Hay Sol

In a corner of my mind, in a
       corner of my life, the spotlight
                                         shines
 on squares of Spanish tile
where we
danced-
or should have.  I drew a picture of it once
 in the beginning
                                                                            but left
out morning
when I should not have.
 The result was a morbid sort of numbed
                                                                       beauty, charcoal dusty, making you believe I wasn't caught.
 I'd have cleaned that
floor, on hands and knees, a little housewife.  I''d have watched that damn movie a million
                                                                                                              more times for that.  The
blue long climb of the tub and the
                               heat of time wiping out days, the sparkle of the
backyard water and the laughter granted.  Breakfast cooking
               when
               we woke
                  (eggs like eyes,
                       saying, rise and shine and your bloody marys, the color of the mulberry pops on our
walks)

and nothing much to do.
       One year my flight delayed and seems the
next year, my life delayed, but even though I missed it then,
                        I know it now.

The Music In It
Carry On Tuesday
                                         

Let's Leave

Life is too short to work so hard,
         so, let's kiss instead.
Make it a marvel.  Reveal
                 to me your secrets through your embrace. Weave a freckled flower through my hair.

Let's get lost in a diner, dance
               on a table, make
                            everybody look,
make everybody
talk.

Let's
               spend all our money up,
stay too long,
laugh too loud,
cause I don't
want
      to miss this.

Pardon my mess;
I'll forgive what you forgot.  Let's be
                          young and love the world today.
                                                                  Throw away
                                                                                    your list of sins and loss.  File them under the who-cares-anyway tab, and
let's find meaning in this moment, not worrying
                   about what's closing in;
search profundity in the seduction of a jukebox.

Your shape and my color, let's blend and spin and mix and match.
Get right out
               of the core of things, decode
by undressing our hearts, play house and nice for now.

Please, take off early.  Let's
                                   leave
now.

Carry On Tuesdays
The Mag

Above the ruins

Above the ruins of the past, we
  build a monument of all we've learned.  Buried beneath
                              our wisdom,
                                    we've left decaying days.
                                                                       Sturdier than
                                                                         that slab gravel hope, our
intentions slant
but point.  We part the
sky in declaration and clouds pardon our insistence-clearing in absolvance.
Strong to weather, unmoved by either
   rain or rub.  Fragments of
                                 each
 have
formed the irrefrangible and the new has only risen from prior pain.  That which we,
ourselves, are made of.  The flooding gut of springtime
     saturated seeds,

painted grey our walls but not for
                              lack of
loveliness.  The mind's eye still
                             sees within, the
reeds, the palm grass prisms growing, waving on.
Faith
fossilized, we've split where weak
     scarred now with scales for strength, so
                            the future palpitates.
                                             

Carry on Tuesday

Magpie Tales

Maybe

Your colors are bleeding 
                   and I'm completely undone, here.
                         I want and I want.  More and more.
                   And I can't.
 But when you move this way, eurhythmic, I see something I didn't before.
The world stops,

 and now I'm
                                in a movie
where love is real,
                 so where can I go?
                                     I feel as though, in these moments, I've been here before, though I haven't.
Our bodies know each other and I don't talk
           this

way.
Maybe I could leave the fear behind this year.  Start with the belief you're teaching me.  Maybe  the girl I was
                    is coming out when I'm with you
 and you are new
but
then a friend of old.
   Enlivened in the flush of flesh,
            I will die.  How could I have missed this?  I'm waiting for the end but reveling in the gush of dawn.
I'm going down with you.  I am drowning in the constitution of your song, singing too.  Your words remind me of what I'm unaccustomed to and you're weaving a brand-
                    now story and I'm wearing it around my neck.
                                           I want to
 cheat
         the surface scrivening -
learn your longhand instead.
                                  See, I have this one eye
         that glazes,
but it's the one that apprehends.
         The angry facts glare, so I must consent
                and I'm alright till
       I touch your face where it's
                                                soft
and then
where it's not-
then I'm using terms like perfect and grouping words like fingers, tracing and beneath.  I'm recalling
                                                                                                               body moments
 like arms and the wide curve of your back and the juncture of belt loops tugged
                                                                        taunt my memory.
See?
 Racing, mind's ahead but heart is catching up
each time our hands lace like
                                         that.  When I'm content and still, I'm shocked.
                                                                                                     Stay and forever and please.  The wings of your whispers have found me out, collecting
tender twigs
of sentiment.  Carve from
            me
 a novel for the ages.


Imaginary Garden With Real Toads
Carry On Tuesday
The Music in It

Stating Finally

How ought
  one to know when
         the
            end of love should be?

                              Some might say,
 love,
 if it
be true,
         ends not.

How then, ought
   one to know when
love is true? (If emblazoned flame dims to mere dulled glow can she then be reassigned? 
                                               Destroyed in 
                                                              imagination, existing only in the substance of
                                                                          the actual, whatever that is, does she die with death or answer Hamlet in elements
                           strong and stunning?)

                                  I know not.  I know only this:
                                                  that she whispers relent-
                                                                                lessly, (must we treat her as
                                                                                                              a 
virus, kill her with starvation,
cure ourselves with lust instead? Abuse her in her
    redemption, her assumption,
                         her persistence, harbor
malice toward her tender grace?  Deny pursuit for fear
            of sham? 
Gloss illusions, hoarding piteous imitation, bargain legalities of- 
                               disadvantaged humans that we are.  
     Social dances, we empty purse of sentiments pinched,
 garnering interest as we go, shush her when she comes to supper, call her bluff, her fluff. It makes us blush. 
                        She's blunt and eager, sighing
                                         and we have work to do. 
                                                                  Reduce her to a grudge, shelve her, 
               hold her
tongue,
we of sober mind find solace in naked,
                      natural
void.
She is for the young, the stupid, the uninformed.  What might she say
      if we should listen?)
                                                                                   seeks now to give, requiting less a need than once, twice,
thrice before.
She is truer than
bluer, baser pining, tall and ever guiding, honest in submission, if less so in admission. (She won't be rushed so we snub her 
                                                          healing, sooth marrow with alleviating whim) She speaks
                                                                in silence and in words
                                                                in souls, in hearts, creation.
                                                                         Loudest often in her absence
                                                                                                  and quiet when observed.
                                                                                                                             She's all
                                                                                                                                      and everywhere.
Seen not
when sought by self.
Perhaps, nature, her purer form
        and realized
                                                                 deeper there.
She weaves with
       wind,
sings with swallows, dares to dwell in dust
                   and in these places, I admit, I've often overlooked
             her air.
                   Alone, I hear her
say I'm not and
she whispers
secrets I can not
         tell
and though I'd like to pluck her from the heart (for
what can the 
                  heart know?) and place her somewhere nobler - the soul is safer, the spirit wiser-
                                                                                                          I fear she'd just return.

And so the question haunting; (the
             thorn offending,
scandalous revery, composed of perfect view) this I find, I can return,
            to where love was born or made, discovered or existent all along.

                     In drops, I understand her mystery, exchange musings for her maker.
     Make
     me, still.
     Made me
once
 to love, be loved, to wonder
and releasing, I will give
                                                     and receiving, I will
                                                                                live.
"Where there is love there is life."
                     She is true as beauty, beautiful
                                      as truth.
Love
     ends not
for she possesses no beginning.
     She circles life and subject, inviting, not expecting,
hand held out or
     down,
I've grabbed her,
                entered now her orbit, retraction
                 no more a choice than day and night, embodied within a spectrum,
light's glory shining bright
 and encompassed but extended, my own hand travels out; an invitation lacking only expectation,
stating finally,
                love never ends.

Carry On Tuesday
The Music In It