1 Month

When you finally find a quiet place,
its too quiet. The audacity of your own thoughts,
too clear, unsympathetic, all racing, all proclaiming
"ME! LISTEN TO ME!"                        and the jumble of them,
all so child like, all so immature, like the
7th graders that fill your day, needy, impatient,
and you end up trying to soften, to redirect,
to scold or discipline them rather than
listen. Rather than hear, investigate, dissect, negotiate.
Rather than warm them with your
own heart, you write them off as
just more traffic noices, engines unmuffled,
honks and whistles ,
more blaring jazz and peoples' voices
straining, screeching, yelling
over the raucus.

Tempered chaos is still chaos, muffled
or not the roar is enraging, a constant
tickle, a need to squint, a clenched
jaw, always crane-lifted shoulders.

I spend my opened eyed hours tensly
debating, the best use of a moment, the best
plan for the next. Its a straining choke-hold
of the present. So that nothing is clear,
all tunnel vision, all confined and echoey
as darkness surrounds me. 

Concretely I grade essays, tests and
worksheets. I ask for refinement, definition,
rearrangements and clarification.
I reach into the jumble of alien words
that are meant to be English, and clutch at significance
whenever I can reach it.

I preach clarity of thought through mumbles
 and gasps and mistakes and breaches,
preach clarity of action while trembling
on murky footpaths, through the dark on creaky bridges.

I hear the river, its spoken of only in
warnings, the "You should know...s" the
"Be aware...s" the storied victims.

Ever present scanning, imagining, holding
stern, always planning, a need for an escape,
a resting place, a way out, a back up
just in case...
                 And holding this back pack,
                 stops us short, from truly getting
                 acquainted... "I'm here NOW,
                 Listen! I've had a messy thought...."
                 Says the uniformed vagrant.

I'm pretty sure mortality is just a joke someone came up with and we've been dying of laughter ever since

14 familiar summits

Your smile is a song I've always known,

 though I've heard it for the first time, today,

Somewhere in my stretching arteries,

       a shout,

                    a pounce,

                                   an "I've got you!"

Now, where did that come from?

      Some melody wrapped around my throat,

Choking on joy, the glow and blush

of cheeks raised. The notes easing aches,

And causing entirely different intestinal pains,

My toes tap the new heart rhythm...

I've seen glimmers in eyes,

     heard the stars and their high notes,  but there's 

Something like comfort in your gaze,

Like a song sung by our mother, like 

A song sung before the lapse in innocence,

And my instinctual reaction to hymns like that, is to shiver, to shudder, an attempt to contain,

Soon my lids  will close to your light, 

          but my soul will

             dance 

               uplifted 

        by your harmony. 

    

13 This is How We'll Pass

How will you find me

            my face buried in a sketch pad or

            furiously writing,

or me you, 

            your face buried in a book,

            somehow both smiling and crying?

My hair is short now, my piercings in some

            drawer somewhere...

and you'll be on a bad hair day,

           too busy running from project to project.

I'll be too lazy that day to try something new, 

and you'll be too caught up with friends to notice me.

I'll have stains on my pants that day, 

           and you'll be in your most intimidating outfit.

You'll be in a hilarious mood,

           I'll be consoling a friend.

I'll be wandering in Bolivia  and you'll be

         wandering in Bangladesh.            

You'll be thinking that I'm just some crazy guy staring, 

        and you'll hurry to get away

and I'll be staring just like some crazy guy, muttering 

        and wondering what to say

...that will make you want my name?

       
       

(12) Togetherness

She brought in the                

cold with her,     and             

we all shivered, 

She in relief,                             

and we in our bitterness

11

Comforting,          thats what she said,

when I had said I was annoying.

                  to be comforting,

                  what a blessed position,       

                  to be somebody's pillow,

                  their chocolate cake,

                  their chicken soup,

                          their background music

                      in line with their rhythm.

                      no ache in their stomach,

                           no longing in their diaphram,

                      no anxiety dreams in their sheets.

If I could be,               by just being

I'd enjoy that

                               probably more than they

                                            would.

10

There are thousands of us
Roaming
      The majority young
And dreadfully lonely
Looking for fulfillment
In the hollows, the cracks where the bricks
         have been warn by winds and passerbys fingertips.
The smoke of too many cigarettes,
The smells of too many sun embraced steps in the afternoon's sweat,
In the late to bed searches, for agreement in gestures, in eyes that say yes
while drinks put to rest, all thoughts that had festered, all thoughts of regret,
In moments of  pleasure what need of respect?
             What          need, to be known.