Tag: boyfriends

One of Many Things

I think what I adore about you most
is your compassion for creatures in need:
the softshell turtle caught in dirt you freed;
protecting the mother hens on the coast
of the pond from a rowdy drake engrossed
in his hormones; and when you took the lead
trapping and releasing to his green weeds
the little lizard found on our bedpost.

Spiders, moths, and even juvenile wasps,
you do what you can to bring them from harm.
Even when exhausted you don't exhaust
your kindness for helpless things. That's the charm
which draws us to your arms, especially
the one who needs you more than any: me.

Homesick

Autumn in Fort Wayne,
Indiana, solely known
From my love's tristesse:
The browning leaves he misses,
First snow, furrows in his brow.

I despise airplanes;
But if I had the money,
We'd fly back and forth
From the glades of Florida
To Indiana's corn fields.

Something I’m trying to hold onto

Always insisting 
 on the most extreme
  nothingness,

Bitter and afraid—
 not of being ignored,
  you've never been noticed—

But of having to wait
 in the incalculable queue,
  already dwindling and gray.

Unwilling to gamble
 living in vain (until when?)
  you want another nothing? Now?

Nothing is nothing,
 yet here you are:
  something I'm trying to hold onto.

Splashes of colored ink,
 papier-mâché fantabula,
  cryptic libido,

Note taken of the yellow-
 striped grasshopper
  who climbed over your shoe.

Afraid of inertia,
 quiet home days
  indistinguishable from graves.

But we have luck, not pine,
 we have four walls and more;
  we have time.

Though we're aging, yet to emerge,
 bottle up each vintage of art
  with experience and tenderness.

Each episode
 when I call you or you call me
  in excitement, look!

The cardinal in the backyard tree;
 the woodpecker
  rapping on the windowpane.

We are small,
 but we have small things
  that can sustain us.

Since we weren't born
 into great things,
  let us accumulate

These tiny, common
 miracles anyone 
  can have, yet these are ours

And ours alone;
 when you dream of blood,
  wake up beside me.

Problems of Experience

It's strange, I've always lived near water, but
I've never been on a wave-striding ship;
Never traveled on the char-belching train,
Nor to a metro ever descended.
I've flown twice, both times were quite unpleasant.
I did ride the bus once on a late night.

My own quandary of opportunity:
In some ways too much, others not enough.
Born into a lens both close and remote,
An existence both strange and typical,
A small life of idiosyncracies
Spinning on the fringe of a family,

Abiding in the shell of employment,
And scuttling among intimate sands
Which only a temporary few see.
Individuated yet standardized.
Delivered to concrete nurseries sat
On top of systems of gray tumuli.

The cloistered taste of a car ride to work,
The connectivity that bores straight through 
Hearts of peoples, a cavern of fogged glass
Hazing infinite personal corners.
A secret trend of water which becomes
Grinding dust piling in obscurity.

Everyone's. Intimate universals.
I don't think it's hell anymore, but he...
And it's only because of him I don't.
He needs an assurance that I can't give,
A worth assessment I'm unqualified
To draft. Appraisals all proffered in vain.

The art of life hides in single vignettes,
In cringe-inducing squeaks of affection
Only one other is allowed to hear;
Which circumstances set the scene for that:
The way his eyes touch me across the room,
Two dorks who somehow found each other's life.

He begs me, how will I recreate him
When he succumbs at last to hopelessness;
How can I fashion his desire's likeness,
How characterize his need for purpose,
His sketching hands working wood waywardly,
His eye that shutters on rainbow fabrics;

I hope someday he comes around, accepts 
Life as we could be sharing it right now.
He could unfold into so many sparks.
Rather than smoldering rage from the past,
He can rekindle brilliant burning tears
Dropped from a point-of-view only he knows.

Our problem lies in our experience.
What secret language is ours to convey
Nebulous commonalities distilled,
The nighttime jokes incomprehensible,
But in our bed makes laughter reign supreme.
Bike helmet with inverted cyclist crest.

If everyone has something they could share,
Is the key not in how these looks are framed?
We thirst for novelty of perspective;
What's something only we'd know of?
Did you ever hear the one about the
Famous Satanist? He Thelema dick.