When I want to write a poem but can’t seem to find the key to start, I begin to feel a yearning for the release of writing. It is almost lust. Very much akin to desire to touch and be desired and to lose ourselves in our bodies. Those moans of pleasure and need, giving over to mindless rut. Until payoff and, for me, emptiness. In sex, when I make the destination instead of the journey the goal, I feel empty, cored out after. When I write, I feel empty after but somehow hopeful and lighter. It’s not poetry but at least it’s something. Writing a piece like this leaves me both satiated and hungry for something more. It’s not what I wanted but it’s what was available. But the poem is what I want. Like having vanilla sex but wanting complexity. Or wanting to hear your voice set in orgasm and never quite getting you there. Disappointing, somewhat enjoyable and also, not enough.
Thoughts
An exercise
Do this: Close your eyes.
From the bottom of your feet, up your legs; into you groin, into your abdomen, up your back, your chest, down your arms; up your face, up your skull, across your scalp, every piece fo skin, what is it that you feel, not generally, but specifically. hold it all in you mind
move your tongue about, what do you taste, a filling? that last bit of popcorn, the mustard from a sandwich; the dryness of salt?
hold it all
breathe in deeply through your nose, without losing focus, add that feeling of air coursing into your lungs and out again
now sample the air, what do you smell, the faintest hint of decay, dryness in the air, a faint whiff of deodorant, of bleach, of pinsol, electronics
now hold that in your mind;
now listen, the wind against your eardrums; in the trees, an engine starting, a car rolling past; faint laughter in the distance, cicadas strumming; birds landing, what do you hear, hold it in your mind
now, open your eyes, do not allow the sight to overwhelm all that you are holding steady in your mind; the inclination is to let sight wash the rest to background;
don’t allow it. look at it all, see each piece, each tarnish, the wind moving the trees; the blue quality of light
Now just be, in that moment, seconds slipping by but not passing each one held and let slip seconds dripping by.
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Emotional shotgun
Would you want to kiss me if you knew I’d always want one more? One more taste of your lips or word from your tongue? One more unexpected laugh, one more, always one more, one more hour of your warmth mingled with mine, one more glimpse of you happy? Fool that I am, I think love is the point, to be honest and loyal, but so often cast off I begin to wonder, am I so boring to be caught by? Or is it that I sit in a holding pattern waiting for you to step to me as I would step to you? I’m just looking for some indication that it’s not all exhilaration of the chase. Something, I find so boring, to hunt and take. Say you are mine and I would take you, all madness and passion, it builds in me and never goes away. Or am I too strange, does the mad whirl drive you away?
I hang on to a ghost because at least the loss is real. Am I fighting so hard to find you and know you that it’s easier to disappear than confront me? I have to say, it’s a popular choice, though I never understand why they just don’t talk to me. I promise, I am unlike anyone you’ve met before. If you expect me to jump one way, you’re better off asking. I don’t change my mind on a dime, but I’ll always have an opinion. A man who talks about his feelings, brace yourself. Or worse, listens and can be persuaded by honest discourse. I know it’s hyperbolic but it’s still true. Perhaps I’m just too far from the norm? Someone who wants to know feelings and thoughts and day by day build a life? Who will share his thoughts and feelings and wants to commiserate not fix, necessarily. He must be some kind of witch burn him. I assure you I am neither a duck or a very small rock.
Maybe I’m just tired of spinning my wheels in the sand, trying to make butter. Or maybe it’s four AM and I am trying not to fall asleep, so I can keep myself from dwelling on memories. Or hopes.
Sometimes, all the time, I wish it was as easy as ‘I love you’, perhaps I should stop using a shorthand and say instead that I like, respect, and desire you. That I take how you may perceive my actions into account before I make a decision. Because I know it’s not just my needs, it’s yours and I’ll always want the best for you. Even if we fight, or argue, hurting you would be the last thing I would want to do. But we’re people so, it’s going to happen, I know. I don’t expect perfection, fuck, I don’t want perfection. How boring would that be if we could not surprise each other in good and bad ways?
I mean all this and more when I say I love you. Maybe it’s too much? Maybe it’s easier to play along, always with one foot out the door? Maybe I should explain what I mean by love?
Or is it that I always want that one step further? One more than you’re willing to give. But if you tell me, ‘You’ve gone to far.’ I’ll respect your hard limits. Just keep talking to me. I can’t know if you don’t say. I may guess, I may conclude. But if you tell me, I’ll know. Just say soft limit or hard limit. Honestly, BDSM done right is relationship jujitsu and I am a Master.
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Seattle no longer
I’m Back from Seattle. Each year it is harder and harder to leave the city behind. I feel at home there, more so that I feel anywhere outside of the arms of my lovers.But money and such. Friends that have moved up there end up living way outside the city and that would defeat the purpose for me. Downtown is what feels like home. All the way up to the alleys that smell like piss. A city awash in beauty and humanity. And a dark rain filled sky.
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To My Brightest Day, My Morrigan
There was a time when I was dawn, was light, was dream. I drank and danced. I sang and fucked and balanced my life against others. And in the end it was a creature of darkness who acted as my savior. Through her love I rose from the chrysalis of seeming placid life. A false front, but one that I embraced for her. A false front that became my life when I failed to save her as I was saved by her. When she was taken by a coward who fled before me, I lost myself. I fell. I embraced the false front as if that was all I was. I ventured out only when I could breathe no more, I woke slowly from that nightmare. Something fully realized only when the coward was found and dealt with. But my Morgan is still dead. That pain will always be a part of me. Something that is brought home when a memory resurfaces or even when a book character recounts the loss of their love to murder. I’ve recounted this tale several times. I tell it each year at about this time. September 19 is the 11 year anniversary of her death.
I apologize to anyone who would love me. I have a past. I have pain. I know that life is fleeting. It makes me reckless where love is concerned. I throw myself in, because I know that this all ends. I know it all to well.
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Mt Ranier
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Can’t recognize
Am I seeing things where nothing exists? Am I reading things that aren’t there? Am I being a fool again? Seeing words that are general and seeing them as directed. I must be mistaken. Not that I want to be but I don’t dare believe it to be true. It must be delusion, mustn’t it? I wish I could stand in front of you and just ask. But that never ends well.
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Looking and smiling
I look for you in the face of everyone I meet. I get lost looking for you. They see in my eyes, hope and joy and the question. Is it you? They almost all duck there heads, maybe smile. Am I missing you by not being more direct? But how do you ask, have you danced with me in your dreams? How do you say what is needed for you to know it’s me without sounding insane? Without sounding as I do now. Should sounding insane phase me? I desire to dance in the aisle. Uncaring how I look, because it’s with you.
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Dreams precede
She waits for me when I close my eyes, delighted that I have come back to her. Who are you? I sent out a call and you appeared in my dreams. I can feel your lips on mine. The warmth of you next to me, snuggled down in bed under comforter. I feel the pull of you. But I don’t know to where. I cannot direct my feet when I know not the destination. The advice would be to allow the world to move and as it moves be pulled to you like gravity. And that’s wise. But the voice of experience says, you must find her and be with her. Life is fleeting it says and each moment should be lived in exquisite joy. And I want the latter but I have no choice but to follow the former.
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How my dream ended
I walk up to a table at some kind of gala. I sit down and look at the sad young lady sitting alone. She’s beautiful. I could describe her, but all women I find beautiful are pretty in their own unique way. Suffice to say she was stunning. I say “hello, would you like to spend tonight with me? I have had a bad run of it and I don’t want to be alone tonight. Just be with me.”
She asks, “I’m not going to be your vacation fling.” she says it with an unturned lilt. Questioning and almost timid.
I smile crookedly and say “Not if you don’t want to be. Let us have this night. And in the morning if you want to leave you can, but I would much rather you stay.”
We sit drinking champaign. Small sips. There is a small orchestra sitting around. Like they know now one is dancing so why play when no one will listen.
I stand and hold out my hand, “Would you like to dance?”
She says, “but they aren’t playing any music.”
I say, “They will.”
And we dance.
The song we danced to:
Pelgris 