The Blue Chance
It was an accidental movement,
like a refraction of white light off our atmosphere.
Our retinas looked up and saw the sky
Blue.
If the moon had an atmosphere
perhaps it would have been
a small irisless globe of untrue
Blue.
It's not natural,
but my fingers
alighted on your cheek,
like an electricblue bird
slipping down a spring breeze.
You opened your eyes
reflecting the cobalt of your unipolarity,
apathy in the aqua cloak of calmness.
Eyes once of a baby
Blue.
But for me it was a slap
of midnight depression.
So I smile just to keep
from crying
the Blues.
Coral Reefs
I cannot write the words that bleed from me,
They drip through my laughter, so slowly they seep,
Into my consciousness, fathomless sea,
Where truth bedecked coral, skeletons keep,
The pain so tropical, vivid and bright,
A fresh gold colored fish that draws the eye,
Obvious prey as it reflects the light,
Horrible beauty by structure disguised.
Yet in my sleep it swims to my pillow,
Breathing my tears, eating up helplessness,
Until the morn causes curtains billow.
So it retreats like receding waves lest
I wake to write elusive words of pain
And break apart the coral again.
Deciduous
Winter
It is time
to stretch out arms,
shake off leaves,
to emphasize barkness.
The excess; the green,
the birds, the nests,
have fallen away
to reveal the skeleton.
There is solely
tree shrugging its branches
wondering,
"Why me?"
Storm
Being flexed this way,
then having a change,
with arms yanked that way.
The everywhere blowing
around the stem
funneling through fingers,
pummeling limbs.
Until the crack
of a branch
pierced the stage whispers
of the wind.
Then much more naked
stood the tree.
Pruning
The man seemed to be
a lover embracing
the tree, climbing,
lost in childways.
Yet sitting in a nook
he began-
shears squealing with lack
of oil,
clipping the shrug away,
trimming down the wick,
until the sap bled,
rolling down the trunk,
saturating his hands,
dripping on his cheeks.
Then he knew he had cut too far
but even gardeners make mistakes.
Deep End
Either the floor fell away
or I was pushed
into the deep end.
I'm only half floating,
unable to open my eyes
to see if I'm heading
towards the edge of the pool.
The Lycra hugs me
almost as tight as you
used to grasp my hand,
pulling me through the water
until my feet touched the floor.
But now its just me,
suspended weightless
above the tiles,
while you, sunk to the bottom,
lungs bursting for air,
are waiting for me
to open my eyes and swim,
in the deep end.
Getting Out: a departure from Cleopatra Mathis Poem
We were counting down the weeks
marking off time like prisoners,
everyday another denial
in the synapses of our skulls. Frazzled,
we would head to the lake
full of sunbathers,
and lay on our towels
until sleep opened our eyes.
The night was different: guitar, dancing,
and full rubbato choruses of,
"Let my people go!" Think of how
you drove past me for all those weeks,
trying to leave me where we started,
your wheels spinning on the gravel drive.
Finally unable to speak to each another
we ate at separate tables, choking
down the overcooked silences.
I have only one picture of us,
the yin yang of my darkness
wrapped around your light.
We've kept to our separate towns,
and occasionally running into you still startles me.
In the impromptu conversation, you're sure
to mention how happy you are.
Yet I am bewildered
how our partings are always discolored by sadness.
You still embrace me, awkwardly,
as we hold each other so tight,
that letting go is inevitable.
Jangles
Many thanks to my Latin teacher who taught me how to parse words
Sometimes in the long tall dark night,
of wisteria branches
and golden crushes of light,
inside your cerebral cavities
it jangles.
Third person singular present
indicative active of the verb
to jangle.
I myself am a janglephile.
But no one listens because
I speak too often in the second person,
singular present indicative active,
meaning I, me, the object, the self.
You know how it is when you reach
across a deep cavern of thought
to find yourself deserted.
Then comes the terror-
te erripit.
A million platitudes could not keep you
from jangling in that moment.
Creaking hinges of your mind flaps.
Why can't I just wing and go flying over the edge?
No. I made the decision years ago.
For I am sorely afraid of jangles.
Kiln
I walked with you again last night.
It was a bright night,
warm enough for swimming.
It seems you knew my woes,
for you put your arm around me,
and made me to rest my head,
hidden in your shoulder.
The road was uneven, deeply rooted,
sometimes you seemed to tower over me.
I wonder if I tripped
would you catch me?
Or would I send us both sprawling,
my heavy heart like a clay boulder;
dragging us downwards,
shattering upon impact.
The Magician
I was with you
when you bought
a magic thriftstore hat,
it was the sort of thing
Englishmen wear to play cricket.
Your wearing it was half the act.
Then, removing it and exposing it
to be empty,
You pulled out
in a flurry of whiteness:
eternity.
It was heavy lightness,
it was an inside-out sphere,
it rang with the voice of God.
I sat agape as you
slipped it on my finger.
"Yours," you said, "forever."
Yes, magic is smoke from a trick candle
and mirror created double-mint twins.
But this went unsaid
in your collapsing eternity
into a white pigeon,
that released my finger
and flew southeast.
Simulacra
Throw the air at me
from your PC,
I can see you
outside in my mind.
Dancing confused,
is the sound from you?
In your mind inside,
the line blurs.
What you make
you escape into,
and I press my nose
against the window.
Do ubiquitous
grease satins appear
on the window,
illuminating my face?
I want to wrap myself
around your image,
slip into your doorframe
and cast aside my doubts.
Sotto Voce
Is there anything I can do
to help this void unbecome?
I wish to caress your soul.
Yet I'm sitting on violin strings
waiting for the drop of the bow
to undo me into blossoms.
Was it something I did?
I can be well, sometimes.
Other times my head comes undone
and the giant bud is released,
photoflashing into a giant daisy
curling its roots inside deep.
Is there anything, if so
that I can fix by trying?
I need to try insatiably
to bloom forth and swell
into beauty and my mind.
Touch
You laid hope
tousle upon tousle,
my muse embodied in
script
breathing glow
deep inside me,
awakening movement
upon movement
towards the unattainable you,
laying tousle
upon tousle
on a distant spike
of concealing light.
Two Beaches
The shadows of things now gone
still stretch across the sunbleached sand.
We are sifting our fingers and toes
through the granuals, erasing, forgetting.
I have memories of beaches
embedded with stones,
pierced with rocks, adorned with shells.
The grey sound sleeping across the backdrop.
Quite unlike this place of unrequiet,
between the ocean and the sand,
we could wander at will,
until the wind blows and we change.
I would go back to my wandering:
discovering unique rocks, broken glass, open shells.
There are no shadows surviving there
where the sun hangs dim in between the clouds.
Two Year Transplant
It takes two years
to mend pump to valve,
the rib a cage best kept locked.
Two years
of having the cardiac
arrested,
behind marrow bars.
Two years
of grinding your blood
out of this organ.
It takes two years
to forget that
the pulmonary
once pulsed
you. you. you.
My Venus
On my nightstand there is a picture of her
peering out of the frame,
heavy-browed and half-smiling,
like a capricious German goddess
who cannot decide whether a blessing
or a curse is in order.
Drifting off I recall that its her eyes
and not her brows that steer
the seas of my whimsey.
Eyes lit with vagrance
or flickering with exuberance,
but always blazing underneath
the steady stern of her brows.
And I, sailing into sleep feel my dream
slacken as she,
still fleshed out in balance,
adrift on the empty shell
of her boat,
steady and calm on the oscillating sea,
slides just out of my reach.
