...Said the Drunk to the Bar Waitress

My Friends and
I make ribald jests,
About and
While looking at your chest.

I guess it's
Not like we, - I -
Have to try.
I'm sure you can see why.

I'm sure if
We knew you,
We'd find
Something better to do.



God, I hope that's true.




I don't know.








Do you?

Between Ann and Athena

Each of us, the strands of the divine,
Glow in our fullest, so thinly alive,
Woven under, over, between and beside
Others like us, so various, and yet intertwined.

I once took great pains in plotting my path,
Building networks, playing angles, or doing the math.
Moving fast, life's maze is so vast, primed for a crash...
"Who is really in charge of this life-loom?" I asked.

To ask is to step back, take a look to each side,
Is to notice that those other threads add color to our lives.
Without so many others, to whom we relate,
Our meanings lack music and substance and shape.

Step back, take a breath, take time
To recover from being lost in the rhyme.
Take as long as it took to see
That we are a beautiful tapestry.

Walk Away

You threaten me with consequence,
If I don't do what you say.
Accept all your terms unquestioned,
Or you'll just walk away.

You want me to be many things I'm not,
You want me to promise forever.
Separately, we may be many things,
But we'll never be together.

I've got just one little question
About this game we play.
What if I want to take you as you are
and watch you walk away?

Why I Write, Part x+6: Half-Truths

I live in a perpetual
Writer's Hell.
I present part of the truth
Very, very well.

The dilemma I
Have started fighting:
Is half the truth,
Stated well, worth writing?

Why I Write, Part x+5: You Listen

Writers are pitiful people,
Indeed.
It seems we always need
Someone who listens.

When writing brings me doubt,
When I can't figure out
What I'm writing about,
You listen.

When I'm done, I'm through,
When there's nothing I can do,
You listen.

When I break through,
The words ring true,
There's nothing more to do,
You listen.

When my voice was choked,
With inspiration,
Perspiration,
Desperation,
You listened.

When my voice is choked,
To my vexation,
With real things, almost as
Repulsive as desperation,
You listen.

When I wasn't quite sure
What to say,
You listened anyway.
I'll figure out how to say
"Thank you,"
Some day.

The Art of Being

You keep the gifts
That I couldn't afford.
It would be shameful
To beg them restored.

You can keep the ones
I could afford, too.
The prose, those poems,
They only make sense to you

You can keep the words
Of advice, comfort, tears,
Of remorse.  Never enough,
But I'm doing my best here.

You can keep the time,
Together, or apart but tethered.
A portion cut from my life,
A prime cut. Few were better.

Why should I concede?
I guess it depends.
Can reluctant generosity
Be a kind of revenge?

Or this be my progress,
Learning the art of being?
Will I learn to stop feeling angry
If I just learn to stop feeling?

Forgiving

I couldn't heal his broken heart.
I couldn't staunch his cries.
So I resorted to a dirty trick
When he threatened suicide.

We don't talk.  I'm not surprised.

There wasn't much that I could do.
I dared her to quit.
The hurt was from my helping,
Things I'd make her admit.

There's no excuse for it.

But worse than all the things I did,
Aren't nearly as appalling
As the months that I did nothing,
While you were falling.

My shame comes calling.

When I think of what I should have done,
I go back to my bookshelf.
Much is written of forgiveness,
But never of one's self.

I know I'm right.  It helps.

Who Can Remember

Who can remember each violent urge,
With intent to destroy, and anger to purge,
A strike from the hot, inky depths of the heart?
It's not who we are, but a significant part.

Who recalls their uncharitable thoughts,
Each unfinished act of hatred, sorted by lot,
Wishing death on our enemies, unsympathy for plants,
Contempt for other peoples' pets, or road-raging rants?

I still remember.
I can still recall.

That hasn't messed me up at all.

I Know Just How You Feel

There's nothing so offensive
As "You wouldn't understand."
Is effort something I won't give?
Am I a stupid man?

"I know just how you feel," I guess,
Might be a little worse.
I'm sure I know my own mind best,
Because I got there first.

Damsel

They say that opposites attract.
That's a fact.
You with your little tyke on his trike,
Chasing bad guys down the pike,
And I, the tramp athlete
Are nothing alike.

I must approach with speed,
and I always take the lead,
I'd like to lend a hand,
and I'll give you all I can,

But my heart's as weak
As my manners rough;
I could still drag you down,
By not changing enough.

You have more needs
Than an extra set of hands.
You say life's a delightful grind,
and I don't understand.

Is it offensive to style you
A damsel in distress?
Just give me a signal,
and I'll give it a rest.

Misery, Memory, Forgetting

All that time we spent wasted
In your unfinished basement
Just to rip my glass heart
From its delicate casement?

So easily led
By the things that you said.
I'm as dumb as you thought.
I'm better off dead.

Better to slumber than fall for the lies
Of a faithless young liar in a geeky disguise.
How could anyone plan
Such a hateful surprise?

-

I can't forget your name
I can't forget your face.
I can't forget the time we spent,
Lounging at your place.

Even worse than that,
I don't want to forget.
I long for that desire,
But it hasn't hit me yet.

I know I haven't seen you since I don't know when.
The drunker I am, the longer it's been.
But if you tell me the lies you told before,
I'd take you back again.

-

They say that time heals all scars,
But I think it's better by far
To put off forgetting, let time teach lessons, and
Better predict who acquaintances are.

Though unheeding of time, I've begun,
To study the cruelties you so needed done.
Lessons learned, I do not miss you,
But we sure did have some fun.

Plans

As any good couple
With time on its hands
We spend some of that time
Making fantasy-plans.

But as months have passed,
I've noticed you start
Telling tales of a future
In which we are apart.

Can I ask you a question?
If it's true, would you say?
Are those plans a little joke,
Or a little push away?

Aphrodite and the Author-Surrogate (A poem-in-dialog)

"You notice her, in the skirt and tights!"
"That's right."
"And you couldn't help but notice
That she's looking back at you."
"That's true."
"You should go ask her just what that's about."
"Disgust, without a doubt."
"Don't be so quick, with patience, your verse and hers could rhyme."
"Sounds like a waste of time..."
"How can you dismiss a goddess
And her realm as for the birds..."
"And a waste of words."
"Every man needs a partner, a companion, someone."
"Are you done?"
"Her soft soul might forgive a caveman like you,"
"So you're not through."
"Your foul beard and shaggy hair, a face with space missing."
"Some men ain't made for kissin."
"Is your heart so devoid of feeling?  Are
You harder than being a teenager?"
"I'd wager."

Three

Treading paths high and low, dark and fair,
Seeking and finding our way anywhere.
Seeking not only paths, we stopped to explore.
Eyes and minds never idle, we found something more.
The man, the woman, and the dense wood meet.
Strength, depth, and breadth become three.

Man, alas, is not sinless, and destined to fall,
In the course learns that three are not one, after all.
When my soul rose from the ashes, did some vital thing slough?
Did I see too much, learn too much, and not do enough?
The truth, as our connection, found somewhere in between:
We can never be together, even when we meet.

Communion with Sound (Ode to a Compact Disk)

I remember the first time I heard that CD.
It kick-started my unformed identity.

My head bobbed, lips flapped, heart started to pound:
In sacrilegious, unholy communion with sound.
That CD was a hymn to the best kinds of strife
To define and repeat the whole rest of my life:

To being too honest to have many friends,
To usually losing the girl in the end,
To sports, work and parties taking their toll,
To being unstoppable when I get on a roll,

To wishing to call back those moments of time,
To the struggle of converting thought into rhyme,
To nights spent awake, my gaze on the ceiling,
To finally starting to learn to stop feeling.

I've been listening a while, and from where I'm at,
Every album they sell ought to sound like that.