“three inches of love”

something more exquisite than this Bliss of knowing
there is no such thing as measuring love

at least as we measure time
now, not then
later, and when

two weeks, three years, a day,
an hour…
all motionless, as meaningful and what fills the space of life

when lovers depart, sweet time is the enemy-
any second apart is an eternity,

in your arms, I felt forever
if only for that moment,
it never ended and thus, still is…

this here: now and now…
everafter grace unraveled
driven to core, to untangle depths
unaccustomed to tenderness
or comprehension so infinite and vast

Fluttering, down to core.
driven with insatiable force
to speak outside the boundaries of time.

if in each inch, a lifetime could be contained,
the measure would equal the force of gravity
and still, such space would be exposed
as infinity itself, half-remembered,
fully measured.

A Return to Faith

Each day every over and over minute -
a return to faith greets me fully at my door/

comes knocking, re-mapping pathways traveled
over and over/well-worn/tread/countered, contoured, &
contained.

A space waits for me -
a space to breathe- to listen for the roar
awakening to this one knowing moment
suddenly and all at once I am home again.

Refreshment in connection too far
unraveled to be real in this the moment we’ve
All been waiting for.

Map my unremembered places map
my heart’s content map the reasons that lead me
back to this
wild wild wonderful place

this magic place so quietly abandoned
so long the silent roar, creeping in
up on inward channels turned mossy -
shadows birthing pearls, emeralds,
wild diamond eyes-

who knew a chaos this wild would be so easy?

A Simple Truth

Liminal Musings: A Poem In Three Parts.
Postcards from the Edge (of Time)

Part III

I miss you madly in spring.
Every warm day
is your warm body against mine-

I miss you madly in spring.

Paradoxical Poetry

I believe that poetry is an action, ephemeral or solemn, in which there enter as equal partners solitude and solidarity, emotion and action, the nearness to oneself, the nearness to mankind and to the secret manifestations of nature. And no less strongly I think that all this is sustained – man and his shadow, man and his conduct, man and his poetry – by an ever-wider sense of community, by an effort which will for ever bring together the reality and the dreams in us because it is precisely in this way that poetry unites and mingles them.
-Pablo Neruda–Nobel Lecture–1971

In my heart it will never be spring…

Kimbra – “Plain Gold Ring” (Live at Sing Sing Studios) from Forum5 Recordings on Vimeo.

A Return To Winter

Liminal Musings: A Poem In Three Parts.
Postcards from the Edge (of Time)

Part II

I wake to finding my voice
scattered, drawn silent
all these years -

it is barely a whisper now:

sighing, not singing,
breathing, barely there-
softly now,
she opens to a hope of a sound that might be freedom,
might be heard, over the loud scrapings of chalkboard nails
against past jailed thoughts – held hostage by what? a distant uprising?
an unspoken something too precious to breathe to life?
growing moments of confidence alight -
in the spasm of freedom, of re-discovery, my timing is off-
in the thrill of music’s magic erupting spontaneously from my being
enthusiasm trumps embarrassment – I release.
Open Up.
Let Go.
Close my eyes, listen for my heart -
a bark and growl erupt -
hardly a melody…
frankly, a cacophonous howling
I don’t find quite beautiful except for that I know
it is the dusty, rusty awakening of a voice
that hasn’t seen the light of day, the light of love,
since long before this time changed ways,
made ways,
had her way with me…

Call it forgiveness. Call it love. Call it whatever.
Call it home.

Grief, postponed.

Came upon this today.

“Emotion is hard

Have you ever noticed that in a relationship, when a couple is fighting, the one who is less overtly emotional seems to have the upper hand? The emotional one is flailing about trying to get the one who’s not exhibiting emotion to feel something, anything at all. Meanwhile the one who is trying “too much” gets labeled crazy or over-emotional or sensitive.

The case may be the latter. But I’m willing to bet it’d be less so if the individuals in the system shared the emotion that is there to be felt, together. Isn’t it easier together? Easier for both? For all? Emotion, reaction, grief, they are entities. Trauma happens. Elephant enters room. What is the reaction? Any?” Read the rest here. (Thank you, Pema Teeter.)

And I realized something about myself when I read it. I’ve been waiting. All this time, waiting for someone else to take my hand, to say, “It’s okay. I feel it too. I am sad too. I miss us more than you can even imagine. As much as you think of me, I think of you more. As often as you wonder, what was that? As often as you are in awe of the magic that has transformed you, the touch that lifted you from the depths, and withdrawn, has left you looking for meaning to every single moment under rocks… I am in transfixed in greater awe, I am touched more deeply, I am searching for meaning in everything I see and feel too, because of you. Because you changed me, I have changed myself. Because your touch just held me, I now hold everything I touch with a new awareness.”

And I don’t want to wait anymore. Not for the story, not for the “talk” that will “let me understand.” I simply want to experience the feeling, together. All of it. The beginning, the middle, the end, the beginning again. I want to know you feel it too, that I am not crazy, that I did not make this all up in my head. I want to know our experience was as real as it felt. I want to know you – all of you – in that way in which two people share the truth of Who They Are, and in so sharing it, make it easier to bear. There is no tomorrow to my todays, and slowly, yesterday also slips into today. There is only this feeling, this feeling that threatens to overwhelm me at times, that I hold onto too tightly, that I cannot let go of alone. I need to know we found something here, something extraordinary, and that it is worth shouting from the rooftops, turning your life upside down and inside out for, that it is the grace that comes in between the moments we try to explain and try to justify. That it just Is. There is nothing to do, nothing to be done about it. It simply exists. It is here. As We are here. I want acknowledgement.

And so, because I cannot wait any longer and because I can only control who I am, what I do, not you, or you, or you…I acknowledge it here. I will acknowledge it with every step that I take, every song I sing, every word I write. I will shout it from the rooftops, and turn my life upside down and inside out to touch, to hold onto that grace, that grace I came to know in this moment of everything that ever Is between Us.

Thank you for giving me all that I ever needed.

I Believe

 

I believe in beauty ~ truth ~ love…

magic ~ serendipity ~ synchronicity…

light ~ laughter ~ living ~ loving…

sometimes knowing enough is just a smile,

a thought, a memory, a fragment of space & time encapsulated in a bubble

fragile, about to burst, become a butterfly, seeing calm in the chaos,

peace in the process, and kindness in the connections

we hold, however dear or forgotten,

inside our hearts,

each touch, a blush of emotion, uncontained ~

each thought a brush stroke of creation, a living god,

a whispered, “I love you…”

 

What interests me now is not schedules or planning,

not cohesiveness or defense, not illusion or practicality.

What interests me now is madness and sparks,

inspiration of hearts touched down lightly, feather dusted into now

and now and now…

 

what touches my soul is connection, compassion, bliss…

remembered, sought, delivered… it’s all the same experience.

 

what ignites me is light and shadows, dancing at the waters edge, beaches, rain, luxury,

skin to skin contact, breathing in sunshine & disaster, nostalgia & progress, letters of love,

poems, words, images, shiny reflections, self-portraits, subscribed meanings, advertisements to the Universe,

everything and anything that is, was, has ever been understood in silence.

 

Now. Remembered. Forgotten. Touched. Unmasked. Hidden. Contradicted. Passionate.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

(such is to say, love, love, love…)

 

Live with grandeur.

Dream in color.

Know truth in my touch.

When a Woman Loves a Man

When she says margarita she means daiquiri.
When she says quixotic she means mercurial.
And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again,"
she means, "Put your arms around me from behind
as I stand disconsolate at the window."

He's supposed to know that.

When a man loves a woman he is in New York and she is in Virginia
or he is in Boston, writing, and she is in New York, reading,
or she is wearing a sweater and sunglasses in Balboa Park and he
    is raking leaves in Ithaca
or he is driving to East Hampton and she is standing disconsolate
at the window overlooking the bay
where a regatta of many-colored sails is going on
while he is stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway.

When a woman loves a man it is one ten in the morning
she is asleep he is watching the ball scores and eating pretzels
drinking lemonade
and two hours later he wakes up and staggers into bed
where she remains asleep and very warm.

When she says tomorrow she means in three or four weeks.
When she says, "We're talking about me now,"
he stops talking. Her best friend comes over and says,
"Did somebody die?"

When a woman loves a man, they have gone
to swim naked in the stream
on a glorious July day
with the sound of the waterfall like a chuckle
of water rushing over smooth rocks,
and there is nothing alien in the universe.

Ripe apples fall about them.
What else can they do but eat?

When he says, "Ours is a transitional era,"
"that's very original of you," she replies,
dry as the martini he is sipping.

They fight all the time
It's fun
What do I owe you?
Let's start with an apology
Ok, I'm sorry, you dickhead.
A sign is held up saying "Laughter."
It's a silent picture.
"I've been fucked without a kiss," she says,
"and you can quote me on that,"
which sounds great in an English accent.

One year they broke up seven times and threatened to do it
    another nine times.

When a woman loves a man, she wants him to meet her at the
    airport in a foreign country with a jeep.
When a man loves a woman he's there. He doesn't complain that
    she's two hours late
and there's nothing in the refrigerator.

When a woman loves a man, she wants to stay awake.
She's like a child crying
at nightfall because she didn't want the day to end.

When a man loves a woman, he watches her sleep, thinking:
as midnight to the moon is sleep to the beloved.
A thousand fireflies wink at him.
The frogs sound like the string section
of the orchestra warming up.
The stars dangle down like earrings the shape of grapes.- David Lehman

How Wonderful Life Is Now You’re In The World

I love you… and I am grateful that you are alive.

Spring Fever

Notes from the Road: Savannah & Tybee Island, GA (i.e. a week of beach & love)

Liminal Musings: A Poem In Three Parts.
Postcards from the Edge (of Time)

Part I

Summer is upon us, suddenly & all at once – and we,
we haven’t had our summer of love yet -
All is spring green here
931 miles away and you,
driving a line on the map-
straight into my heart.

Love does not hurt.
when we open our hearts past pain, into ocean blue,
blue waves, breaking shoreline, dancing at the edge of beyond &
ever and ever amen.
I dance for you.
I dance with me.
You are my heart – still my heart…
this spring time summer I have come to
(I’m nothing inbetween)

All of a sudden I
want to be somewhere
familiar.

“Marry me today and every day…
forever could never be long enough for me -”

We are on the Right Path
Sweet Pea,

Love expands all possibility.
How can my purpose be anything but loving?
(Loving and Living are only one letter apart on purpose you know.)

Nostalgia shakes the rain from my eyes.
I dance,
I dance,
I open my arms to the sky, sea green, love blue, sweet summer breeze
and spring grey – open to my wild wild ways…
open to my heart, my love, my all & all

I sing my songs to you,
I write my poems, my letters, my postcards from the edge of time,
to you

my love,
my heart
my sweet summer forever ocean blue eyes…

And
And
And

you & you & you….

Recording moments,
“Like we never loved at all.”

When will you love you enough to be my One & Only?

This is How It Starts…

Bliss.

I’m in love and always will be…

Songs from the Open Road:

somewhere between yesterday and tomorrow…

And if you live by the rules of it’s over then I’m sure that that makes sense…

I’m a Lover.

I’m nothing Inbetween -

so take me as I am, this may mean you’ll have to be a stronger man…

tomorrow I will change, and today won’t mean a thing…

Frederick.MD

Notes from the Road

A thousand years or a single night here…it’s all the same in the details.

Something about road trip travels with only loose destinations planned, the open road, the wind in your hair, an open time table… the signs lead you to exactly where you need to be, exactly when you need to be there. Stepping out of love’s way, letting it do it’s thing, work it’s magic, and this is where I end up today….

…guided toward expression, expansion, love…every step of the way.

the substance of things to come

tonight, love,

I say a prayer goodnight
to you who I cannot touch,
will never change – would never want to-
even if it meant I could spend eternity in your arms…
you who, touched my soul so ever gently,
yet seems intent on consuming souls,
as some consume candy-
intent on only ever being an affair
away from knowing true love, always…
intent on haunting my soul
for ever after – in all ways.

(perhaps content is more apt a descriptor though)

I say a prayer to peace
and a prayer of please
let my love mean something
here. now. in him
let my love make a difference
in some small way
today. tomorrow.

always.

(let love be enough)

When You Really Love Someone

When Night Falls: Everything I Want To Say That Will Never Be Said

Today.

When the light of us is all that remains,

in a flash – there was every moment between us-

in the briefest ever after, all our dreams collided.

 

Today.

Saw your wife and child today. Apparitions made real.

Afterward, I went to the laundromat and washed my dirty clothes.

 

Some prayers are unspeakable, even when given from the heart.

 

Today.

Sitting in my old new soon to be no more home-

the place you’ve never been to-

the place you’ve never known me-

This place I’ve lived seven months.

The place no one’s ever been to.

I can’t seem to leave it fast enough, tonight.

 

This space where you are not. Where certainty is surely not.

This space that shares the loneliest of secrets with my heart.

Home

 

Heaven

One by one and moment by moment, all my dreams are coming true…step by step…overlapping and opening to the flow that is this dream created and trusted in, my life, my vision, my quest, remaining true to heart, to inquiry, to attention, to focus….to following my bliss. In each step then, a surrender, an opening, to trust, to love, to expansiveness…

As prayers are answered, life is flooded with little bits of heaven, moment by moment, day by blessed day.

 

I am love and we are one and all is all it will ever, can ever, has ever known, been, dreamed, transgressed. Each truth speaks within it’s own space and affirms every other truth’s story.

 

This is all there is to life.

This is all there is to love.

 

Stories are place, are people, are passion. I embrace it all. I am taken to new heights, shown new whispers of dreams, new magic unfolds, inside and around me…

I bless it all. I bless you. I thank you. and you. and you. and you.

 

I am full. of life. of love. of bliss.full

Space & Time

My First Love

My first love only ever a dream I knew would some day come true…
Another space & time I am always in…
no matter where I live, what I do, what I know…

Inside this love of mine, we two collide.
Magic moves in us, unlike a better find-
unwrapped of a package we know will need no mending

Outside a mind that understands here & now-
is this.

Just one place.
My heart stops for every time.