Sea Stone Souls

with hardened grit from many grains of time
stark and solid
days cleave from a stone

he is spinning through the sea

sinking deep into her columns
where the vertigo is vivid
past the current's pushes
before it pulls him in again

he is rocking with the tide

traces of us come in many waves
as weathered faces find their form
waters which bring us ruin in the storm
guard the flesh, fill the souls of these
illuminated silhouettes of ribbon

he is washing up on the shore

our bodies bind for moments
in delightful, perfect tangles
pausing before throwing ourselves in
to drown out the insanity
of teasing delicate senses with calamity

pebbles pooling on the bottom
find their rest after all
the ocean's fateful strokes

he is rounded, smoothed and
softened

Forsaken Keepsakes

when pain becomes pleasure
amidst hope and despair
there lies the shattering of an innocent creature
cries erupting through the crowded air
make way for frantic glances
the timid taking bold advances
taming young, to raise the wise

it is enough to make me forfeit my salvation
and squander my inheritance of grace
the sins of a wild child crave devastation
what now is lost goes on without a trace

Quick Reflection

where dreams flow
I want to know

rare glimpses have I caught
in far off hills and distant thought

while tending torments and sewing scars
the light did dart through my heart

some moments arrive in the storm front
others, with clarity, come on clouds

among lands so pure, a sacred space
where the clock and scale have no face

there is no measure in a dream
of time and space, their mortal stream

where life can sing eternally
filling deep springs so faithfully

circling above the water
dreams flow

and know
I cannot

Storm's Eye

In the eye of the storm
I have seen myself castoff
and castaway well weathered
into distant calm waters
washed upon warm shores
I find protection

In the eye of the storm
I am sheltered and at peace
yet from overhead I hear the voice
and the waves carry whispers of her fury
great walls of love keep me secret
safe from the swathes that surround me

In the eye of the storm
I know that from everywhere
she is coming, her stare has stolen me
and her love betrays me
keeps me safe by shrouding me with
great wastes of love
milked from wrath and jealousy

yet I remain a grateful grinning guard
of this storm's heart

one face, two face

dear lover of all
be mine
so I too may be free

to the vagabonds and those
who wander ever after
come to me so that I may find for you
a place

for the guilty
let me be your witness
so that I may suffer the verdict
for your sins

amidst the hopeful
cast my hope
such that one shall find it and
I should lose it

and the generous shall feed me
til I am contented and full and
sufficiently responsible
for nothing

---

dear love of mine
be all
so that I may be only yours

Once, Twice

Love twice

loud with

kisses, grips, and

all the pushes pulled

when expectation comes and goes

fleeting like our eyes when meeting and only

seconds to expiration 

waiting for another 

inhalation

holding you in with my breath 

hopeless, endless, embracing until death

and then lingering

our days are changing

another week goes by

until it is a month, soon a year,

and finally a lifetime

the best way to slow it all down

is to fuck twice in the night

then go out and get wet

picking flowers and pulling nails

sewing heartache and forging hope

til all our selves are spent

learning just once

how to live

heartskin

In the spring rain 

there is a stirring

memories, again

they come visiting

and i play host to what i thought was long lost

now past is present

and so am i

meeting in moments such as this

the eyes flirt with tiny borders

boundaries between heart and skin   

my moon

you are the moon
casting bright shadows in my dreams
all the ringlets of your ecstasy
enchanting porcelain beams

wide eyed at the window
staring from the inside
i listen for the rising tides
to come eclipse this heart
who is basking in the memory

of golden days
dew soaked dawns
and smiles upon kisses
promises in tear
when i still had it so bad for you

but what will comfort me
when i find all our memories
are turned to dreams
like a quiet goodbye

the edge

"I have an idea" she said, 

"you can go for a walk,

 and when you come back..."

~

"I'll be gone."

long gone, lost in stranger arms

whilst you wander the withering

of our love's once lush leaves

and in the embers of calamity, 

my walk takes me past those things which test your sanity

vast valleys filled on the edge of immortality 

memories of she and i and her and you and me and we

then i walk over to the end,

and at the end there is the edge,

whose border traces along tomorrow's 

finely undetermined destiny

there i lay down and fall asleep and 

hope to dream 

to catch a glimpse and see

from beyond that line which while wide awake

guards against fools like me,

those who'd dream to take

when at last my eyes, relieved, reopen

i find myself deeply inside tomorrow, 

with the end and the edge far out of sight

all trace of you is gone

and so am i

loose

she is loose in a green dress for you
can't stop, won't stop, will never let the blows slow

daunting, her wild thrusts are taunting
the spirits from my bones, taking everything i've known

stones in the sea know the depths
and mountains can see the lengths

that a sorry heart must go
to find peace


It's cold tonight as the cold north wind blows through the crack in my window, each gust carrying my soul a little further. It's hard to stop shaking, when voices inside and out are deafening. And how uncanny the unwholesome hour seems to be. Especially in this state. I thought I'd escaped, but it's only seemed to have followed me here.

So it is, when the cream of your memories rise to the top.

When even yesterday turns into an illusion, what hope is there that the present, too, is not eternally ephemeral.

when my heart had eyes only for you

Are the weeks going by faster? There is still so much to do... the ramps are up, and they will be gone before I know it. This spring is such a sweet season... I wonder what summer will bring. 

After work today I sped back to second base to give chelvin a ride to the dealership so they could pick up their car. I stole some snacks from the lobby and a couple cups of coffee for the road. But before I knew it we were all at trivia night, at least all that made it. We were a good team, but we didn't make it. Still it was a lot of fun, and I was able to see Toole for the first time since landing back in town. It was funner still driving around with him and Max, and seeing my friends get along... 

It is nice to bring people together. Maybe that is why I like food so much... for laughter and for friends, for conversation and for memories. The scents, the smells, the sounds.

We went for coffee afterwards to console our defeat but not our defeated spirits. Melissa wasn't able to make it due to a toothache, and I was disappointed that I didn't get to say goodbye to her. Thoughts of her paced through my head since last we had seen each other, and our short rendezvous only made them pace faster. 

There was a weird incident across the street from the coffee house as we were about to head out. Something about a weird drunk korean, cognitive dissonance... But whatever. Let bygones be bygones, at the end of the night I went home a winner. My friends and family make sure of that... when I'm not able to. But sometimes people really ask for it, at least in retrospect. 

the list goes on

I began my old handyman job this week. The days have been staggered with very little sleep, but it is a pleasant blur between working and talking, lots of driving and of course thinking. Deep thinking. Which responsibilities do I want? I want all of them these days, all of the time. I find such great satisfaction in fulfilling them... in exceeding them. I find myself so contented when I find ways to make someone smile... and even in the dark they all make me grin. Sometimes I even smile at myself.

Right now there is a room in the top of a barn that has a bed all made up and it is really there and it looks so cozy... I just hope I can find a way to make it cozy. The carpet is down, the hooks are hung, the nooks and the crannies are ready to be filled. I have hung my favorite notes from a tree next to the stairs to my room... I just hope that the wind will find them and carry them upon her back into sweet dreams.

There were sweet treats and just desserts for trivia night's victors. I paid my bet, and then some. It is the most fun with strangers I may have ever had. Even if they weren't all strangers, it still felt very new. But frightening. I think that's what made it so fun. Even if I am ad-libbing all the cues, it felt good and that may be all that matters to me now. It is good to be reminded of how it feels. To be noticed...

But it is difficult. Especially when you can notice pain.

Today I woke up after 3 hours of sleep. Chelsea woke me up so I could take them to the dealership to drop off their new car. I went to work, driving in loop-de-loops. I came back to the house and noticed an erie stillness to the house. They were brooding. Over the car? No. Money? No. Over each other? Maybe over themselves...

I can make them smile but I don't know what else I can do. I listen, but I don't dare assert my most private thoughts. They seem to have hardly helped me, and I cannot imagine them helping anybody else. But isn't that what best friends are for?

Top 5 Responsibilities of Best Friends:

1. If they lose a bet, you always help them pay.
2. When they need a sweet treat, you make them a baker's dozen.
3. They pull you out of ditches, when the dirt roads become ice roads.
4. In nice dreams and in nightmares, they are always near.
5. When they forget the rest of the list, you remember it for them.

wander in the honeycomb

For the last time I stood on the shore of my dream. I caught her exposed and in the dark and the salt and the rain we were able to have one last intimate moment. Her breath was cool and her eyes were dark. I stood on the side of our road performing ceremony. I in clothes to keep my blood hot and my heart skipping beats. She hummed in the chords of the wood frogs, toads, and peepers. 

The wind so wide.

The fog so fine.

A palette very simple. 

A warm grey.

A party in purgatory.

A fond farewell.

She so dark.

She so blind.

Me, my love, and I

say goodbye

Then my mom drove me almost all the way back. All I can remember is setting my alarm and then laying down on the couch. I know there was so much more, but I have not had sleep enough to recall any of it. At least not now. 

Slowly I woke up. Passover was a bright day. But cold. I made it to dinner, and it was everything so much more than I expected. Fun, funny, flirts, and food. I made some bets, and lost. Made a date for trivia night. Not with anyone in particular, though I have to admit I did hope. Had plans for drinks after dinner, but they did not go according to plan. For the weekend's final twist, a comedic tragedy. Justin really let me have it. I don't know that I deserved it, but I am grateful anyways. I really value perspective, and do not feel I have ever had enough. I would like to feel very far away. I feel I am a stranger.

quickening days

Began insulating and installing drywall in the barn with my brother today. Very tired. Max and Chelsea came out at the end of the day after going to grey rock for veggies and pork. Went for a beautiful walk down to the trout stream in another of my dreamy places. The grass was so green, right where we were standing. Nicky came on the walk too. I would like to take her for more walks.

time trials

Began the day by jumping up from a very deep sleep. The kind where you find your body very heavy. Max and I bucked up a log which had fallen from their yard into the neighbor's. The homelite chain was dull, so we drove to his cousin's work in camillus to barrow the eccho. Chelsea waited at the house for fedex to deliver the check for their new car. By the afternoon I had finally made it to the bee farm. Bickered with my mom about chicken's for a bit, then took off to my brother's place. We rototilled two long rows and planted roma tomatoes, yellow cayenne, and endive. We were feeling experimental, for sure. I saw some dead cows and calves behind the new barns. It was weird feeling numb to the scene. I felt unphased. I took a photo of a calf. It seemed disgustingly peaceful. I am left perplexed.

But then my brother took me up the hill and into a field. I felt I was walking into a dream. Perched between all the hills and holding its ground adamantly sat a stone foundation. Wedged into her own tiny hill, the old soul was slowly crumbling. But it was so beautiful. Her dimensions deep, her footprint open, I longed to pour all of myself into her. Give her three stories, a pond, and my life. I wished I could fill her with all my hopes, and that she would let me gaze down upon the valleys beyond her belly and up into her hidden hills. The fields were her finely formed patchwork skin. She has been abandoned and I long to be the one meant to find her.

However now I realize that it can never be and that I am just embarrassingly confused. I know my dreams. They know me, and I know they are me.

I do not know why I was abandoned, but I long to be found. Who else but me can love something which is so long forgotten? I shall wait patiently and always will be searching the hills for her to return. But I do not know if I hope for it.

Ten years may tell.

second winds

They always come on the cusp of our dreams, and their philosophies bring parallels to ponder. This one is about love.

It begins with a girl. But she and I are not in love. No, but I see how it could happen. It would begin with me giving up and learning to give in. I, for the first time, would have to be the one to force her move. Such a future is a world I do not dare glimpse. But I am human. I am curious. And I would be nothing if I were not willing to indulge the daring.

I see a beautiful garden. One I have been in before. She and I are still waking. The night was long. Long enough for an apocalypse and then a quick creation. The morning is still wet and shivering, but the fresh light evokes life into this new world. We find that we are friends. There is nobody else to find. And we find that very special. We know not why, and decide to know not. We choose to not touch the fruit on that forbidden tree. At least not yet. Let's enjoy the garden a little longer. Because once our bodies meet and flesh tastes flesh, that is when we will find the garden gone. A cemetery in its place.

I am afraid of looking back and seeing. Stretched until they are touching the horizon I see they are terribly transformed. They were all my gardens, my testaments to my soul, the plots for all the life I had sewn and nurtured until they were beating with a beauty which was bursting forth with fruit so ripe and ready. Now they burn. And they are all scorched cemeteries.

My mantra, at least for my dreams tonight: never again.

the list goes on

I do not have long to write tonight. I need to sleep. There is so much to do. Today after the opera, my own haunting phantoms left me exhausted. It was terrific. Cathartic. And the bright day was so intoxicating, I found a hammock and fell into a most peaceful moment. The sun shone through my weary shut eyes. Something in the pattern of light on the backs of my eyelids connected me to many moments, all bathed in the same bliss. It was love and lust and life.

Then after chores and dinner the pack went for a midnight stalk around the park. It is good but it is not easy. I have begun compiling a very complete list. I would like to put everything on it. It is already very long, and yet it just looks so fucking empty. So I will keep filling it until my life has been filled. Even if is filled with nothing...

morning on the third day

Last night you made me so crazy. I was dizzy. I was standing still but all the world was turning. It felt like death was circling.

Now the sun has come up again to save me from my most mortal sin. Her amber glow amuses me, then at last abuses me. I see her mock our love. Can I make this into my mantra? This is my life after all. A story from mythology, and it makes me feel like I could be a marbled body. Sun, she rises. Sun, she sets. And from the twilight, where my two feet are firmly planted, I can see it all. My love, she rises. My love, she sets. For God is cruel, and that makes the Devil so kind.

But enough poetics. These are all just ideals I want to believe in. But I think it really might be signs of an addiction. I need to quit believing in love. I need to accept that maybe, just maybe... love is not so perfect. I joke about my faith... I need the world to be more than the sum of its parts. I want life to be imbued with purpose... with meaning from a higher power. I do know this. I still want to find out what love is all about. Not just any kind of love. I want to believe in the love I had for you. I want to believe in the undying, in the eternal, in love which never surrenders. I know my heart never will.

And I know that I am loved by many friends and family. In my heart I love them too, but there can never be enough time or room in life to share it with everyone who deserves it. All I can do is try to show it by being me.

Tonight I must remember just to write. There is solace here. And I love its sweet relief. But it is so tiny, I feel I have not fed it in years. All that time I was feeding myself to another... and what was born of all that love? She now says she is a glutton. Maybe one day she'll be born again.

stale appetites

Ate nothing but sugar today. Whoopie pies and kid's cereal and sweet buns, stomach aches and head aches and heart aches abound. Now I am just very stoned, and my thoughts are sparse. It was a grey day, but warm. Didn't, matter. I did not go outside. I was too tired. Last night I drank whatever I could get my hands on, and will probably soon finish off whatever I missed. It is the only thing that helps me numb the total rejection that I feel when trapped with someone who acts like a total stranger. And they are. I do not know who this person I am living with is. Neither does she. I am almost sure now that she is lost to me forever as a friend, let alone as a lover. But I have always known and accepted the impermanent. Still this death seems so premature. I wish it could have felt complete. Now is not a time for wishing though.

I am ready to give up trying to stay in Cabot for one more month. It is too hard to say goodbye, and it is too hard to go out and try to enjoy myself. It is just too late to try to make any good come of any of this. I do not have the energy to deal with this house, nor with the things in it, or the people living here now. My head is just so clouded, the thoughts are thick and I cannot think through them. It is just all doubt, regret, lost hope.

I try hoping for my future, but I abhor any vision I can muster. Any positive situation I could hope to find myself in seems so fake, so forced. I feel so inadequate. I only feel comfortable with visions of a transient life. Floating free from anywhere or any situation that would dare pin me down and dissect my motive. The selfish. The egotistical. The glut. The pessimist.

The other day Martha said something funny. Said she was glad to see me, that she could not stand to see or work with anybody else. She liked how I was always so cheerful and positive. If only I could fool anybody else, mostly myself. But then I would be such a fool. I feel I could self-immolate from the shame.

Tomorrow I need to pack. I want to be ready to leave by the end of the weekend. I need to be able to leave at a moments notice. God knows I hate to see them pass me by.

I still wonder whither shall I wander?

dull stars

I tried to go to sleep early tonight, but with my eyes shut my mind's eye opens. And it flickers through thoughts and scenes from my life's future, past, and present. But it is hope that must keep me awake. Escaping from the calm in the eye of the storm my ship now sails back into an ocean who is dark and the roar is swelling. The terrible waves are growing.

I am feeling manic. I have not slept well on this trip. Time is slipping by quickly. Deadlines and dates are coming up faster and the seasons are changing swiftly. Peepers are peeping, the ramps are tufting through winter's stale cocoon, fiddleheads are on schedules, the bees will be arriving the first of May, and I have not yet even planned my date with destiny. Although I hope she is very far away. I plan on going back to Cabot for the lat time and in two weeks returning to what I hope is a very quiet welcome home. I would like to be drowned in salt and sweat and to be consumed by responsibility. To what? It does not matter as long as it is to no end.

Today I woke up early. I planned on slipping out of the house unnoticed, but was caught whilst pouring coffee by Kevin and then by Chelsea. I could not resist their company, and although I was up at 7, I did not leave for Harvey's until 1. Breakfast, brunch, a walk and then a talk. Hugs goodbye, I will see you all, all too soon. Sped to the farm and dabbled in carpentry, caulk, and foam. I think the barn is ready for the three boys; I do not know that I will be able to keep great care of them, I can only try.

I made a carrot cake for my mom's birthday, and an apple upside down cake for her fiance's. There was no powdered sugar, so the frosting was a grand experiment with creamed honey. Sometime's it doesn't matter how badly you fuck up as long as you are so sweet.

A last list of present fears:

the red devil dying
bills and debt
rent
removing all traces in cabot
moving belongings
not getting bent
mom's colon cancer
balding
hepatitis
winter is coming
careers
planting season is here
presence unwelcome
and ontop of it all, the stars are going to be so dim. So dull. The clarity of my dream is fading. I will be part of no farm on no hill east of no green mountain beneath a sky filled with such diminished beauty and surrounded by so much noise and nature so tarnished. They are selling the hemlocks off by the foot. I am going to feel so far from what was my dream. Unfortunately it was my dream alone. No goats, no close neighbors, credit in the gutter, and no dear friend who would dare be intimate with me.

I need to sleep, tomorrow's loose ends and all the driving, eating, talking, and more driving. And always in a new and unfamiliar place. I just want a home.