Night Sky #1 (from Maine Poems)

There is a strange beauty
that creeps under the doorway
around these midnight hours.
Little tealight hours that sometimes
waste away like light on a page,
passing from east to west
like reading the Milky Way
across the night.  I remember


when we did that not a month ago,
when I, with my flashlight in hand,
led us down the stairs 
from our bed
on the porch 
to the shore of the lake
and flung the simple light into the sky
to find out constellations
and stay close in the cold
of Late August, Maine.  


Then we hopped up the porch
and slept peacefully, making love
almost as an afterthought,
an addendum
to an already beautiful night.
What more love could 
we show than 
sharing the clear night sky
and the crisp cold air 
with each other?  


If two bodies, clasped together,
craning their necks high into the dark,
fingers sharing knowledge 
of history's great secrets,
breathing each other's passion
for life into the art of the sky


is not making love


than what is?

Desperation

I've lost touch.

My muse is not forthcoming, even 

so close to midnight when nothing

else is supposed to come along

and distract me but the silent reverie

of a voice speaking pretty words 

through the back of my head.

Instead, I'm caught half-aware,

listening to logical sentences

that don't get me anywhere

but the delete button 

on an off-white page.  

I'm a product of my age,

a writer in the temporal flux

of nearly-manhood,

that can't find a story

quite good enough to tell

or the belief to tell his own story

that is good enough to tell.

So I sit here, at midnight,

a flute with no wind,

completely flat when it comes

to inspiring a need

to write a poem

that is decently read.  

Love

-originally written 3/17/09


You could smell the grass was growing today

like the night we first made love. And it's not

like you're thinking, cause we didn't make love.

We made - love. Like a bird makes love to a

song, like a wolf makes love to the moon, like

a starfish floating gently on the tide on a twilit

night makes love to the motion of Mother Earth -

we made love. It was love, like a song lyric

on a road trip day, where the sun gleams on

the hood of your car and a rabbit hops along

the width of the highway, a culmination

of your teenage angst; an amalgamation of

dust and pot and tears that rolled up

together meant - high school. But again,

that's not what you're thinking either

because I didn't really get high till college,

when I saw her, and I was transported by her

mossy eyes, that reminded me so much

of a memory I couldn't grasp at anymore,

like a leaf picked up by the wind and

thrown into a stream, to travel and become

sediment and dust feeding a mossy rock

on some wide river in the middle of

nothing and nowhere. Which is exactly

the beginning of love, a place of nothing,

like a lighthouse in the middle 

of a town square, that gets beat up 
by wave after wave after wave
of incessant tide-lines.  To be a rock
against the ocean is what love truly is - 
and it only gets smoother over time.

MTV Watching

There is something really off
about the MTV Movie Awards.
I could write more,
but I'm not sure
that devoting
time
to mediocrity
is a worthy way
to spend the evening.


But I continue my viewing.


It's like watching a clock ticking
backwards.  These people who
race against the magic of time,
who throw themselves fondly
into the arms of publicity -


seems to me a dangerous stunt.
I suppose the biggest might be
grappling their way out
of the limelight because I
watch them and feel nothing


but a slight sense of discomfort
that they know they are being
viewed by millions and judged
by millions and loved by millions


of people.  But they are people
and they are more than people.


They are our golden idols
and we worship the millstone
of Hollywood with offerings
of corroded arteries
and sugar-driven nerve fires.


Oh to wake up one day
and see it all burn down
and watch a crossword
get put up in place
of the Hollywood sign.


But we would all probably
get bored by that really soon
and start making up words
to fill up weird spaces
and pretty soon the words
Hollyw and Ood
would end up together
and we'd start all over again.

Walking and Thinking

I believe in watching time pass
through the lighted window
of grace.  There was a moment


today when stained glass
mandalas made more sense
than any linear pattern,


so I went inside, out
of the straight-pouring rain,
to contemplate my loneliness


closer to God.  Today
was a day I wished I could paint;
pale trees through a mist


of snowflake rain, alighting
on face and hair and arms
with such goodness


that being sheltered from it
would be insulting a higher
power.  I walked.  Trees


like old Norse gods,
spreading out their strength
before the inevitable dying-time,


became my companions,
and I thought about sitting
underneath, till an old man


in a jazz reverie
sat too, and I left him
to his remembrance.


It was a fine day to walk,
explore, imagine, dream,
do all of those shapely


awkward calculations
of the future like we used
to when we were kids.


I thought about you, about
life, about London, about French,
about omelettes and crosswords


and finding trails where there
were no trails anymore.  I thought
about writing and recollection,


about stories, about disease,
about struggle, and money,
and children, and fireplaces.


I thought about Christmas,
and music, and laughter,
and I thought about Paris


and I thought about you.
The day was wet with these
thoughts, spattering


the ground around me.
Where the huge mulch lay,
thoughts coagulated


and rose in steam heat
back to their origins
in the clouds.  

New Boys and Old Boys

We ate and laughed
and drank and you were there,
in the little light room,

surrounded by your antipathy
in the form of friends.
I suggested a conversation;

it was lost in translation
of your anger to foam
to an ice cube
pressed against your lips,

a coddling of ice akin
to a hand against your hip

that I knew you missed so well.

He was older than you in a way,

because he was gone quicker than you

and you

still

love him.

In a quiet way,
perhaps,
you
still
love him.

I could tell you that a million times

and every time it would be true

but you won't grow any older

than a flower in the mud,
a perennial of metallic dissonance
that scrapes back against the boots
trying to wilt and depress it

to the wet ground.  I knew

that we could never convince you

of your importance to the world.

That would be an idea
discovered yourself,
maybe later and farther away.
All the men I know discover themselves

in their thirties, when they stop trying

to prove to everyone the importance

of love.  Deep down you want
peace and quiet

just as much everyone else.
So be content with that.

Now and Soon

I understand
that someday, if I work
hard enough, I will be able
to explain something simply
by having a white beard on
my chin.

I understand
that someday, if I work
hard enough, I will see my
child being born and that
will change the way I think
about the world forever.

I understand
that someday, if I work
hard enough, all of my
arrogance will dissolve
with the opening of a flower.

I understand
that someday, if I work
hard enough, I may be able
to end up in your arms every night,
no matter how far away
you are at the beginning of the day.