I pull the jagged remains of our relationship out of my heart and hemorrhage poetry instead of despair.

See how you have wounded me until the scars healed into art?

My feeble creations are pitiful bindings for such self-inflicted pain.

Perhaps I will hammer my next work into a shield before I do battle with you again.

Conflict can be such a painful pleasure.

Copyright 2010

You lie in my bed, the perfect paradox – your body still with sleep, your soul chasing dreams across some random universe.

I watch as you float away on the delicate moonlight, the arms of night carrying you into some secret inner space.

Even as I hold your hand and whisper for you to stay, I can feel you slowly disappear.

I am alone now, here in the night, where not even the weight of an intimate kiss can anchor us together.

I feel so empty, so anxiously fragile, so at loss.

It will be hours before you return hme, the dust of some cosmos settled in your hair, a collage of shredded fantasy fading from your eyes.

So while I wait for the dawn, I use your resting body as a journal, covering your skin in ink and poetry.

My words blanket you in a softened quilt of emotion and imagery…until I run out of flesh and prose.

Then it will be my turn to sleep, serene and comforted by your awakened presence, while the warm water of your shower turns my thoughts into an inky pool of passion at your feet.

Copyright 2010

Sometimes when you talk to me, I go to Paris in my head.

Your hands become the Arc de Triumphe, fingertips touching slightly, pointed to the sky, and your unkempt hair mirages into an unsettled beret.

If I squint my eyes and lose focus as you turn away, I can almost smell the Seine.

Too bad that your south side accent hurries me home.

Ah well. 

We’ll always have Paris in my mind.

Copyright 2010

I touch the soft velvet of your heart and wish there was a place for me inside.

But I already know that I am too bedouin and raw to ever be comfortable there.

Maybe, though, I could linger for a night to feel what it would be like to be safe and anchored.

So lease me your heart, if only for the moment, and I promise not to claim any part of it for myself.

And when I must go, I will leave your love exactly as I found it, for I have no desire to take anything except a sweet memory.

To rent the tenderness of unspeakable emotions is enough to hold me briefly before I say goodbye.

Copyright 2010

Make me a necklace of all the time I have wasted.

Forge each bead of lost moment into an exquisite bit of glass, a delicate dazzle of nothingness that fools the eye and teases the senses.

Surround my neck with a glistening noose of empty efforts and squandered opportunities.

Then, and only then, will I turn my back to you, allow you to fasten the clasp, and whisper in my ear that I am beautiful.

Copyrigh 2010

You are the elusive radio station I can’t quite tune in, the musky scent of shadow in the sweet cologne of thunderstorms.

Your name shudders like a passing ghost on the rim of every beer, a phantom memory tenuous on my fingertips.

And like some patient sniper in camouflage, you wait at the end of each new labyrinth – the only means of escape would make me your victim.

But I have never cared much for your music, and fragrances irritate my skin.

And while at times I may be homicidal, I have never considered suicide (at least not for myself).

So remember that I didn’t quite ask you for your secret, didn’t shake a magic eight ball to come up with the question.

I was just  some starving artist headed out for coffee and cigarettes when you made me a sandwich of promises and moonlight.

And now your memory has entered my soul and it is too late for me to forget you.

Copyright 2010

The 24-karat word stares aloofly back at me as I press my blue-collar nose up against the glass.

It is a majestic jewel of verbage, one I lust over obsessively.

But I am not even allowed into its presence.

I can only peer through the pane and imagine what it would be like to possess such magic.

When I return to my home, full of ordinary conversation and simplistic ritual, I will empty my pens of generous ink.

The commonplace words will bleed into the sheets and I will contemplate dreams concocted of cotton.

Someday soon I will empty the mustard jar and count all the  coins, even though I already know the possibilities of purchase are never enough.

It is painful to pretend, but the act gives me meaning.

Scooping up quarters, I will buy a lottery ticket, a feeble attempt to become someone I am not.

But I want you to know, if fate ever visits,  I would buy up that word and use it on you.

Copyright 2009

Very early this morning, long before you finished your dream, I wrote you a poem.

There was no alliteration or meaningful symbolism.

Just two simple words:  Look up.

So I am sitting here at the airport, drinking coffee with strangers, wondering when you will finally notice.

It isn’t easy forming the letter “k” with a skywriter.

Lend me your ring and I will give you my night.

Feel free to misplace your commitment around my lying finger and I will loosely barter independence for the promise of love.

I vow not to make any more of it than what it truly is.

All I ask for is seven hours of your silver circle, more dream than reality, more assesment than sin.

In the morning, I will leave your token untarnished and unfettered, no stigma of shame to shadow you home.

Lend me your ring and I will happily surrender – I’m a thief of the moment not interested in time.

Dawn is barely lifting up her nightie and I am already down by the river, tossing irrational thoughts into the water, waiting to see if a good one will float.

It is still so visciously early that no one is up yet, not the homeless, nor the squirrels, not even the crepuscular joggers who should do more enlightening activities with all that energy.

But then you call.

And I am on my way, headed towards the most irrational thought of all.

Sometimes I wish I could make better decisions.