Love Poem #9

And then there was loss,

a pain like a sharp tack

on a corkboard, and there was no

answer coming from the mass of tan matter

that was comforting

or easy to understand. I was shut

out of a piece of you I treasured most:

an inimitable congregation of tiny glances,

parted lips, and small electric pulses

from your fingertips. I could find

no reasonable explanation for my loss

and we went on, inexorably, till finally

you came back and danced the elegant

sonata of us; and I felt a green part

of your joy travel from your tongue

to my lips, in a simple, sensual, quiet demure.

Drowning Palaces

In many cultures, in many nations

there was a small boy who aspired

to always be a little bit more than

his fellows and he felt that, though

misunderstood, he would achieve

this lofty goal because he was and

always will be, someone special to

his mother. So he grew up, and he

fell in love, and then his heart was

broken, but his father was there

to put him back together. So he

went off to the city and fell in love

and his heart was broken again,

but his friends were there to put

him back together. So he graduated

from college and went off into the

world and found it was crueler and

harsher than he ever would have

known. But he met a girl, who

built him into something. She

laughed a lot and he began to lose

his fear of whatever came before.

He began to exercise his vasty

resources and make something

of himself. But winter was still so

cold, even with that someone to hold

you in the dark empty spaces

between starlight and moonshine.

Because what lies in the space which

occupies the synapses that create

the next great work of art, or dream

of our fondest attainability, the

newness of genius? Wanting more

is a sin visited on those with some.

Such some is the diaphanous visible

of the ambitious mind. Such is the

some of the tired minstrel wasting

words in a dry, cold room. Such some

is the cracking, crumbling society

built on the sum of its mistakes.

Such sum is the art by which we

exist.

Afterwords

And he sat and he prayed that his muse would come

and then there she was in the bathroom, right when

he closed the door and saw again the beauty of open

simplicity and he hoped and prayed he could serve

this feeling up again when he woke up the next

morning. So he went and he wrote about it and

a something stirred in him like the hours of time

and for once it all meant nothing and seemed nothing

and so all he did was nothing and it made more sense

than anything else he ever did in his life. Which

is why he is now trying to sleep and will sleep and

won't cry till he has to tomorrow morning for people

he doesn't even care to see again in his life forever.

And it all made sense and it all was good and there

was nothing wrong in the slightest after those words.

It's just that like, I miss you and stuff.

Memory - Winter

I walked down and saw the biggest Christmas tree in the world

and in the lights all the rain was misty and it maybe even looked

like snow, like instead of water droplets falling boring it might be

crystals absently forming into unique shapes, like you or me

or everyone in the world and we all will be there in that tiny

square, that millimeter of time when the world is utterly quiet

and bathed in white, missing everything that it knew was

important and wrong and right, dreaming about the greatest

day in the world - the snow day - when we would throw on

our layers of clothes and three mittens and the snow pants

newly purchased and race around the village of our lawn

and create all the necessaries for life. Because life goes on

even in the day-glow newness of snow, because it goes on

beyond even the crest of a drift or the igloo or the tunnel

weaving past the backyard, beyond the train tracks,

to the place where the sledding occurs, where the power lines

bend with packed ice and there is nothing more than the cold white

hot chocolate breath as the first exhalation of steam

before the plunge into the unknown frosty whiteness

on a piece of plastic colored blue because that was my

favorite color when I was young and somehow Mom knew

that she knew she knew my favorite color was blue and

it was not any simpler or any more complicated than being

outside and then inside and then warm and then sleepy

and then a dream inside the heart of a long winter.

Flashes

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

Which one is your eating disorder?

and I tell her and she says, That makes sense

and we should hang out sometime. So we do.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

How many times have you fallen in like?

and I say Lots, and she says, Well, that makes

you kind of a LikeSlut, doesn't it? And I don't

answer and maybe never see her again.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

What's your favorite position? referring

to a soccer team, and I say, Winger and she

laughs and says, You must be fast! So we go

home and fuck and it means little.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

Where are you from again? and I lie to her,

I say, Australia, and she vomits in the next

trash can and I call a cab and that's it.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

What is your disease? and I tell her and

she says, I have that too, and we make out

but I'm uncomfortable because I have it too

and don't want a reminder of it

when I look into her eyes.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

How much do you like Charlie Brown's Christmas?

and I say, Lots and then talk about how my favorite

is when Linus tells the story because it makes

me cry. She doesn't know what to say, but takes

my arm and strokes it for a while, which was almost

to her stoop.

So I'm walking this girl home and she asks

When was your heart last broken? and I tell her

and she gets really silent. So we keep walking

for a while, and for a while we don't want to say

goodbye on the train and I wonder if I should

kiss her and pretty soon I'm walking her home

again and I do kiss her and pretty soon she's

saying things like, How was your day? and

making fun of me and my awkward strangeness

and that lasts for a long time.

Untitled #4, based on Japanese love poems

The reeds crack in the frost

and you breathe in the air -

you expire warm steam

in a small cloud above us.