Free Verse


Unringing Telephone


Nothing so poignant
as an unringing telephone


Midnight Eyes


I never trust midnight eyes
The truth is fire behind them
Your sculpted moves and sceptered arms
  wove vines around my heart
and listened to the rhythm
  of the feelings beating there
You took it for your own,
 dashed my dreams
  against the wall of
 your masculinity,
the sea spray of my tears
unnoticed and absorbed
in the fog of your dreams


Wet Pavement


That very particular
  wet hiss
of tires on the highway on
 a rainy day
ssh-ing past


The Telephone


This simple storefront
The day to day
 for burn outs in polos
 pecking at the keyboards
 waiting on bored housewives
in their sleeveless shirts
 and too-tight jeans
 and old rubbery flip flops
 their messy hair and
 large sunglasses
never obscuring their
 feeble existences
watching reality TV
 with their TV dinners
 believing Fox news
 and living for the beach and
  celebrity gossip

it all comes screeching to a halt
 when the phone doesn't work
The little chips and transistors,
 a mystery of sand
 and glass and silicone,
 their lives in miniature,
shooting sparks where they have none,
dying like they are
 but never living
coming back to this pathetic storefront
to rejuvenate the spark.


Study in Floods


falling rain,
 the high notes on the
 piano I struck today,
a study in floods;
falling water (always
with damper)

The faint hiss in the background,
the static cling of reluctant clouds across the sky,
the dance of sharp and flat

The springtime humidity,
 the buzz of the air conditioner in the windowsill,
the cries of a kit for its mother—
I dashed outside in a trench coat
 and ran through the carport searching
I found no kits nor cats,
only mud and leaves
 and an old car

the kittens were there the next day.


Summer Coming


The warmth has a chill in the air
 that last shadow of winter
summer humming underground


Downtown


I.  The downtown skyscrapers
looming over the bus stop
the wind howling down
blowing the soaking heat from the day
the resulting breeze
has not quite a chill
yet still I wrap my shawl about me
clutching the folds and fringe
and corners of fabric
about my shoulders,
to my arms,
across my aching back

a passing bus
the crowd disperses
 Still I sit and wait
my shawl not quite necessary
but not yet frivolous

II.  the stepped-on gum,
the stamped-out cigarette
passing cars that
gutter and rattle
over the ingrained
storm drains
a cab,
 a trash can,
  an empty box
some stray two by fours,
parking garages and iron bars
and sewer lines
 and stray people
—gray clouds
 behind gray skyscrapers
 over gray streets
 under me in my
 gray shawl
 (thinking of him
  and his gray eyes)
—that which makes this city beautiful

bricks and curbs
and streets and stripes
windows, wood and metal
iron fences and contractor trucks
all spinning a cobweb
 of modern city life


The Old Fire Department


The old fire department
 like a toy from a train set
 its quaint paint
 and thick bricks
  tucked beside the stark sleek apartments,
 its engines shiny and red
like on Christmas morning


You Were You


All the things you did that you were you
Your just-so walk, chin in hand, and
 sharp gray gaze;
shaking back your blond locks,
 fiddling with your feet—
your Kermit voice,
 your careful poise,
dropping with a smile on the dog

rare were your smiles,
 rarer your laughs
and thin were your lips in the night
 when you dreamed of the war

but still I see the boy,
 held on in your Lego snacks by color
  and sneakers
and how you looked on at the show when you
 wanted your record signed

and how you looked at me
before you kissed me

and now I see the man
 tall and slender and hardened
gazing at me behind his eyes,
behind the wheel,
behind the screen,
always ahead of me.


And so he sleeps



His blond hair falling behind him on the pillow,
 his gray eyes squinting shut,
 his lips that can be so soft and inviting
  in a hard thin drawn line
the muscles of his arms,
 so large beside my own,
the curve of his hip
 beneath the sheets
my hands, large for me,
 tiny within his own
  smaller and softer,
  smoother and more rounded—
he towers over me,
 altogether overpowering
  and, slim and blond as he is,
 totally masculine
even in bed and unconscious
he is intimidatingly sexy to me
just his sleeping body is all man
waking he is terrifying;
I shrink and cower and whisper
 being all girl
 with my soft curves
  and longer hair
 my more flowing, gentler self
 altogether cowed by this giant
so wholly different
worlds apart
 yet so we fit
he is larger yet fits inside me
I am smaller yet my curves match his
 lying beside him in bed
watching him dream



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