I am much obliged

The night before swims in your eyes

And your perfume is leftover bilge

So I prefer being extinct to you

The morning suffers for you

You walk all over it

With tremored make-up

Speaking from the rasp that you are

You grate against all my sensitivity

Still, I can’t help but stare

Perchance you may bite

And grow on my bones.

I see last night’s minions

Weren’t far behind

As they flock around you

Like a murder of crows

Time has stopped too many times.

So I’d be much obliged

If you’d take the glass

And trinkets sparkle to dazzle

Someone else’s hung-over headache

And dried heave of a man

To spectacle, view another.

The morning’s cool blue

Slowly drift with a dusty of white opposing

Concrete shadows and twisted steel

Dead fountains dried for winter’s

Breath held till Crocus and Spring call

With their pale cold touch.

A story comes timid and cold

Over the ocean’s mist so old

Then it twists in the wind

Torn and frayed as what you’ve sinned

No matter what you suffer

The trials come from far hither

To test and bind your resolve

Then when there’s nothing to be solved

You know it’s always been

         Said and done.

I let the words dance

And throw themselves in the air

Floating, tumbling, twirling

The music carries them

All over (and then pause)

Here it is…….

I see you

A few steps

Hold your hand

Look in your eyes

And the world tumbles about us

We fail to see

For we are a part of the rest

Now I remember

I remember

When all this history began

The mess of a life

 So twisted torn and frayed

Pauper left to find his/her

Way back

To a place that doesn’t

Exist anymore.

Think hard

It hasn’t existed since 1968

It’s a withered tomb

Broken mast

Drunk and demented raging child

Hollering the world is coming to an end.

Hear the hypnotic ring

As it ripples through the air

Turn into the high of the rest.

Part 2

I am not that which I see

                            In the mirror, the reflection lies

Nature has formed me with the breast of a man

                                           And best intention’s guise

Turned what soft hand there was

                      To become the hard hammers of many lives

Under brooding and thunderous heaven

               Tearing the fabric of assumption sense denies

Winding moments into decades of aspirations into regrets

                                                 A present that cries

And cries aloud for truth to change the thing that I am

As day shows no stars

Oceans no secrets

I am as bright and as deep

I am not the shell

Assumed by the world

But the just gender unfurled.

Part 3

I see glimpses of me

When the gladiolus is in bloom

Perfumes the moment I pass

My breast swells when

I see a child distraught

In her discomfort of hunger

Or need of close caress

I am captivated when Mother Robin

Feeds her chicks

Quieting their cries of hunger

I am amused when the girls

Laugh with their freedom

Conquering the moment

With friendship and admiration

Of each other

I am amazed when these girls

Lack the oppression

And self-censorship

The last few decades imposed on me

I see a glimpse of myself

When rose blooms falter

Leaving petals strewn paths

Lush pink morning’s sleep

My heart swells when the great oak

And the elms dance in the wind

Letting the afternoon chatter with laughter

From Mercer’s tavern

Be carried off while I

Stroll a path in solitude

When I get home

Oppression and self-censorship

Has withered and waned

I look in the mirror

All I see is a lonely old man.