Taos, NM 29.7.013

David proposed to Cheryl today.  That's all that needs to be said.  Somewhere, the wind blew-- and somewhere, the cicadas hummed, and somewhere and somewhere and somewhere. . .

On this trip, the thought that you could have-- or were supposed to have-- been here with me is both repetitive and invasive.  You were supposed to have marveled at the enormity and the very-real dimensions of the mountains (they are everywhere).  You were supposed to have experienced that same shortness of breath that I did on the ski lift, and at the top of the mountain: where the air was cold and fresh and the sun was warm on your shoulders (and mine).

You would have seen where I grew up: my old house, dilapidated and wonderful and still-inhabited, with other houses slowly encroaching.  You would have seen my tiny elementary school (Arroyo Seco), which is now a community center with the most pathetic and simple playground equipment (now unused) still outside, in the abandoned lot.

You would have seen all the artists and their wares-- artists who will soon have to give up their spaces to the next hopefuls attempting to capitalize (just get by) on a small tourist town.  The wares may never sell, but they are beautiful and expensive and filled with so much soul.

You would have seen and touched and walked inside the Earthships with me.

You would have disrobed as I did-- late at night, while the rest of the occupants slept in the shared house that we'd rented for the family reunion.

You would have watched-- and laughed, despite my irritation-- as I coerced the bang-maid's myriad pubic hairs down the drain and removed her one-piece bathing suit from the edge of the shared bathtub.

As the water in the tub rose, you'd have climbed in after me.  You would have held me close.

You would have looked into my eyes.  You would have seen the love in my face (mirroring all of everything I would have been seeing and feeling).

We wouldn't have had to speak.

Instead, here I am: I look into the mirror, and I see myself the way you used to.  And I know that that will never stop.  I am always going to see myself this way, because this is how I always wanted to be seen.  The tub fills behind me (hairs dutifully washed down the drain, the one-piece carefully hung on a towel rack), and I think of how like home this feels.

I can feel you disappearing.  And I know that when I leave tomorrow, I must do everything I can to come back.

Here, it doesn't hurt.  Here is the home that I've been missing since before you left.  Here, in this moment-- writing, on the bathroom rug, tub threatening to either overflow or wake the sleeping occupants (my family) of this shared and rented place; here, I have found a way forward.

Here, in this place, there is a window that looks out onto the open space of the future.

Here, there are the most beautiful skies.

Repetitive/Invasive 24.10.013

I am a collective of cells and flesh.

I am wired through with impulses Electric;
the cells
and the flesh
speak with one another

(across distances Infinite
and intraverseable--
yet I call This my thumb,
and This: my phallus;
and This is my arm
and This is my Heart--
This is my arm
This is my Heart--
and This is all a great lie)

by shooting
jolts of charged ions down paths
encased in a myelin sheathing;

but in my dystrophy I wonder:

am I cells and flesh;

am I blood and bone;

am I tissue and organ and muscle and ligament;

am I dead proteins

(arranged in such a manner
as to attract You,
the subjective Object of my momentary
Desire--across the way, moving towards me
amidst the rock-show music,
with mote-like notes falling on our ears,
and our faces

[turned Outwards towards one another, in
a Peacock-like display
of all our wildest fantasies
and most wily-and-cherished dreamsequences
involving long-lost love
found again
in the most Primal of mind-melding
places]);

spurting forth from follicles wedged

between skin cells;

am I a large nose;

am I rotting teeth;

am I uncircumcised penis;
scars white and purple;

freckles, and sun spots;

hypovolemia;

virus (viruses) that will never leave
my Body Immaculate--

or am I, perhaps, the interminable chatter

that occupies the indeterminately

large-or-small

space between

two Ears

two Eyes

Mouth and Basil Ganglia

Larynx and Medulla Oblongata
sinus passages

(labyrinth of bacteria and fluids and so many
green-tinged
childhood illnesses)

and long-since-fused fontanel?

What is the Mind?

What are my thoughts, and how
do they translate themselves
(so invisibly, so seamlessly)

into actuality; into realness; into a world

which seems to be so ruthlessly governed by a Categorical Imperative
and a Religious conviction
Hell-bent on homo-genization

(yet unaccepting of homo-sexualization
and everything that it entails

[love; a species being; a freeing
from the confines
of Space, and of
Time; a broadening of
our Human Minds 

{but, again: WHAT IS THE MIND?!}

and an acquisition of the knowledge of All
that is entailed by the symbolic term
of "selflessness"--
and a freeing from the confines
of Social Acceptance and normalcy;
individualism as a sect of the
capital-C
Community]) ;

fought and rallied against by Science

(another Great Evil if left unchecked, if
allowed to run rampant
in its capital-R
Righteousness, in its
Revelry in the falsehood that is the Religious Right

[which, by antithesis,
makes its own statements
no less Real
or informed by Insight]) ?

How do my thoughts affect
the transient world;
how do my thoughts connect
to the basal
mud-and-lightning
that is my ephemeral Body?

What am I?

How can I be?

What use is there in Naming?

How do the stars shine;
what semblance of realism is there in my momentary
(daily)
breathing--

and what does the beating of my Heart mean?

Nivek 17.10.013

I've never had the need
to ensconce myself
in smell;
in scent
most brown-pearlescent--

until You;
until
(the advent of)
You.

But there is very little
that is advantageous
about your absence.

Now I sit here, removed
from every memory
(or singular moment)
which has any
singular
thing to do with you

or your absence
or your love
or your presence
or your ill-expressed
and ever-forgotten
Essence.

I remember the way we used to laugh.
I remember the nights we spent--

locked in one another's arms,
or apart
(but always touching,
caressing,
loving).

I remember how good it always used to be.
And I know it's so much better now;
I know you were wholly
wrong for me.

You are not the Shining Knight;
you ride
no white steed.

You are a boy;
you fear;
you're weak.

06.9.010

Two fruit flies,
drowned
in the man's bathtub.

Gasping
no longer;
holding onto
one
another
for dear Life--

even
in Death.

Pinprick Lights 17.7.013

Rocking on our wraparound porch--
soapstone-cold whiskey in my hand--
I'd like to watch the lightning bugs dance.

Listening to the cicadas hum,
watching the dogs tussle outside--
tousling your hair in the day's failing light:

I want to watch the fireflies.

Hazard to Maxregard 29.09.013

At this exact moment, I am feeling morose in my solitude, in my singularity-- but I have met a new young man who is wonderful and with whom I feel both comfortable and intrigued beyond belief.

And I hope all is well with you, and I am drunk and am about to escape into that other world that lies between wakefulness and work in the morning, and I wish I could escape there forever-- where things make no sense, and where the deepest parts of our frail psyches manifest themselves in all their dark-and-lightness: where time is timeless, and love is just the same as it ever was, but perhaps more tangible, more real-and-fragile.

And I hope all is well.

21.9.013 For Jess

Though through forest greens-- through fields,
and streams-- I'd like to roam:
today, I must compose a poem.

Halfway to death, I scared
the poor girl: sharp intake of air;
piercing scream; an about-face whirl

to face, wide-eyed, her devious assailant:
bright eyes filled with ornery glee;
and mouth split in a mischievous curl.

I offered her sweets, sincerest apologies
(Kisses of Hershey's, I'mreallyreallysorry's)--
but no such contritious feats
would suffice.

What would be nice,
said she,

(swagger in her step,
boots so high-- forever that twinkling smile in her eye

[but not so today-- no, not this time])

would be,
of course,
"a poem."

And as I wandered the high desert
(homeland of sun and humming air),
four weeks came and went.

And though my journey was pleasant
(revived from light, though my skin stayed fair),
mountains took my breath; my words were spent.

. . . And so. . .

Though through evergreens-- through
mountainside streams-- I long to roam:
today, I must compose a poem.

Though I've lain me down upon the loam
in hopes to one day feel the embrace
of mycelium who call piney soil their home,

I know from the sap coursing in my veins
that the trees through which I wander alone
are where I will find my rightful place.

With desert winds to fill my lungs
and the burgeoning sun on my neck, my face--
I hear the cry of songs yet to be sung;
I feel the starkness of open space.

No longer will I incite such fear in your face--
I'd rather the twinkling eyes, the elated state
which we've all come to expect, all come to know
from the bearer of high-boots in our retail home.

. . . And so. . .

Though through mountain greens-- through
arroyos-once-streams, I did once roam--
today, I have composed a poem.