Just Keep Going

That first night
after I moved out,
minutes dripped
faucet-like,
agonizing and slow,
and I kept thinking
“she’ll call,
any minute now.”

By the 11 o’clock news
I was resigned,
eyes red and puffy
and I play-acted
normalcy,
pretending to sleep,
realizing this new
world would take time
to become mine.

The brief, pathetic life 
we’d made 
you traded away 
for the White guy
who made more money 
than me,
and his promise 
of a fantasy life 
and left me prey 
to another woman,
who wore evil intent
like her body splash.

She was also 
looking for someone 
to fulfil her fantasy life
and she thought she’d found it
in me,
but I was just 
numbing myself
with her attention
and her pale, freckled bosom.

That ended badly as well,
but she wasn’t going to be 
a victim,
and she accused me 
of rape.

That was 1994,
and again,

time did its 
predictable thing:
it just kept going.

One day to the next
like the waves on the sand
ever repeating,
ever repairing
ever after.

Time 
just kept going, 
no respecter 
of people,
nor pressure,
nor pain,

and there I learned
the lesson and the secret 

to making it through
that hellish year:

just like time,
just keep going. 

[Posted for https://dversepoets.com/ - prompt: from a place of pain.]

Christian is a Verb

Make yourself known

not by your label,

not by your word,

by your action!

 

The grace and kindness

with which you’ve been entrusted

must sprout,

emerge or

explode,

whether spontaneously

or as a premeditated act,

 

but,

it must exist

and

it

must

matter!

 

A follower in isolation,

selfishly hoarding it

squanders this gift.

 

Christian is a verb.

 

You don’t need to

be crucified:

 

just feed a hungry person,

or water a plant,

or just sit and listen

when needed.

 

Christianity is a belief system,

choking on legalism

and self-contradiction,

but Christian is a verb,

so

commence Christianing!

My Rain

My rain comes 
in meek droplets
and unforgiving sheets.

Rarely does it wash
anything clean,
merely adding
another layer
of dirty air,
baking itself
on the roof
of my car,
or on a cheap plastic
backyard chair,
miscreant weeds and
unspoken-for
mounds of dirt.

No,
my rain is
unpredictable
and it takes
a day or two
for its musty
grasp to be
loosened.

It can gray-dampen
a sun filled sky,
sit on my plans
and cruelly,
unceremoniously,
remind me
of my ultimate
helplessness
and finite
abilities.

My rain
comes in memories
of loss, regret
and longing

and even if
I try
to hide indoors,

it is always
rainy season
in there too.

[Written for https://dversepoets.com/2020/06/02/rain/]

Ascend

Those old love poems
worked hard
but failed to fly;

these poems, for you,
ascend, never looking back.

[Posted for https://dversepoets.com/2020/05/21/mtb-5-line-japanese-poetic-forms/]

Portal

Implicit in
every portal,
every entrance
every pathway
is a decision:
do this
or do that.

Most days
the choices
are overwhelming
and I rely
on habit,
other’s decisions
or time
to decide for me.

Today
I walked through
the door
that said

“try writing again,”

and now
that I have
crossed that threshold,
I stop to consider
whether
I carelessly
skipped over
the portal that said

“write something better
HERE!”

[Posted for https://dversepoets.com/2020/05/19/dverse-poetics-about-portals/]

Yes, It's Me

Yes,
it’s me,
the one you’ve been
waiting for
but didn’t know
existed.

Yes,
I loved all
your songs
from the
open mike,
but I was even
more gobsmacked
that music
wasn’t your
first love,
but rather
your photos
that freeze
the truth,
the beauty,
the dream
simultaneously.

Yes,
let’s begin this
long courtship now,
wringing out
every new moment
until the anticipation
builds impossibly,
finally crashing over us
like a tidal wave
of butterfly orgasms
and warm electric pianos,
awakening days later
someplace safe and
alive.

Yes,
I want to consume
every inch of you,
inhale your
singular essence,
melt in
your embrace,
tingle privately
when you
whisper my name.

Yes, we can have
Thai coconut
chicken skewers in bed
and watch re-runs  of
“The Addams Family.”

Yes,
it’s me and
yes,
it’s you,
and yes
yes
yes
yes
a thousand times more

yes.

[Not sure if I understood this prompt, but here goes.]

She Cobbles a Placid Moment

With kids asleep,
hiding from
unfinished chores,
she cobbles
a placid moment,

exhaling smoke
from the bathroom window
into the cool,
unaccountable darkness.

Spying a distant,
familiar cluster
of red, white and blue
police lights,
muses,

 “I’m so glad
that’s not my life
anymore.”

[Written for de Jackson's prompt: cobble https://dversepoets.com/2018/06/04/quadrille-58-cobble-us-a-poem/]

My Father's Pearls

"Everybody wants to be
a musician
but how many actually
get a job doing it?"

"I really want
to read more books
but it hurts my eyes."

"Nah, it doesn't
matter to me if
you don't wanna
have kids.
You can't miss
what you've never
had."

"Sure, I believe
in God but
I just don't want
to go to church.
I did all that
stuff when I was
a kid."

"If you're gonna
get married
you have to know
how to take
a punch."

"To apologize
to your mother
is the biggest
mistake you can
ever make."

"One of these days
you're gonna meet
a pretty little girl
and you're gonna
start dating her
and before you know it
she's gonna be
pregnant and then
how're you gonna
pay for it all?"

"Go into electronics.
I know about that
field and there's all
kinds of jobs there."

"Do you know why I
bought this carpet colored
gold?
Because I want you
to treat it like
gold!"

"Don't waste your vote,
Vote for Perot!"

"What you eat in private
shows in public."

"Thank you, mijo,
your reward will be
in Heaven."

[Actual quotes from my father. Posted for https://dversepoets.com/2017/09/21/open-link-night-204/ ]

Untethered

When you’re free,
you become
weightlessly untethered
from the ground.

Though I am
a willing slave
to gravity,
I remain
a wisp,
a scent,
a flavor on the breeze.

May you
catch me
in your hair
and hear
my whispering plea:

“Go,
be free!”

My Greatest Challenge (for Oliver)

I can’t
smell that
“New Baby”
smell,

but there is
overwhelming peace,
warm, breathing bliss
in holding him,
my grandson.

This is my greatest
challenge:

to be
completely present,
and enjoy him
now

instead of
dreaming of
all the times
we have
to come.

    Pop-o Moskowitz shares fine literature with Oliver.

[Written for https://dversepoets.com/2017/08/28/quadrille-39/ - Bliss]

It's Still Magic

I've studied
Burt Bacharach's
"Bond Street"
for 40 years -

the quirky, uptempo
funky saxntrumpet
Hammond B-3 riff
that strange Eastern
flavor and the
soaring orchestra
representing
aural transcendence
- even the Gypsy
tambourine

and it's only
two minutes long.

I've played it
a million times
since I first heard it
when I was 7
and it still makes me

stop everything
and surrender
to its mystery.

If you know how
a magician
does the trick,
does it make it
any less magical?

No,-
it's still magic.

I'll Take Reality

I do not believe
in happy endings
or dreams coming true,
because nothing
ever really ends
and dreams
are not real.

However,
I believe in
spontaneous music,
idiomatic orgasms,
laughing pizza,
trusting puppies,
falling asleep
beside her,
her soft, sweet exhale:
these are real.

[Written for https://dversepoets.com/2017/08/14/quadrille-38/]

Mourning

It feels quicker than a blink
since I first saw you
and took you to raise up
as my very own.
Through laughter, patience
scrapes and tenderness,
I readied you for
a cold and undeserving world.

Through the seasons
you blossomed
and the world became
resplendent with possibility
when seen through your
naive and limitless vision.
I knew the world
would sing your song
once you taught them.

You asked if I was ready
and I snapped awake
from my reverie.
With a weak, sincere smile
and moist, quivering eyelids
I face my hardest challenge
as your stepfather:
to smile bravely
and not let you see my loss
as I walk you down the aisle
into your destiny.

[Posted for Dverse Open Link Night.]

When the Fruit is Ripe

You have to trust
that when it is
ready
to spring forth,
it will.

It does so
out of necessity,
because that
is what it was
made to do.

When the fruit is ripe
it will fall.

When the faun is ready
it will walk.

Don’t try
to predict when.

Just try
to be ready.

Life presents
all that
you need.

The trick is
to know when
to reach out
and grab it.

[Posted at Open Link Night on dversepoets.com.]

The Foggy Unknown

Just as we
cannot predict
which hue of blue
the sky will be today,

or how the really
best films
are going to end,

or how sweet
the red-black cherry is,

no one knows
exactly
how this will
turn out.

I couldn’t predict
my world changing
-thunder loud and
lightening fast-
with a phone call,
telling me Pop died
unexpectedly
two days after
his own mother died.

My world was
not just thrown,
but cosmically fucked
off its axis,
my compass pointed
in every direction

and each way ahead
was soft, foggy
and unknown.

Some paths were bright,
some dark gray,
a few even black,
but none of them
were clear.

I got lost trying to find
my way back
to my life before,
until eventually,
I gave up that
search,

realizing
his death
also erased
who I thought
I was.

Only when I accepted
I couldn’t go back,
then I started moving

forward.

Be not afraid
of what the world
and this life have
waiting for you.

Stay open to
the foggy unknown
for one day
it will be
your turn,

and then you’ll be
reunited,

and it’ll all
make sense.

Right now,
however,
it remains
a heartbreaking
mystery.

Written for D'Verse Poets's prompt: Poems To Save a Life

Better Than Music

Blood pumps
through
my veins,
loud and strong.

Breaths come
shallow, ravenous
in heady
anticipation.

The gentle
slurp and kiss
of tongue and lips
on the skin
of a lover.

This lubricated
piston,
finding home
repeatedly.

These are
the only sounds
better than music.

[Written for Dverse - Quadrilles with Sound]

I Come Here for Hope

Laying on the floor
of my walk-in closet,
it is the darkest
quietest
place in my house.

Between boxes and
piles of dirty shoes,
I lay myself down
listen to myself breathe
and pretend
I am all alone.

I come here for hope.

I know there is a way
out of the present morass
but I can’t see it
in the light of day.

I need the comfort
of the dark
where any obstacles
are hidden.

Here,
I am limitless
and aware of my
connection to all
living things:

I don’t see
where
one thing ends
and the next thing

begins.

I open my eyes so wide
they hurt, but all I see
is the monolithic,
unanswering
black.

It reminds me that
there is no me
and there no you
and there is even
no us.

It’s all one infinite
interconnected
experience,
and since it cannot
turn back on itself,

there is only one way
it will all turn out
but I can’t see it
right now,

and I like it that way.

[Posted for Open Link Night at https://dversepoets.com/2017/05/18/openlinknight-196/]

Still (A Quadrille)

Still,
I believe you’ll triumph
even though
the torture
still
continues unabated.

What are
the magic words,
the black market
black magic
to still
your raging wildfire
of sadness
and wholesale
emotional immolation?

I just wish
your plans
for your
threatened suicide
would
still.

[Written for today's challenge at DversePoets.]

You'll Fly (for Sarah)

Little bird,
come on out
of that nest
made of sadness
and fear.

Tiptoe out
onto this branch,
you won't fall,

but should you slip,

your life instinct
will kick in,
and you'll flap
and flutter
and eventually fly.

You'll fly
because
that's what
you were
made for.

[I hope this fits the prompt: https://dversepoets.com/2017/04/04/anthropomorphize-me/]

Since the Turkeys Took Over

Can’t catch
my breath!

Since the
turkeys took over
it’s been
RUN!
RUN!
RUN!

No, I don’t know
how it happened
but damn it,
it’s real!

They don’t care
if you’re Vegan,
they’re out
for blood!

For God’s sake,
stay in
on Black Friday!

[for D'verse Quadrille Challenge.https://dversepoets.com/2016/11/21/quadrille-21-take-a-breath/]