Rare

When ever I see a beautiful piece
of handcrafted wood -
furniture, bowl, old-fashioned tool…

I think of you.

I don’t know anything about anything
except some part of you loves
wood,
some part of you sees the beauty in
old-fashioned tools,
some part of you loves
handcrafted quality…

And so, when I see handcrafted beauty,
or beautiful wood,
or old-fashioned tools…

I think of you.

And my love comes rushing back in

that moment,
in a flood.

When ever I see a beautiful woman
sexy, confident, athletic -
sophisticated…
one I imagine you would sleep with

I think of you.

I don’t know anything about beautiful women
nor do I particularly care for them-

/except in as much as I envy
their figures -
their particular body parts, curves,
or any perfect thing about them that makes them shine,
their particular brand of beauty -
style, form, attitude… /
(anything I imagine them to possess that I do not see in myself)

but I know some part of you loves
discovering, imagining, tasting,
running your hands and your tongue
over their gorgeous curves -
some part of you loves
the idea of possessing, inhaling,
succumbing to their unique brand of beauty -

So when I stare in lustful envy
it’s only because

I think of you.

And my love comes rushing back -
flooding me with the feelings
of your hands, your tongue,
your soul…

exploring and possessing mine,
the less-than-perfect curves,
seemingly perfectly beautiful
under your touch …

So when I glance over at that woman
or this one -

and it fills me with a lust for you…

it may seem strange
but it’s because I know

some part of you loves
some part of that experience of knowing -
even for the briefest moment-
more than any other single thing in life.

And that some part of me that loves
some part of you
that will never be separate from that
other part of you
rejoices & despairs

at the very same time.

To feel bliss & devastation so profoundly
in one same still moment
nearly rips my heart in two,
every time.

My Famous Last Words

My famous last words
Are laying around in tatters
Sounding absurd, whatever I try…
But I love you
And that’s all that really matters
If this is goodbye
If this is goodbye…

 

 

….

Who knows if there’s a plan or not,
There is our love…
I know there is our love.

 

…
My famous last words could never tell the story
Spinning unheard in the dark of the sky
But I love you
And this is our glory
If this is goodbye
If this is goodbye…

The Mythical Creature

In case you failed to notice, in case you failed to see…

this is my heart bleeding before you, this is my down on my knees -

These foolish games are tearing me apart…

your thoughtless words are breaking my heart…

they’re breaking my heart.

 

well excuse me,  guess I’ve mistaken you for, somebody else…

somebody who gave a damn, somebody more like myself…

Bus 9 To Hell: A Final Word About Grief

I never imagined when this began where it would end, where this road would take me… seems I took the wrong fork in the road, and instead of paradise, have ended up in my own living form of hell. Reminds me of that movie, What Dreams May Come, when he comes to realize he cannot help his wife see that she is creating the very hell she lives in…but he goes in anyway after her, to be with her in that place. That is love. That is love. Being there. Just being there, even if there is inside the self-created hell someone cannot escape from themselves. Just holding out your hand and taking them into your arms, when there are no words left to encompass all that is, has been, will be. Just being there. That is love. I hope I can know that kind of love one day. I hope I will find another fork in the road one day that leads me back to paradise. Until then, this is what I am left with: only my own grief.

“I have also learned that there is no such thing as a timetable for grieving nor is there such a thing as the proper way to grieve. The most that can be said is that there is a general pattern, a broad outline, but within these contours each person finds his or her own way. What is true is that for many the amount of time grief takes to work itself through is far longer than outsiders realize.

People tend to get impatient with the bereaved. But when there has been a profound loss, patience and understanding are often the most important things to be had.

I think there are two ultimate sources of comfort for the bereaved. The first is the recognition that the great mystery is not death but birth, not that someone loved is now gone but that the person was here at all. The great gift is life and loving and being loved in return. In this way love is stronger than death, or any ending.

The second source of comfort comes from other people, from those who can sit quietly and simply be with the bereaved. Their love, kindness, tenderness and caring is what gives us the strength to go on.

The pain felt at a loss seems too much to bear, yet people go on because the beauty of life remains despite the loss.” - Arthur Dobrin

My Heart Breaks In a Heart Beat…

 

I Never Thought That You Would Be The One To Hold My Heart…

 

If You Know The Me Without Words…

then you know those words were not from me – not the part of me that knows you.

You would know they were just pain-fueled shards of a broken soul coming apart…

You would know that if I could undo all the words between us that did not simply say: thank you, and you are beautiful just the way you are, and I have been blessed just to know you, I would- just to know I had never hurt you with an unkind word.

Now though, I can only leave it to fate and your own free will to decide if you will ever know how sorry I am for letting them touch all that was beauty between us. The only single thing I can do now, for you, is to let you be as you wish – without my words, without my stumbling apology, without an understanding of what is really in my heart. So, I hope this forevermore silence will tell you all you need to know about what is really in my heart. I hope, in this case, silence really does speak louder than words because I cannot bear the thought that the last words I gave you could destroy all that came before them.

I hope the memory of our mysterious magic overrides the memory of any words that have come between us. I hope you will be happier than I have ever made you… And I hope you can forgive me for every day I’ve failed to keep kind words in my heart.

Making peace, even on days it seems so hard to find…

If she could

 

She would eat his darkness
if she could

float underneath him
so that when he walked
she would absorb the heaviness of his steps

climb into his mind
and leave messages

you are rare and gorgeous
you are flooded with love
you are flowing

but since she cannot do these things
she stands near him
not offering answers
just a place
to lean.

- From Bentlily

Nothing Like A Poem

to take you to bed after a long lost day…

Song

Make and be eaten, the poet says,
Lie in the arms of nightlong fire,
To celebrate the waking, wake.
Burn in the daylong light; and praise
Even the mother unappeased,
Even the fathers of desire.

Blind go the days, but joy will see
Agreements of music; they will wind
The shaking of your dance; no more
Will the ambiguous arm-waves spell
Confusion of the blessing given.

Only and finally declare
Among the purest shapes of grace
The waking of the face of fire,
The body of waking and the skill
To make your body such a shape
That all the eyes of hope shall stare.

That all the cries of fear shall know,
Staring in their bird-pierced song;
Lines of such penetration make
That shall bind our loves at last.
Then from the mountains of the lost,
All the fantasies shall wake,
Strong and real and speaking turn
Wherever flickers your unreal.

And my strong ghosts shall fade and pass
My love start fiery as grass
Wherever burn my fantasies,
Wherever burn my fantasies.

April 1955
“Song” from Body of Waking by Muriel Rukeyser.

Shattered

 

And then there was the time that one of them simply wouldn’t return her calls to his office. So she called the number he did not know that she had, and she said to the woman who answered that this was so embarrassing but as he was no longer talking to her, could he be told that she was still waiting for the return of her lacy black underthings, which he had taken because, he said, they smelled of her, of both of them. Oh, and that reminded her, she said, as the woman on the other end of the phone said nothing, could they be laundered first, and then simply posted back to her. He has her address. And then, her business joyfully concluded, she forgets him utterly and forever, and she turns her attention to the next.

One day she won’t love you too. It will break your heart.

– Written by Neil Gaiman.

I’m not in love …

Unrequited

Touching the Inexplicable Unknown

 

If I love you with all my heart, she said, what will you give me? & then she stopped & said I didn’t have to answer that because she was going to do it anyway. - Storypeople

“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves …”
― Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding and Yerma

“First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons — but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which had lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world — a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring — this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth.

Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great-grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else — but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.

It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.”  ― Carson McCullers

 

“I had discovered that there was something more painful than falling in love with someone who hasn’t fallen for you; hurting that person-hurting him and not being able to do anything about it.”  ― Elizabeth Chandler, Legacy of Lies & Don’t Tell

 

 

When Words Fail

A Fine Romance

“Thanks for the joy that you’ve given me…
I want you to know that I believe in your song
And rhythm and rhyme and harmony
you help me along, making me strong…”

If ever we could begin again-
pretend to be strangers,
make believe it was all for nothing…
start over, erase history,
do it right this time
(not that there was anything wrong with last time)
keep it lighthearted, keep it safe-
protect it from too much feeling, from “too much” anything…

if I could meet you on your level,
I’d give up mine in an instant…
If I could be the eternal sunshine of your
spotless mind,
over and over and over again
I’d give up all my memories for the pleasure
of that moment,
over and over,
living on-

just to be held in the way you held me.
Just to be new to you again,
re-discovered, fresh, just to be-
exactly what you are looking for…
always and forever, nothing more-
nothing less-
I’d even give up being me.

I’d be your summertime romance,
forever fine and free -
magical and mystical and not so tragic-
I’d make it all up to us…

I’d make sure to keep my heart
on a short leash, this time.

If dreams were not just stars we wished on
in clear springtime nights.

We Live With What We Miss

So go on go on and break my heart
I’ll be okay…

So go on, go on and leave my love
Out on the street…

And if I end up lonely
At least I will be there knowing
I believe in love…

Dreaming is Believing

sometimes it’s hard, to follow your heart…

 

Remembering Bliss

“She turned to me & whispered, don’t you just love it when you get so excited you forget to breathe? & the thought of her smiling eyes still makes me laugh.” Smiling Eyes, Storypeople

Sunday Kind of Love

dawn breaks

light, love of my only moments
that matter -
you are all in me, every new day,
you move in me again-
and I ache for you, to feel the
hardness, the truth, of you -
in me again…
even as I know you move inside
another now,
in this same way…
Is it the same way you moved in me?

the morning breaks open
this heart can not forget.

 

 

Love is Not a Victory March

 

Remember when I moved in you

And the holy dove was moving too

Baby, every breath we drew was Hallelujah….

 

No Limits

How many people can you love before it’s too much? she said and I said I didn’t think there was any real limit as long as you didn’t care if they loved you back. -storypeople