The Sheer Good Luck of It All

We cringe
when watching movies
of unfaithful husbands
telling their girlfriends
“I’ll leave my wife for you”
because everyone watching
knows it is
an empty promise,
an IOU wrapped
in a chocolate box.

I was that husband
who cheated,
but I eventually left.

After I burned through
the guilt,
I married my girlfriend,
and I can honestly say
I have never been happier,
or more fulfilled
in my life.

Now I know why
we rarely see
this scenario
in the movies:

no one would believe
the sheer good luck
of it all.

Hell,
I hardly do.

The Weight of It All

I was ready
to consume this woman
I’d fantasized about,
to visit the extracurricular
erotic netherworld
she was promising.

I was ready to meet her
surreptitiously in Seattle,
and I was ready to cross the line
she’d been writing
in lipstick and perfume
and emails.

I was ready to fake
to lie to
to deceive the one
I lived with
and do whatever I needed
to taste this ambrosia.

I was ready to do what
my morality previously forbade,
and had purchased the condoms
to do it.

I was ready for the
weight of it all.

Then, my live-in called
my office to tell me
that my father died
of a heart attack
that afternoon.

Suddenly,
at 35 years old
I had to grow up.

I still went to Seattle
three months later
and it was everything
she promised,

which only proved
I wasn’t ready
to be a man
yet.

No Secret

No law of physics
can transform the anger
of this moment

the familiar bruising
and stinging pain

into anything even remotely related
to an evening breeze.

I splash cool water
on my face
and pray for help
to an unseen god
who I know exists:

“Change my reaction
to this.
Guide my steps,
and take me
somewhere far, far away
from this moment.”

I await the results of this
impending metamorphosis

realizing there is
no secret,

only waiting
and trusting.

The Grand Irony

In earliest days,
when our love
was new,
I was
a vulnerable sapling,
subject to
wind and whim.

Years later,
our love has roots
and I am a tree
deep and unyielding,
and we live, grow
in our treehouse
safe and secure
from all natural predators.

Ironically,
now that we have
the depth of passion
and commitment
of this life shared,
some nights
this tree
just can't summon
the wood.

It's All Medicine (Mixed Blessing)

First-time
cannabis use
last night.

I'm 52.

Thoughts:

1. This is a revelation, and

2. Uh-oh.

Five Again (For Sarah)

Little one,
like a dewy tulip,
you are too fresh,
too fragile
for this milieu
you selected.

I told you
that there’d be boys
interested in you,
but now
how do I teach you
you can’t save all of them,
or even most of them,
and many of them
will just piss all over
your kindest efforts
anyway.

You deserve better
and I don’t know where
you learned to
act as their saviour-servant,
because backstage
you’re a pouting,
shouting princess,
more lazy than malevolent.

Still,
I wanted you
to return,
but now I know
you can’t come back,

and what I really want
is a time machine
so you could be
five again
and I could memorize
every detail,
every simple joy,
before life
and your depression
stole so much.

I’m always here
little one,
and I’ll always be here,

no matter how
painful it is
to watch you
as you stumble
and trip
into your self.

Testosterone

This predator
courses through my veins
and I cannot stop him,
I cannot ignore him.

When I am held
captive
by the unmistakable scent,
the breathy low moan,
the contoured shadows
of the feminine breast,
I know he is
at the wheel.

I have tried
to work with this fiend,
naively thinking
I could
control him,
but
he demands payment,
he demands food,
he demands flesh.

He rarely waits
and he listens
even less.

The worst part
is knowing
he is the untamed
beast of the man
that she craves
in spite of
her protestations;

(even those women
who purport to be
elevated
over this wretched
biology),

for these ladies
will surrender
their dignity,
without remorse
or shame,
and the bastard will laugh
and consume them,
leaving only
sticky,
unclothed skin.

However,
I can’t entirely blame him
as he’s got me laid
more than a few times,

and besides,
he’s only a chemical,
an amoral, inculpable chemical .

Even as he wanes
and dissipates into
his slow and flaccid death,
he’ll still have the last laugh
as he abandons you,
in all your spongy
failure
with a wife
who is taking your
situational impotence

way too personally.

[Written for Poets United and their Predator prompt,]

Synthesizer

Turn on
the power,
and begin:

play the keys
twiddle the knobs,
change the filters.

Thankfully,
there are few rules,

only imagination
and sounds
never before produced,
only dreamt,

filling all that
empty
silent space,
with aural color,

and ignore the presets,
as they were made
for efficiency,
not experience.

Truly,
this synthesis of
the machine’s heart
and the creator’s soul,

working in concert,
can make
something
out of nothing,

wherein lies
the magic of art.

[This is Moskowitz' present synthesizer of choice. Photo courtesy of usnovation.com]

Days and Years

Whether the days
feel like years

or the years
feel like days,

I'm thankful
all of my
days and years
belong to you.