The Fire in Our Eyes

Wash away the thoughts and fears
that complicate the moment

and forget you ever knew
just what the word "alone" meant

Then feel the way we feel held tight
within each others' arms

and you'll see that all those fears
were really false alarms

Close your eyes and follow me
into the great divine

A heavenly place our dreams will create
so reality won't confine

There we will reside together
whenever we're apart

with the freedom to study each other
like we are living works of art

Love will become all we know
and all we'll ever feel

Our lives will reach the peak of joy
which will make it seem surreal

Then passion will erupt in us
and engulf us both in flames

Together we will burn forever
loving just the same

(The fire in our eyes
isn't something we see
It's the fire that burns,
burns internally)

My One Poem for Lala...

This is something I wrote my ex in the first couple months of the relationship, when everything was sweet and rosy and not full of lies and betrayal. When there was SO MUCH hope and un-damned love...un-dammed love. I don't think I ever shared it with you guys. It's not GREAT but...if you repeat it a few times it rolls off the tongue nicely. It may be the only poem I ever wrote her...I cant remember. I haven't gone back through those files in....yeah. But this one...has been comin to mind lately. It helps that I have it engraved into the side of my brain. I even made her memorize it at some point. I thought it might help us. I don't think it helped us. That's the kicker. I wrote this....Before EVERYTHING, before all the turmoil, laid out my intentions before her, clear as could be in black on white. A map of my love drawn out in a few words. The fact that it came to have even more weight and significance for me and us later on though is a trip. It's like my intuition was at work behind my back when I penned this, or maybe I just KNEW there were troubled waters under that beautifully controlled surface....but I underestimated their depths. Everybody's got issues, right?! Yeah, NO, some people have WAY WORSE issues than others. Let that be known! I'm not sayin she's still that way now, I'm just sayin she was that way then. I'm just sayin I wrote this for her, for HER HEART and she never got it. Never appreciated it...never understood how much it meant. How much love I was declaring in this declaration every time I whispered it to her. What a waste huh? Anyway...

All I wanna do is give the gift of love to lift you up
well above the riffs that rub and rip you up
well above the tiffs that tug and trip you up
til there's little left of what you truly love
about yourself or anyone else you know
cuz what we've felt has dealt the hardest blow
enough to melt a heart at sub-zero
til it PARTS
And a warm river starts to flow
that waters every part of you that wants to grow

Beds are Lonely Places

Beds are lonely places
like untouched deserts
You can roll around in one
like a slow wind
but nothing really changes
You are a dune in a black and white landscape
You are a form, a shape under a thin sheet
of moonlight
Your solitude is solid and intact
You want to destroy it, but everything is so soft
You can't
It folds and unfolds around you like oil and sand
There is nothing you can do
but wait 
for a flood of phosphorescent love

_

To Behold Her, to be Held

2-13-06

"when I first saw her
I turned my head too quickly—
it's been spinning ever since"

There is the semblance of dusk
freckled all over her face,
as if to behold her is to be held
by the unsettling serenity of a setting desert.

A beam of daybreak gleams
in her nightly eyes,

as though Dawn and Sunset
intimately embraced, and,
in quiet parting, revealed Her:
a beauty uncompromised

by the passing of time
or the negligence of weak men;
a loveliness untouched
by the black snowflakes
life lends to all the hearts
and all the parts
of the human experience.

She is a moment of truth in the day
and a breath of passion in the dark.

Unattainable to most, maybe even herself,
she often leads alone.

Cupping her proud head in my hands
I touched her,
once,
like one might touch a deep waterfall:

Neither of us sure
who would be carried
away the most.

So we drifted..........apart

.....ever since then,

and ever since......then,

it's just been........water

........falling

from the sky......

......................like rain.

Will You Believe Me Then?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Bangkok
at six o' clock every evening
they play the King's Song everywhere
and wherever it is heard
wherever it is possible
commuters stop walking
joggers in the park stop jogging
and everyone stands still for minutes
as if hypnotized by the sound.
I want to take you there,
not to show you but to kiss you
at that moment,
so you can see with your own eyes
how your kiss can stop the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey LAYDEES!

I got somethin for ya!

And with a smile like that you know it's gonna be gooood, right?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

HA! I tease but I tell no lies! Word.

Word to your beautiful mothers of course!

LOL! Excuse me while I entertain myself! With ANY luck maybe I can make you smile as well.

Let's get to the point of all this tail wagging, shall we?

One thing I did productively this weekend was crack open my LAST poetry notebook for the first time in ages. I did this on the ride home from the island. It was a fairly crazy experience! I haven't looked in that thing for years, hell I've HARDLY written in it FOR YEARS. Which is terribly sad to say. Lemme make it clear why...

My poetry notebook was once the only thing I ever wrote in. From the time I got my first one (which I also just opened and looked at for the first time in YEARS!) in 1995 to the time I bought the last one, I ALWAYS had a notebook that I took with me everywhere! How far I have fallen. How far have I fallen? Lemme tell ya!

It used to be that I would FILL a notebook like the one I have now EVERY YEAR! Maybe every year and a half, but that's still Quite a bit of writing in not a ton of time. This notebook I have now I bought shortly after I moved to Oregon, in 2005. Since then, In the course of FIVE FREAKING YEARS, I have filled maybe a fifth of it! Freaking SAD.

Here's the good news though, the part that involves you wonderful feminine figures in my life. It turns out a lot of the stuff in there is basically LOVE POETRY! Yeah. Wow. Not something I write often, not something I really like to write at all, but the first few pages of that notebook have SEVERAL pieces, some of which I barely remember writing! Some of which I may not have even shared! And you know what, by my estimation, they're not half bad.

I am kinda hoping you will be so kind as to give me a more accurate opinion of their merit or quality though. You think you could do that? I would appreciate it. I would love it if you didn't hold back your reactions, IF you have any. It would help me know which ones to keep on file/shop for publication and which ones to...donate to the internet! Free of Charge! Out of the kindness of my heart of course. ;)

Seriously though, if you feel it, if it's got somethin, lemme know, someway somehow. I don't care. It'd be cool know which ones pop AND it'd be cool to know who likes what as well :). I'll start posting them on my new blog soon. And Mr. Guys....Try Not to HATE! Just TRY. :)

As for why I was writing so much like that at that point in time.....It's hard to say. Looking at it now, looking at those pages, at the version of me who was writing those things and feeling all of that, it looks like my heart was going crazy. And I kinda say that with sadness. My heart was just going nuts with emotions and overflowing feeling. NO WONDER I wanted out of America so bad! God I was a mess. Part of it, however, was cuz I came to Portland a still-wounded animal from the relationship that burned the hell out of me in Phoenix. I wasn't over her, not at all, and being that it was months later, I WANTED to BE! And So I was throwing myself, my heart at the window of any woman who paid me attention and calmed me with a kind tender kiss. Half of those windows weren't even open. Think I even broke one or two. Damn fool I was.

BUT! At least I was writing. At least I was writing. My saving grace. Literally. My saving grace. And here I am, closing one of the biggest circles of my life, able to firm-footedly share the turbulent times of my heartfelt existence one poem or one story at a time. Not with pride, not with shame, just with earnestness, with a somber look in my eye that says, "look, see what I used to be? So wild and weak. That was me, beautiful and sad at the same time. I am not that way anymore. But it doesn't scare me to remember, especially if it doesn't scare you."

thank you for reading

Rarity

9-4-05

If I could spare you
my disparity
but wear for you
my tattered sincerity,
share revel in our
similarity
but not tear you
with my severity...

If I could care
fully for your polarity,
snare you ever so
barely,
dare to wonder at your
singularity,
but not impair you
unwarily...

If I could flare up
for your eyes imparity
prepare you a smile
with cuckoo clock
regularity,
scare the fear out of you
and into scarcity,
without despair or qualms
over brevity,

I would be more perfect
than either one of us
could bear to be.