Her Moaning Assent

The memory of
her moaning assent
echoes forever.

The echo bounces
off one block
of memories,
onto another,
ad infinitum.

However,
they do not decay
as naturally occurring
sounds do.

No,
they loop
at full-volume,

a supernatural siren
ever distracting me
into lustful dizziness.

[Written for De Jackson's quadrille prompt.]

Unraveling

Show me
your most private places,

where you dream
and where
the unfinished surfaces
of your soul
await your touch.

Loosed from these bodies,
we can float and dance
like the essences we are,
light and graceful
as smoke
snaking upward
to Heaven.

I am not what I seem.
None of us are.

Each one is
part-mystery
and part-illusion
to the other.

Let’s spend
the rest of our lives
unraveling
each other,

until
there is no you
and no me,
only us.

The Promise

There is someone inside
or a small part of
someone
trying to break through

all the responsibilities
the selflessness
the duties
that have attempted
to smother him.

They don't know he's
in there,
and they probably don't care
but I do.

So I find the cracks
in the pavement
and I chip away at
them,

making them bigger
making it easier for
whoever is in there
to spring forth.

Maybe it's a demon
from Hell.

Maybe it's a rose.

Maybe it's just dirt and bugs
but if I don't do this
I'll never know.

And the world may not
be the better for it,

but I wasn’t sent
to save the entire
human race,

but maybe
just this one lost soul.

So,
hang tight
whoever you are,

I'm coming
for you.

Whatever This Is

Whatever this is,
it is
my own creation.

These words
spilling onto the page
like a sacred, hidden waterfall,

take me somewhere
even I have never dreamed,
reveal to me all that
I have hidden
under layers
of manners and mores.

Whatever this is,
it is my salvation
and my friend,

the other half
of the Siamese twins-
always there to
goad me,

to nudge the words
forth,

and if they don’t
strike that chord of guilt
deep and resonant
reminding me
that death --
the ticking time bomb
that most everyone refuses to see—
is taking its seconds
hours
days
saying “why are you stopping
to do anything
but live

and capture it?”

The drum keeps pounding
the same tribal heartbeat
compels me:

dive deeper into
this blue mystery,
so deep that you
almost
lose your breath,
push yourself farther,
forgive your trespassers
ruthlessly,
trust in the logic
of the unproven
undivided One

and document it

in whatever this is.

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.

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,]

Keep Your "Carpe Diem"

When you’re a kid,
birthdays seem like
they’re forever
faraway.

The calendar pages
turn at a glacial pace,
adulthood,
still a mirage.

Then,
somewhere in your 50s
without noticing,
the days begin sailing by,
like dead leaves in a river,
moving too quick
to appreciate
all their detail,

and when you
want to stop them
and really study
their delicate veins,
their cracked
and weathered skins,
they slip away from
fingers
that were once
nimble enough
to catch them.

So,
I don’t wait anymore
for my birthday
to celebrate,
I do it today.

You can keep your
“carpe diem”
with its implicit specter
of Death.

I prefer “Happy Birthday”
with all its
boundless potential,
optimism,
and cake.

[Written for Poets United, Birthday Prompt ]

Not a Great Mystery

As philosophies
dry up and wither away
in untouched bookcases,
remember,
it’s not a great mystery:

breathe in,
breathe out,
and help someone else along the way.

The world is an equation
but rarely is it
an equality.

Sometimes a “greater than,”
sometimes it’s a “less than,”

and if you need
to boil it down
further,
it’s this:

others first,
then you.

Anything else is
merely
narcissism.

Red Exit Door

I am lost
in a market place
and I am the only one
who looks human,
everyone else is humanoid.

Someone-in-charge
mutters something
and I am taken away
to a stone cell.

No English spoken
and I can’t read this situation
or remember how
I got here.

Hours pass.

I am in a crowd
and we are whipped
worse than chattel
or Auschwitz Jews.

They all seem to know
something I don’t
and they all seem to
belong.

I panic and am lost
in a world where
I cannot find the
red exit door.

Walking through
a dark and humid tunnel
I hear screams,
desperate and frantic.

I look down and see
I am walking on tightrope
over a snake pit
littered with
half-eaten corpses.

I shift and lose my balance
and my heart erupts,
I scream out

which awakens Anita
who tells me

“you were having
a bad dream.”

I exhale
thankfulness,
I am found.

Ofrenda (A Dia de los Muertos Offering)

Were I “that kind of Mexican”

I’d make an authentic

ofrenda,

instead of this:

por mis abuelos,

for Trini

who always had hugs and

warmth in her smoker’s rattle voice,

y Juan

and his ever present stubble which

scraped my face with each embrace,

y Irene

whose caustic humor

belied a broken life and body.

Then there are mis tios:

Rudy the bear,

Ray the quiet genius,

Fernie the garage philosopher,

Eddie the passionate spark,

Kiki the gentle soul,

Carmen the humble and strong,

y Nancy the loud, proud eagle.

Then, there are my cousins,

Celia and Johnny,

both taken too damned soon.

Finally,

mi Pop,

Daniel (pronounced Dan-Yell),

called Copi,

short for “el Capitan”

who gave me everything he could.

I send my prayers

to God

in thankfulness,

in wonder,

and I pray

for each of you

to send me

what I need

from wherever you are

now.

You Were My 1983

You were my
1983.

You saw my heart,
naked for the first time,
I heard yours
echoing mine,
as I basked in your
approving glow.

You were
Boy George’s
silky voice,
that opening warm synth
of Spandau Ballet’s “True”
and you kept me company
as I listened
in the still,
quiet night.

You were
first-love
electric potential,
and it was too short-lived
for any disappointment.

Now you are
a Polaroid snapshot
in a photo box
of a shy smile
in a red graduation robe,
youthful and expectant.

Now your memory is
a welcome surprise.

You were my 1983
and when I hear those songs
I find myself
in the time machine,
remembering those days,
savoring
my long lost innocence,
and wondering
if I was your
1983.

Onward

We cannot wait
until everything else
is put right
to act.

No,
through the
smoking black
choking stench
failure,

we must press
onward.

[in Soupy Sales foramt - 25 words or less.]

The Sins of the Mother

Among my earliest memories:

it was a Sunday afternoon
and I was less than
5 years old

but I was
old enough to know
my weakness
because it was also
my mom’s weakness:

we were both fat.

I was taking
my bath
and my mom came in
to check on
something
and she saw my
slippery, overweight body
luxuriating in the soapy
water.

I remember
her face contracting
and her jaw tightening
as she hissed:

“if you don’t lose
that weight
I’m going to take you to the
doctor’s and he’ll cut
the fat off you
in strips!”

Her words seared me
like a surgeon’s scalpel.

I still have the scar.

My mom rarely
ventured out of her
self-imposed prison
in suburban Southern California
because
she always thought
she was too fat.

Sometimes the sins of the
mother are the sins of the son
and I fight for self-control
as I keep stuffing cookies
candy
anything
into me
far past the point of
satiety or enjoyment.

I have long since
forgiven my mom
because
growing up
as a fat boy
who didn't like sports
and would rather go shopping,
many times
she was my only friend
and because I know
what we detest most in others
is the part of us
that we hate the most,

but it still haunts me
forty years later

as I sit at my desk
with a soda
and a drawer
full of snacks
never far
from reach.

Space is an Illusion

Space is an illusion
because
not only is the glass
always full
(it is half water and half air),

but the glass is connected
to the air
that is connected to you
and to me
and to everything .

The illusion is that
such false divisions
even exist at all:

what separates
the property from the boundary
the inside from the outside?

Nothing can exist
because everything
is connected
to everything else.

The Buddha knew it
and so did the Christ,
and sometimes
so do I.

So, why then
do I keep swimming
upstream,

vainly
trying to stand
apart
from everything else?

[Posted for #OpenLinkNight at www.dversepoets.com, where even empty-headed poseurs like me can find love!]

The March of Death

The march of death
plods ahead,
indifferent and dispassionate.

It will see
all our dreams
and wistful hopes for tomorrow
like baby squirrels
in the path of a Humvee
and run them over.

The march of death
is always operating
in the background
never needing a break.

We all know its there
and most refuse to see it
afraid to give it proper credit.

The march of death is there
at the graduation,
in the wedding party,
during the back-arching orgasm.

"Carpe diem"
"live for today"
"tomorrow is promised to no one."

It's easy to repeat such homilies
but unless you can
enjoy the budding rose
or the breeze that bends the palm
or savor the warm quiet explosion
of that first bite of red curried Thai chicken
with your eyes directly fixed on
the march of death,
then you haven't met the challenge
you've chickened out again.

Be consumed
by the defiant dance of life
and if you are seen as
wild-eyed and spastic,
then so be it.

This is your day
use it up now.

Somewhere on this planet
someone's last moment
just happened,

because
the march of death
never takes a day off,

so neither will I.

My Catalogue of Mistakes

She rifles through
my catalogue of mistakes
looking for something new,
looking for new ways
to prick herself.

I tell her
"look at my new writing.
It's so much better."

She does,
but it's just not
as compelling a read
as the catalogue.

Everyone has their inventory
of drunken reverie,
bad carnal decisions,
wasted tears and hours,
complete with photographs
of the most compromising positions
in glorious color
each one perfectly suitable
for framing.

The wise person knows
to avoid scratching
that unreachable itch
which would dig a hole
deep into his soul.

I learned long ago
to keep my curiosity
about such ticklish things
on a short leash
because letting it run free
would only enslave me.

For I have been
a jealous monster
at times
and I hated it,

so I tried to leave it behind
by avoiding rear view mirrors
or unlocked journals
or photo albums from your past
where I've not been invited.

Everyone has a past
with luggage stamped
"Regret"
"Indiscretion"
"Loneliness"
"Loss"

and everyone has
their catalogue.

If someone
shares theirs with you
don't study it,
don't memorize it,
don't judge its contents

just accept it and move on,

lest you be added
to its pages.

[Posted for #OpenLinkNight at www.dversepoets.com - come on over and have a drink of words.]

The Movie of My Life

The movie of my life
will not star Brad Pitt
or Angelina Jolie
or anyone else you’d know
or recognize
or even want to look at,
but I will be played by
at least six different actors
portraying me
in different eras.

I’ll market it like an indie
(with lowered expectations)
and feign surprise
when it becomes
a critical favorite.

John Barry will write the score
and it will be triumphant,
exotic and sentimental
and it will win him
another Academy Award.

My costumes will be
specially tailored for me
and you’ll never see me
eating
anything.

The story will be
that I’m the lovable underdog,
a schlemiel Horatio Alger
and they’ll all root for me,
as David fighting some Goliath
as I’ll defy the odds
until I ultimately rise
and transcend past…

something
 (I haven’t worked that
part out yet).

I’ll hire an editor
who specializes in action films
with masterful pacing
so that every scene
builds in suspense
and tension.

In the movie of my life
everything will be smarter
faster
and better
than in real life.

All the people
I could never please,
and things I never did,
and every needless worry
I courted
won’t make the final cut,

and all kind words
belated wisdom
and quotable epigrams
left unspoken
will be dubbed in
during post-production.

The final indignity:
the movie of my life
will go
straight
to home video.

[Posted in honor of my 50th birthday this coming Friday.]

Bad Boy and Family Man

I'm the guy you used to want.

I'm the one who snuck you
out the window of your
parent's house
and took you on my Harley
and we drank and rode all night
falling asleep in the wet grass
after fornicating behind the church
both of us knowing
you had an algebra test the next morning.

I'm the one who didn't take
any shit from anyone and though it
cost me a couple lousy jobs and
a high school diploma
you still acquiesced to
my fearless desire
because something in your soul
was lit when you were under
my alpha male charm.

There was no fight too small,
my fists leapt at every opportunity,
while I did heroic lines of coke
and stole what I didn't have
and I didn't care about tomorrow
and when marriage number one crashed and burned
I blamed her for it
and I did all these things
because that's what got me laid
and it felt right.

Now time has slowed me
and I have seen error of those ways.
I found a family
and maybe it was the kids that
finally softened me,

but most likely it was
my wife's love all along.

Now I wake up every morning
shave and put on a clean shirt
and I say "yes, sir" to a lot of guys
that I might have bitch-slapped
back in the day,
and I call home before I leave work
to ask if she needs anything
from the store
even if it's tampons.

I take out the trash,
help one daughter with her algebra,
pick up my son and his friend
and take them to the bowling alley,
and sit through another re-run
of "Full House" with my littlest one,

and sometimes,
in my quietest moments
both Bad Boy and Family Man
will appear to me
at the same time
asking the same question:

who are you?

[Posted for #OpenLinkNight - at www.dversepoets.com - come along and find your new favorite poet.  BTW, this is a re-posting of a poem I wrote in 2006. Everyday I'm posting autobiographical poems to commemorate my turning 50 years old later this week. ]

Retracing My Steps

When I started
I wanted to be Groucho Marx,
then I wanted to be
John Lennon
because they looked
confident,
distinct,
alive.

Hn high school
I wanted to be
John Travolta from
“Saturday Night Fever.”

Then I became
Woody Allen,
then Richard Pryor
because they helped me feel
less ashamed
that I wasn’t
White or Christian.

In college
I wrote pointless plays
trying to be Neil Simon
and I tried to love
as easily as Leo Buscaglia.

Then I wanted to be
an iconoclast
so I tried being
Warren Farrell
and Lenny Bruce.

I became a drunk
trying to write like Bukowski
and I made a lot of lousy
demo recordings trying to be
Prince.

I loved and I tried
to salvage broken women
who refused my help
because I saw myself
as a mix
of Jesus Christ and
Rhoda Morgenstern:
I would prove
that I was better
than the rest
by loving the unlovable
especially
since I believed
I didn't deserve better
than that.

When I
married and became Pop-o
I tried to become my own father,
but that was a dead end too
especially since
he didn't have much faith in me
until I graduated from college.

So here I sit
at 43
retracing my steps
I smile at my folly,
realizing all these people
were only signposts
pointing me to
here and now.

This flower is still blooming
this song is not over yet
and I know I’m closer
to the dessert
than the appetizer,

and I’ve only recently figured out
that I’m my own
do-it-yourself project

and if I do it right
maybe
I’ll be a signpost
in someone else's life.

The Starlight Ballroom

In the Starlight Ballroom
it is closing time.

The music turned tuneless,
the floor, littered
with used napkins
and discarded hopes.

He'll give the place
one last look,
finish off the drink
that's kept him company,

and remember
that laughing girl,

wondering
who's she with now?

It doesn't matter.

Tomorrow will bring
fresh glitter
and opportunities.

Finally,
when the music's over
as the lights come up,
he sees his counterparts
scattered like bodies
on a smoldering battlefield,

each one hopeless
lifeless and lost,

but the most disconcerting
thought is

how alike they all appear
this late
at night.