Pre(science)

So it must have been the way

you were dripping, all wet,

come from the streambed

like an orange unpeeling

from the bottom up,

that I realized how dead

the smell of summer must be

without your ringlets of hair

tossed onto my pillow every

morning, or the fresh mug

of peppermint tea left steaming

near the napkin holder: my

think tank against the terror

of melodrama and dyslexic

puns. You were like a sunrise,

or a quill pen, or a fresh caught

fish, dancing. And me,

perspiring under the weary

gaze of the sun in his last yawn

before the barbecue sunset,

could only think about how

man must have first made

fire. But the sun crept away,

alighted on the roof, ran down

playground slides of hair

as you turned your back

to whistle the jingle from

the radio, scratch the dog

and fold up the mat to

keep the dirt off the floor.

Text (edit)

If there was a reason I didn't talk to you

after that last time you tried to contact

me, it would be this: I'm too attracted

to you to be your friend. It's not as if I

don't want to be your friend, because

I enjoy doing friend things, like casual

hugs in the hallway, smiling at you across

a dessert table, laughing with you about -

anything. I even try. I'm very noble

about it. I say, Seth, you can just be her

friend. Then we go to a movie. Then

we go out to a diner afterward. And we

close the place. Then we walk back

to the subway, underneath your cloud-

shaped umbrella, pressed close to each

other; a brief osmosis - and you leave me.

I stand by the train, waiting, thinking,

dreaming of a time to come, when

maybe you actually figure it out and

come to me, like a lioness bringing

home the kill. Because that's what

you have done, you have killed my heart

and all I want is to lay in your jaws

and feel the last beats in my body

bleed out this pain, this pain, this pain

of love. I want you to wear me like

a wolf-skin and hold me close to your

softness like firelight. I want the flames

of me licking at you so that it stings

in such a sweet way, like the crisp sour

of a ripe apple in late summer. I want

a small place in your soul to fill up

with the essence of me, just like my soul

is filled with the honey-lime of you. We

could be something untouchable, like

when Seabiscuit beat the field by 31

lengths. So I just cannot be your friend.

Not anymore. I won't settle for anything

less than all of you. And if you saw all

of me, I don't think you'd settle either.

To Grampa

There's been a poem writing itself inside my head for a while.

I didn't know where to put it, because all of the sudden you died

and I was left on the bus, telling you about Shakespeare,

knowing it would be the last time I talked to you about anything.

So I kept living my life, and I found out the day after, cause Mum

called me at work and said, Seth I have something to tell you

and I didn't call back because I knew the news, I felt the news,

the news was in my heart the night before, and even though the next

day you died, you actually departed me when I felt your passing

like an invisible train passing me, my statements of intent

flapping from my briefcase like lost moths in migration. So my poem

kept billowing; and now, I am a menagerie of penicillin memories -

the room with the stars in your old parish house;

the time when Dad jumped on the bed and broke it;

giant-bubble makers in the backyard next to the flowers;

sick with the flu, surrounded by classic car wallpaper;

real candles on a real Christmas tree; sailing the meager

channel to the Chesapeake Bay, always slightly afraid

of your strangeness and detachment from the warm spring wind.

You shook like a Lego a box before you open it, the pieces

rattling around inside like a motor waiting to start. But

I had no directions for you, no step-by-step instructions

on how to understand your miscalibrated conversation,

nor how to cope with your hands as they guided freshly

sanded wood into the final piece. I knew you as someone

permanently ill, which is now the common trait we share.

And a poem, a poem we share, that has been writing

itself since the moment you passed from a bus window

into twilight and sunset itself. You walk without a stutter

and pass like the whisper of a moth's wings in flight.

So Much Mirth

There was, indeed, a time

when snow was easier to

stomach. When we didn't

have to go to work, but

maybe school would be out

and we could stay home

and shape our dreams

out of cold packed ice;

a complete white for us

to become artists,

entertainers, lovers,

magicians, and piece-

keepers of a younger

habit than the black

and white of our elders

and betters.

We are

enveloped in this heaving

darkness, breathing among

the dead souls of our deceased

as we close ourselves in our

shaded rooms, protected

by the light, by the fire,

by the cremation desire

we all feel when winter's

soft hands break upon

our backs like glass

shattered in the air.

Then we utter a prayer.

Pray Mary to save us

God to grace us

Mohammed to guide us

and Buddha to hide us

from the inevitable

wasteland of our blood.

We are stained red,

all of us, all are of a living thing

of a being possessed by the ineffable,

by the inscrutable,

by the rock and the claw

and the hammer and the sword

by sweat and heavy things,

by a world of inert matter

heaving white flakes of chatter

through the air to land upon!

your nose like a whistle in the cold mountain air,

a clarion call to bring my hands to your cheeks,

my breath to your eyes, and my blue to your green.

And in the quiet twilight, how your lips shape themselves

like literature to an illiterate mind. Its snowing, you

whisper, like a deer loping through a foggy field.

Who's snowing?

The children's.

Gracious Intent

When I was done speaking to Brad about the constancy

of an artistic life, she had walked by me for the fourth 

time.  He said, "Have you noticed?  Four walk-bys."  I

informed him I was aware, making sure to notice her 

nonchalant black dress, her daringly full breasts, and 

her lips, two high-school dreams still unfulfilled.  She

was in the kitchen, me in the hallway, leaning casually

against the lintel of the doorway, where I stole glances

and Brad, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, emancipated

me from my silence by introducing himself, with me 

to follow.  Her name was Claire, a sort of wonderful,

windy sound reminding me of mid-summer in Maine, 

when the breeze had died and the sun was setting,

and the twilight spread out like a picnic blanket before

the fireworks.  I joked with her about the inconstancy

of an actor's life and she informed me of her work

at the Strasberg Institute.  "So you know what a sunny

day feels like?" I said.  "And a cool breeze," she laughed

back.  She introduced me to her friend, Jack, whom

I later learned was her boyfriend/blogging partner.  

He was smart and sensible in his argyle manner,

but he seemed to be wreathed in cumulus below

his neck, so that when he looked down, he squinted

through the fog to find his better parts.  She, beside

him faithfully, seemed made of wood and water,

her deep brown soul a Venus eye-trap, with me 

struggling none too fruitfully against her slick wet

walls.  And suddenly I saw them as they were: 

the depth of her well becoming the steam wrapping

his body.  And me, eroding the hard-won walls

like a termite of Eros, chewing through the fabric

of her illusion to open her body to a new ekstasis.

I did not say goodbye, because I knew I would see

her again.  This time without the dress.

I am wandering like a widow among the gravestones,

peering intently at the names, searching for one

that may, at one time or another, have been mine.  

Now, it's snowing outside my window as I sit here among

my dirty bedsheets, feeling sick and useless and alone,

wishing I could be somewhere the sun shines.  

If I had written a book about love, I would say 

very little about the intricacies of your toothbrush

habits, just like you say very little about mine.  

If we could shower together, even once, and wash

each other's stains away and start again fresh 

as a snow-covered day, I would; happily.

The band plays nothing but a melancholy tune

and I am left weeping outside your room

to watch others progress like a waitress

to your table, offer up their checks 

and depart with a little tip on how 

to do better the next time around.  

I'm on the fence between death and life

and it's now and it's here and you mean

more than anything to me, more than tomorrow

and more than right now, this moment 

and you are all I can think about because 

we talked for so little but it was a fresh

new start, like I wish I could make in all

parts of my potential life.  I wish I was 

moving tomorrow, to an old country,

older than my soul, older than God,

where God was born among the dreaming

like the serpent from the river.  

It's all I can do not to sell my computer

and run away to work on a farm in a valley

between two mountains.  Past, present,

and future all embodied there.  And me

in the middle, with my hands, my gut

and my heart.  I'm crying now.

Awaken, Heart, and sing of the beauty...

Awaken, Heart, and sing of the beauty seen upon the day.

You were a comfort, Muse, to sit down at my table

this afternoon in the coffeeshop, while I was reading

smart prose about a hypothetical history by Philip Roth.  

You were cute, your hair a dirty blond scorched by red;

your feet delicate, in black tasseled boots you must use

to prance around the city at pace.  Your eyes tiny, sharp

and sheltered below a grey flapper hat, wool I think.

You ordered something tall and grand, a big steamer

of a drink, to consume as you read your equally 

fascinating Joseph Heller novel, not 'Catch-22', 

but one of the sequels, which told me you had read

'Catch-22,' and that made me flutter a bit.  I tried 

to concentrate on the words of my book, but it all

began to run together as my brain hopped 

on the fantasy train, riding a future with you

and I strolling through the park, attending avant-

garde classical music downtown, spending entire

days in bed eating chocolate and reading poetry.  

I would surprise you with flowers on a Sunday

afternoon and even though you had to work the next

day, you still came with me to the cinema

for the new documentary on cancer and alternative

medicine.  We would make passionate, digressive

love; animalistic, hungry, and uninhibited, testing

each others' pleasure receptors like hyenas around

a fresh kill.  I would leave you little notes of poetry

on the pillow as I left for work in the morning, your

waking hours becoming fresh exercises in the passion

of an old soul promised already to the hallowed halls

of art.  We grew old, I a teacher, you someone famous

and fantastic, a glittering dream made of maudlin 

gauze, opaque and transparent among the legends

of the world.  Children, grandchildren, a Victorian

house on a quiet lake, me in the canoe every morning,

you the yogi on the lawn.  Fresh vegetables at market,

and omelettes while we do the crossword together.  

I die first, and you send me off into the lake,

burning to ashes in my handmade canoe.  You go on, 

for months, even years, but dream of nothing else 

but death and life and me.  And then I look up, 

my reverie startled by a stranger bumping my chair - 

you are gone.  Your seat is empty, your drink indulged, 

your book closed to be read on the bus ride home.  

I am filled with deep loss.  You are dead to my world,

as certainly as you said goodbye to me in my dreams.  

My dreams keep me whole, my regret keeps me living.