Void of Me

Vacant is how I feel
adrift
in a black soul sea
I want to feel
something
but not this melancholy
because I cannot feel
but remember feeling
and it is memories
which give us pain
the present has no thought
for sadness but what is thrust upon it
by that irascible old man past
and the ephemeral future is…
but for that anchor on my soul
I would be dead
is how I want
to be

    Anonymous
 
 

Leaning Into the Afternoons...

Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.

There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,
its arms turning like a drowning man's.

I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that wave like the sea or the beach by a lighthouse.

You keep only darkness, my distant female,
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.

Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that is thrashed by your oceanic eyes.

The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you.

The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land.

    Anonymous
 
 

In Reserve

Your husband's laugh, a glass of grenadine.
    You greet the guests, steer coats onto your arms.
Ice rattles in the kitchen: he's mixing drinks.

    You stand where you can keep an eye on him.
A glance from you, your face cool rising cream,
    and I know whatever I might say--vague

murmurings in one of the kid's tidy rooms
    so you might open up--would be betrayal.
I compose myself. I'll not notice you

    notice already he has fixed the evening
on someone's out-of-town sister, neutral
    lovely blond.  Over her shoulder a green

scarf drifts like a bright apology he touches.
    --I like this material. --Are you sure
I'm not keeping you from your other guests?

    We'll all be drunk soom.  Walk softly where starlings
have settled down in trees.  They will wake
to one pebble, the back door's silver click.

    Anonymous
 
 

J.E.

Sitting on the balcony at 5 a.m. listening to you talk to yourself
it occurred to me that I was perfectly happy to be there,
because, like I will tell you later, there is always at least one witness,
and better me than someone who will tell tales in the morning.
Although afterward, while sleeping as close to you
as possible with out falling in love, when the boundaries
of our relationship seem much less clearly defined
and I begin to reconsider my original decision,
I pretend I'm too tired to do anything about my conscience.

    Anonymous
 
 

We are seekers
not of truth or beauty
but of ourselves
grunting and thrashing
our way to enlightenment
fingers pressed together
through the glass
touching with our eyes

    Anonymous
 
 

One of My Own

I have a god
Not like yours
Right for me
Small for my pocket
A Yinyang god/dess
Olorun and Onile
Halved down the middle
Good to me when I'm good to you
And through my pocket pleasures me
With divinest fingers--
Immediate reward when memory fails
To curse you for the poisoned bread your children eat--
The hand of the other half is a razor,
And when I'm not good
My little god/dess gets me living in this life
And slices another nanometer
Through my dickstring.
What more would you
Need to make
You love?

    Anonymous
 
 

After a Year of Waiting

There is something else I need to tell you:
The stars go on
And they don't give a damn about regret.
Some day neither will I.

    Anonymous
 
 

Not Yet (fragment)

There are some truths
that can only be found in sadness.
Harsh, numbing flood
of grief
cleanses the soul
of its trivialities.
Black and withered
stumps, stark against
the midnight moon;
waking from loamy slumbers
after the split-second eternity
formed from the ends of
the past.

Recognition of the reflections
of ourselves in the weeping husks
that once knew the joy of wildflower kisses.
And nothing can reach through
those vast inky distances—
not yet—there is too much,
too much, too many saltwater paths
to tread…

    Anonymous
 
 

Why You Said It

Then you've forgotten how we couldn't wait
for the bulldozers to raze that house
on Ridge Road.  At the fresh edge
they'd butted into the woods,
the machines sat stalled for days, reluctant
to finish up the job.  The goldfish pond
had already dried down to its beer cans
when our brothers started it, a few stones
to break the monotony of a picture window.
The provocation of the little flaws.
Kites of glass crunched under our feet
as we thumped through the empty rooms
like dice in a shoe box.  The wallpaper
of smug begonias, one yank and it flowed
up the walls in long satisfying strips.
Wrapping ourselves in those paper boas,
we yelled, Goodbye, Good riddance,
Hit the road, Jack! and slammed the doors
harder, harder so cakes of plaster
slid through our hair.  For an hour we rode
the bannister but couldn't bear how it
shuddered under our weight--
trying to make the best of things--
so we kicked it down the stairs.
And don't you remember the crowning touch?
We lassoed the chandelier with a scrounged necktie
and brought it down like a house of ice.

See how far back it goes.  It's the tooth
I couldn't stop worrying till the roots
popped in my gums, the puncture in the cloth
that let you tear the lavender dress
into a cloud of lint.  Once something starts
toward ruin, how good it feels
to help it go.  That's why last night
when your lover hoisted his head
above yours--his scapegrace grin
a diffident shirt glimpsed above battlements--
something teetered in the balance,
scales in such airy equipoise
you couldn't help but tip them with a word.

    Anonymous
 

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