Dig in

If you look hard enough
you can often
find things that aren't there.


November PAD #19 - suspicious minds

Whenever we walk

through San Francisco streets
or bump and bumble
down Chinatown allies,

my inability
to walk a straight line
becomes ever so clear.

I trip over my own
feet or zig-zag down
the sidewalk pushing you

into parking meters
and piles of poop.
Thanks for standing by me.


November PAD #21 - whenever (blank)

Your mom's an Asian fruit

We giggle in grocery aisles
bantering back and forth like
14-year-old boys.

Durian, dates and double entendres
are our weapons of choice --
lobbed at each other

like melons, clumsy and graceless
and exploding awkwardly on impact
. . . that's what she said.


November PAD #22 - fruit

Kerouac Alley

On the road
through San Francisco
I think of
Jack and Neal
and the adventures
we choose for
our own lives
and those we
share them with.


November PAD #23 - travel

Homecoming

He's grown, it seems,
in the few days that
he's been gone. They
do that a lot at 15.

He smiles and leans
against me so I can
nuzzle him like a little
boy. "I missed you."


November PAD #20 - best ever

Enough

You should have stopped talking
five minutes ago.
I get the point already.


November PAD #12 - excess

The kindest gesture

You overreacted.
We both know it's true.
But I let it pass.
I've done it too.


November PAD #13 - a kind poem

A cold front

The frozen food aisle beckons,
promising ice cream
and bliss in a box.


November PAD #14 - deadly and dangerous

Treasured

We laugh like
kindergartners exploring the
playground as pirates,
seeing the world
more clearly with
eye patches in
place than with
the grown-up glasses
that we wear


November PAD #15 - love

Guts

“Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along."
- Rumi

It's not as if there was some gaping hole,
like an intestine spilling through a flesh wound,
before you walked into my life.

But when you appeared

it's as if you'd always been in my innards,
the guts stuffed inside me that I never thought twice about,
without me knowing it.

Today

I stand in the hallway
and see the
mountain of boxes, the containers

of a life that I
wish I didn't
have to unpack just yet


November PAD - Day 1 - procrastination

B is for Better

It wasn't in the cards
business, tarot or otherwise
but I'm happier anyway


Sunday Scribblings - Plan B

In bed

Cracking you open
I see the future is sweet
Deliciously so



Poetic Asides: fortune cookie poem

Sins of omission

It's not about
the words on your lips
but the lack

thereof; the ease
in which your sweet tongue
skips over the

tidbits of truth
that destroy honest love and
move us backward


Three Word Wednesday: ease, omission, backward

Changed

This time it's different. He's
changed, she says.
And she's right. The blood
that once flushed his cheeks
when she said
something wrong has turned against
him. The venom he's spewed
for so long
has finally posioned him, turned
him into a frail man
afraid of the
nearing death that he deserves.


Poetic Bloomings: Changes

The keys to happiness

We heard the jiggle of his keys
at the front door on the days
he got off work early.

"Just wanted to spend some
quality time with my kids,"
he said, patting our heads.

He kissed Mama long on the lips
before swooping us onto his
lap and into his laughter.



Three Word Wednesday: early, jiggle, quality

The open option

Indecision sometimes leads
to a fate we could
never have planned


three word wednesday: indecision, option, fate

Little I ask

Between you and I
there's so little that
goes unsaid. My
few wants are on your
lips before I
even have time to speak.


Carry on Tuesday -- little I ask, my wants are few

Set to boiling

This heat between us
this nasty passion
that pulls us smashing
toward each other
will someday cease
become a simmering love
or a lukewarm memory
of the times we made
one another smile.


Three Word Wednesday: cease, heat, nasty

A mouthful

If I hadn't
stuck my foot in my mouth,
I would have

mentioned that your
smile drives me absolutely mad.
Thanks for that.

Sunday Scribblings: opportunity

We lay

We lay in
a jumbled heap
naked and grinning


Three Word Wednesday - grin, jumble, naked

Blossoming

Every morning I prune and preen
in front of a mirror
that does not reflect the truth


Poetic Bloomings - Fruits of our labors

Currency

It occurs to me that
the currency I
so carelessly spend is not

money, but moments. Like this
one right now.
And now. And, yes, now.

Spending my self on things
I don't love
and people I never will.


Poetic Asides -- priorities

I surrender

In love and in war
the white flag
is often the bravest move


Sunday Scribblings - surrender

Follow me down

She followed me
into my room,

that shadow of
doubt, an evil

Peter Pan with
whom I wrestled

to lose. I did
not want this one

stitched to my foot,
an ankle weight

bringing me down.


PAD #26 -- follower

In bloom

The lavendar blooms on
the tree in my yard
know the secret of life.

They have fought, just
as we do, for their place
in the sun and grown
into their magnificence.

Before birth, in the cold
of winter, they wait, ready
to burst forth, with full
faith in themselves and
the world around them.


PAD #27 -- in the (blank) of (blank)

Please recycle

Dear you,

We were destined to meet this way.
Randomness is sometimes the vehicle of fate.
I was told to tell you that it will get better. I promise.

Until then, laugh louder, live harder,
and love softer. Give freely and be gentle with yourself.
You're as fragile as this glass bottle. But just as strong too.


PAD #20 -- message in a bottle

Think again

We shared a bed and
a life together.
But you had second thoughts.


PAD #21 - second thoughts

Wake

In the end
the trails of crumbs or
tears or what
ever it is
that we leave behind us is
really what matters



PAD #16 - big picture/shadorma

Bathing beauties

The faded photo
in Mother's hallway
reminds me of you.
Our bellies are full and
our cheeks are round
(we were unembarassed
by this back then) and we
laugh in the sun-filled
summer of youth.


PAD #16 - snapshot

Grandma swore

Grandma swore a whole lot.
Mom and Dad did not.
She smoked and cussed and
the Little Me feared her
fierce, loud love.

She would offer them a drink.
And the ice would clink
as she recanted the faces and
places she'd loved
so fearlessly.

PAD #15 - profile

In the mirror

It's so much simpler to
see ourselves in
others' eyes than our own.


PAD #15 - profile poem

In between

Between your legs
Between the sheets
Between you and
your girlboygod

PAD #14 - "ain't none of my business" poem

My Bonnie lies

I napped next to you
when I was young
and again when I was
grown, nestled next

to the withered woman
who once changed
my diapers and
chastized my bad

manners. Your breath
was soft and smooth
then. The years of
smoke had settled

into your cough but
not your dreams,
unlike the mask that
buried your frail face

when I slept next to
you one last time
and held your hand
as you slipped away.


~ to Grandma Bonnie

PAD #13 - remembering an old relationship

Sunday mass

Form a line to the left, please.
Your bellies will be full soon,
if you'd just leave the sacks and
bags, the lives you carry with you
like a shell, at the side of the room.
Please just eat and smile this hour
without that weight on your shoulders.


Dedicated to the homeless men and women who've fed my soul more than I've probably fed theirs.



PAD #12: form poem

Maybe chapstick

Maybe I'd know what your
lips tasted like
if I'd stuck around longer

Maybe I'd have noticed the
way you licked
your lips as you stared

Maybe I'd have seen you
pull out your
chapstick and look away soothed


PAD #11: Maybe (blank)

Where to?

Where have you come from,
young man? Weren't
you the boy whose curls

I stroked and forehead I
kissed, not so
long ago, after a nightmare.

Where have you gone, young
man? Running so
quickly into the world's bosom,

that temptress who will never
love you, my
little one, as I have.


PAD #10 - never again

6 o'clock

Papa clocked out at 6 p.m.
His inky fingerprints
were all he left behind.

He walked in at 6:14.
His meaty, grease-
stained fingers stroked our faces

and left the indelible stain
of fatherly love
on our faces and hearts.


PAD #9: time of day

A little harder

We pat ourselves on the back
for listening to the inner voice
that told us to love a little harder.
And we should.

PAD #8: celebration poem

The ups and downs

What if we kept
smiling until the
sun went down?

And what if we slept
smiling until the
sun came up?

Those are the ups
and downs, my dear,
that really matter.


PAD #7 - "what if" poem

Don't dawdle

If I could kick off my shoes
and run through a grassy field
full of butterflies and daisies
and dandelions; if I could fly
toward the distant shores of
some tropical paradise and
feel the gentle breeze lap
like waves beneath my wings;
if I could see the smile on my
children's children's faces; I
wouldn't waste another minute
dawdling in this humdrum
moment, but turn my face to the
wind and know that it is already so.

PAD #6 -- don't (blank), (blank)

Slap happy

I knew I would kiss you
when the goofy grin on
my face stayed there for
three days after we met.

I knew I would love you
when the goofy grin on
yours was still there
three months later.


PAD #5 - goofy

entirely her

inspired by: "i can entirely her only love . . . " e. e. cummings

she was the girl
who sung with angels
and birds, in cars
and in showers and
in public fountains.

she splashed through
life like a shooting star
across the night sky,
twirling chaos around her
finger like a tendril of hair.



PAD #4 - him or her

Open heart surgery

If I'd never walked into the room
we now share, you wouldn't have that bruise
on your shin, from when you tripped over my foot
and bumped into the bed.

If I'd never walked into the life
we now share, you wouldn't have cried your eyes out
at the movie last week, because you were too much of a man
to do something like that before we met.

If I'd never walked out of the love
we once shared, you wouldn't have leapt
from the balcony to stop me from going. But your heart
would have died anyway.


PAD #3 - imagine a world without you

Wish you were here

I thought about you
as I journeyed
and carried your smile
to the corners
of my world.

Hello again

I took a different road,
and a different
method of transportation all together

but here I am again,
dirty and disappointed
from hitchhiking down love's highway.


April PAD #2 - a postcard poem

Which way

I am not sure which
way I took
when the roads diverged

so long ago. They
split apart
and I just kept walking.


April PAD #1

I saw it in the mirror

I saw it 

in my face, I could

not hide

the smile
you planted, a seed
that grew

from warm
regard deep in my
chest to

a full-fledged
blossoming thing splayed
across my cheeks.

Busy bee

The
buzz
buzz buzz
of your neurosis
is shaking my nerves
loosening the coils of cool
reserves that calm you
when you ask me
to be there for
you and just
smile

Collection plate

The riches I've collected
in my years life purse
pocket butterfly net
could be whispers
words wordly goods

they persuade the senses
to believe cry love
scream smile live
out loud so everyone
can see hear taste

touch the bitter tears
the sweet honey
laughter the warm
embrace of your gaze
arms soft breath in
my ear

Glee club

Loving her was a breeze.
She had a
laugh that tickled the senses,

the kind of giggle that
crept up the
corners of your own mouth

till your chuckling joined the
choral crescendo and
filled every inch of atmosphere.

It reminded you of warm summer
days running barefoot
through the grass and mellow

afternoons splayed belly up in
a field, just
enjoying the breeze with friends.

Yes, loving her was easy.
And her sunny
smile still keeps you warm.

Smittener

Inspired by Sandol Stoddard Warburg's "I Like You," the most amazing love poem I've heard, which was read at a wedding I attended yesterday.

SMITTENER
I know it's not a word
but I don't care because
you speak my language.

Weather vain

You blew in like a
hurricane, a force
of nature looking for love.

You were raw and wild,
chapping our faces
as we watched you pass.

The storm chaser grinned. He
delighted in you,
knew you'd tame to an

ocean breeze that would kiss
our cheeks and
stroke our hair. He smiles

every time that weather vane
turns, grabs his
umbrella and watches the show.

better off blind

sometimes i wonder
if my eyes could be shuttered
if i would even mind

sometimes i think
feeling the braille of your skin
would be much better

than reading your face
and thinking i understand
your entire story

sometimes i wonder

Saved by the bell haikus

"Saved by the bell" is the prompt for Carry on Tuesday. And it conjures so many different things for me!

SIT CALM
Saturday mornings
I spent with Bayside High School
I miss Zack Morris

---

RINGSIDE
He starts with such fight
Throwing jabs and lefts and rights
But a hook stops him

---

PAY THE TOLL
I'm not an island
My life is your life, and your
death is also mine

Hell on wheels

An tribute to the mad men of Kerouac's "On the Road," men who rubbed their bellies and talked about life and laughed so loudly that people must've thought they'd gone mad.


HELL ON WHEELS
Sometimes it calls, that slow
burn of madness,
a spring fever that sweeps

like a brush fire through
your senses and
drives you toward the road

to an adventure that leads
wherever we feel
at that very moment, to

the places we're meant to
be, and to
the us we're always becoming.

After burn

It's been awhile since I wrote about our house fire in July 07, but it's always therapeutic and my thoughts about it are still evolving.

AFTER BURN
There is nothing left here,
just the shambles
of our past life together

heaps of blackened pictures and
memories of a
past that's better off forgotten.

We paint each other's faces
with the soot
and no longer recognize ourselves.

Extra sugar, please

Coffee is an acquired taste
sort of bittersweet
like a long kiss goodbye

Sweet sorrow

Whenever you leave, a part
of my heart
always goes along with you

A grand love

For Egypt, for my LGBTQ friends, for my child, and for everyone I've ever loved . . .

A thousand years from now
our children's children's children

will see how we loved each other

A thousand years from now

they will see how we fought

for the right to love each other

A thousand years from now

they will remember how we

loved in the face of such fights

Face to face

The mirror does not lie
does not reveal
my story

The lie does not reveal
does not mirror
my story

My story
does not mirror
does not reveal the lie

My story
does not reveal
does not lie in the mirror

A history

In honor of Black History Month


The twisted branches of my
family tree she
told me on her knee

The twisted tales of my
Uncle and Auntie
Lee she helped me see

The twisted kin from my
past in Tennessee
They follow me, forever free

He got it all

Johnny prayed every night.
He prayed that dad would
fall down drunk and that
mom would get some sleep.
He prayed that bruises would
heal and that the war within
his home would end.

Johnny's dad prayed too.
He prayed that god would
damn him and give him some
peace and quiet for once.
He prayed that his wife would
stop nagging and grow some brains.
She left him the next morning.

Safekeeping

She stored her secrets
in a locket that she wore
around her neck for all to see,
but never to touch

The Rub

Like a handful of sawdust
abrasive words are
shaved, scattered, and finally lost

Sometimes

"we are each the love of someone's life"

Sometimes he smiled
shyly sneaking glances
from across the classroom

Sometimes he slipped
his hand into hers as they
walked through the hallways

Sometimes he dreamed
of waiting for her at the
end of a church aisle

Sometimes he laid
his head on her lap and wished
she didn't have to go

The Washboard

Her knuckles were raw.
She'd been stooping over the
basin scrubbing his clothes
for hours.

Her mind was numb,
lost in the abrasive thump thump
thump of blood-soaked cotton on
the washboard.

With a handful of soap and
a tub full of suds, she scrubbed
her soul and washed away
the loss.

TAINTED

His excuse was plausible enough.
That old, rusted Buick had stalled
on the interstate until a Good Samaritan
had stopped and helped him out. 

His kiss was soft enough.
The sweet smell of whiskey hadn't
tainted his tongue and seeped into
his sweat-soaked work shirt.

Her heart was open enough.
She willingly fell into his arms and
into bed, but wondered if that Good Samaritan
had been wearing lipstick.

Moving Forward

I care nothing for innovation.
A smile to
a stranger, that's real progress.