Last Night

I often wonder why I find inspiration in nights of enigmatic torment,
choleric clouds and relentless rain promising bucolic scenes during our
morning walk after the sun rises. Strange, how some time between the driving,
pelting storm, and that subtle morning ritual with you and our dog
could hypnotize me with such dramatic force.

*

Sometime in between my anger and sadness
you crept around the corner, clutching your pillow
and the stuffed animal I bought you for your birthday -
the stuffed animal you used to own as a child.
You resemble a child now, and my anger dissolves,
and the world disappears, as your puffy eyes and
haltering voice tell me, "I had a bad dream,"
And all I can do is hold you. And I do,
and you will never know to the extent you saved
me from the darkness I created for myself,
Or the providence I find in you, when every touch
and glance is a small miracle to me.

Late Nights.

I sat up late gazing into the shadows of horror stories,
dark novels, and films noir. Chasing the shadows of my former
selves, to learn their secrets, feeling that such black magic
required the incantations of artists' minds darker than my own.
All too soon I realize how much I only want to run from
those spectres of my past, and hide them in the darkness of these pages.
But then the magic is gone, or at least eludes me until I allow
myself to find all the pieces that need picking up, face my selves,
and find some way to stop the pain from bleeding out again.

*

Sometimes I envision you as you said you once were,
Roaming the halls of your childhood home with a candle
placed Romantically in a holder you grasp like a teacup.
Grown now, these images still play in my mind,
until it's the both of us in the halls of our own home,
Reading Keats and Shelley to one another by candlelight
over cups of Earl Grey tea.

*

Sometimes I sit beside you and see more than a
reflection of me in your eyes. Sometimes I see
my self, or part of me, held captive safely in your
heart, swimming in the mystical blue sea of your
irises - the sea that holds my future.

*

Sometimes I forget that age exists between us.
Sometimes I remember how young you are.
Sometimes I forget how young I am.

*

And Sometimes I wish loving you were less painful.

Happy Mother's Day

five years ago we celebrated a mother's day with you
not knowing it was the last time we could congratulate you
on raising the three of us so well. At least, officially.
I know I said it so many times those last few minutes
before you left us, standing around you, singing songs,
and holding hands. But sometimes
on days like this, when people celebrate those like you,
or like the you you were when you were here, it just seems
important enough to write down again, for eyes and ears
other than yours to read.
Happy mother's day, then, to all of my fond memories
of you.

longing gazes

We found those longing gazes finally,
blowing kisses through the windowpane
of the entryway outside the apartment where
we live, together. And even though we haven't
replaced the carpet, or bought that new
air conditioning unit, or steam-cleaned the upholstery
or the million things we've listed that
we say we need to do to feel at home here,
gazing at you has been home for me;
and when you're away, all I can do is
anxiously await the next moment
when you're beautiful face
enters my field of vision, in this apartment
that I call home simply because you're here.

what i have isn't poetry

What I have isn't poetry,
but then I never really consider it poetry
until it leaks out on the page -
chinese waterbrushes pulling lillies
and mountains laced with fog from the
quiet text that ripples outward with each stroke
of my finger on the silver keyboard.
What I have isn't very tidy, and I guess I have
people like Allen Ginsberg to thank for that,
and all the others that have howled their
projective verse into the paintings
that hang on the walls of my inner child.
What I do have are words,
words that I like to arrange into cute
or profound little sentences, depending on my mood.
Words to which, like the magnetic poetry
on the side of my fridge, I'll most likely come back
again and again to reform into more
and more intricate and delicate arrangements -
so many flowers on so many graves of so many poets
to whom I'd pay tribute if these flowers made me
any money.
I have words, sometimes musical, sometimes lovely,
but always passionate and attempting purpose.
Words that are here, now there, first within me,
and now stuck to you, playing in your ears,
and lingering fully-formed
on the tip of your tongue.
Try as you might,
once you've read these words, you won't
be able to forget this poetry exists.

4/27/10