Every day, I choose you

Don’t fear the fervor of my leisure;
each venture falls as fast it rose.
As love, as lust (as every pleasure),
they’ve all made way for greener throes;
that is except for all I treasure:
this life (to which all others measure)
that I choose each day as hard I chose

before,
again,
evermore again.

Increment

There was never an urgency.
’Pinned’ in my messages, ‘Starred’ in my chats,
sound advice and mentorship at my fingertips,
banking on years of challenging questions,
astute insights, and a-ha moments.
But those chats now lay inactive -
‘12 days ago’ -
and they will increment for every day to come.

Hurt

Nothing fazed you.
Never scared to challenge a norm,
always ready for the next big adventure,
the next cage fight…
I had it down as ‘bravery’,
or some feverish determination
to never let this world keep you down;
to keep anyone down.

Nothing fazed you.
Never panicked by dire circumstance,
always channeling your focus for good,
for teaching us objective truths,
but I never knew the reason…
you never feared temporary discomfort
because nothing in this world could hurt you
more than you hurt already.

Mike

Was I toasting to you?
Compelled to smoke an Excalibur
and finish off a bottle of Rabbit Hole,
what deep pain was I trying to overcome
on behalf of a friend so many miles away?

Was that why I couldn’t sleep last night?
A sledgehammer held in the darkness.
Whose soul could relax and lay to rest?
Only the body ignorant of what has occurred.

How is it that you inspired so many,
only to martyr yourself to where we will not follow?
Your mentorship was not done!
We were not done!
But now I wonder if the calm behind your eyes
was death, all along.

I await each stage of this grief now knowing
that I don’t have you to call.
There are so many ways you helped me grow,
and I thank you for them all.

Another Life

I never thought we’d have the chance.
That spark struck in dire times
when darker luck detained our love,
and we joked perhaps “in another life”,
but did not know what we had sowed
until we woke in it together;
another life. This time, forever.

Flares

I looked over at the well,
leapt to my feet,
grabbed a bucket, ran for it,
dashed through puddles already forming
(unattended, and overflowing),
caught the water
as it throbbed, spilled,
rose in the center,
fell at the edges.
Held my bucket,
looked about for anywhere to empty it,
found only more water,
so began to drink.

Climbed into the well,
swallowed each bucket with a shallow apology,
sank lower,
deeper, darker, bleaker,
each night another bucket filled,
each night another wet brick recovered
at the cost of a soggy soul,
of drowned words and a sore jaw.
Laid down and done against the base,
reached to my waist,
pulled out a flare,
and fired it.
My literal last hope,
there, manifested,
and about as short-lived;

except, it wasn’t a flare,
and I didn’t sit there wondering if your ship would pass
today, tomorrow, or next week.
Instead, it was the final arrow in my quiver;
it’s feathered flight forged with forever’s fingers,
designed to travel any distance,
to cross any period of silence,
to strike, and then return to me
before your blood on its tip had time to dry.

--

But what of poetry?

I drank and sank with every sip;
a bucket filled, a brick revealed.
I drained and claimed back every drop
too long forsaken, but never forgot.

These prayers like flares are final hopes,
short-lived and shot in skies for ships.
I raised and aimed instead a bow;
an arrow forged in a missed tomorrow.

It flew and drew fresh blood from you,
then returned your redness to my reach.
With tacky fingers, I began to climb,
fighting to surface before they dried.

The Universe

Struggling to even find the words
is a failure to observe.
There should never feel enough of time,
but death is not the curse…
it’s forgetting there’s a duty
to go document your world.
That’s all your maker wants of you;
to write the universe.

Untouched

As for me, I’m left untouched;
anticipation come undone,
and dead as flags without their wind -
my fingers melt into the sun.

I’d cry but cannot bear the thought
that tears would be the first to know
and set upon my skin like sharks
who hunt the salt for blood in tow.

I suppose that’s why I have returned,
to lean my love upon a crutch;
no matter for why the lonely shore,
I shall not leave untouched.

The Traveler

To cross the ocean
is to ride atop life itself.

To cross the universe
is to empty yourself of life;

only you remain.

the future

a quiet moment, in our home
playing my songs for her on piano
discussing our future
I decided to play a new one
she cried at the crescendo
told me she loved it
but when I turned, ready to kneel,
she was already gone
apparently unaware of the stark proposal
from the other room she began remarking on some unremarkable thing
sheepishly, I pursued her
box in hand
"You forgot the best part", I said
and the rest is future

Vow

I find me recognizable.
Though far-flung from where I hung
and sung for empty bars,
swung swift through lanes and cars,
now sat atop the highest floor
surveying all that came before;
encapsulated by a skin
that bears the scars of seasons past -
at last! At last! A chance to pass
and elevate my heart above,
re-educate my soul to love
in ways of yesterday’s amazement;
every day unfazed to face it.
Live the life that we created,
and fight like hell to never break it.

Release

Let’s get lost somewhere in town,
and scuttle down these cobbled streets
to pubs discreet from public eyes,
and magnetize to cosy nooks,
among the books and wooden beams,
where streams of consciousness combine
like vines entwine and climb the spires,
like fires desire and feast on flames;
this hot exchange shall only cease
when bodies crease and breaths release.

But maybe it’s the cure

I drink like I’m trying to kill something inside me,
chipping away at it day by day,
unhooking its claws from my soft, internal flesh,
and occasionally bludgeoning its viral stranglehold
with a night of seppukurian abandon;
choosing for myself the most delectable,
grandiose of weapons
with which to cut me core to core.

I wish only to feel better,
to be free of that incessant writhing;
thick chains and dark anchors,
not weighing me down,
but suffocating me in place.

I hear the way that others say
they could quit at any time,
and I believe them; it’s easy leaving,
but they cannot see the fight I’m in;
I cannot let up
or it will win.

One more

I fixate on the heartbeats;
breaths swell like waves in caves.
I time the rise and shy retreat
to assure myself the ends will meet,
cos sometimes it seems to take them too long;
a moment stranded like forgotten songs
left to wonder if one day they’ll ever complete,
should the artist compose for my heart
one more beat.

Devoted

I stand devoted to the sea,
though she may never know the love,
there’s beauty in her fervency
that draws from deep to rise above.

I do what little a poet can
to cast a line into the swell;
with hopes for hooks, I haul with hands
to snag a lip or claw or shell.

I edge the tide in silent awe,
brace cold beside unwavering form,
bleed out and wash into the shore,
evaporate to join the storm.

Texas Hail

Throughout the broken night
their tears fall fast like Texas hail,
and crush the camps at city hall,
and rip the air with wails.

Four streets away from disarray,
we tightly lie awake,
and grip our bulletproof sheets, and peek
at tweets that make us shake.

Corks

I have a cupboard full of corks,
each one scarred red, with cored-out hearts,
each drilled by hand, then laid to rest –
or rather ‘tossed’,
in some feigned manner of casual
(after all, who cares?)
to the lower shelf, where nobody will find them.
And how I hope someone will.

Wait, they’d say.
What are these?

My pasture’s red

The blades of grass are tall and sharp,
curve like sabers from martian floors,
clink in the wind, spark in the night,
walk through till you’re ribbons,
bleed out till you’re slight,
feed my red pasture,
cut loose and lay,
rediscover the lover you lost on the away.

Dreams of Steel

About the second whiskey in
my guards depart on midnight trains,
and fell the station of refrain,
wherein, wherein, wherein

I start to clamber back to tracks,
where sleepers step with railed regret,
and for a moment I forget
the lack, the lack, the lack

of fastened steel that’s tried and true;
it courses in pursuit of bends
that buckle at the force you send
into, into, into

my wheels-for-feet that grip the turn,
knock loose the rusted threads and heads,
chase down the straights for those who fled;
Return! Return! Return!

Through a gap in the trees

Some nights when the air was warm and calm
we’d set up chairs, angled to the gap in the trees,
peeking at the bay, the moon, the port, the city,
from the balcony of our Jack London Square apartment;
two transplant wanderers, far from friends, family, and home,
gambling on the good nature of strangers,
and too proud of our independence to consider
that we might actually need each other.

You: packing some exotic tobacco
into an ornate, wooden pipe.
Me: making a mess of the shoulder of a BevMo cigar.

We toasted with scotch, spoke slow, traded wisdoms,
subdued the moment like blowing smoke into bee hives,
and surmised who we would marry.