the couch

Jun 25, 2009

she's on the couch tonight as lying next to him simply wasn't rest.
he was long since dreaming only five minutes after they'd barely kissed

as she lay there quietly she was angered by the pattern of his snores
knowing he'd sought his own relief while simply ignoring hers

daydreams overwhelmed her and fonder memories arrested her open eyes.
tears, then anger, then frustration and she pillowed muffled cries

she'd moved the tv from their bedroom to find some long lost marital bliss
good sex remained an illusive fantasy and sleep was still dearly missed.

it seemed to happen over time, a friendship grew but passion was entirely gone.
she's on the couch tonight, sleeping peacefully, with the television on.

10:48 PM

sanity

Jun 22, 2009

sanity I implore you define.
the dictionary states it as soundness of mind
mental normality and other such things
our martial jury of peers often sings

are abnormal thinkers in truth
just a majority simply defined as couth?
normal or not to declare
in peace it's murder  but in war it's fair?

normal: conforming to a type
a mere description of a dogmatic song,
a society of dogs following along.

when Einstein and Newton were insane and
the earth was not round,
Columbus was surely unsound.

creators and innovators are always utterly berserk
warming new ideas, thoughtful minds at work.
history evolves and normality is redefined.
a new concept of what is considered clear mind.

but i ask again are we sufficiently profound
to state who's safe and who's sound?

1:47 PM

Hear Her

Jun 19, 2009

Caroline was fairly certain she was married to a man who somehow could not hear her. It's as if her voice was muddled by the same sound engineers who produced Charlie Brown or perhaps his ears were simply broken.

Sitting at the dinner table one night she read from her favorite poems in the New Yorker summer fiction edition while he sat on the couch watching a movie they'd seen a thousand times before in their two year marriage, she quite frankly said, "I don't think I want to be married to you forever. I love you for who you are and what you've done for me, but I simply don't think I can stay married. I am just not that soul. Please don't be angry, I just can't promise you forever."

He did not hear her.

Walking in a park overlooking the Pacific Ocean a year later with another fiction edition in hand she reminded him that she'd never had a perpetually faithful soul. She was grateful for the time they'd spent together but knew they had grown so much in their union, they'd actually grown apart. "You were too good to me. You incubated my heart in a way that nobody else could. You taught me to live again independently, think again with force, read again with passion, and now we've out grown one-another." He squeezed her hand tightly and smiled but

He would not hear her.

Another year had gone by and Caroline pushed along the stroller of their new-born wishing she'd had time to read the issue that had arrived in the mail a few weeks back. "I know it seems we need each other logically, but emotionally it's gone my darling. You are dear and kind and I thank you for the blessing of my sweet child, but I have fallen in love with someone else. I want to end this amicably and stay friends because I will always care for you. I need to explore again." He took the stroller from her hand and suggested she take some time to read the New Yorker but

He did not hear her.

On their fifth anniversary they celebrated with a night away and champagne in the same hotel where they had spent their wedding night. Over dinner Caroline showed him a poem she had written about her wanderlust soul which had been printed in the New Yorker summer fiction issue. In black and white it simply must be heard. "I love you so please forgive me because we cannot stay married forever. I cannot be true, I will not be able to hold on much longer." He smiled and sipped his gin and tonic and commented that she looked pretty in red.

He would not hear her.

Married for six years, Caroline sat next to him holding his hand and watching their daughter waddle around the room. Her tears fell softly onto the white cotton blanket that covered his lap. The New Yorker sat next to her on the faux leather chair with another published poem, a realized dream. "I love you, I love you, I will love you always. Please don't leave me, not this soon. I couldn't promise you forever, but I just want another day. Please stay, please don't die."

He could not hear her.  

8:16 PM

Group Think

Jun 16, 2009

A great museum
An adventurous book

An orange rose
A yearning look

The smell of the ocean
Across a misty gray sea

These things all provide
inspiration to me.

But nothing illuminates creativity
like the energy of a collective few
like minded artists that make a production crew.

10:22 PM

Sweaty - The She Wolf Leads Her Pack

Jun 15, 2009

I congratulate myself,
for defying that simple purpose
which I was expected to not achieve.
Such a lot of living despite the list of ignored don'ts.

I call out my own name breaking a glass ceiling
with the rays from my true blonde hair,
as my glossy red lips smile in success, and

my manicured fingers use re-dial
to clarify what that last
comment about my sex
was really supposed to mean.
 Because in truth
I won't accept that.

I work out at level ten sweaty and hot
while pedals beat in rhythm up and down against
a straining chain
because it makes me feel strong.
I deserve to be as strong as I want.
I design myself to look as I feel fit and
not because you say
that is the way I might look.

I am the mountain that I can't climb
and a yellow sun that scorches to be beautiful,
spitting and frothing as I buck my last rider
off because he whipped too hard, and I will go
at my own pace.
I don't accept being called a chick.

If bitterness calls in cadence against my wildly
flowing desires to achieve and a roaring coat of arms
goes up at my acquisition, I answer back
with a trumpeting salute to my own mastery.
I toot my own horn.

I am a completion of uncompleted victories
and a direction of pathless deams.
I hope with nature's freedom, and the wild
knows my name.

Because the she wolf leads her pack,
Because I and only I can decide what I will accept.

9:50 PM

A Night Painted by Matisse

Jun 15, 2009 

Turning left instead of right we wandered across the park outside the Matisse museum toward the Mediterranean Sea. The true rich darkness of expression had fallen and we found ourselves as friends reuniting after a brief and unsettled separation.

You, an artist with strong hands and a clear passion for adventure followed me, the fleeting muse, as I danced my way to the water’s edge. In our descent to the ocean we held our breath, both sensing a familiar hunger hoping it might soon pass. Like brushstrokes of monochromatic color, the red studio of creation blended into one deep sigh. Paintings of forms arching in playful directions hung on the walls of our moment. In the air there was certainty that perhaps a new form of oil on canvas was evolving. Working together in a new medium was of course forbidden, so instead we walked and talked as we had so many times before. Playfully testing the waters to determine their temperature and depth. Both ignoring the pounding of our hearts, we strode alongside the moonlit sea.

You said surreal, I sighed Matisse. There was something more classic about the night than a Dali, and more happily passionate than a Van Gogh. You took my hand, or I took yours, and we could have wandered for hours with interlaced palms and winding steps in the cool ocean night - but a silent clock ticked and we knew our evening would eventually end. For that moment, there was not yet anguish. Like the rhythmic arrangement of lines and colors on a flat plane, we were entirely 2D with no shadows of repercussion.

Then as we stepped into the darkness of a palm, bright moments of color amidst a rich background of green, brown and black burst forth. You could resist no longer. Your kiss fell hard like a powerful attack, like Donatello in a cage of wild beasts. Bruising my hungry mouth, you left a sensual memory I would be able to recall for days by running my lower lip between my teeth.

I can even now feel your kiss as I toy with my jade necklace, playing it on my tongue. It’s cool at first like the water that licked my calves and with each moment of memory, my temperature rises and so does the jade between my fingers and around my neck.

The caress of your strong hands painted the curves of my classic form and you felt the roundness of my soul with each fevered brush stroke. We tried to contain a moment of very public passion yet with each stride drew closer. Bodies wrapped in classic poses wanting not to abandon a moment so long in creating, we explored. When the paint’s fumes grew too strong and the benches of the park overlooking the Mediterranean were insufficient to complete any masterpiece, we parted ways as gently as our night began. You walked forward. I turned back.

But who was the artist that night and who was the muse? Were we simply ecstatic colors in the palette of a more powerful creator? Did Aphrodite, Eros, Apollo, Dioynsus, and Poseidon conspire to create such a yearning masterpiece?

I returned to my bed and spent days dreaming of your kiss, inspired by your hands. Would we ever elect to paint together in such a clandestine way again?  As perhaps it was our only moment of artistic embrace, I have memorized the sequence of colors so I might remain warmed by your touch. We were two souls painting in tandem a surreal night of fever and expression.

9:08 PM

The Page Turner

Jun 15, 2009

Keys pressed with passionate force
as hands make love to black and white.
You inhale, page turns, the next measure begins.
Sensual harmony playing upon waves of ether
blows your hair in dark curls.
Each measure, each note, beats in 3-4 time, carrying
the gentle scent of your hair, cologne,
a gift from your lover, mixed with cigarettes and shampoo.

You play for something, someone.

Eyes reflecting in the dark keys

you massage while white teeth glitter under lips

as you smile, pleased with something else that I cannot hear.

Afternoon shadows fall across your face

as hands caress music from ivory

at the end of your arms.

Long wiry soft limbs, tan with sun and the time changes to 4:4.

Tense muscles in your back contract and release

upon each harmony with muscular force

pretending perhaps to play upon something else.

Everything in rhythm, you walk with hands hung down

tired from play, swinging on beat.

The piano hurts, it has no back and you provide its spine.

You are sore, but still gentle. For whom do you play?

Why do you tempt and infatuate me?

I want to caress your hands, your lips.

To feel your muscles move as you play upon the keys.

Though I can't touch you, so I inhale and watch with lust,

waiting for the next time I turn the page.

You brush me gently, as if by accident.

The piano shudders as the cornice of the melody approaches.

I pray it's not only the fault of the music but of your need, of want.

And then it's over, your skin leaves mine

and you move to the next note, the next beat.

I exhale.

A page turns by my hand, song springs from yours.

Our hands move separately together, gently apart as a

brush of bare arm startles a wisp of dark lock over your eyes.

The music stops, Our breath is finally in rhythm,

you lean back and push your hair away.

You smile at me and I know that a brush against your arm,

a grin from sensuous mouth is all I can expect.

All I should wait for,

knowing your hands play for someone else.

Another song has begun, you reach the apex of the crescendo

the moment you realize what the song is saying, and sigh,

wondering what it means.

Waiting for more from your hands,

would only waste time, beats, music.

Waiting for you to caress my body, not just my heart

wasting.

Your hands play upon the black and white

and it's all quite gray.

Why do you caress with such fervor?

You play by the rules, by the direction of the music

without wavering enough for anyone to notice.

But then you brush me again

a high note rings in question, in alarm.

Waiting for the page turn

I sit wondering, when the song's over,

when the music's done, will my moment be forgotten?

Or did you feel it too?

Who did you play for just then?
Who do you play for now?

My wanting hand turns your page, your passionate note
spins my heart.

7:21 PM

Into My Wild

Jun 14, 2009

I find myself watching things that painfully evoke emotions I have never addressed.

By some act of my own independence, I have reclaimed my childlike soul. But there are reasons and paths along the way that must be considered before I can fully respect from where I’ve come, and who I have always been.

I have a collection of ZIPPO lighters that have all dried to nothing but flint and cotton. I look at them in my sideboard as they rest next to silver plate flatware from my grandmother and only I know how much both mean to me. Why I keep both, is a mystery to my roommate, my husband, my partner. A partner I chose when I was unsure and had lost my strength. A partner I chose when giving was itself survival.

But the realization that I might not survive this human starvation of giving but not receiving has left me startled. The sudden shock of self awareness has confounded the process I followed without question since leaving my own journey into my own wild.

The movie Into the Wild strikes so many relevant chords. It is a symphony of my past, a dying brother in Alaska and a child who never felt truly relevant, my present a partner from Emory, and perhaps my future, an independent soul left to the devices of nature to survive. All of these intertwine into the woman I have become today. The sister of an errant soul, the daughter of an unexpectedly pregnant teen, and the child of a classic family. How do those people become one warm soul?

Can finding love for just an intermission keep one warm through a cold Alaskan winter? Can one sided passion suffice for the fervor of a wild pack leader? I realize that my soul may not be meant to be a lifelong mate. I am a wolf, not a penguin.

The absurd and tedious duties that I have agreed to for the last decade since the death of my sweet and errant brother have caused a volcano of emotion and opportunity. Not unlike an elementary science project, I am ready to explode. I hope they know that I love them no less for my own insufficiencies. I am no less a friend, but perhaps less a citizen.

I wrote as a child that I was she wolf who led her pack and chose her destiny. I am grateful to re-embrace that soul and aware of those I might hurt along the way. I hope they can forgive my trespasses as I aggressively blaze the trail of my own wild.

11:01 PM