8/30 Frontiered Calliope

Somewhere between El Reno & Altus
is a town called Nowhere

the single attraction

hidden southeast of ole' Ft Cobb,

are a pair of broken bricked lovers

two shed-like contraptions,

just off the main road

one leans left while the other right

I have suggested it barricaded in brocade

if someone living lived in Nowhere,

walls would be condemned,

they no longer are as they once were

a frontiered calliope

now they stand

sentinels charged with the hill-laden landscape

defending their necessary existence

which passes unbeknownst
in many a rearview

rails and coots are the only squatters

spending seasons nesting

into a future the entwined won't live to see

(did the fledglings offer saudade songs?)

the crippled roof 

weathered high beams 

bare dirt floor

built so close to almost be one, yet

they are an emaciated and aged couple,

decomposing above ground

as testimony

to a surrender the world should not forget-

don’t think I didn’t have designs on the place

                                 to wrestle it back from the earth

to envelope myself in a love’s forgotten letter

Even so...

sunlight speckled

how one leans left while the other right

eventually their parentheses

will be the echo of sound

from nowhere

carried in the wind by birdsong

harbor my boat to the tightrope
of your lip lines
if it sounds as if I'm trying too hard
it's only because I'm trying so hard
for something that seems easy for you

your smile:
the gawky kid in me thinks
when I grow legs as long as yours
I want to spend the suntime
watching how
your smile grows
the gentle lover in me agrees
your lips are nearly ripe
to think I am a portion
of your blossom's season
the rain and fertile ground
where your joy is dancing

Prior

That time we tucked our mosquito bites in
unattached to a thing
to any things.
We tip-toed outside
to smell pineapples
growing in old rubber tires.
Moonlight whispered down
through lava trees
As we swallowed the stars
nesting in each other's dimpled cheeks.
(I forgot to tell you then
because I didn’t yet know how)
the bees would frighten me irate
even as they were slipping extinct
(I forgot to tell you then
and I still don’t know how)
To me- being poor was a terminal illness;
I wanted to scrape it off like leprosy
So- I was going to save us by sailing away
I wanted to protect us from every thing
From all things.
(And I know,
though your silence is an echoing time-capsule
of who we were together
Then.)
To you- I was running away.

I’d take an island of bees over your sting.
I, the coward, the invasive specie;
Misjudged.
Yesterday, I walked the covered grove
down the red highway into the sea
where mangos rippen and drip and pop
I swam almost too far
as my legs sifted the navy waters
pumping with wonder

and from below, I felt the moon cry for us

not the us in my mind or yours

not the potential us

but for the two stars she gave us to see in each other

and we never gave back

or even acknowledge anymore

 

Here's what I meant

Years ago when we both huddled under a capsized boat
Rain slipping awkwardly from our shoulder
Both so thirsty we'd nearly drink anything
Here's what I meant
We were listening ears cocked at the ready
Heart poised and yet inept

Playing gunshots or fireworks

We raced, laughed and worried the river rocks smooth
Here's what I meant
You 

Took me on the adventure of my lifetime

We 

Wouldn’t take no for a ride, remember?
I 

wish, for a moment, you could leave yourself
To see yourself
It's in the
pushing your own understanding

I gulped

a minute is all I need,
But I need it now.
You sipped
& here we are years later
Entwined
River at the ready
finishing that sentence we couldn't before.

It's true
I romanticize about the times I could've died
As an aborted
As a premie
Intentionally from the age of eleven
Recently just
Would you miss me?
Places I would've blown to
People I would've died for
Once, I hit my head so hard
I got scared
Once, I forgot who I was
And imagined the worst
Sometimes I know I am alive
Only through the reminder
Of more pain to endure
Worth is subjective, irrelevant
To the hopelessness and fear
Of a sole alone
Would it be better to have been here
And ignored
Then to have never been at all?
I don't know.
I don't know.

Ayin

Ein sof.

Binah, binah, binah, binah.

Before the beginning-
there was a thought
... Of never ending
a stone in a pond
rippling
endlessly
I wasn't there to see
but atoms in my soul
are the dusty footprints
whispering 

it happened

The 70s

70s and I'm seeing my parents
deep in the mistakes that would eventually
define them
children of the night 

skin innocent and fragile
eyes lonely and together 

70s and I'm seeing my parents
deep in the love that would
Eventually
desert them
surrounded by the fear that only youth
never see
and the hope that only the sages
regret