Like Even Sent Love Letters

Syntax of the Soul

This life we live is full of memories
which pain us or bring us joy.
Either/Or,
they are moments frozen in time.
The past, like a November afternoon
filled with sun and leaves,
an unwritten letter finally wrote,
and even sent.

We move on, finally, from some,
cut loose and break free forever.
Like giants, we inhabit the Earth
(on drunken nights, pissing in alley-ways.)
(on sober mornings, chopping wood.)

Just imagine a match burning
out.

A river running.

A date. A relationship. An engagement.

The overlook of a great city.

We cannot possess another's heart,
so no jealously.

We cannot choose another's choices,
so no anger.

The syntax of the soul
can be easily read
like a series of fragments
that compose a story:

without anger, without jealously,
we overlook a great city
and realize we are the root,
the afternoon root growing
like dead leaves and sunlight in November,
we are matches burning
out,
we are burning dates,
moving on like relationships,
drunken men in alley-ways,
or staying,
like even sent love letters.

Inspired by the poem 'The Lost Son' by TR

The Lost Girl

I.

No one can do anything,
and if they could,
they wouldn't know what to do.
The signs are there: exhaustion, apathy,
so says the news,
and the pieces they're doing on suicide.
Kids these days
are offing themselves at a high rate.
It's what happens in college.
All these college kids--
the parents withdraw the student,
and send them through the rehabs.

II.

She'll find herself
with parents hovering above her
in a small hospital room
like a room
with only a strip of carpet to walk on.
Hopefully.

III.

Four white walls.
She's given up her will.
No medication.
No clothes, shoes, books, or music.
No parents, friends, or money.
No phone, purse, or cell phone.

Just her: socks and a nightgown.

This is the baptism,
the psychiatry ward
is a baptism without water,
and it's attendants
are angels or demons, only human
on a good or bad day.

With horror, she'll sleep it off,
but awake with nowhere to go,

and she wakes, closed off,
windows barred,
with only a tiny skylight to look out of.

There is no transition,
like streams of water running through gravel parking lots,
with geese, who've forgotten to fly south,
aimlessly floating
under a blood red sky,
and bare, wrangled, and paralyzed trees...

IV.

Soundless,
she is in a different time zone.
She's never been here.
The weather is dry. Cacti rise up
out of hard dirt. Purple lilac live here,
under shade that comes like a hand
over the mountains.

Everyone is kind.
She lounges by a green pool, pale.
In the afternoon, on a summit, equestrian therapy,
set against those shaded mountains,
and fields of Paolo Verde trees in bloom.

Who has she left behind?
Where are they now?
When is it enough?

Wild horses handled who once roamed these fields.
Sweet grass is eaten by the wild pigs
who wander into the fenceless facility during warm nights.

V.

Noise, waves crash--
drowning out schools of children
playing at recess.
She thinks: "When I was a child. . ."
Young, and in love with a boy;
winter in Ohio;
great open spaces where there weren't before.
The wide rivers small and rocky.
The land, dying slow.
Scarecrows, with hay bulging from flannel,
stand erect in fields
cut low.

Young, and in love with a boy
who she's left behind.

***

Big fish swim in the Pacific.
Schools of jellyfish float silently underwater.

Waves crash.
She's lies by the ocean, tanned.
Unaware of the underbelly of the Pacific.
The sun blinds her.
The boy has become an old memory.
Silently, she lies,
with the noise of the ocean drowning all out.

new poem

Winter in Ohio

Trees are nearly bare.
Leaves hang on, shrunken and crisp.
Wide open spaces where there weren't before.
Long parking lots are empty.
Behind the homes by the rivers,
canoes are hung upside down.
The great rivers are small and rocky,
dry, cold, and bare.
The land is dying slow.
Clear, azul skies stretch and stretch.
Scare-crows, with hay bursting from flannel,
stand erect in fields of wheat
cut low.

Joy Drips From Everything

Today, filled to the brim
With joy
Like the fire in this hearth.

In the garage, Larry constructing
Tiny wooden reindeer.
The buzz of the circular saw,
The rotating of the drill.
Greg, contemplating over instructions of stuffing,
While putting a ham into a plastic bag.
Paul, asleep on the couch by the fishtank.

I’m unlike myself today, happy,
Fortunate, poking this fire, drinking coffee.
The television plays a parade,
Yet goes unwatched
In an empty room.

Outside it has finished raining;
Water drips from trees and fences;

I can see now that
This day will only stop increasing,
The rain stop dripping from power-lines,
After the dinner’s prayer.

But, so what? I could be wrong.
The day’s joy could go on, and on,
Forever dripping from everything.

The Balloon Which Divorces Itself

The Balloon Which Divorces Itself

They lived together.
Did normal things together
like go to the movies,
or go out to Denny's,
where a clown would go from
table to table
making balloon animals.
It was a Roman Holiday
that this family was living.
This went on for six months,
husband and wife,
brother and sister,
all living together
although the couple was separated.
Rarely in the same room.

Then, one day, just like that,
the wife took the microwave,
and both children,
and moved out.
The husband, being at work,
had no say in the matter.
Maybe it was better that way.
But, I'm sure you're all wondering
what drove the mother to decide?
Or, what took her so long?
Well, ask yourself what you would've done.
For, I guess I forgot to mention,
the husband had a business,
and the wife was still in graduate school.
You understand the dilemma?

But, the mother had to begin again,
from square one.
And both father and mother would remarry,
and both children would grow healthy,
but what about those six months
when life was up in the air,
like a balloon which rises, and rises,
then divorces itself,
shrinks, and falls.

Two new poems

A Story

He had been a smoker since fourteen,
And now, at fifty, his health was failing.
Spots littered all over his lungs.

Nonetheless, he knew the hell out of cars.
Just give him make, model, and year.

You could call him a grease monkey.
When he was fourteen, there he was,
Say, in the moonlight, grit-stained face,
Underneath a car stealing a carburetor.

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there,
But stay tuned,
Because it comes into play later on.

He had one thing going for him: a daughter.
His pride and joy.
In all respects, she was beautiful.
Long brown hair, oval face, turquoise eyes.

Anyway, that’s off point.
Let’s stick to the script.
Let’s just say she was kind-eyed,
And married to a computer man.
Kind of nerdy, glasses, fidgety.
The two had a daughter of their own.
You see, that makes him a grandfather.

One afternoon, he was filling up,
And there was the computer man with a whore
At the gas station. What luck!
Well, maybe she wasn’t a whore,
But she was a woman
With another woman’s husband, let’s say.

Turns out, he tells his daughter
About the whore,
But she doesn’t believe it, can’t comprehend it,
Or doesn’t want to.

So,
And for lack of a climax,
He smashes computer man’s leg in
With a tire iron.
What irony, right?
Hey, what play on words: iron, irony.
But, I don’t have to spell things out, anyway.

So long ago
All this was before
The spots on his lungs showed.
Before he grew too thin,
And before his daughter disowned him.

She was his whole life, his daughter,
And he loved her enough to fill up an entire room.



Calm After the Storm

Washing underwear
In the motel room’s sink
With shampoo and a bar of soap.
The drain is stopped, and the water a light brown.
I’m alone, as usual, in my motel room.
On the table, an overturned book.
Waves of smoke leave the ashtray.
The microwave is chained to the refrigerator,
But what is the refrigerator chained to?
Chain or no chain, I can’t complain.
For this is all of my own doing,
Plus, just today, won fifty dollars on a scratch off
To rent out the room for the night.

My underwear floats, then submerges,
In the sink.
All is quiet, for a moment.
The shower beats against the wall,
And heat escapes under the door.
There's the hum from air leaving the furnace,
And the slow rumble of cars passing on the highway.
This is the calm after the storm.

New poem

Pronounced Dead

Being homeless, I'd been sleeping
in my car for days.
Nothing too exciting about that,
except for this morning
waking up to the flashing lights
of an ambulance,
and a technician knocking on my window.

I was pronounced dead
by an early morning jogger
who must've peered in and saw
a man in a casket-like position.
As for that,
there's only so many positions to use
when sleeping in a car.

And as for the jogger,
good for him, I say.
I say, look all you want--
Peer into my windows,
and phone me into the authorities
as a dead man in an abandoned car.

+++

The ambulance driver points at me
through a frosted window.
What's new?
The police have been knocking every night for days,
and there I am,
rolling down my window,
looking at my fate through tired eyes.

First poem in a long time

Deaf and Mute

I find myself living
at the Roadway Inn.
Cars from the highway rattle the rooms.
Walking toward my motel room,
a deaf mute,
my apparent neighbor,
opens his door a crack,
and sticks his head out.
Signals me
by holding a hand up to his ear
(pinkie and thumb protruded making a phone).

I've been living inside these rooms
for three days afraid of my corrupt neighbors,
and think of this fear
while this man's wife,
also a deaf mute,
uses sign language to talk to me.

So, this is the American Dream.
Just me,
and this deaf mute couple.
Even them,
they just want to eat,
want me to call their daughter,
and see if she's coming soon with food.

But, you see, there is a strange man
standing in his doorway at room 608,
waiting for something I can't see,
and this couple's daughter isn't
coming for another day,
and the deaf and mute husband looks up astonished,
as his wife has just tried to speak to me.

Unfinished short story

Robert had been in love with Mary for years, since they met in college. She was always with someone else though, and the two got to become just friends. Robert wasn't sure if he still loved Mary or not, but was sure he had become a sort of confidant, or shoulder to cry on.

For the most part Robert was OK with this except every quarter of a year he would profess his undying love to Mary.

Mary was an art student, now an art therapist. In debt up to her elbows. Always moving into a new apartment, and getting into or out of a relationship. Nothing ever lasted, and when things got too overwhelming she called Robert, crying, which he didn't mind.

Around two years ago Mary met an Indian boy. He moved in with her, and Robert didn't hear from Mary for six months.

Falling in love with the Indian boy was the worst thing Mary could've done. It's not that he beat her. OK, so he hit her. She stays with him. Maybe she likes it, who knows. Falling in love with the Indian boy was the worst thing Mary could've done because when the dust settled, and she got out, Mary saw that time of her life as important.

The importance that she gave to the Indian boy was misguided. It occurred to Robert that the Indian boy really did a number on Mary. Kind of brainwashed her into loving things about him that the outside observer would see as ordinary: the Indian boy didn't have a job, didn't go to college, etc. The Indian boy transformed these realities into being, as Bunyan calls it, a worldly-wise man.

Mary believes this stage of her life was important because she fell in love with him. But Robert believes the Indian boy was important to her because Mary thinks she fell in love with him.

Another thing: Robert and Mary had nicknames for one another. Robert called her firefly, on account of him being an Ohio boy, fond of the quiet nights where all one sees are stars and hundreds of fireflies. Mary called Robert raindrop, on account of her being an Ohio girl whose heart beat for rainy, spring days when the flower venders opened up their street-stands.

However, currently, we are between months. It's August, the dog days, as they call it.

Robert drove, sweating through his pants and shirt, in a Pontiac without air conditioning.

Mary had something important to tell Robert, and he agreed to meet her at some rest area between their two apartments. Robert wondered about rest stops, between exits, carved out of fields. The rest stop is the asexual phase of the androgynous lesbian.

Robert watched as Mary departed from her red Honda, as cans feel out of her car onto the asphalt. Mary was small, tattoo-ridden, with oriental made-up eyes.

"That mother fucker," Mary said.
"Who?"
"He lost my puppy."
"Oh, no," Robert whispered, "that fuck head."
"That's it. I'm done with him. For good," Mary said.
"Un huh," Robert said trying to be convincing.
"My mother is out looking for her right now. She could be dead."

Robert and Mary looked around the rest area. Vacant. Mary was sweating through her shirt, showing a black bra. Her red hair was matted with sweat.

"Poor Ruca," Robert told her.
Mary paused, looking for something else.
Robert began, "I thought you were through with him."
"I was," Mary said, "I only wondered if he could watch Ruca for the afternoon."
"So you're talking to him?"
"Yes, but no more. I mean, to lose a month old puppy."
"There's no coming back from that," Robert said.
"That's that," she said.
"Oh well," Robert said.

"I've been so anxious lately. Ruca's been sick all over the apartment. There's just no time," Mary sighed, itching her armpit.

"How did he lose Ruca anyway," Robert asked.
"Oh Jesus, don't even ask. He got annoyed with her and let her out in a backyard without a fence."
"And you trusted him with your dog?"
"I don't know. I just thought. . . maybe."
"That's that," Robert said."

It was a terribly hot Ohio day. Robert and Mary were both sweating through their clothes. The rest area remained vacant. The sun beat off the friends' cars.

Robert sat wondering what Mary hadn't told him.

"Is everything OK?" he asked.
"No. My dog is lost. Jesus."
"Right," Robert said, "but what if you find her and she's OK. What if he finds her?"
"What are you talking about?" Mary asked.
"I guess losing the dog was the last straw."
"Yes, that is what I'm saying. I'm through, this time, with him."

Robert could hear the words, even their meaning, however could not comprehend Mary being done completely and forever with a love that still twisted her so with confusion.

"Do you still love him," Robert asked.
Mary sighed, "I don't think so, not now."
"What's love anyway," Mary said, "I love you, so what's love then?"
"You love me as a sister loves a brother," Robert said.
"But we've made love," Mary said.
"Though we never talk about it," Robert said.
"I love you and we've made love Robert," Mary said.
"What are you saiying," Robert said.
"I'm only saying," Mary began, "that I loved Steve until he lost my dog. Even when I said I didn't love him, I still loved him."