poem for mello

buffalo wings and nostalgia
make a veritable feast
messy and hot
with bones to gnaw upon
finger licking good
washed down with punch and laughter
a little heartburn
yet satisfying

ring ring

thank you for calling
how can i help you
thank you for calling
how can i help you
thank you for calling
how can i help you
a record skipping
over and again
and the hours pass
until the clock says
time to go
thank you for calling
how can you help me
thank you for calling
can anyone help me
thank you
thank you
please

delays in the post

Once again, I have been writing but the place where I've been temping blocks access to blogger so I haven't been posting.  Will post a few pieces now that I email to myself and more tomorrow when I dig my notebook out of my bag.

Lady in waiting

I've friends enough and family
And work and hobbies, too.
I've filled my life with happiness
But something's missing, you.
I bide my time just waiting
For the moment you arrive.
I get myself from day to day
And keep my love alive.
I know you're coming someday
And I hope that someday's soon
Because my heart is slowly breaking
With every passing moon.
Please hurry and come find me
Before it gets too late
Because my heart will love forever
But my womb, it will not wait.
I hear the clock inside me tick
Like Poe's beating telltale heart
And I fear the time is waning
When a pregnancy could start
So hurry, love, please hurry
I want to have our family
We're waiting here to meet you:
My heart, my eggs, and me.

Off the map

I had a plan, years in the making,
scribbled out in childish scrawl,
with dreams so big that disappointment
was sure to come to call.
I knew each step that need be taken
and started on my merry way
and yet somewhere lost my direction,
all motion leading further and farther away
from all the things I thought I wanted,
all the things I hoped to do.
Far off the map I made myself
a new path I must hew.
I lack a compass, have no bearings
no Northern Star to guide me home
I question each and every turning
and ceaselessly I roam.
My schemes and schedules all forgotten
I wander aimless but with hope
for unexpected joys lie waiting
now I have broadened my scope.
Off the map lie hidden treasures
Off the map I may find me
My plans not failed but ever changing
and new worlds yet to see.

June 10

i listen for your heartbeat

and where it was is silence

just the cotton of a pillow 

under my head

where once was your

broad comforting chest

June 9

caffeination vacation
break from the day
a jolt
a start
eyes open wider
world moves faster
and yet
for a moment
it stops
for you

June 8

alike yet not alike
we two are one
making a third
a new
different
disparate
conflicting and conflicted
we try and join
together
together
we fly apart
we break and mend
relapse
and
rebuild
and in the end
we bend

damnit

Have been writing in my papery notebook but forgetting to type into here.  Will add my three owed posts today.  But now, have to go off to work.  Poo.

coast

cool breeze on hot skin
sunbaked and shining
smelling of sea and coconut
hours drifting past on the tides
roar of waves lulling the mind
into a daze of calm content
toes curl and stretch in the hot sand
eyelids closed 'gainst the glare
nowhere to be but here
nothing to do but this
only this

the two

the little things
the secret smiles
the inside jokes
the whispered words
the quiet chuckles
the knowing looks
the weight of you
the hand in mine
the fingers entwined
the contented snuggles
the soft sighs
the delicate kiss
the hushed hello
the tranquil peace
the halcyon moments
a shy and gentle love we share
not bombastic and brash be we
nor need we be
for all that need be said is said
sans words, words or shouts or clarion calls
but in every look and gesture
we commune

Home

oh how i long for a place of my own

a home

a hearth

a welcome mat

with maybe a dog

or maybe a cat

where each little accent

lends a personal touch

where all my things

can find their own niche

my bookshelves and books

my nicknacks

my photos

my paintings and things

untempered and uncrowded 

by others belongings

the dishes in the sink 

would only be mine

the messes would always get cleaned

just calm and beauty

and piece of mind

i would surround myself

with flowers and candles

and all good things

oh how i long for a place of my own

which one day i can share

with a man of my choosing

a dog or a cat

and a child or two

if we dare

where each little accent

lends a personal touch

where all our things

can find their own niche

our bookshelves and books

my nicknacks, his too

family photos

children's paintings and toys

cluttered and crowded 

by mixed up belongings

the dishes in the sink 

would sometimes o'erflow

the messes would sometimes get cleaned

just chaos and beauty

and bewildered excitement

i would surround myself

with people and love

and all good things

Two days in a row I'll have done my post for the day past midnight.  Have to make sure today's second post gets in under the wire.


"Shit, goddammit, motherfucking ow!" the woman shouted.  

A group of school children, congregated just inside the gate of the park, uniforms wrinkled and ties askew, giggled.

"Oh shut the fuck up," the woman barked at them.

She threw her purse on the ground and reached down and grabbed her foot.  Blood was soaking through the canvas of her sandal from the gashed big toe.  Her eyes scrunched up in a moment of pain before she unzipped her bag and began digging through it.  The children watched.

"Motherfucking bandaids," she mumbled.  Throwing gum wrappers, old receipts, torn bits of paper around her as she pawed through what seemed to the school children to be a messier version of Mary Poppins' bag the woman continued muttering obscenities.

"Fuck it," she said eventually, with a slight note of triumph.  The woman pulled a pantyliner from the depths of the bag.  She peeled away the plastic wrapping and proceeded to clumsily bandage her toe with the feminine hygiene product, sticky side out, of course.  Apparently satisfied with her handiwork, the woman zipped her bag, stood up, and wandered off past the gate, towards the bus stop.

The children went back to desultorily playing, kicking a plastic bottle around, all the while muttering, "Shit, goddammit, mutherfucking ow."

Gone fishin'

Already falling off the wagon.  Wrote this a few hours ago but forgot to post before midnight.  Bad me.


They disappear into the ether
Like rain into the sea
Up to a point but then no further
They get away from me
I try to catch in nets of banter
With hooks of high heels
And lures of lipstick
But slippery fishes swim away
And Ahab-like I roam the decks
And shake my fists
And curse the day
Alone I bob upon the ocean
In an aging and creaking boat
No stars shine to navigate by
No charts, no maps, no latitude
Just desperation and obsession
Over the shadows of the deep
Yet still, I float.

10

1. The inexplicable electric tingle in your lips right before a great first kiss.
2. The soft down of hair on a newborn's head.
3. The feel of freshly cleaned sheets on newly shaved legs.
4. The safety felt in really big bear hug from someone you haven't seen in a long time.
5. Air-conditioning on your skin after a day at the beach in the height of summer.
6. The prickling feeling on the back of your neck when someone whispers in your ear.
7. The sensation of hot tea running down your throat on a snowy day.
8. The smell right before rain.
9. Floating in the ocean right past the breakers, bobbing on the waves.
10. The complete wild abandon of really great sex.

waiting

It's always the waiting that sucks the most.
Waiting for the phone to ring.
Waiting for the commercial to end.
Waiting tables.
Waiting for those three little words which you think will change your life but never do.
It's interminable.
Time unspooling into a tangled mass like yarn attacked by kittens.
Waiting for inspiration.
Waiting for...
waiting for...
waiting for the words to come.
The words that will make everything right,
make everyone like you,
make you rich,
make you famous,
make sense of your life.
Yes, it's the waiting that sucks.
(Pause)
(Pause)
(Pause)
Sigh.

Resolutions

Since I haven't posted on this blog in 4 years, and in an effort to get me writing more, and because I am currently unemployed and if I don't give myself a project I will go bloody mad...I have decided that for the next year, I am going to post one new bit of writing every day.  Although, if I am out of town, I will do one new piece per day and post all upon my return.  In any case, at the end of the year, I should have a bit of work done.  It can be a poem or a list or a short story or the start of a long story or the continuation of a long story or whatever...but I will post one new thing for every day.  And hopefully I will not be my usual slacker self.  Even just a sentence will be fine.  Just something.  So...here we go.