March Out…..

March 2012

Hit the Road Jack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjdahefhOEQ

Ray Charles- Listen & read…..Smoking Version

*

What women tell me?

*

What they want.

*

(Of course…but can I ask you a question? Is anybody as interesting after 3 beers and looks back at you that same way too?)

 *

They tell me.

 

Love me.

Put up or shut up.

 

Sustained without question

or

I will send you away now.

Because I can always find better.

Younger.

Better looking,

and more dough.

But.

 

Forgive.

 

Forget.

 

Play nice.

 

And remember

 

how much you’ll miss me.

 

Call me.

Never call me.

The number

will be changed

Just more unavailable information

 

Give me what I want

or else.

 

Wordlessly

 

If not ?

Nothing you can say

makes a difference.

 

Forget the poetry.

 

Just Apologize.

For my lack of guts

Honesty

and inability to face

the truth

of Terrible Now.

 

Take me

or leave me

but be patient

with me as

I make up my mind

or then being certain

You need to go away

for the best of all

concerned.

 

Except you and me.

 

Take me

Adore me.

Dance in my arms

To a song only we could hear.

Make me a drink.

Feed Me.

Do me.

(But good)

 

Then cuddle my ass

till you go blind

to all my faults.

But in our eyes ?

 

We never saw that

in each other.

 

And above all ?

 

Understand.

Love me.

and when I tell you

enough is enough ?

 

Forget me.

Let me

have our past

as some benign pet

that comforts my memory

when I’m a little blue.

 

So just forget.

 

But remember

 

that you didn’t give me

what I wanted.

As an anonymous world

passed by with a cold

eye of judgment

you took it to heart

and ran with it.

 

Hard and fast.

 

And we had to deal with

that and everything in-between..

no matter

what the scene.

 

And after

all that we shared?

 

What I was left with ?

 

Her saying….

 

Get it through your think skull..

 

I’m done

with you.

 

……..I think.

7/2011

 From Sometimes Grief-

 

7/11

*

 Daylight Stealing Time  

 So we lose a little time

in the wee hours tonight

We steal the hour here.

Conspire to hide

And try to forget…..

 

O Please don’t wonder where or how….

 

C’mon…

Squirrel away an hour in secret

Pull backwards at the hands of the clock face.

Tick along with me

And try to remember

 

How we once made the red finger talk

as it passed us by again and again.

 

Tonight we turn back time

Won’t you turn back some time with me.

Like crisp clean chilly starched sheets.

Peel away the day

and slip in between.

 

Won’t you turn your back on some time with me

upon that maybe once perhaps we just might agree.

 

We did steal that time

hid in the lost hour

put it away somewhere

where they’ll never found it

never even missed it.

 

In the cool clear evening

after all the daylights busy color has faded

and all that is left is just us

clearly a jail break

a common escape

was in progress.

 

I heard sirens in the distance.

I saw sirens in your eyes

They reported an all points bulletin.

The authorities were baffled.

As we spoke

Roadblocks were being planned.

 

Officers  produced snapshots

of our expired images

The ones we once looked like then

in the silence of the hours

we stole.

 

Our crime

is now public knowledge.

The purpose of the theft

was always open

to common conjecture.

The motive attributed

to persistent desire.

 

It is after all

the only clues

we will left them with

even if

our fingerprints

upon each other were dusted as evidence

so in the sequent investigation and official report

it indicated we were all over everything

including each other now.

 

Won’t you turn your back

again on some time with me

upon that maybe

just once perhaps we might agree.

 

To get away with

one secret perfect crime.

Again.

 

 

From Greetings from Gridville            Spring 99/05/12

*

 

Mercy’s Flame

*

 Throughout the day

mercy’s flame

flickered in the March

wind shaking

its fist in every face

rattled every locked door

in windows beating

cracking glass

calling out by name

all those who would

sustain mercy’s flame.

 

Locked out from the inside

Locked in from the outside.

 

Did any of that matter

in the least now ?

 

Throughout the night

now barely illuminated

faded Mercy’s flame

March winds beyond

the touch to fan

to  kiss combustion’s  dying embers

with sleepy red eyes

back to life.

 

March was trying all the locks

the gust could muster

to be allowed

to come back

to life here.

 

Throughout the years

now what is this

stray shadow of warmth

or pale lost hope

still smoldering

in a place

where

dark rings of scorched memory

reduced to white fine ash

refuse to be blown away.

 

It is the wind that March tests

shaking

its fist in every face

rattling every locked door

in windows beating

cracking glass

calling out by name

all those who would

sustain mercy’s flame.

 3/2012

 

*

Still time

*

The Romans named

The month March

I always thought

Drag would work

Here much the same.

 

Not a new year anymore

Quickly the cement days

Harden

Into a pattern

A past

A clear path of either

Charge or retreat,

 

But in this illusion

Thinking there is still time

Fading winter evenings

As spring light lingers

Longer in the sky reach

Forestalling twilight longer.

 

The anchor of the passing days

Leaden, barbed, heavy in ways

Digs into the bottom of

Every passing wave

arrest progress in the cruelest of ways

Restrained

To drain away

In being held back

Securely in place.

 

March nowhere

Drag all the time

Crying some feeble

Consolation…

 

There’s still time

           Still time…..

 

No

There isn’t any still time…..   ever

In fact ?

 There is no such a thing

3/11

 *

*

Mad March World

 

In this light

March simply has

nowhere to go

but……on.

 

The step in the day

a longer presence

of illumination into

the afternoon later now

every new year born

in this same way.

 

There is this sense of urgency

a sort of headless Madness

that ignites

brittle tree limbs to

fan fine struck fingers

in complicated silhouette

 

flung across the horizon

like a bottle of India ink

spilled and splattered

upon a pale blue sky page.

 

I send these words

mere reflection

auditory stenography

purely dependent

on perception systems

beyond my grasp or control

 

Along the prescribed channels

as the pale blue light

drains the light

from the sky’s page.

 

                                                                                                             3/11

*

*

                Fragments of the March

 

Light upon the lake

Waves frozen in mid-break

 

Broken Shafts of weak March sun

newly poured upon cracked and

shattered sheets of hyper-white

entrenched ice

a history of persistent bitter air

trapping flowing waters still born

beneath.

 

Light upon the Lake

waves frozen in mid-break

 

Barely Marching sun

arrested impressions

strange frigid contours

rivets of pressure

compacted tighter

isobars deceptive surface

unlikely to support any weight

 

Yet enough to entrap

a fool’s misstep

 

Light upon the Lake

Waves frozen in mid-break.

 

3/2011