gotta go

 the train left the station

and i am sorry that 

well let's face it

you never wanted to make the ride

cake poems

 I made a cake for 

A future I hope to have

I put only love in it

***

The thing about cake

Is that making it

Should be the best part

***

It was your birthday 

I will cry when you die

Your cruelty hasn't erased 

The person I thought you were

How lucky to be a better man

100 days

I have most conversations in my head

I have great adventures with you

And I say to you

Let us have the greatest love adventure of our lives

One that people will write books about long after it ends

And you say yes i am in i want to live

We will sit atop the highest building in Tokyo

and drink pink champagne

From a pink bottle and race boats across the China Sea

And walk on an ice shelf in Antarctica in oversized winter coats

While a guide points to the things that live in such 

treacherous places

Pine trees for 100 miles 

in our picture together in the 100 mile wilderness

We smell jungle mist from Incan roads and swim in cenotes

clear 100 feet down 

Highland sheep watch as we carry our packs 

and the warmth of 100 sunny days together

and a love that spreads across our lives like a sunrise

crumble

There will be a day when I have my cake

And eat it too and the crumble will be so

Thick that my teeth slide through and

bits stick to the sides of my face

and on my lap and the plate and the floor

and there's so many crumbs that the dog has to lick them up

I have a bent fork

 

Lost friendship

 I still have all the once green branches

When we were younger and silly

they turned to dust

And blew in a west wind

My hand is skeleton

My heart an empty hall

Footsteps none but 

What happened here 

It was me wasn’t it

It was always me 

Like a crime scene where I spilled milk

A very long time ago 

Sailing

 He wears a rope around his neck

And I want to grab it with both hands

and pull

Him to my lips

And take in his breath from

This gap

Because in that

He knows sailboats and equations

And 

And I can’t get his attention

He’s on a run and his sails

Are up and the sky is blue

I’m a passenger 

With wind whipped hair

looking ahead

hands on the pulpit rail 

To a cloudless horizon 

speared

Shams, to say I am speared is an understatement.
I am harpooned,

(Unpublished poem files)
 

why lie,
dearest,
when I see
exactly what
I want.

(Old unpublished poem files) 

hair

I love every hair on the top of your head,
the color of caramel mud in the Afghani steppes.
If I loved you any more, I would have to invent
more of you to love.
There is no space left for me to fill with my ardor,
with my passion, with my admiration and wonder.
Ah, but herein the troubles lie.
Not that my love will end, for it is far larger than
your entity, far larger than everything networked
to you in webs across the stars.
The more I love you, the more fear that grows
that you will leave and I will be left
holding a broken string,
my boat floating away down the river.

**ah, I crack myself up with this stuff. **

(unpublished poem files - who did I write this for????)

oh my love

what if this is the last one?
and what if it is not?
every cell in terror
for an unpredicated,
unprecedented,
indeterminate
future.
He has never l
in words
(let me be so specific).
But in deeds.
So they say this matters.
I am shaken
sickened by this
bounty, this
windfall, this
newfound treasure.
Sipping from a well
with curled tongue
the smallest quantities;
it could be poison,
which kills the thirsty
as well as the half drowned.
I cut my swarths out with
a careless sword, clumsy hands,
run forward with no armor,
no real plan, except
hope that my bravery and
my charms and my wits
will protect me from
the onslaught of unknowable enemies
of unknowable strengths and
unknowable outcomes.
I may not recover this
time if I go down.
Have I another choice
except to walk with fear,
except to know each step
is in a new land.

(unpublished poem)

sometimes he sleeps on the couch and I think
i want to keep you
let me keep you
i'm so dumb.
he's keeping me.

(unpublished poem)

suicide is painless

not a day goes by when
i do not think i would like to die
and someone tells me on the radio
you need to ask yourself
what is saving you right now?
and she is saved by Christ.
she is saved, but I am not damned,
not damned for all the ages,
I just meander on through.
I am so lost.
this life I am living, this life
is such a painful thing these
days when you are so unkind to me.
But I would not lay my head down
on some kind of block for
you. That is what a younger me would
do. Instead I die and kill myself
on my feet, and silence my voice,
and put my mind in another place.
You are so full of hatreds for me.
You are so full of some poison.
You are poking at me with your
fingers and opening spaces on
my skin and bleeding your fury
on me and into me so I spend
my days asleep, my days asleep,
killing everything in me,
as there is no desire left.
No will to do what must be done.
I am slow and thick and it is hot
and summer.
These are the days I have and you
rape me for them.
I blame him for making me so sick,
them for not teaching me
that on my own I am okay.
I would not stay here in this place,
would not die a thousand suicides.
To think I was so in love just
days ago, just maybe moments.

(unpublished poem files ) 

twitter poem of the day (it's been awhile!)

Problem is, relationships hurt,
trust is hard and comes in spurts.

twitter poem of the day (improving...)

sun up comes, sun down goes, sometimes I yearn for my toes
to sink in sand along the sea, take me away, rescue me

(unpublishe dpoem)

Magician

The magician could turn wood into a horse,

(unpublished poem)

the places I go will pass beneath my feet and I'll walk one step at a time until I find that I never needed to walk any further than the place I already am.

(it was your birthday today, and I didn't even wish you a happy one. It was a deliberate choice, because I couldn't bring myself to speak to you. But that doesn't mean I didn't want to. I'll do it here. Not that you read this. Happy birthday, baby.)

(unpublished poem)

what does it take?
must i ignore you, hate you, spit on you
or roll on the ground and kick
my feet in the air and cry aloud
that I have great needs
deep needs and
yes, i know where this is going.

(old unpublished poem)

love me love me love me

i know from your eyes
wide, dilated eyes
and the way you touch me
with your hand and i think
but then when i try so hard to

(old unpublished poem)

i wrote to you darling
on postcards in my old life
asking you to appear
to me and say
i love you i love you i love you.

(old unpublished poem)

From the objective,
You offer what you don't want to give away.
As if hooking me will solve for your unknowns.

I'm here, yo, I'm here.
Don't try so hard.
Don't play it like that.
I give it away for free.
You are craftier than I
with nothing to lose.
Dial that down to simple things.

I don't want you to die,
From the subjective.

I am here, yo, I stand for you.
Can I? I said so.
Throw that log on and watch it smoke.
I don't think anything of me gets in
You're so crowded in there
So many little people pushed into that bus,
a woman with a caged chicken on her lap.
So much baggage. So many limbs.
Miracle these don't fall off the cliffs.

(old poem republished)

checklist

 I want this.

Arms to hold me in the darkness

The scent of a man, slightly of earwax, slightly of sweat, 

ground down into a pillow

a line of drool pooling from his open lips.

He wakes, eyes on my eyes, 

a smile spread at his good fortune

and brushing the hair from my face

kisses for these lips, soft, deep, sloppy and moist

He hugs me to him tight and I'm too hot, but it's skin on skin

and he hums in my ear 

I love you, I love you, I love you 

more every day

Why Not Write

Shams, I have not written anything in a long time

I filed chapter 11 on passion

I wither on the vine

Dried up plumpness gone raisin, leaves brown and curled in on themselves, thin stalks still hanging by tendrils

This was once a holy place with a honey sweet temple

Doors open wide to let the sun in

Crowds came here in droves to see the goddess

If she is crone now, can she be a maiden again

There are seasons, are there not?

Will spring follow winter, or is it just a steady march down

To Be Or Not To Be version 1

(While memorizing to be or not to be I kind of have been thinking of other ways to say the same thing in my own way)

Why do we not lay down the sword

when life is so hard

We don't get younger

The body ages, decays

Lovers leave us

or don't love us at all

We see others succeed

where our ambitions taste the bitter dust of failure

We are unremarkable

Not giants, nor kings, nor queens

And each day we grind corn

knowing that we do not eat without labor

But by eating, we prolong our laboring

What is this life for?

year 2+

 i count time in years shams but lose count

numbers are not my thing

my dog is nine. he's nine you know

which means i lived here for 8 years or is it 7

and we broke up 8 years ago

and i still sometimes look at his twitter

just to say you were a better man at one time

a more interesting man maybe

or not

and then in the then i loved others

and you don't even matter now, old man, 

older than me, ten years younger

old man with your bad hair and your long fingers and your shake

old man outlook, old man habits

now i like someone with small hands

and perfect feet

did you have perfect feet?

I can't remember you except in pictures

i hope you are gray now and withered and smell bad

i hope you are sad you left me

that's a terrible thing to want for someone

i want you to be happy too

i want you to have forgotten me

i want to have forgotten you which i have

i am onto someone else

someone

else

who 

doesn't want me either