu Me Manques

French, they say, is the language of love.
I wouldn't know, for as hard as I try
I've never loved anyone in French
Except maybe my seventh-grade French teacher
With her short Audrey Hepburn hair
Or that girl on the Metro one hot July evening
Who spoke to me through her smile
As she stood waiting for her stop.

But my lack of fluency, in language and in love
Never stopped me from trying
Practice promising but always failing perfection.
I might just as well be shipwrecked on Lesvos
A millennium ago.

Poetry now competes for love's honor
The heart vying to speak where reason falls mute
For I resist ceding to time's fading will
Content to barter the ephemeral pleasures of the flesh
For those more durable in imagination and dreams.

"I miss you." three words oft met with silence
Or maybe a reflexive "You, too,"
As the TV vies for attention
Their declarative ego laying bare
A presumptuous expectation of outsized returns
On such a small investment. 

"Tu me manques." say the French.
"You are missing from me."
Turning a casual emotion into an aching abyss
Echoing with the urgency of desire
Only a false lover could ignore.

I should have studied harder.

The Angel of Arguello

I've taken to leaving books of poetry
in random places
hotel rooms for the maids
whose soiled dreams are made fresh each day
airport lounges for the businessmen
who of course will never read them
park benches for the old women
mourning the loss of a lifetime friend
the beach for the dog walkers
envious of their charges' sandy ecstasy.

It's not that they hold no further interest to me
though I have read through them more than once
it’s just that coming late to verse
I've got some catching up to do
and the used bookstore seems to have
an inexhaustible supply
ripe for a Johnny Appleseed
praying for a modern-day Gideon.

I think that with enough effort
one of these carefully placed collections
will pique someone’s interest
and become something greater
a catalyst to new perspectives of

joy
 love
   sorrow
      the skies
          family
               darkness
                     time
                          destiny
                              innocence
                                 loss
                                   dreams
                                    despair
                                   war
                                 memory
                              mothers
                          passion
                     solitude
               dance
          eclairs
      dogs
   sleep
 cauchemars
goddesses
angels

especially angels

as I'm indebted to one who introduced me
not too late to such pleasure
she was more than she realized
or maybe she simply knew better
scoffing even now in her absence
at such a thin act
leaving a book on a bench
so little chance of disruption
sure that her personal touch
is infinitely more effective.

Forever

Forever friendships
like bright perennials
wither,
dry petals so fragile
we are drawn to presume the worst
and miss the innocence of their
fleeting beauty.

Defying death,
seeds bursting with yet-empty memories
warm quickly
to the early spring sky
new life waiting for the Earth’s
inevitable welcome
to the precious fragility
that invites new love.

Other Way

We sleep fitfully
purposely half-awake
crushing together like mother and child
two warm bodies yearning for touch
“other way” our whispered cue to reverse roles
care-giver and care-taker shared leads
in our nocturnal pas de deux of old love
choreographed anew each night
to counter the aloneness of the world
today’s broken promise of eternal happiness
repeated for all tomorrows
justifying our desire
for one more dance.

The Visitor

An unwelcome visitor
presses a blade to my back
cold dullness spontaneously morphing
into searing steel
only to fade when it tires of its torment
just long enough
to remind me of how
peace used to feel.

Modern-day shamans
with their numbing potions
have yet to discover
the difference between pain and feeling
leaving me to choose
all-in or all-out.

Or maybe that’s the point
I think dully
as I sail into the afternoon’s torpor
intoxicating warmth
rushing through my veins
a blanketing fog of relief
beginning to release me
from the visitor’s grasp.

If I could just pause here
before the numbness overwhelms
but then it does, and that thought
becomes my new nemesis.

Where are the goddesses
who promised to heal me instead
with songs and dances
sensual and feverish
swapping these sheets damp with pain
for their tantric embraces
magic touches borne of love and lust?
I wait for their deep kisses
praying they are not
the devil’s deliriums.