caveat emptor

Good

Only a few times
Have I had that epiphany
Of the obvious
That can be unappreciated
Though wonderful
Like when we lay kissing
Naked after sex
As we do
And I discovered your bottom lip
Your tongue and top lip
With an urgency that belied
Our unrushed leisure
And I touched
And kissed your breasts
With new vigor, a bit rough
Breathless panting
And reached down to explore
Aggressively, excitedly
All the pleasures
To give and to receive
Between your thighs
Amazed and in awe
At your tongue so exciting
Your lips so soft
And wet just inside
Your breasts so warm
So pink, so reactive
And down there
The warm wetness
Rolling the moist skin
Between my fingers
Squeezing firmly
Pressing and pulling
Between gentle and rough
Deliberate without fumbling
All the places we know
And love
And for a long time
As close as we could get
Touching, moaning softly
I learned again
What I already knew
That these things are good
So good
So very good
And I'll never forget
But I want to know it
Like I knew it that afternoon
Straining to experience
All your goodness
In full
At the same time

Such Accord with the Spheres

In the trajectory of this planet through space-time from violent birth to violent death we enjoy this season during which the innumerable environmental variables are temporarily hospitable to life such as us. The complex motion of this planet has turned me away from the nearby star we orbit, blocking the relentless radiation of heat and light so that I could, were I so inclined, step out into the cool shadow we call night and see other more distant stars filling the sky. But instead I am hiding inside the box I call a house, nestled in this soft bed, blinking into the artificial light of this bright phone, tapping into it symbols that attempt to capture my pondering such an accord I share with the spheres. And it's like that with us, too. From violent birth to violent death, orbiting each other through cycles of light and dark. Turning toward you is warm and bright, blinding me to all the lesser stars. Ride this rolling world with me. Lets make the most of this season we have, temporarily hospitable to life. Reaching out for you, I would pull you close and watch the entire metaphor collapse into sensual singularity under the cover of these warm blankets. The universe is expanding and cooling. Quick, let's make love while there's still time.

Her. Her and Him.

She plays outside with him whatever the weather, sometimes in yesterday's hair, sometimes in shiny, fancy regalia. When the money is short, she buys him the handful of foods he will eat and forages for herself. She does all this because he is more than other people understand to her. He is the other half of her soul. He showed up to take care of her just in time. Sometimes he plays nearby and she rakes the shoreline, washes the clothes, mops the kitchen. But he is never far from her thoughts. They ride scooters. They draw pictures on the sidewalk. She knows how to make him laugh like no one else. She wrestles him sleepy. She makes him Poptarts (the tops only) and sees him to school. She celebrates hooky days when she senses the changing weather is frazzling his nerves. She doesn't care anymore if you understand them. She has given up on most of us ever getting it. They get each other. They deserve each other. Figure it out if you can. They don't have time to explain. Too many adventures await.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Waif

She prefers the mild winter or fall because she loves the way she looks and feels with high black boots hugging her legs and the swish and sway of long, light jackets or sweaters. Her best friend has long, full, dark hair that hangs around her face and shoulders like mystery and seduction so beautifully she almost falls in love with her friend on a regular basis and she thinks she would love to grow her hair out like that, a warm cover of cascading beauty, but she always keeps her hair cropped close in pixie-short cuts that leave her slender neck for showing the scarves she loves too much, she thinks, the scarves she owns in questionable numbers, she often feels, bright and light and billowy. Her favorite day is walking blustery sidewalks alone from shops to cafes to boutiques, one or two small bags, no great burden, with some new, lively treasures. Her favorite feeling is words, just a few, with some new stranger. She always tries to put love and praise into what she says. She never wants to discourage or hurt the way they did to her for all that time, long behind, in dingy, smokey rent houses she never lets herself remember. She wants to see eyes light up or smiles, always from a distance, a few feet away, not close enough to touch, to hurt. At night she lies alone and listens to the endless stream of music recommended for her by sweet, innocent Leo. She doesn't like it or dislike it, she just wants to hear it, to feel it, like sheets on her sensitive skin. People see her on the sidewalk and smile. Her friend loves the feeling of her fingers playing forgetfully in her long, dark hair as they talk of the easy nothing much that happens each day. Leo loves her but will never let her know. She falls asleep and dreams of floating naked in a warm, bottomless sea. Love songs whisper her far away.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Tough Day

I was a little surprised to see an octopus sitting at the bar, to be honest with you, but I acted cool about it. I try to be open minded, you know? I just took my normal seat - two stools over from the large cephalopod - and ordered my usual, Glenfiddich, neat. I sat there quietly, looking at my phone a little and humming along to the music.

"Tough day?" the octopus said after a minute.

I glanced over to see if it was talking to me, realizing quickly that I was too unfamiliar with octopus anatomy to tell for sure. "What's that?" I asked casually.

"Tough day?" it asked again.

"Not really," I lied. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just noticing your coloration. You're showing a kind of down color." It turned to face me a little, I think.

"My coloration?"

"Yeah. Coloration."

"I'm always this color," I said, pretty sure I was right.

"Really?" It sounded surprised. It turned slightly blue.

"Yeah," I said.

"Oh, well, my mistake then." It turned a little bit green and moved back into a position facing away from me, I think.

We sat there for a few minutes in silence. I sipped my drink. It picked up its beer with a tentacle and pulled it into some hole and drank it, I can only assume. "Truth is, it has been a bit of a tough day." I said after a minute. I waited for a response, but It didn't reply or turn toward me. It just turned slightly orange and reached for another beer.

Hello, friends. Tough day?

Later. Love.

The Road

There's a road at the edge of town that only a few of us know and if you take it your sorrows and your fears and all your weary years cannot come with you. At the end of the road is a swimming hole, clear and deeper than anyone knows. By the time you get there you're a kid again, bewildered and excited in your swimming suit. It's always a hot summer day. The water is always cool but not cold. When you jump in you don't have to hold your breath or close your eyes. You can laugh under the water. You don't have to come up until you want to, maybe to lie on your towel on the bank in the sun and dry off. Every touch and every look is innocent there. You might lie beside a girl or a boy. If you kiss or hold hands, it's only sweet and simple and fleeting. You might just talk or stare up at the clouds. You might, once you're dry, look for fossils or shells or dive back in the bottomless pool. It's light all the way down, and full of wonders. However long you stay, you're never late getting back. I know where this road is. What do you say?

Hello, friends. I wish so badly that this were true. I really, really do. Sorry.

Later. Love.

Ming the Adorable Thing

In the land of adorable things
An adorable thing who's named Ming
Had the job to sing songs for the king
But there was always one line in each song that didn't rhyme or keep the tempo

Though the rest of the song was sublime
This flaw caused him a terrible time
For the king was enamored of rhyme
So he sentenced Ming to five years of hard labor in the royal prison

And Ming's days in the prison were hard
Breaking rocks with a pick in the yard
In the watchful eye of a cruel guard
But while he worked he practiced writing songs that the king would enjoy, though he didn't seem to get much better, so he decided to try something different

At the end of those five toilsome years
When Ming stood at the throne full of fears
The king waited with skeptical ears
And Ming sang, "Noses can't wear braziers."

The king furrowed his brow, most confused
"If you're joking I am not amused."
Ming replied, "But I can't be accused
Of not rhyming. Two pigs melt, become fused."

The king asked, "What's that bit about swine?
It's just gibberish, no place in that line."
Ming exclaimed, "That's just it, king of mine,
I'm an abstract song writer. Duck wine."

So now Ming makes up words in abstraction
And they rhyme for the king's satisfaction
And they've garnered fair critical reaction
Though in his spare time Ming still likes to work unfettered from such structures and strictures and explore formless forms more suited to his natural aesthetics.

The end.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Truth or Consequences

He preferred to listen to the radio as he drove, but there was nothing in this part of West Texas but country stations and Mexican radio, so he was sitting in prickly silence except for the wind noise, which was considerable since the AC in this jalopy sedan didn't work and, although it was an early October afternoon, it was 92 degrees. Sweat dripped from the back of his hair down his neck. Out of muscle habit he tried to swig from the beer bottle that had been dry for more than two hours. Still empty. The outside air was gritty and arid. He started to hum the guitar riff from "Smoke on the Water" and tap his hand to the remembered rhythm on the warm metal of the car door just outside the window. She was asleep in the backseat, angry, or at least she had been when she'd climbed over the front seat back there and turned away from him. He was taking her to pack her things from her parents' house in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, but now he suspected she had had enough of him. Probably she would just get out the car and he would drive away. He wondered how he could persuade her to stay, what justification he could offer for his many offenses. He couldn't think of any. He'd never been able to. Maybe they were unjustified after all. He'd always assumed some code of justice drove him, made his iniquities understandable, but he doubted it now. It was sobering, like this long dry road, this empty beer bottle, this barren country with no rock music and not another car for as long as he could remember. Years later, when she finally left him, he would think back to this drive and wonder why she'd stayed all that time.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Humble Lunch

Every morning, however she feels, she packs a modest lunch from home, because she has learned that the ritual discipline of small practicalities builds, bit by bit, the quality of life she had no hope for when she was out there, her life on fire, out of control. She trusts people slowly now, especially men, but she is more sure of the ones who make it through, open and real with them. Sometimes she is gripped with sudden residual dread and she has to remind herself that danger is less likely now, that some worries no longer apply, however real the phantom grip clawing at her chest. Even if there is money and someone invites her for lunch out, she almost always politely declines. A humble lunch, packed herself, is a breath of wellness in her day. It gives her just a little more pride. And hope.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Explorer

At the place where the copse-tangled creek - deceptively untamed for the urban neighborhood through which it meandered - passed under the busy boulevard, he trekked through what he was tempted to call a culvert, though in fact it was technically a bridge. Walking on the lower edge of the ramp of concrete he was able, just barely, to pass through upright without stepping in the muddy, mossy water or banging his head on the concrete roadbed that trembled overhead with the motion of passing cars. Near the far side he saw that someone had spray-painted "skate" on the bridge support in angular, graffiti script, black with a red outline. A few yards farther ahead an overturned shopping cart in the creek bed was rusting badly and gathering quite a mound of moss as the water passed through. He enjoyed walking these city creeks for some reason. They made him feel in touch with something primitive or organic. They relaxed him. It's funny how little it takes. A few feet on either side can be like another world. Twenty feet away there's an office park, but somehow he's exploring the uncharted wilderness.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Haunted

I keep hoping you will haunt me

Every night I lie and wait

For you to come through the wall

Or rise up from the floor

Or float down through the ceiling fan

But you don't show up

And I lie there

Haunted by silence

Haunted by absence

Haunted by memories

Haunted by everything but you

So if you're ever in the neighborhood

Come on in

I'll be awake

Who can sleep

In such a haunted house?

How Houses Grow

A house takes no note when the inhabitant leaves for the last time. However elegant or civilized humans might consider the structure, a house does not differentiate itself from the external world. A house is just a complex arrangement of materials, participating, like everything else, in the dance of elements, creatures and the shifting firmament. A house in neither eternal nor impregnable. The outside will not stay outside. Insects will patiently wheedle their way in. Water will search for the smallest cracks and expand them. Ice, heat and wind will swell, shrink and buffet the edifice. Minerals in the soil will react with and decay the foundation. Beams will fall out of level and plumb. Angles will skew. Joints will weaken. An empty house, unmaintained by human ambition and optimism, will eventually sag and fall. We think it looks sad, abandoned, empty. This, however, is life for inanimate objects. This is the way where there is no will. It is not sad, it’s progress, growth. A house, left to its own devices, will turn back into an empty field. The wind, water and creatures will carry away the detritus. It takes great patience to see the end result, but it’s beautiful in its own way. Come out of your house and settle on the lawn. Watch the show.

Hello, friends. I trust you are well.

Later. Love.

Touching Each Other, Even When We Don’t

Maybe it’s a finishing touch that is evident, all your everything in place. So many different paths to attraction. Hours at the gym show round or flat firmly under fitting clothes and a deft sway, tone shaped beautifully under the influence of skilled motion. We like the way you move. That symmetry of face that stirs the mind which showers the heart and loins in chemicals, flushing red as the pulse quickens, the breath comes faster. “Is it warm in here?” we wonder and we adjust in our chairs. That voice, deep or bright. Teeth straight and white. Hair long, full, short, cute, dark or soft. That humor that touches you in surprising places. A seductive generosity of spirit. Refreshing encouragement with a lusty smile, warm and inviting. We are moved by your various aspects, static and dynamic. There is sex in the way our lives intersect. Even when we do our best to ignore it, there it is, prickling just below our skin, wanting to reach out and show you what we mean.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Walking on Water

The first step from the shore is the most difficult. If you break the surface then you’ll not be able to rise back up and stroll thereupon until you walk away for a while, dry off and wait for the water to forget what happened. The key, in my experience, is to imagine the fullness of the sea, the total volume of all that water, the wholeness of the mass of so much liquid. It’s far larger than you, billions and billions of tons. You could never hope to displace it. You’re nothing. You’re insignificant. The sea hasn’t got time to notice you. Try to be subtle, subliminal even. The wind passes over the surface, and you’re smaller by far. Think upward thoughts, dry thoughts. Imagine the impossibility of your foot punching through. How could you break the surface? Who do you think you are? And then there you are, one step out onto the water. The next are easier and easier still. After the first, it just comes naturally. If you make a habit of it, perambulate too far out from the shore, you’ll find yourself hopelessly buoyant, never again able to dive in and swim down below in the cool, dim depths. The water will have forgotten you, learned to ignore you, decided that you are irrelevant. This might be more than you want, so be careful. Walk a little while, and then make yourself plunge through. Force the sea to remember you. Dive down and claim your place among the sinkers and swimmers of the world. Plummet feet first into the depths, your eyes open and cast upward at the quickly fading light of the sun disappearing far above as the dark sea welcomes you down.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well. I do.

Later. Love.

Forest

The land sloped generally downward toward the river, though that was almost a mile away so that you could neither see it nor hear its gurgling passage through these densely forested foothills. The terrain was challenging and complicated, a diverse chaos of uncontrolled nature, but it could be understood by organizing it into layers with distinct histories. Oldest were the rocks, massive domed boulders, jagged but smoothed by ages of rain and wind, protruding from the old ground from which they had erupted and the new ground that had settled over them, strewn rough and tumble all about in ancient broken bits that told the tale of tumult after tumult of geological shift and change. Then there were the trees, old in their own right, jutting out among the ancient stone in whose company they were as newcomers. There were the upright giants that rose tall and straight, branching out only far overhead into a sparse canopy that let in plenty of light. And there were the gnarled and warty squat trees, giants too, but spending their growth energy more horizontally, casting about invisibly slowly in every direction with a vitality belied by their apparent stillness. Then, scattering in among the contrast of these, there were saplings, shrubs and young flora of innumerable shapes and types, thriving briefly in the shade of larger cousins as they burned away their brief spans or grew to join their elders above. Last of all was the top layer of covering growth, the vines, mosses and lichens carpeting and draping all these older, larger landmarks with ambitious ubiquity of greens, browns, yellows and reds. Nearby, before the shadows closed in, sunlight filtered down in straight, visible beams through clearings and gaps in the foliage, made semi-opaque by the particulate forest air, afloat with pollen, dust, motes and vapors of various forms. The sky above the treetop horizon was grey and excited with the threat of interesting weather, and this lay heavy over the woods like a muffling silence broken only by the scattered, occasional calls of unseen birds, anxious in the looming tempest. The afternoon and environment were coincidences of time and space, not there for any reason, not engaged any the act of any will, not positing any positions, justifications or explanations. This was pure location, pure afternoon, being what it was in the hour at hand. Even its long, visible history was not its fault or concern, and it denied any entanglement with the past, all obvious evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Maniphisto

Small things, things that might take only a few minutes, easy things are left undone for weeks. Months. Coffee and oatmeal in the morning and a few minutes without demands feel like too much to ask, and like they shouldn’t be too much to ask. Sometimes I close my eyes and inhale deeply and then purse my lips slightly and blow, a mannerism like a sigh, but the drawn out mild exertion provided by the labial resistance gives a comforting sensory feedback that calms me. I have developed new skills. I can smile and banter with anxiety like a blade in my throat, sweat building in the hair on the back of my head. “What’s bothering you?” “Nothing.” And it’s true. It’s bothering the hell out of me, nothing is. “It’s this feeling that it’s going to be alright, but not yet.” Did you ever wish you could close your eyes in the morning and not wake up until you’re going to sleep again that night? Every early morning appointment feels like another betrayal, trying to swallow hot coffee too quickly, your mouth pulsing from the heat, dragon breath and fire in your belly. Every blink on your long commute is ten miles gone, no memory of all that road, all those passing, metal monsters with their audacious proximity of well-behaved potential death and destruction controlled only by the voluntary constraints of fading lines of paint on the pockmarked pavement, distracted manslaughterers trying to get somewhere else around the obstacle that is us. Passing afternoons spent sitting in conference rooms afraid that people might realize that I’m naked under these thin clothes, aging and unattractive, flawed and unpleasant, all of us talking robotically about work issues, things that matter but only inside these walls. Did I drown that baby turtle, the second one that seemed lethargic? Did he kick off the bottom and swim up for air after I walked away with a sick feeling in my gut of a good deed gone awry? Should I have doffed all my business casual attire onto the lawn and jumped in to save him? Would that have been more or less human? And I know summer is coming, the long, cruel heat that doesn’t relent, even at night. Somewhere in the future I hope to dive into a deep pool of clear, cool water and swim down, down, down until I cannot hold my breath any longer and I have to rush urgently for the surface. I hope to lie in soft grass and stare up into the stars in a place so dark that you can see them all. I hope to wake up rested and ask myself, “What shall we do today?” Until then I just have to remember to stay here, to discharge my duties, to resist evaporating in this glaring sun of struggle. I love you so much I don’t know what to do next. Thank you for that.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Kill That Noise

You cannot just stack words up in interesting shapes. People will say, "What is this bullshit? Is this supposed to be cool or deep? It makes no sense!" You have to put your words together in ways that work, ways that express ideas. Ain't no damned Picasso in writing, noses up on foreheads and square eyed cheek mouths. Writing has to work! You don't just look at it. Get over yourself. Keep your creativity in check. One day you might feel inclined to write, "brick bat train baby tiger monkeys, wet hype top on bottom fire," or somesuch, but let that junk go, brother man, sister friend. That's not writing, it's just wording. Say it out loud and it’s just noise, so much crazy sound. Nobody understands "clap dog comet lobsters" or "sky bed chocolate ennui." It's like nothing. You might as well save your time, store up your words until you have something real to say. Go for a walk. Fly a kite. Pet the dog. Paint life falling kiss lady ocean butterfly.

Hello, friends. I trust you're doing all you can, and everyone appreciates your efforts.

Later. Love.

All Downhill From Here

Somewhere in this hulky, bulky body with all its dangly, gangly parts is a soul that is neither man nor woman, old nor young, thin nor fat, native nor foreign, beautiful nor ugly. Maybe not literally, for you materialist debaters, but certainly and really. Sometimes the metaphor is all there is, the words we use to describe an idea are the fullness of its noumenon. I want to explain that to these young, energetic, beautiful people laughing and smiling all around me as the wind howls by more loudly than you can imagine. "We're not that different, really. Not on the inside." They'd never hear me in all this noise, though. "I'm not just an aging, overweight computer programmer. There's more to me."  But I'm self-aware enough to imagine how it would seem. It sounds pathetic in my head. And suddenly the opportunity is gone as they all disappear, shooting inexplicably upward into the sky, defying all reasonable explanation. My startle passes when I realize that it's me, not them. I'm still plummeting toward the ground and they've all pulled their chutes. I should probably pull mine. I wonder if they conspired to pull their chutes without me, trying to ditch the old dude. Man, the ground is coming up quickly. Where is that ripcord? I wasn't really listening when the young lady was explaining. I was too busy wondering if she was wondering what I was doing there, imagining that she was judging me. Was she? I mean, it seemed like she made eye contact with everyone else more than with me. Why did I even sign up for this thing? I'm so obviously out of place. And now they're all way up there and here I am, dropping like an old, dorky stone. Is this the cord? I'm pulling it but nothing is happening. Maybe they just gave me a backpack and not a parachute. No, they wouldn't do that. They seem like cool kids. I'm just imagining things again. Insecurity, that's all. What was I doing? Was there something important I was looking for?

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

All of us that live here are me

When you become pure rage you might unplug your outside from your inside, disengage your person from your body in such a way that you can still blink and nod, smile and answer questions, drive calmly through traffic, waiting patiently in the hope that you might eventually burn out and someone else will rise again from your own inner ashes. Until then, you might bide your time keeping busy with the mundane shuffling and sorting of the memos and receipts of smaller duties, putting them all into neat stacks, reorganizing and combining, culling and separating, ordering and shredding. Avoid matters of the spirit or soul, aspirations and dreams, reminders of too little time and too few resources, of the galling silence of gods who couldn't be bothered to exist. While you are distracted, throw everything you love and believe into the fire. Paint over the blackened places with forgetfulness and denial. Tell yourself you are other than you were. Make it as true as you can. One night you might go to sleep and someone else will wake up the next morning, blinking away the dissolving dream that was you from the sleep that you shared. Don't weep for the loss of yourself. Dry your eyes and say instead, "This body is just a house where people live and all of us that live here are me."

Hello, friend. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Dream Follower Dream

All around town every day, even on the crowded train, never far away, he follows her and she knows it. Over to the street where the affordable lunch places are teeming with middle income people he stays cautiously behind her, eating at a sidewalk table in front of the place next door. To a sad bar at night where they sit alone together across the room, trying not to be obvious. Rainy days or sunny, cold, windy or warm she can always catch a glimpse of him, he never loses sight of her, the sound of footsteps softly in slow pursuit. They love each other by now, though they've never met, and even though only one of them is real and neither can remember which.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.