Sometimes I get a chill, but those fade to your touch

A cold hand holds my heart while music
plays ahead of me; a dish of leftovers sits
and beckons - warm air redolent of slow cooking,
multicolored cushions and low tables
covered in plates of food and bottles of drink
conversation on six degrees of separation
where I am the divide, I am the import,
yet I feel as though I may belong
through an arm thrown casually behind
my shoulders. My mind empties and I am
a conduit of emptied drawers for some
might-have-been, equipment or items
purchased in solitude for a perhaps
tomorrow. I could see this as a farce, a facade
of could-have-been anyone. For a spiraling
moment, I do. But I am not this faceless
and I am the one who benefits from
these idle conversations, the brightly
colored booths, who has the pleasure of
watching you laugh; the way you always
press your tongue to your upper teeth,
a slight gasp beforehand, hearty and full, or
the sinewy movement against me and
quirk of your lip when you're just about ready,
and so I float back to myself, to that arm
about my waist so long kept in these
situations without a body to hold.
I will be the one with a name, a face,
lending action to your self-made assurances
that it wouldn't always end this way
with cobwebs in the corners of drawers
an empty seat on the couch and I
will be the fulfillment of those promises.

Patiently waiting for years of "we'll figure it out"

I am as a split seam
gushing through torn edges
I've been erased before
I'd learned to avoid the water
except now I'm in the lake again
will I find myself this time
the one who is not touched
put up on a shelf to rot

In this quiet room I wander the garden

Pressing my fingers gentle against leaves
their slick surface grazing against the pads
I gather the flowers to my face to breathe
until I come upon a stone
lifted from the soil it yields a tumble
of chittering and scrabbling beetles
tumbling across each other for purchase
I name them as my doubts
clinging to a clod of dirt the first falls
down into the rock's impression in the earth
remaining on its back without fighting
to right itself again
the second hides between blades of grass
hoping to be saved and at once forgotten
paralyzed by its own overbearing thoughts
cleaning itself compulsively
it takes a moment to locate the third
plodding steadily along the divot's edges
sampling the ground every so often
it looks up at me
I replace the stone with a private sigh
I've shared my thoughts as something of
plants grown in your own garden when
they're my buds, after all

The body holds its changes even after the parasite leaves

a cold, wet seat on a winter deck without a tarp
I shiver and dream of sinking into a strange sofa
while cards are on the table in a game of waiting

planets orbit resolving around each other
tumbling clothing reset into rapture piles
a memory of the first time they made contact

the taste of garlic and cold through the veins
gentle whirr-whirr whirr-whirr whirr-whirr
behind my eyes crawls a different memory

Talk of Cohabitation

An old tree on the road to your house
grows around some sign, its
letters worn down by time
and long-faded. I remember
how I felt when I read
that you were undecided
about me, heavy and hollow as
the tree was pulped for paper,
sign ripped out unceremoniously,
the me sent for recycling. I
breathed in metered doses
and kept my fingers buried
in the dirt. Separate the bulb,
unbound the root; loosen
so it can grow stronger
and host a sign of its own.
Today, your hands were
tilling beside mine.

A small thing is growing in the garden today

I say it as simple as water runs
trickling up through my larynx
and popping from my mouth
soft and languid like secrets do
babbling brook declarations
I weaken myself to free

Azure cloudless skies stare back
and I know a tree can't be undecided
roots wrapping around in
one hundred days of growth
not bound to strangle
but tentative reaching

You say it as quiet as rain falls
no meter to the words
but instead actions, like thunder,
ricochet through the halls
bounding full and echoing
I don't need to hear it to see

On pelts we nestle, weary from the road we rode

Piqued to peek at a peak, you
pray as prey for peace given by the piece
to be made whole by its passage through the hole;
bared but not bare as, fuzzy like a bear,
you look as a ewe took upon the yew
complimenting our complement of blankets.

May the pillars of justice fall

and everyone's mind would suddenly work poetry
images that fillet, sounds that move, smells that beckon memory;
businessmen halting deals over homeless men begging through the window
construction workers distracted by how the dusk hits the daisy
a politician at their podium suddenly stricken by their own obstensiality -
words would crop up newly formed and crack you at the seams.

Dimensions

I feel sometimes I am a collection of memories only
these pilgrimages through sides; a hole in the cross-state
pickup's floor, pavement whispering underfoot in its
late winter cab. Cold cream for raw noses, dogs carried
across interstate highways, bags that cut into young palms
where the weight of probable frozen turkeys and canned goods
loomed heavy at your door; later, the garbage bags hastily packed
decide decade after decade in fits of I can't take this anymore.

I can show you; I have luggage now and only buy new cars,
completely safe, save for a scratch or two from nervous driving -
I avoid nicely outdoor events in December and take my own
groceries from car to home with folding carts from Amazon,
carried to my three cats. (Material wealth doesn't remove the fear,
though, of being alone; I still sleep with a pillow to each side to recreate
the feeling of being held but I'm scissors to a toddler's first haircut, the sound
of a thrumming beat through the floor, or the smell of summer soil after a good rain.)

that's to say, I get to be

 Late autumn sun on (what I assume to be galvanized) steel tubs
where tilling reveals a worm, fresh and wriggling and pink; hands
gentle (again!) pat the earth replaced with an absent-minded "there you go"
laughter spouts vapor and I wait for
later: lazily drifting smoke winds around the heads of (unfamiliar) faces
to go with their (familiar?) voices; we simply breathe and it becomes
part of us like how you ferret the best from ourselves kept in quiet esteem
I find it easy this time; I look down
and see your head in my lap (when did that happen) with your legs
thrown so casually over the arm of the sofa (like it's always been this way)
hands gentle (mine this time!) pet your hair and I fail at video games and I just
cannot believe that I am the worm

Chapter Yet Unnamed 2023 - ?

Unwinding from a heartfelt showing
small arm-looped huddle with
watchful eyes I contemplate ephemerality

given to fits and starts in sentences
lost to promises unfulfilled
staying too long as a shadow token of self

reverie interrupted by soft, warm hand
beckoning small of back; later,
whispers of love and like and unspooling, too

this other chance at becoming a staying
unerased in a smaller circle
known yet unknown but no less gratifying

you've all the tools to persist
I share my messy beds
tend to these like the gardens you keep

Unearth

Laden with frost the leaves pluck themselves
swept aside as compost for use
somewhere else, some other time
spindling branches left to reach
stiff and waiting for spring

Diffuse unfurling hothouse flower
warm in the crooks of necks and knees
swelled pupil all too present
mingling fresh laid to rest
slaked of its own merit

People not as seasons divided
but one is as all observing,
hushed and waiting, slipping - by
small tendrils that soft unveil
those most exposed moments

[2023-11-20]

Two ducks swimming by the park bench

We used to record off the radio, hovering
over pause and record; I am the same plucking
for the one who isn't sure if maybe
maybe time will tell
but I always do

I curated for you my footprints in sound without
the need to linger but I do; eyes receiving in doubt
the golden egg listened at all, much less
as closely as I did
as I always do

These things shouldn't matter but they do, friend;
I've gotten the tape stuck in the player again
despite my best efforts and I'm thinking
it's hard to put the genie
back in the bottle
back in the bottle
again
as I never do

Interstate 95

My car is covered in Delaware,
stolen reds and yellows,
for all too short of a time
but I,
ever intrepid,
pluck one from the wiper
with my hazards on
before turning away
from you
turning back
onto the interstate
to keep and press
into a scrapbook
events that lead
to more than just
too-warm roads
in October's Indian summer.

Remember: you can donate blood even with most medical conditions.

The world is heavy with responsibility like sodden bags of refuse
too heavy for an old woman to carry to the curb, weighted
as they are with un-potentials and broken keepsakes
ceramic figurines of once-children so gifted who now quietly
type at their keyboards and earn a living.

I see this world and raise it this strangeness that stands resolute
at and among the darkness in corners; seeks it out and confronts it,
with broad and bell-clear brays of laughter, warmly stoic,
quiet after the keyboard with knees in the earth and hands
busy but gentle, softly tending green.

Places of preference have their say

 A cog in a clock, spindly outreaching arms
cling upon my flesh. The typical martyr
of out damned spot - so quoted is this
partnership. Slip below the navel, nothing
citrus about it, although I'm told
taking my vitamins will help. I keep close
the blocks of DNA, and poetry, where neither
seem to solve much of anything.

Empty minutes - face the timepiece - yawn
their way across my forehead. I am branded
with the presence, with the implications,
and I resent it as I resent not being gifted
and being it, too. I am still myself,
I am still here, and I go for the same rate
as I did yesterday - although you might
be one to disagree. Surprisingly, you say.

I choose the church of the inkblot

What's processing as opposed to bleeding
dragging my pen across the page
scraping the nib through the fiber
you saying I pulled you down so far
you began to experience my own trauma
like it's something that's catching
I of course believe this without question
because my blood is all over the page
although, upon sharing this, I received
a vehement and rousing bullshit
from a self-proclaimed Switzerland
then I remember to lift the pen
I can breathe again

I always seem to have parts left over

 What happens when the words come easy,
slipping through my fingers like bric-a-brac
cluttered on a shelf and tumbling down
at the slightest provocation; do they mean
any less than those hard-won? They might -
coming through the assembly line with
plaster seeping through the moldline
paint just a bit past the sclera to mock
fine craftmanship otherwise saying I did not
earn this. But can you tell when I do?

When I walk I often think of you

As though you walk beside me;
I know you don't, but I see your eyes
sparkling with hidden humors
your mind so fertile with facts, opinions,
that I want to cry out, ungentle, for
I am hungry and left wanting
on so many planes

Everyone's doing it these days

Grappling cells into rushing tides
desperate for purchase and infiltration
pollute as they pollinate
clinging to the base of the spine as
neighbors with cars in the yard
and a dog that won't stop barking 

A need for distance

from the time it takes to find a void, again;
the shaking sick-dog silence stretching
without soft hand to touch or
much-needed embrace

falling into shadows, heavy and woolen;
damp heat ever awning gawp of evening
beyond the window's reflecting and
pit of emptiness beyond

cold Waiting-for-Godot sweat, again;
I am not thicker than time and I thin
into trembling beaten patterns waiting
for a gentle pat on the head

The storm is closing in

Eyes focused ahead of me
but not quite locked in at all
I see two sets of eyes staring
back at me. Don't look to the future
instead look to see what's already happened
and hold it close to the chest.

Sunny disposition of the positive mind

I wrote little stories
without your permission
you as porch-mate

We held first
in a parking lot,
writing and

waiting with
distractions
required so often

when suddenly
I realize,
I need,
to tell you:

I'm a disaster,
get
away from me

When messaging becomes kinetic

I'm starting to write more and it's gutting,
to be rebirthed with the things I've celled away,
like this globulous, wrenchwork concern
for humanity
with their late-night dismantling of light
from behind someone else's eyes
with a single percussive
slap

Perception is a ghost I greet daily

to exist I have to be seen, as you were,
imagined as my balcony companion
your eyes dizzy, as mine, with green nature
feeling drums work compulsively, softly;
I feel the need to do this, to have a watcher
over me to increase the value of the experience,
as though if my image of their form faded then so
would I.

I will be the last one to write this book

first and bravest willing or the
only one with pinkish liver intact,
lungs whole and breathing on beat,
heart and intestines aligned, stomach
prepped and iron -- house of a dozen
or so yards and pounds of sleeping,
messy wishes. A pile of emotive meat.

Words collect sounds to create meaning,
yet “dog” is not a dog, so what is a word?
Echoes shatter common sounds like
rain on glass and buckling tin rooftop
of a matchbox butcher block of car,
echoes like static laughter, wailing
and slamming its way around.

Rain juices over thickly burdened wipers.
I am near the temple of Isis now: I am
all that is, was, or shall be; no mortal
man may lift this veil from my face. I
am just looking for my mother; I am
yanking the words out of “inevitable”
and trying to see the road. She waits.

Raindrops are words, compound, like fractures,
and they snake up and down windows
leaving entrails of themselves in wake -- words
are fickle, their meaning duplicates. I find
myself in words like "past," "viewing," and "gone."

I delve into the meatlocker. I find nothing
of any consequence, only things of
dire importance; I pull out words like
“inevitable” by the strings and try
to snip off their placenta and stare
at the wipers snicking the rain

Out of plain view I will weep if only to match
the sneaking quality of raindrops they
are only words the glass will break under
their weight and then it will be resolved
no one will be able to tell water from glass
her body from ashes and I can weep, then,
I can weep.

I drive into the city in search of Being
and Time, finding instead Being and
Nothingness. The temple was deserted;
“inevitable” transmorphs into Time and
Nothingness and Time. Being is a word. Being
is Nothing. I weep. The cop walks over. I
throw him the keys. It was
the opening scene to an adventure.

reposted from my deviantart account YECALEEM 2006,2023

I don't remember the process of writing

 Filleting of the mind and pinching
with fingers as forceps the gangrene
eeling it from the slick and soft folds
and slap it to the page until it tastes
the way that memory smelled
now it's just clicking noises
and the prevailing sense of fear

A face whose features fell away

but I get ahead of myself as I so often do
with the taste of nicotine and grit of ash
always on my hands no matter how much I wash
and I did my thesis on Shakespeare so I know
indelible; core memories are snowflakes - gray
and not metaphoric - lighting on my already
cold cheek to blend with the absolutely nothing
because I hadn't started the adultness of
acknowledging the gaping maw of boxes
being carried away, in perpetuity

I do not see myself as a writer

Several hundred miles in rolling asphalt sun
setting gold and husky, glancing at 90
or probably greater, to record a line we
will see months later and hear as hollow
no strings attached

the myself in this chair
myself in the sofa bed
myself in this brackwater
myself abrupt face
slashing change

These lines are all dashers, and greedy
at that, all sticky fingers of a toddler,
suctioning out the boxes I nearly filed
to bleed by themselves quietly
no strings attached