marisol gathers dead flowers…

“waiting on marisol to return”

omphaloskepsis & marisol is gone.
yesterday i watched her gather
rose petals from flowers i’d
gotten her into a bowl before
placing the bowl on the center
of the table, disembodied flowers
& all. an occasional blast of wind
knocks petals from the bowl,
bleeding marisol’s work over the table
to the surrounding floor.

while she’s gone i’ve gathered
flower petals every time the door
opened, refilling the centerpiece
so she won’t see a single petal on
the floor.

when she returns the room will
have that cheerfulness that is mostly
her & some of me. i haven’t waited
for a first glimpse in years;
i’d sell my soul for a footstep
as long as it ain’t one of mine.

internal arguments against
predestination say we’re
together by choice; easily
enough everything else
flows from there. when she’s
out wandering i can still hear
her verbalizing action & close
proximity.

marisol will soon return to this
rose-petaled home. exaggerated
separation ain’t really her thing;
not with so many flower petals
waiting on her to arrive.

—————————-

I’d explain, but there seems no reason to stick my foot in my mouth again. Written for an audience of one. She’s very important to me.

down to the bone…

“tendons of a feather”

lost the last bits of clarity
of purpose (as intended)
by the skin of luck & forest
blocked light. trees ringing
a lighthouse aren’t
inspired to greater heights;
nothing could be further from
the truth.

samples of atmosphere are puked
onto t-shirts & bumper stickers
sold at discount shit shops
littering beach roads everywhere.
what do they sell in oklahoma?
i’ve never been there & now is
no time to start.

enough hurricanes for any
coastline; too much knowing
after every bad decision comes
a cock-up redemption attempt
boiling down to the desire
toward continued existence.
all tied together like that,
it’s hard to believe
we were ever separate to
begin with.

——————————

Thoughts on comings & goings. Always one or the other it seems.

marisol dreams & i dream too…

“intensity under marisols constellation”

without a need for explanation,
i could already identify a
strange certainty that we’d already
traveled deeper into this dream-
laden evening than the clock would
say or the calendar could prove.
pasting 150 nights to the ceiling
only strengthens my desire
to paste 151 on the same
canvas. marisol simultaneously
shines & reflects her dreams;
i hold on to my front row seat
with no intention of ever
letting go.

assigning numbers to such evening hours
would only distract from
the dreamer & dream. her deep
respirations rhythmically assure
me of a dream i come closest
to fulfilling only when awakened
amidst her light of day with our
familiar moment of recognition.

not even the shaking ground
beneath our feet under threat
of worsening wind & rain,
there is a quiet heartbeat
reminder of a dream, a face,
a voice.

marisol perfects her smile
sleeping off the after-effects of
accidental indifference to
sensational connection. it
keeps us breathing each others air
until we light mismatched cigarettes,
admiring the reddish glow reflected
in each others eyes under our post-
sunset skyscape.

————————————-

Sometimes I dream of you when I’m awake. We’ve been a long time coming darling & you are everything I imagined you to be.

too tired to see…

“functional equivalence”

marisol was ditching cinnamon
scented elastic in the lake
as i sat in semi-dark listenin’
to the Bandoleros on the jukebox.
rapid succession punctuation played
out from a spool through another
sunset until it was dark enough to
slow down & relax.

our strings sufficiently slack
for another day, i could make out
five or six chord changes as the
Bandoleros moved through recorded
routine. a partially meaningless
progression of changes came close
enough to impregnate the answer
to a misunderstood question. in
the backround i heard a dead
comedian say “you can have it all;
assuming you’ve got a place to
put it.

marisol entered the room cleansed
of elastic hair-ties but carrying
the same cinnamon scent she’d left
with. i wanted to ask her how she’d
separated the scent from the spice;
i just didn’t know how.

marisol stays up late…

“meeting a new friend”

someone spoken of,
but never to. i’ve heard
good things about impossible
miracles readily delivered
to me as the man makes his
rounds. we’re all ready to
take a shot.

introductions &
cold drinks all around.
marisol happily redefines
her photography while
a wise man keeps everything
together & talks of the liquid
extract as if we’d reached
the brass ring.
in the grasp of long-
distance vegetation, we’re all
smiling about something else
& trying to talk about
this addition to
human possibility.

marisol’s trimmed pictures
testify to her work same
as empty cups speak ’bout
throaty gulps depriving them
of liquid. smooth haze covers
the afternoon while
marisol keeps a surprise
up her sleeve, peaking out
under the influence of a
faraway root.

someone spoken to after
long waited arrival. this
is new territory in need
of exploration. marisol
takes pictures but none of
us recognize the familiar
surroundings.

indonesia-deliverance
as the psychonauts
gather close
for the next big thing.

——————————–

Sometimes you luck into circumstance. I can think of a lot of ways that might possible happen, but this was amongst the best. Marisol is a dream.

quasar the vermillion dust (part 5 the finale)…

“closing time”

heard from a messenger;
that girl is smiling
because she is breathing
the same air running wild
in my alveoli. disbelief
on my part until the realization
we were listening to the
same music too. might even
have shared dinner
& split a milkshake down
the middle.

i reached out for her
with a name that was &
wasn’t hers, hoping she’d
see i was only here
because i needed her as much
as she needed me.

———————————–

To M, even if she doesn’t know why. We all have our reasons, even when there is nothing reasonable about them. With love.

Authors note; this is the final poem in the quasar series. I think I got what I wanted out of them, but that as always is a matter of opinion rather than factual observation. Anyway thanks to all who read them. I appreciate the support.

long ago & far away…

“lost in thought”

of course you could become
slavishly obsessed. i’m not
much for that sort of thing,
but it used to be a free country
& who am i to tell you what
to do?

i’m under shadows darlin’.
& you told me all things are
impossible. i couldn’t agree & we
parted ways. names didn’t
matter then, & don’t now.

flying stingers
buzz everywhere as bees go
on searching for sugar,
ready to sting.

——————————————

Thoughts brought to mind by the destruction of the last bits of the past. It doesn’t take an exorcism, evidently, just a garbage bag.

marisol goes to the beach…

shadows on the sand

“shadow photograph”

quick serve pink-berry smoothie
on a spring evening trying
like hell to be summer afternoon.
speedball winds blow hair past
eyes until the sky cleared in a
equatorial tribute to
blue crystalline.

it ain’t exactly our secret if
everybody knows; pushing past
your front gate while you claw
at my back only gets us so far.
pushed forward by every
treasured gust of breath leaking
pressure from under the sky;
lack of laid path doesn’t still
our footsteps, four across.

shadows result from interception
of sunlight by the mass of
our bodies. on sand pictures
won’t give up any ghostly
figures traced on shore; it will
catch them in the shutter
speed of a certain instant when
our hands touched while walking
dunes under the clearest
of skies.

———————————

For Marisol. Thinking back to the beach will always be where you can find me.

more than 48…

“more than 48”

it was only our 56th day & i knew
i’d hurt her by chance as well
as i knew she’d never admit feeling any
pain. we’re too far gone for any kindness
to soften the harder edges of what
used to be; i’m already bleeding
at the edge of tears knowing i let
a princess down.

i couldn’t take her where we shoulda
been; my car wouldn’t start & i for-
got my wallet in the coldest bedroom,
collecting silence like souvenirs,
(poems are free to the public)
i can’t sleep on this lonely night.

i told the mirror it was bad luck &
piss-poor timing. i shaved off more
than 48 hours of stubble at 3 a.m.
lookin’ for a smile that had disappeared
hoping it would dramatically reveal itself.
i ain’t angry, just disappointed in a
smile i couldn’t coax out of hiding.
been more than 48 hours on high alert,

she has no interest in Cartesian
dilemmas, even if she worries about
it without knowing what she’s worried
about. forget that fucking Gordian
knot; whether alex cut through it
or not, 56 days have passed & the sun
shines down as the earth rotates. all
that’s wrecked will be fixed with
sleep & the days last cigarette
smoked down to the nub.

———————————————————–

Thomas Paine once wrote “These are the times that try mens souls.” I’d always taken him at his word, but lately it would seem to be far more of a metaphysical than metaphorical comment on the trials of life. Ah well, you do the best you can & hope for the best, just like everything else in life. Off to bed; two days in a row is a real killer & tomorrow is already here…

marisol makes her first appearance…

“pink flip-flops”

i’d always help you tie your shoes;
anyway i was looking for someone
who’d hold my hand during the
scary parts & i don’t mind being that
close. sometimes it’s all i want.

maybe i’d heard it said by a stranger
someone among everyone was
moving faster than me & seemed
pretty sure (more-or-less) what
was going on. all i knew was
i like girls wearing baseball hats
backwards & laughing at every
bad joke that’s ever been told.

it always never makes sense
that marisol sits on the back porch
while interminable distance fills
the closeness between there &
here. so what if i know about
limitations? impermanence is a
bitch,” i told marisol.

her smile arrives on time,
though not related to any
discussion at hand. nothing
moves in a straight line for
more than a few feet; root
beer barrels are as close to root beer
as we’re likely to get in an age
of rice crispie treats.

all of this is insanity & i want all of it.

hard earned nicknames like flower
petals sit on the floor of a church.
quick cuts to places you never see
& we can stamp this union in blood
smeared on windows.
doors.
walls.
steps.
hands.

i don’t really bruise these days.
had it kicked out of me for awhile
& started doing it on my own for
kicks. most of the time i can see
things in this whole new light;
sometimes i’m wrong but at least
i’ll figure it out later.

anyway,
how the fuck are we gonna put
fucking laces on pink flip-flops?
marisol laughs crystal pure,
& the sun stops in the sky
to listen & look.