the ground remembers her

thanksgiving weekend has done me good. i have had 4 days to really get my batteries recharged and prepare myself for the november/december marathon.

i have really enjoyed spending time with the extended families too. i relish the opportunity to reconnect with people i haven't seen in a long time. best of all, i get to listen to the stories that fill up the books of my family history. this year we even watched some home movies that just about everyone forgot even existed. it was slightly embarrassing, but fun. i had a really fantastic talk with my mom about my grandparents relationship too. here are some thoughts that have been stewing.

---

my grandfather
loved my grandmother
in a stifling way
i imagine their courtship
he arrives from the heat of a summer day
smelling like a tobacco blossom
her shy eyes meet his
hand on the small of her back,
he guides her to the car

years later
he sits in their smoke filled kitchen
brandishing a hand of cards
like a loaded weapon
offers a kiss to the cheek
as she delivers a cold beer to the table
his conversation with the male neighbor
continues on casually
and he makes some remark
about the value of a good woman

in the dark of their bedroom
he whispers into the softness of her neck
his words of love
he wraps his arms around her as if she were some fragile bird
and admits the fear that rests behind his closed eyes
that she may dissapear
into the stillness of the night
without so much as a sound

she has been without him thirteen years now
and she tells me she can sometimes hear him
asking for a light
or a sandwich
when the night air settles in around her
that is his gentle way
to stifle from the beyond

---

home movies

watching myself
immortalized in celluloid
the colors of my hair and skin
wavering like the reflection of water on the side of a pool
here is the evidence
that once, despite my current state of cynicism and lethargy
i was young and energetic

who was that child, full of questions?
where did she learn those words
and would she let me borrow them
if i promised to return them in mint condition?

incense and sunglasses on orchard street

i met with an old friend today, and it was like....whoa. sometimes you don't even realize there is a gaping hole in your life until someone starts to kind of contort their self into the shape of the hole with the express intention of filling it in. i can only smile about it.

i had forgotten
the shape of your mouth
when your lips curve to smile
the shock of straight, white teeth

it is a memory
that i will dog-ear
mark "for future reference"
now that i have
a keener understanding
of where such memories should be kept

such memories are kept
near that indexed spot
where happiness is also stored

---

taking the view of you in from across the table
i feel old memories shift
they loosen themselves from the mental woodwork
like spiders
creeping down a thin sinew
to the present

i think back to an evening
where you and i
held hands in a dark room
and pondered those transcendental things
those mysteries
life
and love

we were children then
free from the weights of obligation
that we carry around today
like tarnished badges of honor
there was mental space
that we had devoted
to one another
and we intended to fill it with
those fantastical hypotheses
that only our joint genius could produce

we had little understanding
of that omnicscient reason
we were brought together
which i think
is probably still the case

and in some ways
you and i
will always be in that dark room
holding hands
having a semi-conscious experience
thinking big thoughts
and i am glad
that some part of that carefree past
will live on
ghosting the moments between our sleep and wake

fight this- the language barrier

a palpable tension rises-a dense fog
we find we are somehow equipped
to feel our way through

i imagine two antennae
protruding from our heads
reaching out to read the chemical messages
that float in the air between us

the typical senses are dulled
the cells do their hurried work
compensating, acting out a part
written in the language of a dream
a continuation without conscious effort

our fingers and mouths are numbed
stunned by their own irrelevance
a cruel joke of evolution it is
to leave those organs there, sans occupation

-----

(a revelation)

with you there can be no secrets
you could coax a murderer's confession from me

words leave my mouth half-laughing
as if i were caught in a photograph
taken at an absurd angle
unable to digest your innuendos

the sarcasms that i pour out
the same bland, tasteless effusions
that my tastebuds have grown accustomed to
now come tinged in truth
that stings and burns
on the exit

i must manage this condition
if left unchecked,
your ability to douse words from me
(water from a stone)
your vision
could burrow a hole
into some currently vacant room of the heart
thus ending my ability
to resist your particularly vicious carcinoma

liking the idea of an idle caress

i tried to edit this down, and i'm not completely satisfied. i think it is missing something.

you squeeze
(even mangle)
my prerogative
turn it to something
unrecognizable
take it and hide it behind your smiling teeth
like a piece of gum
casually moved out of my view

a scene is set
the feather is perched
oh-so-precariously on the edge of the table
the cat
poised to pounce
the marbles leaping on the hard floor
(my heart jumps a little at the thought
the reverberations of arrythmia
felt in earlobes
the fingers search for an occupation)

again, the color rises in me
there is a frenzy stirring below this surface
and all you can do is grin and watch the fallout

-----

this is a short little something that filled up the margin of the page. it's sassy. maybe i will continue on with this at a later date.

you move like a man i used to sleep with.
he could not handle
the love that i sectioned off
and spoon fed him.

a small smackerel of something sweet

i'm giving in. it has been an insanely long time since i have shared any written work, but the bug caught me. yes, the bug CAUGHT me. i think it has something to do with the fact that all the writing that i've completed for roughly the last 8 years was strict nonfiction. research stuff. clinical descriptions and the like. it's been 8 years of writing that left me unsatisfied. i am at a point in my life where i can start focusing on the mundane makeup of my day to day again. the words are flowing right now, and i love it.

for many years i have been a speaking/hearing/writing person. i love the power that people give to their words. in formal writing i ramble on, feeling like i have to give life to my subject by building it up with adjectives, give it an occupation with verbage. and yet i love brevity. i love a succinct sentence, a thought portrayed in an image, so here are some snips that i have selected. something to whet the palate.

1.

i am all that you say
driven and unsure
focused as a line of ink on the page
a smoothly defined thought
scrawled into the pages of your life

this sentence
we somehow piecemeil together
you add a word
and i come behind
punctuating the moments with meaning

2.

(a smile) managed with the corners of the mouth turned down
a drop of rain slides across the curve of the window
slowly feeling the effects of gravity
the small, tinny sounds of our laughter
joining in the still air

you are the rarest of pleasures