Now I watch as if I am living
in
a moment of suspension, a madness
creeping by on cat feet,
on
the edge of awareness
I watch her
walk away and felt
my blood cool inside of
me
felt the street beneath
my feet
the air against my
skin
and sadness
blanket the noises around me
until I heard
nothing…felt
nothing
and I realized
that
I was happy to once have had
something so amazing
to lose;
the places where her face filled memories
her smile, eyes that
looked back at me
briefly
too, too briefly
as the dinner hour rushed by
as
she became and at once went
into a past cluttered
with meaningless and thoroughly abstract
echoes of a before
before
there was a
now.

We want it all to make sense, to
be clear, intelligible, sane and us
in control but
but
it will never be, it is only a mask
to the madness
and what is inside you
only guessed at by the surrounding crowd…so
we accept obvious lies from
people we trust, from
words on paper, from
beginning to end we are and have always been
alone;
exquisite
magnificent
moving
alive
we have always been singularly in control, but
not out there;
in here
where we breathe think believe and are
ourselves
and only
ourselves…
beautiful full moving staring
relentlessly outward
as if out there is an answer in the many faces
the naked bodies like breadcrumbs to follow backwards
the dream
defined…
there is nothing out there; there is only inside
and we create everything else with our
choices decisions preferences bias hatred indifference disgust
love
we make ourselves whole by the people we create
around us
we create them by choosing
how we are treated
and often it is quantity we choose
because quality
exists inside
very few
so the cacophony of guessing crowds
however maddening spiteful and damaging
takes the place
where quiet
sincere
love
should
be.

We don’t know what we used to think
it was something
hidden
invisible
masked
what we couldn’t see hear touch
feel…and
we wondered…we revered and rewarded those
who wrote poetry and stories
guesses
about who we were
trying to get under the covers
the skin
to divine that which was
concealed
and there was joy in the guessing
love
even
being wrong was normal
was accepted, was
the rule
but now today it is an avalanche
a hard rain of information for days and
days
a heavy scream sitting on shoulders
on our minds we
try to hide but it’s a magnet
drawing us back
no one is wrong…ever
everything is there
uncovered
technology murders our dreams in the night
yet
here we are all dolled up
at daybreak
waiting for a like, a LOL, a thumbs up
wanting to be noticed
wanting to be noticed
needing
to be noticed
because that is us now
willfully exposing the soft squirmy inside
no speculation required
and we don’t know if poetry or stories
will ever
replace what is
lost…what we know now
we willfully
gave
away

I disappear
beneath her skin, absorbed
like a simple spring rain on too dry sand,
she moves an arm, a
knee bends, her eyelids
slow to roll up
she
and I react, a long breath of
between, her and me;
she is the moment
I feel
the shiny newness of this
what this is
I care less and, what
it isn’t, I care more…but
awakening under morning lights
under the guise of knowing
I reappear for the moment
shifting above the waves
of her, of me…looking
for the tide that takes us deep
into an ocean
of yesterday, thinking that it was
a today I can’t forget
a day that will be replayed…but now
no waves of realization, no
vibrations across small ponds of
emotion, just
the reappearance of
something
I did not
know.

Dancing on clouds of Ambien, waiting
for a life never lived I sink
toward a reality that is covered in
a rough kind of sorrow
bought and paid for with everlasting credit
years ago…still
I felt a sort of hope
that;
as I rolled around in the shit of life
it was fertilizing
my dreams
it wasn’t
my dreams became the anchor
that sunk me deeper
now waiting for the edges above me
to come falling in on me
to cover me in that
rough sorrow
but then
it was a voice
a smile, a way of moving just a few fingers
and I saw a glimpse
a crack in history
as you seeped into my world
shadows of you
running like small boys on the playground
laughing and crying
like boys do
until I was covered
and the shit of life
receded
and I saw you clearly
the first
and the
forever time.

Racism,
misogyny
anti-Semitism
philandry
conservative
liberal…
hate
said just like that, no
flowery background context, no
squint in the eye, no
reason other than
to say it…and we lose
our minds;
hardwired? Were our minds
ever ours when
what we don’t know about them
is an ocean
what we do know;
a drop
and we look at ourselves
with microscopes
and CNN, with
cash in hand
we buy our thoughts online
sell our
outrage
to the highest bidder…we ask
does society invent
or exploit
am I destined
you
us
to create walls cages
steel and concrete boxes
stacked
on top of us
protecting our insanity
and the
complex
simplicity
of opening our eyes
to a new
day.

We want to be
noble, human to
human, we want
but can’t have
the moon
…an endless tide
pulling sense from the
senseless, we
we…
and that is the word;
“we”
it is not me
you
them
it is we
a wet and rocky ball
of
we
hurtling through a rough emptiness
passing stars
galaxies
we are the essential thing we need
want but can’t have, like
the moon
it is there…just…
there,
but we are in our own way
the thing
that stops us
is us
and we have to recognize
this, know it
deeply;
begin to separate our fact
from
our fiction…as
it is only ever
we
who will win
because me
you
them
are lost, will lose
without
we.

Written
on their face, the
lines of worry, the lines
that define an age, a moment
of inflection
as we drop the pretense, the
promise
never fulfilled
the lie told often
and over
…faith;
lightning was magic
the stars;
gods
and priests controlled access
a direct line
to the everlasting…
but we are no longer there, no
longer held in awe
in bondage
to fear, superstition
…we are human
fallible
wanting
but magnificent and
kind
if we forget what we believe
are told
to believe
and let go of old models, of
old ideas;
you are woman
you are amazing
alone
together, with
without…
… always deserving of human
respect
always equal
but
as eternally
unique
like me, like
you
without invisible
masters
absentee landlords
defining
who
we are.

It is a hollowness, a bright
empty box where
hope used to be kept, discarded
authority defining the loss;
we continue because
why not
what we want can be anything
the packages delivered…
not so freeform, not
so assured
many, many voices all calling out
all chanting informally
decidedly (you think)
yet we are here
here
and here
exactly where
we’ve always been
looking and waiting for a thing
we can’t see
feel
or trust
but which we are betting our lives
will save us
of course I am talking about you
and you
and
you
there is someone waiting
an empty box in hand
willing to believe in authority
again, willing
“you” into existence
not making you
but
extending the you that you have created
into their realm
their sphere
into their
shiny
empty
box.

I am waiting for it to pass, this
winter, this ebb of
tides
a slow roll toward
a dull ache…and
it will, they
always do
usually
mostly…
…hopefully
I look out on grey sunshine
on salt white streets
on and on
feeling the cold through
my eyes
watching silently
from perched windows
from where I am
above
trying to be there
longing to be
there;
above
I am waiting for
the warming of ventricles
arteries…veins
winter is in my heart
bleak and as cold
as I see from
windows looking down
looking
and looking
for a sign
that the cold, the razor sharp
biting and emotionless
cold
will pass, I am
looking for an end
and hoping
that it is
a beginning.