I did hear you

I want you to know that I heard you
I didn't miss the shiver in your voice
You've emotionally connected with this space
You come here to scratch an itch you can't explain
I know I won't make you go one to one.

I used to write poetry
It used to matter to me
My work and that scavenged of others
were treasures to me
rotting scraps of paper though they were

Words and magic are the same
There is no time in my memory
before the awareness of lyric
the importance of presentation
swing, lilt, tone, meaning

Your attraction to my words
is an uncontrollable aphrodisiac
causing my mind to swirl out of control
words lost to cravings
a flash, surging rush, deep breath

losing touch with everything
but the sudden need -
driving, urgent, unforgiving -
to experience your flesh again
all five senses buried in you.

My memory of your voice,
the way it breaks when you sigh
the dance of your laughter
the sweet murmur in the back of your throat;
I shiver.

I have so much to share
but it becomes lost
in my frustration
the impotence of my words
to bring me my desire.

It's not the caffeine

It's not the caffeine
that keeps me awake
even when exhaustion
fills every fiber
of my spent body

It's not the aches
the pains I have grown used to
causing me to toss
to turn and roll
in a bed that once was cozy

It's not loneliness
that clenches my thighs
against a swollen need
my blood racing
even without a single touch

It's not a normal itch
that drives me to rub my legs together
up and down
looking for a sensation
that's just not there

Every inch of me is hungry
and dissatisfied
Reliving the intoxication
that is you
but memories will not satisfy.

Pre Digested Memes

The language of love
closeness, affection, trust.
Effecting communication.
Adding another dimension of emotion.
I know what you mean.

You know what I mean
not at first
not without a journey
but on the path
the mental travel interweaves us.

Do you know why
my emotional territory
most comfortably settles in fives?
I worry that with anything less
I must be missing some hidden shade of meaning

Emotions are the precious veins
of experience always just
just out of reach
of pure, raw, words.
Something ergonomic is needed.

Sharing across the distance;
and I do not mean our bodies
but rather the infinite chasm
that separates individual mind from all,
Real alliance is a complex entity.

So I realize -
only because I am driven by you,
by my love of you,
by my need of you -
that communication is fractal.

Not linear.

How much is conveyed in a reference
to a book, to a place, to any noun
which is more than words
which is a shared emotional knowledge
that in sharing creates a new vaster landscape?

How much of what I give you
could only be delivered whole
to someone so interested in the grander implication
of every concept issued in my voice
as to be listening for more than bit for bit rendition

Always am I striving more
to understand and to convey,
Yet how can I warn with love
of the permanence of this process?
the end of which is rare and irreversible.

Somehow I cannot escape
my trust in you.

I don't want to do this without you

not another meeting
not another morning
not one more cup of coffee
not without you.

not one more break from work
not a single cigarette
please don't make me go to bed
not without you.

why is there one day
one sunrise or sunset
how can anything bear to be
without you?

in my life in front of me
I've seen all that is to be
but where there once was one
there stands a void, without you.

Driving me crazy

I can see you in my mind's eye
Picking out your matching pink,
Your ripped jeans,
Your black chemise,
The studs for your ears.

My mental picture of you bathes,
lotions and dresses,
brushes her teeth,
fills her pockets with essentials,
and tells her son goodnight.

In full 3D behind my eyelids
I see you depart into the young night,
headed to friends and anonymous dancing
Maybe the music will be great,
maybe you'll ignore all but the beat.

My heart contracts as you drive away,
as I lose your voice,
as you venture into a more real world
than the one we can create from a distance,
through a weak cell connection.

Later you're there again,
joining me in my bed
as a short glowing text message,
and the you in my mind instantly updates.
I hear your voice saying the words, breathless.

The you I keep in the cage of my mind
is now covered in a slight sheen of sweat,
the sweet smell of your flesh comes through
your body's heat pushing it across,
the club smell of liquor and stale smoke cannot deaden it.

The glow of your eyes is a bit fuzzy.
The drinks you've had have set your blood on fire,
and cast everything in a soft glow.
My heart surges with the wish to reach out
through the distance to clasp you close to me.

I am maddened
by the ghost of your scent in my nostrils,
the memory of your skin under my hands,
the softness of your lips against mine,
my need to own your body with my own.

My hands, once steady wielders of logistic greatness,
now shake with an ever present craving,
and seem so weak,
incapable for the first time
of delivering to me my highest need.

Two Nice Girls: Chloe Liked Olivia: Eleven

Eleven years old when Janis Joplin died
It was a time in her life full of feminine pride
A Wrinkle in Time and The Wind in the Willows
Hiding behind the summer clothes that billowed
On the line

With a head full of music and playful heart
With her two best friends you couldn't tear them apart
Reading notes and measures and Harriet the Spy
King of the mountain and a big blue sky
So open wide

Running like a girl
You go sailing past my window chased by tracers of the sun
Running like a girl
Meet me in the underbrush remember solid ground we touched

In our forested fortresses
Growing up fast on the edge of a storm
There was a peace to keep, a job to perform
Learning well how to settle into so polite
Quietly there by a TV light
So close inside

Proud and stoic with a sense of duty
No one there to notice her developing beauty
if they could have listened there was no mistaking
The dissonent sound of a young heart breaking
Open wide

Watching girlfriends lining up one by one
To pledge allegiance to the women they would soon become
They all quit sports and got a D in math
And you began to follow a narrow path
Once open wide

Running like a girl
You go sailing past my window blazing trails against the wind
Out into this world
Finding out about your difference I will give you love's assistance

Now that I am aware of you
I was stranded outside and I couldn't speak
Needed a soothing brain balm just to get through the week
I was feeling amputated from my neck to my shoes
And the gulf between my voice and my heart was ooh
So far and wide

When I woke from this dream I was thinking of you
How you've always known just what to do
With your skinny brown legs and your face to the sun
Nothing you've known has ever come undone
Heart open wide

Running like a girl
Tearing up my neighborhood under a big blue sky
Running like a girl
Meet me in the underbrush remember solid ground we touched

You are my weakness

Where has my self respect gone?
I am a world class programmer.
My theories regarding education and child rearing are unmatched.
There are those who are in awe of me.
So why am I your slave?

It seems that in a single weekend, we have switched roles.
Now I am the one dragging my feet.
Saying slow down, be reasonable.
I do not like this feeling.
And yet all I want is to be yours.

I was so solid, firm, resolute.
Patience exuded from me like a golden glow.
But for only a week.
And now with a word I am hopeless
I am hopelessly yours.

Your voice rang out to me
With love and compassion from across so many miles.
When I was low
In a pit of my own making
Drenched in despair at my own logistical fail.

Like a song your words lingered with me
As did my memories of your eyes, your smile, your skin.
The black wet highways coiled on in front and behind,
but your voice sang me home.
All I wanted was for you to caress my neck and shoulders till I fell asleep in your arms.

I should not give up my life and go to you.
Not while he is still there,
Benefiting from your largess,
Dwelling with you as a family of three.
I hate myself for even considering being the guest of that family.

And yet you said you want me,
And all I want is to go to you,
To forget about him and the rightness of my demand,
That he leave the bosom of your family before I enter it,
That you make room for me in your home, your family, your heart.

But I am helpless.
My pride is already shrieking and dying,
For it knows I will forsake it to be with you.

Within me...

Time extends forward in my mind.
I see you coming to spend a week in my world.
I see the months unfolding with urgent and barely contained longing.
I see my drive to gather resources, to achieve, to succeed.
I see the summer coming with so many visitors,
and me
charming them
weaving a shimmering spell to prevent them from seeing
that it is you who is ever present in my thoughts.

I see the short summer nights filled with careful pushes,
kicking off each of a series of logistical steps,
the end of which puts me in your arms each night and each morning,
for as long as time stretches towards the perpetual horizon.

Past that my vision becomes less distinct,
more scattered and dreamlike.
Mornings of making pancakes with Henry,
driving out to meet you for lunches,
stealing more time with each other than we strictly should.
Quiet conspiratorial chats where our minds wrap together,
our eyes feed into one another,
my hands collecting ever more reminders of your sweet skin.

Through the dream veil I see your smile as you meet my friends,
as you become part of my family,
as you realize how much the people that love me are enamored of you.

I do all I can to keep my minds unwinding reach just shy of that dreamy place,
lest the infinite temptations -
your shining eyes at well chosen gifts,
the joy of surprising you with a kiss,
the endless pleasures of moments arm in arm or hand in hand with you,
the feeling of your eyes and his mind on me,
as I share and teach and entertain your greatest treasure,
being your plus one at the riveting drama of Henry's unfolding life,
being the lucky soul to remind you in the darkness of your unique right to pleasure
- steal away my focus and drive,
making me too complacent, satisfied, joyful,
to achieve all that I am made to achieve.

Just shy of that dreaming place,
where lies the avalanche of action which brings you to me
and me to you,
and seals us together into a single, overwhelmingly powerful, life force,
that is what steals my mind and readies my hands
prepares and allows me to face each moment of each day
without fear,
without regret,
without anything but the pure conviction that each moment closes the distance between.

Consumed with thoughts of you

Led Zeppelin played on the radio in the car and thoughts of you consumed me.

And if I say to you tomorrow
Take my hand, child, come with me
It's to a castle I will take you
Where what's to be, they say will be

A-catch the wind, see us spin
Sail away, leave today
Way up high in the sky
It won't, but the wind won't blow, we really shouldn't go
It only goes to show that you will be mine, by takin' our time

And if you say to me tomorrow
Oh, what fun it all would be
then what's to stop us, pretty baby
but what is and what should never be

A-catch the wind, see us spin
Sail away, leave today
Way up high in the sky
It won't, but the wind won't blow, we really shouldn't go
It only goes to show that you will be mine, by takin' our time

So if you wake up with the sunrise
and all your dreams are still as new
and happiness is what you need so bad
Well, girl, the answer lies with you

A-catch the wind, see us spin
Sail away, leave today
Way up high in the sky
It won't, but the wind won't blow, we really shouldn't go
It only goes to show that you will be mine, by takin' our time

A-well, the wind won't blow, and we really shouldn't go
and it only goes to show
Catch the wind, we're gonna see us spin
We're gonna sail, little girl
Everybody I know seems to know me well
but does anyody know I'm gonna move like hell
I love ya
Baby, I love ya
Do, come on, now
I want you

Newly Dogeared Rilke

Page 7

I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings?
They yearn so high that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles around your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
Don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision, as upon a tree?

If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.