reticulate

in dresses shiny
and shimmering
like fishes' scales
reticulate like mermaid tails
or full and billowy
like a ship's sails
the gals gown up
in glamour
put on their armour
and aspire
for more amore
Cinderellas awaiting
the stroke of midnight
hoping for a magic kiss,
or in lieu of this,
happily tipsy in a whirl of
friends, champagne and bliss

wormhole

wander the wilds
hoping to find
adventure & love & peace
a latter day Alice
not fallen but shoved
and the world
pattered by
in broken bits and pieces
as I tumbled down a tunnel
through a wormhole
to burst forth into a new land
stranger, full of danger,
and impossible things
before breakfast
and I wonder as I wander
if this land will be better
if I will be better
as I try to gain my bearings
and keep my head
in a world gone mad

petulant

snapshots of bliss
peppermint kisses
thickshakes with straws
petulant pouts and puckers
like breaking waves
of flower petals, dusky
soft and supple and scented
sneaky grins and smiles
stretched from ear to ear
pursed in consternation
undulating in conversation
a mouth in motion
and as another calendar
comes to a close
I remember the sensation
of those lips pressed to mine
in a New Year's midnight moment
unrepeatable, irretrievable
and I hope

kinesics

my body, my betrayer
each flush of anger
each blush of love
each rush of danger
all admitting of
every blasted emotion
ever so hard to hide
when your corporeal form
is never on your side
my kinesics are a signpost
for those who care to read
I wish I could disguise them-
not wear my heart upon my sleeve

favonian

a craggy mountaintop
and trees and peace
and things that speak in whispers
and lives that buzz and bark and snuffle
and have never seen pavement
and favonian breezes
singing in our ears
a mystery, an enchantment
and escape and retreat and space
these, these I repeat like a rosary
these I wish for you and me

belie

the smile in his eyes
belies the lies
you never recognize
how he'd aggrandize
and his little sighs
his happiness implies
as he tries to disguise
but you get wise
see how you compromise
and you agonize
and empathize
not wanting to jeopardize
and so internalize
until it will metastasize
this is how love dies

crèche

the churchyard is empty
bitter and cold
and in the center stands
a crèche
symbol of hope
and a world reborn
a world redeemed
behind the church
a graveyard
a ground of goodbyes
and lives unfinished
and in between the church
a sanctuary
for some who search
for peace in the journey
between the yards

aftermath

the words fly forth

unbidden and regrettable

unretractable

and in that moment

something turned

i blame myself

that bridge was burned

and in the aftermath

i can't recover

i showed the fissures

my imperfections

and they were seen as such

marry in haste

repent at leisure

so saying the saying goes

applicable to more

than matrimony

exorbitant

you pay the price
exorbitant
for those
who came before
you build up
your good credit
and then get
shown the door
the person next
in line gets
to reap your benefits
and the person
next you meet
pays off their deficits
it's devaluing - this cycle
no wonder some elect
to hide their treasure
in a sock drawer
and leave nothing
ever spent

cavil

days get frantic
sometimes I panic
in the cavalcade of care
I cavil over where
or whether silver linings
exist at all
but this holds ever true
I have a friend in you
and when the days
seem too long
when I am weak
and tired
sad and haggard
you are strong
you lift my spirits
dry my tears
and hand me
many, many beers
and together
I become greater
so that later
when the tides turn,
for we all are Fortune's fool,
I can do the same for you

invidious

they creep in
like weeds
ivy beautiful
but destructive
the thoughts
invidious and cruel
of all the things
we cannot change
for they are not
in our keeping
and we
poor fools
must tend this garden
vigilant
lest we be
overwhelmed
again

Gordian knot

A seething ball,
twisted and tied,
my heart is trussed
and hidden within
a Gordian knot.
I pick at the threads
trying to unravel -
no longer waiting
for an Alexander,
great or otherwise,
to slice through
and release me.

hidebound

he screams into the void
vehement and implacable
and ever provoked
hidebound in his hatreds
hardheaded and hardhearted
zealot of his own religion
the ever present I
surrounded by the same
bellowing bloviators
parroting party platitudes
and worshiping at the altars
of themselves

perpetuity

so history repeats
in perpetuity
with tiny little tweaks
of fluidity
like molecules of water
flowing down a river
never the same
but ever the same
so we all go
to the sea

unclubbable

wallflower melting into wallpaper
as the "hail fellow, well met"
hearty greetings of the others
flow past me like mercury,
deadly and uncatchable,
and I, unclubbable, shrink
into myself, paste my face
with a cheery grin to
deflect attention from
my darting eyes and sigh
as I calculate just how long
until I can leave without being rude

deference

onward, onward, onward
we must go
we carry our bundles,
our burdens, our bags
in bindles, in boxes,
in bunches of rags
we clutch them close to us
we hope we don't drop
something significant
we know we can't stop
to go back to retrieve
but onward must go
and some race
towards a finish line
no one can see
some lag and drag
lingering as long as they can
like children in a candy shop
eyes round and indecisive
but still
choices must be made for
onward, onward we must go
in deference to ones
who went before
who carved out the paths
we now traverse
we shut our mouths
"it could be worse"
so silently we march
with impedimenta
tailored to each
some through happy valleys
some over treacherous passes
but all roads lead
to the same sea in the end
there, where we set ourselves down
and in the ocean of time, we all drown

natatorial

arms ache
breath sticks
legs kick
as through molasses
natatorial talents
stretched so
thin and tenuous
certain to sink
and drown
in this morass
unless, at last,
and not too soon
solid ground

fulminate

she stews

and stirs

and fulminates

he rants 

and raves

against the fates

forced joined 

they fight the world

full of fire

and shared hates

syzygy

bodies astral
hurling through space
on our own trajectories
were never meant to be
but for a brief moment
of perfect syzygy
we aligned and learned
that even in harmony
one eclipses the other
and so back
to our separate orbits
perhaps to pass again
in later centuries
on our journeys round the sun
but not meant
to orbit each other
the gravity
not strong enough
to pull us together
for perpetuity

tawdry

hindsight is 20/20
so they say
they are wrong
it is a long look
down an ancient teleidoscope
everything broken and distorted
as the tube is twisted
the lens we look down
refracting and contracting
our visions
depending on where we focus
and how we twist
making the insignificant
all important
making the noblest intentions
tawdry and tainted
making mockery of memory
the things we wish were true
the things we wish were false
all things we'll never know
but this we do
in others memories
we are disfigured too

velleity

they run amok
trampling flowers
smashing and breaking
china shop bullyboys
never braking
in a flush/in a rush
full of big ideas that flash
and burst like fireworks
and then like fireworks
forgot
in the glow
of the next explosion
disregarding/disarming
ever, ever, ever so charming
these jukebox dancers
karaoke kings
mouthing promises
plucking strings
tumbling cartwheels
with jaunty hats
& silly songs
enjoy them now
but lightly
and let them go
before a velleity
sends them spinning
and their whirling winds
blow you away
a Dorothy without an Oz
in a broken house
in black and white reality
left with technicolor dreams

livid

casual cruelty
born of thoughtlessness
smug grin
complaint on complaint
she could not win
and she tried to be
impervious
to the slights
but loutishness
made vivid
after bourbons
made her livid
and finally she left

objet trouvé

some things
cannot be made
they must be found
objet trouvé
litter the landscape
waiting to be collected
and kept and treasured
we are all such
as we all search
a sea of sweeping eyes
seeing only debris
but one looks deeper
and sees me

adamantine

to cover the emptiness of the rhetoric,
the hollow squawk
of words said to not to convey
or communicate or connect

the posture of the "passionate":
vehement declarations of adamantine positions
repeated ad nauseum with fulminating exhortations
in vociferous cacophony

blowhards full of bloviating blather
getting louder and louder
to hide how little
they actually matter

jackleg

a grand farrago
mosaics made up of
broken bits
jackleg jobs
done on the sly
configured
and rejiggered
on the fly
pastiche people
in hasty shanties
decorating
like magpies on acid
yet through this
mishmash mess
the patchwork perseverance
we see the beauty
in our duct-taped ingenuity
in our carry-on and can-do
in the glorious makeshift madness
of me and you

menorah

like a cheap and tacky
dollar store plug-in menorah
it represented the thing
but was not the thing
it offered a sad semblance
but no grandeur
a flickering plastic version
of hope
that lasted both
more and less
than eight nights
and while it would do
in a pinch
it couldn't hold a candle
to a real flame

repair

i retreat
repairing to a safe space
to repair myself
collecting all the bits and pieces
and a giant tube of krazy glue
(more crazy than glue)
to salvage, sort and stick
with spit and hope
and hope that it will hold
that the cracks and seams
will not seem so great
to the ones who see me after
or that they will find charm
in my antique finish
and if they fill
this empty vessel,
if they pour themselves,
their hope and love
to fill me up again
that I will hold
that my fissures
will not leak and seep
and spill their gifts
irretrievable

imprimatur

marking it with his scent
like an old tomcat
in a new house,
his imprimatur
he puts about the place
and settles in
gets cozy
by the fire
made up
of burning bridges
and memories

durable

skeptics mouthing an incantation
with no intonation
full of suspicion
are never surprised
when magic doesn't happen

to build from material ephemeral
something eternally durable
required an alchemy beyond us

so now I say a different spell
a sorcery for just me
a charm against the charming
against the face disarming
no curses or hexing
just a potion or three
in a glass raised to the world
ever perplexing
enchanting myself
if no one else

etymology

broken down
into component parts;
teasing out our history
from bits and pieces,
fits and starts.
seeing how this came to be:
a couple's etymology.

we roll the sounds around
our mouths
like marbles,
random vowels and consonants,
until they become merely
disassociated dissonance

or, like a child
dissecting an old clock,
we lay the bits of us
upon the table.
marvel at how
we're put together
and when we are all laid out,
springs and cogs
and promises,
when we are the parts
and not the whole;

that is when
we're asked the time

we scramble.
try to remember
what went where,
but despite our best efforts...
always tiny pieces left out,
ifs and ands and maybes,
our metal bent
ever so slightly
as we reassemble.

and though the hands
spin round the face,
our reconstruction
no longer keeps the pace.
time spins
in syncopated circles
until it stops
and we with it

consequential

time drags provincial

dust motes in the air dance sunlit songs

aeons pass
in the gaps between
your words
in the gaps between
ourselves

hidden in the couch
change
consequential
for which
calloused fingers dig

unable to melt
in a moment of content

they must search for the prize
and pull apart the peace
piece by piece

not even waiting for the end of the song