There are Mornings

There are Mornings

There are mornings you wake up
And the drinks from last night
Hit you like a towering wave
Of exhaustion. Not a hangover
But a memory of mistakes in order;
The story of the night before
Told in a different way.

There are nights you go out
To hunt, full of excitement.

But some nights you go out
To be out. To stay up.
You have a feeling deep down
You'd rather drown than
Have to go back home.

Ducks

Ducks

When we talk ducks will
Suddenly bob up as if
Returning from a riverbed.

I bought her thirtieth
Birthday present in my head
Three days after our
First date. Two weeks later-
No second date- I went ahead
And bought it anyway.

She's nervous, busy, afraid
To see me. I tell myself
Someone I can't see that cares
Is better than someone who doesn't
And is always there. But I
Have to convince myself
Like a lawyer with a weak case,
Waving his arms and winking at the jury.

Conversation is a dive into deep
Water. I lose track of time, air,
Myself sometimes. I tell myself
I need more than this and then
Find myself compulsively making sure
Of her presence like a diver checking
On his air. It terrifies me
I might be this deep and run out.

If I could...

If I could...

If I could bleed a word
and pour it under your door,
it would seep gently into your room
and silently dissolve your objections
quietly calm your jangling nerves
fill up the chasms in your heart -

But you can't hear it.

There's a hollow place in me
that wants to be your refuge,
but you're afraid of the dark.

I would stand outside in the
Cold with you. But it's so hard
To wait here for you to come in.

Reporting from the Front Lines

Reporting from the Front Lines

My rational mind is reporting tonight
From the front lines of a dangerous crush.



There's no hope for our government troops.
The streets have turned red with partisans
In berets and sashes. They're dancing and
Singing. Anyhow we don't know who to shoot.

And above the fray my right brain
Is watching it all go down, talking calmly
To the folks at home, recording our
Foolishness for posterity.

"There's an inevitability in the air,"
He says, "Rebels have taken the capital.
Fascists are retreating in the face
Of resistance from ordinary citizens."

Looking down from his hotel room,
he thinks it's like a car
Tipping over a cliff,
All he can do is watch.

"Like falling in love" he writes home.
These days he finds himself adding
That phrase, like punctuation,
Into all his correspondence.

I wanted to say

I wanted to say

I wanted to say my stomach hurt every morning
And I got up early and didn't know why
(But I knew why).

I wanted to say I was wrong before
When I said I needed to see other people
But at the time I didn't know
What they would look like next to you.

I wanted to say I could wait
And give you space
(But now I guess you have plenty).

I wanted to say that, for me,
Everything changed that day
We really talked for the first time.
I finally saw what I had been missing.
But now I'll be missing it
A bit longer, I guess.

All I can say is at angles,
I can't come straight out.

A Special Providence

A Special Providence

Be strong; walk upright. Stop checking for texts.
"There is a special providence in the
Fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis
Not to come; if it be not to come, it
Will be now; if it be not now, yet it
Will come - the readiness is all." Get through
Today and the next will be easier.

Closet Romantic

That Romantic Bastard

What the hell did you do girl,
What did you do?
You let that bastard out of his cage
And now he's ruining my life again.

He was locked behind five-inch thick bars
Chained to the wall, beaten and starved
I would walk up the stairs once in a while and
Heap abuse on him.
"Ha ha ha, monster! You're rotting in hell
And I'm in charge now, I'm in charge!"

But then you walked in my house
Went up and unlocked that door
(I told you not to open that door)
And - well, it was all over but the tears.

He's in the driver's seat, chuckling to himself.
I'm in for one hell of a ride -
And in the end, there's no doubt,
I'll wake up on the same cold hillside

With that bastard, exhausted, right next to me.
Is there any wonder I keep him locked up?