Apples.
Always a sun-baked apple core on the dashboard.
It filled the car with a particular smell,
and it was good.
It smelled like soft, curly hair and wool sweaters.
It smelled like blasting the Counting Crows live version of “Mr. Jones,” and singing together even louder.
It smelled like your skin, your mouth, and kissing you on
brown, velvety, Honda seats.
It smelled like my first time driving stick.
It smelled like my first drive up a bumpy road, just to make-out.
It smelled like English class and parallel assigned seats.
It smelled like the most philosophical conversations I’ve ever had. It smelled like questioning God.
It smelled like graveyards and theme parks and mountain goats.
It smelled like innocence and deceit.
It smelled like our hearts gouged out with steel fingers.
It smelled like decision.
It smelled like candy machine rings and unconditional love.
Then all I could smell was goodbye.
All I could smell were chaos and lies.
Since then,
I stand sun-baked
as apple cores on dashboards.
Shriveled in spirit-
frozen in time like a mummified monument.
Looking my worst,
stinking up the place.
Filed under Lasting Impressions | Comment (0)Inertia on the 8′s
You. The one I can’t stand
to live without.
You intoxicate me with bad
jokes and good humor.
You dove deeper than any
living, single, soul-
cautiously into my turbid sea.
My soliloquies are silent.
Curiosity transposed to content.
Barefoot upon moonshine sand-
I run toward you
but wait patient and kind,
brave and true.
I’ve put the phantoms all to sleep,
no troubles left to linger deep.
Let’s walk along your hand in mine,
and take some steps backwards with time.
Birds transcending Autumns ending,
and now I learn to hunt
for You.
The one-
whom I’ve always known.
I remember my face turned red.
I remember staring at my feet.
And I’m on my way.
Brow to brow
nose to nose
former tangled love
still grows.
Filed under Lasting Impressions | Comment (0)Ghost
Golden tree tops
tempting wind
blowing in your ghost again.
A teasing trap
deceptive time
Your spirit’s months away from mine.
But months will pass
What if I fail?
What if we never find avail?
I blew it once
just like the wind
knowing our shared soul within.
I have to see you
just once more
And beg you then to hold the door.
Just once more
you won’t regret
The force of my hurricane is met.
My mind is full
of pleasant grace
just one small hole
please take your place.
Filed under Lasting Impressions | Comment (0)“My New Book”
I have to make a tribute considering the time of year it is. The man of the entry is, Greg Brown. He is a poetic genius and the rapture of his songs fill my longing soul. One song I am very partial to is called, “My New Book.” It makes me think of a chilly fall day, of pear and apple trees dropping fruit, of cold, wet grass slowly fading from green to yellow, of wood stoves drying the dampness in drafty cabins.
Filed under Lasting Impressions | Comment (0)Lipstick on a thermos cup, lust and whiskey fill it up
and smoke blows from the chimney to the moon.
It’s much too cold in the Midwest – chilly hands cup chilly breasts.
Things not said fill up every room.
As he stands there in the door, there’s no room for him anymore.
She lies there saying, “Honey take one last look.”
I’ll tell it all in my new book.
Above the city 300 feet, a derelict in a penthouse suite
packs his suitcase for the midnight train.
The rich girl could not face her dream.
He’s bitter coffee, she’s sweet cream.
She pulls on her shirt, outside it rains.
And later in the rambling dark, he’ll unwrap her broken heart
and smile the weary smile of the crook.
I’ll tell it all in my new book.
Coyote sleeps with everyone, but in the morning he’s long gone
and it turns out that he was a she.
Tales grow tall around the fire.
Where there’s no truth, no one’s a liar.
Whatever mask you wear is who you’ll be.
There is a hole in the day through which we make our gateway -
I make mine every time I’m shook.
I’ll tell it all in my new book.
We sift through culture run amok but our rhythm is still boom-boom-chuck.
The whole world to us is now a theme park.
The tourist takes the traveler’s place, buys a new body, a new face.
A hymn is not a hymn sung with no heart.
And I turn to the Man of Woe and ask him where there’s left to go -
he points down with his shepherd’s crook.
I’ll tell it all in my new book.
When they lead you to the wood, remember that you always should
leave a trail of black-eyed peas behind
so I can find my way to you, whatever you may get into -
you are the one I always long to find,
and when this crazy time is gone,
we’ll build a home down by a pond.
I’d make you a good mate -
I love to cook.
I’ll tell it all in my new book.
On old Cape Cod, it blows a gale.
I’ll be Jonah. You be the whale.
I want to dive as deep as we can go.
Your ship is sailing for the dark, leave your suitcase, take my heart -
hold me, stow me, love me very slow.
Why must this hour come to pass? I look at you and raise my glass.
Our kisses cannot stop the scythe, the hook.
I’ll tell it all in my new book.
I heard a young man sing a song, just that one, and he was gone
off on the journey we all used to make.
It was a song like rain and wind, reminded me of where I’d been,
and that wild feeling I can’t seem to shake.
I’d like to go into some shack and wait for that kid to come back
and sing until the walls and windows shook
and tell it all in my new book.
The soldiers meet between the fights to drink and gamble half the night
while waiting for the fresh troops to arrive.
The battlements will always stand, according to the ancient plan,
not a one of us gets out alive.
And as we huddled in the smoke,
I began to get the joke.
I laughed and kissed you while the whole world shook.
I’ll tell it all, in my new book.
apologies first…
she sits
car parked and
hoping
waiting for her
possibility
He is the one.
Regina sings of cleavage
but all I can do is start to miss You.
I start to miss you
when I hear the piano.
I start to miss you
when it’s summer.
We are Autumn leaves
on side walks between
rod iron fences and
coffee cups.
I miss your lips on
the rim of my glass of
smooth red wine-
on the rim of my
uncertainty,
making my truth’s definite
and my skin glisten-
in love.