relationships – Page 5 – Aremyfeetofftheground

A moment more

I want to hear a snatch
of all the songs ever sung.
The gong of all the bells ever rung.
I want to see, smell, taste
the flowing rains
that have spattered
on the canvas tops of wagons
and the oaken decks of rolling ships.
Please give me but a while longer
before we lay our last.

The rain in Spain

Why’d I dream of Skinnygirl?
She was hardened,
with wise eyes and a smile for sale.
In our yappy group,
standing in the drizzle,
we fussed and discussed,
looking to trust.
But she stood out,
most quiet and calm.
Our magic Ellie.
Her pounds were 98.6
Our linchpin,
our Skinnygirl.

The root of a problem

It’s a bitter little thing.
As I bid it adieu
and sent it on its way,
it spun a smoky path,
bloodying the bystanders.
Finding no hosts,
and diminished in the seeking,
on it travelled,
parasitic in its contagion.

Hurry hard

Each of us wanted safety.
Father, from trouble’s horde.
Mother, from father.
We chickens, from the storm.

All of us were running,
and love was hard pressed to keep up.
Adolescence held confusion, guilt,
and strange desire.

I looked for yellow bricks,
on the cusp of a fireworks life.

Surfacing

don’t mind me
at all-
I jump in frivolity
from one to the other
as the bee tests for honeysuckle nectar.
The proper endings of songs are not known to me.
Only a taste of a part of the art.
A tip of the hat, and I hot-foot it away,
Stay too long, and the feet soon get cold.

In here

So many, here,
write words of love.
Words of yearn,
longing and lonely.
Are they for one
who is here,
or has left
and cannot come home?
For one who wants a conjuring
to bring warmth to a sad siren.
In dream, I conjure you,
the writer,
with hands
soft, warm, and strong.
Alone.

The face in the shoebox

That polaroid. Buddy was going through his shoebox of old photos, dealing them out like cards on the coffee table. I was stunned, but faked disinterest. The party drifted to the kitchen. He wouldn’t miss it. Xenia, how came this? So young. So innocent of your appalling destiny.

Foreigners

If you would,
talk some sense into me.
Or,
just talk some sense.
I am in short supply,
you see.
I have broad and muscled shoulders
from clenching the etched-in tension.
A hard head with a coconut brain
to unveil the dumb mornings.
Those that move in this captivity
are bound to me,
but we are foreign
to one another.

Earnestly

Remember how to sing.
If not, to hum,
or whistle a waltz.
Understand the beast,
and restrain it
with a stumbling spot dance.
Think of your goodness,
and not of your sin.
Of the young,
for they are short of life.
Of your faith, or your doubt,
and the quality of prayer.

YYZ

Hey..
What’s in that bag you drag?
I have a box of my own.
It’s well known to me.
So, what do you think is fair?
Rock, paper, scissors,
the loser opens first?
I don’t mind.
I’m tired of its weight,
and long to let the moths loose.
Or, you know,
we could just practice being born.