Ghostly manners

Behind.

Sheets of white

Outline of bodies tied,

Together

Invisible rope forms

Nooses

Haning us out to

Dry

Crouching below your definition of

Appropriate

Hiding from prying eyes

We should be free to

Dive

Into an abyss of emotions

Caged with rabid tendencies,

Running loose

During inopportune

Times.

But your actions betray,
And I feel misplaced today.
I know that you don’t see

I’m an orphan in this way,

Without a key,
And to my dismay,
You portray,
A locksmith of the guilty.

&

It is quite probable =

This equation will not equate to anything more.

Blue rings of smoke twist billowy sighs,
The vaporous circles carry a message
Floating with words that manifest into lies.

Your heavy chains bind,
A painfully sweet disposition,
The dialogue between two minds

The possibility of what will never come to pass
Embracing fate for she preys upon us with
Fluttered moments batted by…

I like to hear your voice,
To close the gaps in my mind,
Evaporating the memory of ever being mine

It is quite probable that desperation has taken hold…
The improbable solution demands

That I let you go.

Steering the course of our lives,like salmon swimming upstream,
Rushing, hustling through details of time.

We breathe, we exhale,
We inhale our morning stress, a thick steam of routine

We never purge the angst ridden sighs.
Recycling back into artificial air,
Blowing out Pandora’s prisoners.

Speeding to start a day of mindless things,
Reproducing papers stained with smudges of black toner,
Rubbing together like a shuffled orchestra,
In perfect collating harmony.

Melodic echoes of metal paper clips,
& bone thin staples binding sheets,
Belonging together in marriage.

The crunching sound of die cut holes on fine stationary,
Round circles punched, Scattered to the floor,
A white flurried snowstorm of confetti,
On the floors of a plaster box.

Four white walls illuminated with fluorescent lighting,
Sucking the pink from our skins & baking them in a yellow tan.
The sun never kisses the exterior of our bodies,
We are houses desperately in need of paint.

Never speaking…

always typing, always texting, always instant messaging

We are master interpreters of words on flat screens, flat paper

Without human touch,
Without human contact,
Without human voice,

Blank stares fixated on machines,
Forced into a delusion that we are in control.

We are not the masters.
We are the disconnected slaves,
Able to transmit data at lightning speed,
TO communicate our material needs.

The slaves to the revolution beat themselves with
Whips of assumptions,
& Crops of laziness.

Our humanity is the skeleton key, but it was sold
To the power of the machines that we built to hide behind.

She dons a crumpled, cotton flowered moo-moo
That is faded and worn from years of being washed.
It matches her long, discolored silver hair,
Neatly curled and folded under a gaudy silk scarf.
Strings of wiry coils peek out underneath
The brim of fabric around her forehead.

Cheeks caked with rouge, she wears too much lipstick.
She has missed most of her pruned mouth upon application.
She still carries pictures of her grandchildren in her dress pocket
That she takes out to show strangers.
Her once porcelain fingers are now overrun with rheumatoid arthritis.
Her ears can barely make out the musical notes from the diner’s jukebox.

But she is not alone.

Accompanying her this muggy summer afternoon is her husband.
Old and tired from an extensive laboring life of love,
Children and climbing the ladder of his life.
His red, frayed suspenders are pulling up his black slacks past his waist,
Revealing his stripped trouser socks and worn, brown orthopedic shoes.
He hobbles forward, one short, jerky step at a time.
He has a diminutive smile on his wrinkled face camouflaged by his sagging rosy cheeks.

He is wrapped around her right arm like a snake.
Her left arm is holding onto his left arm.
They support each other like a woven pretzel ….
To another Sunday meal.

The young, impatient hostess pops her chewing gum.
She waits for the older couple to finish their slow tango to her podium.
Everyone in the diner takes notice of the painfully long ritual,
A slow tango of decaying flesh.

But the young hostess says nothing, for she will one day be the woman
With her knee-high pantyhose bunched down around her ankles,
Swishing in her bloated body like a canteen of water as she walks.

She seats them at the nearest booth for the sound makes her cringe.
The couple crams into the same side of the red leather booth.
They don’t need menus, for they order the same thing every Sunday.
The fish special…baked, not fried with vegetables instead of french fries,
Soup, instead of salad because the lettuce gets stuck in his fake, yellowing teeth.
The woman helps cut up the fish for her older companion
Whose hands shake and rattle the forks and knives against the warm plates.
He patiently watches her and looks at her adoringly.
The couple eats slowly, methodically and silently in each other’s company.
They gaze at each other and smile in ominous ways.

They have come all this way today.
The years have come and gone,
Passing through the stations of life like a freight train
And finally they have melded into one living breath.

All this way, every day,

All this way, every day could be their last, so they eat early.

-Tom Stoppard from his play “Night and Day”

In the early hours of the rainy morning,
I gaze out a picture window ruled with an iron gate,
Attired with large glass panes and gold satin sashes
That frame the window like a theatrical stage.

We sleep in a four-poster walnut bed,
Covered in a vivid tapestry of our lives
Quilting the mattress that we sink into
Each time we make love.

Rented space for periods of time….

When we can be together…….

A costly price for love that is free,
But we pay the price … willingly.
This hotel room is priceless for the time it affords
Filling up time like hot coffee in my delicate porcelain cup

Swirling cream and sugar to sweeten the taste
Your cock rises like steam,
A milky opalescence inlaid in my raw ore

We mine the iron that lines the windows
And the gold satin that drapes like dried candle wax,
Tiered over the window panes
That act as transparent veils to the outer world.

*Inspired by Erica Jong

Separate feelings oozing out side by side…..

Chocolate and vanilla swirled together,
A perfect union of the path I chose.
Interlocking and melding into one feeling flavored with desire.

Serving my tastes buds with an icy sweetness,
That dissolves with certainty as the creamy lump
Slides down my fleshy throat.

Patterns of crackled glass, wavy and blurry white lines,
Light up from my eyes, reflecting onto the fractured concrete
Flickering with intensity to illuminate words we speak.

We wade in the same pond.
Searching through the muck for something real,
Fearful of the unknown weeds choking the dreams we seek.

Silted sentiments left unsaid remain in piles on my shore.
The fine sand covers my toes which once rubbed raw,
I am grounded in remnants of the past that
Floated down from your narrow creek.

We wade in the same sea,
We wash up on the same shore,
Our salted skin clings to skeletons
That never seem to sleep.

Vacant and dry, like between her grandmother’s varicose legs,
I wandered for years until I saw the sweltering oasis of my own mind.
Like a magician, I pull the rabbit from my black top hat and I laugh…..

Only for a moment until I am in disbelief at my own ruse.

It was not a rabbit, but a sharp, thorn from the cactus I let prickle my mind with foolish thoughts of you.

Crucify me on your sheets that covered the truth.
Slide me up and down on your wooden crucifix
The splinters in my back reinforce your lies.

Stab me with a crown of thorns and leave my heart to rot.
I hang in a ruined spectacle for all to see that
You have stained my past with the color of pain.