A Kiss in Your Pocket
.
I’ve put a kiss
in your pocket
so when we’re apart
you’ll always have one near
.
it’s there
in a safe place
so guard it with care
.
and when one day
I am no more
my kiss will remain
just as sweet and tender
as the day it came
from my lips
.
then you can reach
into your pocket
and remove the kiss
place it gently
upon your face
and make a wish
.
one that will
come true
as true as
my love
for
you.
.
The Last Dog
There will be no more dogs
Once you are gone my friend,
No more getting out of bed at
The crack of dawn, battling the
Cold and rain or trudging through
The snow to walk you and to wait
Until you’ve sniffed pee and licked
Pee and lifted your leg a dozen times
To pee then sniffing some more, circling
Your ass round and round until it finds that
One perfect place for you to do your doggy doo
And then your fancy foot shuffle and full body shake;
I can’t say that I’ll miss any of that, tweezing dried
Cling-ons or combing out frozen dingleberries
From your matted fur; there won’t be any
More shlepping home bags of dog food
Or cleaning up that yellowy mix of
Slobber and gravy that drips off
Your beard and dries on your
Doggy placemat; there will
Be no more heartache,
Watching dogs grow
Old, hobbling about,
Refusing to eat,
Until one day
Just dying in
My arms.
.
Turning Corners
Sometimes surprises lurk
Around corners, but there
Is only one way to see if
They are there and that is
To
Turn them
To
Take chances
To
Worry less
To
Risk more
To
Trust your
Instincts
To
Know
They are
Usually
Right;
And what lurks behind
Every corner should be
The best of everything
That life has to offer.
.
The Forces of Nature
.
I would never ask you to stick your hand into a flame to prove a point
But all your life you have trusted me enough to learn from my example
Now all I can do is watch while you stick your hand into the fire though
I’ll be by your side and at the ready to remove it from the flame when the
Heat becomes too much for you to bear and then taking your hand in mine
To mend the burns and ease your pain as I am all but powerless against the
Forces of nature whose course is unstoppable for what rages deep inside of
You is a primordial instinct that must be sated and never hindered or forbidden;
I am reminded time and time again by those more sensible than I that it must be
Me who stays on the course of calm and constant not falling into the trap of taking
Things personally letting destiny ride the ebb and flow of the changing tides and times.
.
Diyd Diyd
.
The
predicament
of trying to do
the right thing
when there is no
right thing and even
if there were it would
come out pear-shaped
and misconstrued only
making matters worse
than they were to begin
with; so you’re damned
if you do, damned
if you don’t.
.
NaNoWriMo WINNER’S Update: Days 21-25
The past five days have been emotion packed ones to say the least. I’ve had my sights on two related goals this past week: hitting the 50,000 NaNoWriMo target and actually finishing my novel. I am pleased to say that at 9:20 this evening, on Day 25 of National Novel Writing Month I hit 50,002 words, validated my novel online and collected my winner’s certificate (below). And now I’ll take the remaining five days of the month to finish the last chapter of the novel, which is just a dozen more pages away from being completed. I now know how the book will end and I’m excited to get back to work and finish telling the story I began just 25 days ago. And I want to thank each and every one of you for your support, messages, emails, and words of encouragement, you are all a very special part of this and the love and friendship you have shown me during this process will be forever embedded upon the pages of my book. A special nod of appreciation goes out to my NaNoWriMo Writing Buddy, A.R. Dorontich, who provided 24 hour a day inspiration and camaraderie and whose teen novel, The Cap One Gang, is going to be fantastic. Thanks a million, bro! Finally, my deepest gratitude to Wendy and my children, Aaron, Elizabeth, Bella and Cassia, who have been so very patient and understanding these past 25 days, your unconditional love and support are what got me through this. So as I begin the process of wrapping things up and putting the final touches on my first novel, I’m setting my sights on the future, to my second novel, which I hope won’t take another 30 years to begin.
Onwards and upwards!
The Next Chapter
What comes next is impalpable
It hasn’t yet a life or a name nor
Does it wish to reveal anything
About from where it will come
Or where it plans on taking me
The only thing I can be sure of
Is that the next chapter will be
The last.
.
Win By Fall
It’s only a matter of time
Before life catches up to
Us, slamming us down on
The mat, pinning us to the
Floor and claiming victory;
If only we could chase away
The demons and recapture
The innocence of our youth
Able to look death squarely
In the eye and convincingly
Say ours was a life worth living.
.
Pistachios
.
I was a troubled child
traumatized at an age
where deep imprints
are made on the soul
where the paths to the
future are mapped out;
he was a psychologist
who specialized in my
kind of problems and
we spent the hour-long
sessions talking about
my feelings but I didn’t
know what feelings he
was talking about as I
was only twelve and I
wasn’t even sure what
feelings were back then;
and all this man did for
an hour was ask boring
questions while eating
pistachios out of a big
painted ceramic bowl in
the middle of his coffee
table and one by one he’d
eat his pistachios placing
the shells in an ashtray
saying “oy” repeatedly,
a nervous tick perhaps;
I often wondered who he
went to to talk about the
things that bothered him.
.
Istanbul
I have never been to Istanbul
But I once dreamed that I was
A seahorse washed up on a sandy
Beach and found by a little girl who
Put me in her yellow pail and filled it
Up with water and took me home where
Her father brought up an old fish tank from the
Basement to put me in that they lined the bottom with
Colored pebbles and a deep sea diver who blew bubbles;
.
I have nothing against the wind
Or the vile discomfort it causes me
For I have learned to live with all sorts
Of maladies and I can attune myself to the
Cold as easily as I can to the heat and my skin
Repels the rain leaving me clean, renewed and vibrant
Drying in the bright splendor and warmth of the midday sun.
.
Austerity
.
driving
eating out
going to movies
splurging at the grocers
indulging in sweets and pastries
buying Calvin Klein boxer shorts
spending weekends in the countryside
things that were commonplace occurrences
elude me now, are what I can only dream about
but the tides of fortune are about to change,
the shift of providence leaning my way
what seemed out of reach now close
and the feelings of despair and all
the gloom and frustration
will at once be washed
away into a sea of
memories never
again to be
recalled.
.
NaNoWriMo Update: Days 19 & 20
Hooray! I started off this weekend with a big goal in sight: to reach the 45,000 word mark by midnight on Sunday. Saturday was a busy and challenging day of writing as I lurched closer and closer to revealing one of the story’s biggest secrets. By the end of the day on Saturday I had written a total of 4,089 words, just short of the 4,200 I had planned on writing. Sunday got off to a good start with a burst of writing that saw nearly 1,500 words written by noon and I finished the day an hour ahead of my 11:30 p.m. deadline with a one-day total of 4,648 words, bringing the weekend tally to 8,737 words and my Day 20 total to 45,082 words. So I’m thisclose to finishing Chapter 3 and have decided that there will indeed be a short Chapter 4 where the novel will end. I anticipate hitting the 50,000 word NaNoWriMo 2011 event target on Thanksgiving Day though I’m not sure the novel itself will be finished by then though I hope to able to wrap it up by the end of November when I’ll begin the next phase of revising and editing the manuscript and deciding what I’m going to do with the novel once it’s completed. Time to get my feet back on the ground and get some well-deserved sleep.
Onwards and upwards!
The Writer’s Conundrum
I am writing a book
Inundating the pages
With every anecdote
And experience that
I have ever had in all
The years of my life;
.
That is the easy part
Using what has been,
Disguising it all as a
Tall tale, a fiction of
Meager artistic merit
Worthy of very little;
.
But when it is finished
Hardly will there be a
Thing for me to write,
My well of imagination
Dried up like a desert or
An ocean barren of life.
.
Metaphors
There are metaphors
For things you could
Never imagine exist
Things you couldn’t
Possibly know about
Me or the quandaries
I face, puzzles whose
Pieces never fit, clocks
Whose hands only reveal
The time we’re apart, maps
That only show the distance
Separating us, and a faraway
Sun whose light seems to burn
Less, to warm me less, and who
I’m afraid will soon no longer be
Able to illuminate my way once it
Sets in the emerging darkness that is
Rapidly befalling me, leaving me alone,
Shrouded in the obscurity of my despair.
.
NaNoWriMo Update: Days 16, 17 & 18
It’s been a challenging couple of days and Chapter 3 has been more difficult to get my head around than I ever could have imagined. But I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and things are beginning to take shape. I need to keep focused on the story and trust my instincts and listen to my characters and give them the room and freedom they need to guide me through their story. Over the past few days I haven’t been as concerned with keeping up with my word count as I have a good surplus and am still running ahead of the game. I’ve chalked up 1,830 words today bringing my 18-day total to 36,345. And to make the weekend even more fun, I’ve set a new super objective for myself which is to reach 45,000 words by Sunday night. Tall order? You’re telling me! I’ll try my hourly writing schedule shooting for 400 word hours on Saturday and 300 word hours on Sunday, and if all goes to plan I should reach the 45,000 word mark by 10 p.m. Sunday night. So here we go…
Onwards and upwards!
Haze
Haze
Is what it’s called
That foggy feeling
Like a coastal mirage
A barrage of stickiness
Like the crusty rim of the
Plastic school paste jar whose
Useless dried out brush crackles
As the crystalline particles that formed
Fall and cling to your new wool sweater
Making the impromptu sequins glisten brightly
In the dull half-light of the darkening afternoon sky
The lights above reflecting off of them shooting sparks
Through the windows out onto Fairfield Avenue the moment
Snowflakes begin falling from a white winter sky leaving moist little
Stains of water on the pack of construction paper that Michael Blacker
Has thrown out of the window and onto the stiff icy grass to collect after school.
.
Stagnant
Stagnant
Like the murky
Still water
Floating atop
The canal
Drifting
Into nowhere
.
Inconsolable
Like the
Willow
Who must bid
Farewell to her
Leaves as they fall
Into nowhere
.
Lifeless
Like a bird
Who has fallen from
Its nest and who waits
For the ebb of destiny
To deliver her soul
Into nowhere.
.
The Thaw
My heart
Like the layer of frost
On the morning grass
Eventually thaws
When rays of sun
Burst out from the
Thick gray clouds
They’ve been hiding behind;
What melts is left there
To soak the ground with
Water as sweet as any river’s
Penetrating the hard mud
Nourishing the land so the
Seeds that have fallen there
Can awaken in the spring to
The fanfare of newly born
Leaves fluttering in the wind
Calling birds and butterflies to
Nest and feed and live within
Their immeasurable beauty and
To behold the solemn metamorphosis
That once again has been bestowed upon life.
.
