For A Friend, On The Occasion Of Her 20 Years

In the theater of our minds,
each we a magician of sorts
the requisite patios
and stage set to our design,
we can spellbind
at least a few
and enjoy a season
where it's fun awhile
until enters one asking
"Why do you do that?"

The disappearing silk scarf trick
was not so entertaining after
and then cognition falls hard on our construct
practiced to keep loneliness within reach
while performance anxiety increased
(it is only during performance we momentarily forget).

I could never do levitation,
but He does it well
raising me off a collapsing stage
saving me from a second career
as a comedian
in search of a punch line.
No, delivering a monologue of truth
in a world of love and beauty
is far more satisfying
than living with a coin behind my ear.

Sharing

I don't want to own you
can't, really
You are not yours
that I could possess
but if you, and yours
would share of yourself
we might come
to a new
understanding of love

Blah, Blah, Blah

Your lips move
like fishes' in a bowl
but I hear nothing
of what you say.
The shell held
to the side of my head
is more clear
and makes more sense

Judgementally Yours

I find him dull
she makes me nervous
they have much to consider
we are wise
you look angry
she is shortsighted
he needs to quit drinking;
my ability to constantly judge
frightens me.

Imprisoned

At times
I may envy prisoners
captured in a just war
confined by a physical enemy.
There's no effort to bore
under the skin, to heart,
and play that sliver of hope
haunting a simpler cell of passions
clinging stubbornly to a silk rope
fraying in full light
of solitary confinement.
No, I'm none-too-bright
for remaining in bereavement.

Honest

Growing from a
shallow pleasure-seeking male
tragically un-self-aware
in his crude long-distance attempts
to violate your form
to a more faceted man
now aware the effects
of his brutish behaviors
I make no apology
for my dis-like of sleeping alone
but I'd rather win your affection
first

Blindsided

How has it come?
there was youth,
then Love;
a certained indefatigable Spirit.
Tending memories, coddling pasts,
those pasts, her,
recalled experiences as exhilarating
as the finest spring breath.
He'd left it all to chance,
or specified women, and now
blindsided by loneliness
and loss,
waxing and waning unpredictably,
but mostly waning;
an ordinary mortal
leads an un-heroic life
until nothing remains inside.
No, tears are not just water.

In My Cupboards

There are Jaipur vegetables
in my new home,
Craisins, clover honey,
and maybe twenty different teas.
Pastas, Clabber Girl,
Real Mayonnaise and Agave Nectar;
things with names like
Kashi and Bumble Bar,
with canisters of cocoa, coffee
and Whole Foods Shake
vanilla flavored,
Green Vibrance (what is that?)
and Whey Protein Powder
also flavored vanilla.
But there is no vanilla,
and I'm searching for love.

Math as a Tool

His life a celebration
of geometry applied,
geometry being
the language of reason;
insignificance, silence and
dissimulation became
his most powerful tools.

Awe-Struck Fool

In awe her beauty
when first we met
my pen took flight
and I enrapt'
as fish in net
dreamed her above;
far removed
from human love.

For that same why
I could not kiss her
and now she's gone,
Oh, how I'll miss her
and rue the cowardice
that ruled mis-start
and cheated joy
from mortal heart.

Dis-ease

Cruel in its' envy
and in its' greed
dis-ease stands ready
to replace each need
with sickness that
would scatter seed
'cross any path
that might lead
a troubled spirits'
valiant efforts to succeed
in vanquishment
its' vile deed.

True Beauty

In renouncing vanities never possessed
for which she held no desire
(airs of non-aspiration
so clung to by society's
idle economic thug-ettes),
her natural charity,
called Love by some,
usurped the driving force
and multiplied her beauty.