Unwelcome

I dwell in this house and know I should not
Live here in the dark and dust when I know
It is nothing but unhealthy. I must
Tear down these unholy walls and rip up
The floors. I must spread kerosine and light
The roof with it. Instead, my gray hairs lie
With corpses rotting in my bed, in dust
Decades old -- or, so it seems. My windows
Reflect away the sun, created as they
Are with aluminum foil. The dust
Cannot dance in the sunlight rays if I
Cannot dance within these gray, dusty walls.
The dust dries the air so much that my nose
Should bleed -- if only life ran red through me,
As it should but never really had. Tears
Vanished long ago, leaving me looking
With unblinking eyes at my reflection
In the protective aluminum foil
I do not even have the strength to tear.

The Absent One

Why keep on looking when you've found the one?
What if your love does not share in this view
And then turns out to be the one to run
Away from anything that had the hue
Of happiness or permanence? True oneness
Would frighten frigid this emotion-child,
Away from the only love who could bless
Her with the love that kept out the wild.
What happens when this love will not be yours?
Must you live life alone, in awful absence?
Must you live a sad life where no one lures
You to their heart since they would have no presence
In that one place where your true one could fit --
A tragedy your one could not commit.

Missed

I rush out of the house
Having awakened in time
To miss my breakfast
Cool air hits my face
It's nearly Fall
A few says left of Summer time
I darted down the concrete way
Dying flowers all along
Having missed them in my daily rush
I'd missed when they were beautiful
I stepped out on the blacktop road
And saw a gray and lonely car
Quickly pull around the curve
I've missed her yet again
As I've missed so many in the past
Perhaps I can catch her now
If I run along the street
And try to make myself known
Before she's completely out of sight

Living Together

She's always in the room with him, and yet
She always feels as if he is alone,
He's disconnected from her, everyone.
He only ever wanted love, a woman
For true companionship, to feel her close
Beside him, next to him, within. He feels
He must become a different one for her,
Another yet for each he knows, and so
The only man  he isn't is himself.
She will not listen. He won't speak. He thinks
His silences say everything. They would --
If only she would notice them without
His making her. She watches the T.V.
As in the other room he paints. He reads
As she plays games on the computer. They
Live in the house, together, all alone.

Castle Walls

When I became a single man, alone
Once more, I found myself cold, wondering
For hours on end if my love life was sewn
Up as a case, my desperate foundering
Could ever end. I simply had forgot
To know what must be done or where to look.
My poor experience simply could not
Envelop what has happened and what took
Down all the little confidence I'd built
Around me as a safe, stone edifice,
Meant to help me and to reduce my guilt
Not dissipated and made meaningless.
In this new life I find I must create,
There must be more love -- I must drop the gate.

Transparency

No man, emotionally, can be distant from the one he loves --
The horizon never comes near --
The porcupine mates, but is never in love --
The groundless moat, the topless wall
Are never built between friends
Or siblings --
And lovers least of all.
Hold me, cuddle, caress and snuggle
With your love, joy, the sun of your heart --
So I will know you love me
I will hold you, cuddle, caress and snuggle
With my heart and head, my eyes
So you will know I love you.
I will not hold you off -- prick me, make me bleed,
Send me running to you, afraid
I'll not be pricked again.
The bricks and mortar fill the moat --
You are the mountain faith brought near,
The faith that made me crystalline to you.

Wings

You say you love my soul -- you keep that love,
This bodiless love -- do not love me like
A brother, father, cousin, uncle, friend.
I tire of these friendships. A gray shrike
Gives mice less pain when he impales them on
The woody thorns than you do when you turn
Down my proposals and advances. Hawks
Can see less clearly than I can your stern
Core deep below your smiling ice -- you smile
At my desire and will not see the fire,
The underlying pain, the love I feel
That comes with each of my half-joking pleas.
And yet you hide your head from everything,
More ostrich than ostrich to the way
I feel -- I will not listen to excuses
About your lack of time, such words won't sway
Me to believing you. So tell me now
Instead how you must really feel for me,
And keep all other cold considerations
Aside -- just let desire be your key.

An Alphabet Poem

A is for Apple -- it tastes really good
B is for Ball -- and they bounce, as they should
C is for Cat -- they meow every day
D is for Dog -- they sit still and they stay
E is for Egg -- they're from hens, don't you know?
F is for Food -- if I eat I will grow
G is for Good -- that is how I will be
H is for Hand -- I will raise so you'll see
I is for Inch -- see how tall I have grown?
J is for Jump -- see how high I have flown!
K is for Kind -- I'll be all of the day
L is for Lunch -- here mine comes on the tray
M is for Monkey -- they play high in the tree
N is for Name -- and I have one, you see
O is for Ocean -- where the fish like to swim
P is for Playing -- with my friends, her and him
Q is for Quiet -- shh, don't make a sound
R is for Rabbit -- as they hop all around
S is for Sharing -- I share toys when I play
T is for Teacher -- and I'm learning all day
U is for Us -- we sit singing this song
V is for Van -- as it's driving along
W is for Whale -- they live deep in the sea
X is for X-Ray -- to see inside of me
Y is for Yellow -- the light color of hay
And
Z is for Zoo -- where the animals play

Your Superior Song

Great Muse of mine who sings of the love that is
Light, sun, Apollo's kiss on the cheek as you
Pluck sirens' feathers from their bodies --
Sirens whose songs cannot tempt me from you.

Plucked sirens lie around on the ground, a few
Sharp notes untie themselves from their beaks, unwind
Wild wails unbeautiful and heartless --
Others are tempted, but never me, love.

Great Anna, always sing of your love for me --
Kill sirens dead -- why pluck so they live to try
Temptations once again? You bring me
Safe to you -- sing of love, dearest Anna.

Dark sirens cannot tempt me away from you --
Great Muse, my Anna, singing your harmonies --
Light shines when you are singing, loving --
Sirens are silent around me, frightened.

Dear Anna, greatest love of all, sing with me
Great songs of love which I will refashion and
Compose for you, my constant lover --
Life without you is a songless living.

Unquenchable

I thirst for you, but when I see
You walk in through the door, I see
My thirst for you cannot be quenched.
How can my thirst ever be quenched?

When I see you all that I want
Is just to see you more. What kind
Of bright desire makes me want
To have you more and more? What kind

Of beauty . . . ? Yes! Beauty it is!
Desire drives me, for it is
Desire for beauty that grows
As thirst for it is quenched. Love grows.

Psyche

With every kiss your breath and mine combine --
With every finger-stroke I feel your soul
Intermingle and come in touch with mine --
We are two halves of a soul, now made whole.

My Aphrodite, lovely agony,
The tension and wholeness of beauty made
So everything next to you is phony
In comparison, or hidden in shade.

When you lift me, white, into heaven's light
And bring my black third under strict controls,
I can see true beauty, bright, clear, in sight
In ways I never knew, led by two foals.

You lift me to the sun, my lunar love,
And help me see the brilliance in true beauty's
White light. I feel I am now high above
Life's concerns -- loving you my only duty.

Joyful Drowning

Shall I compare you with another, dear,
As you are now to warm my heart -- no sun
Would shine on me, all rain would be my tear-
Drops flooding lakes and streams until they run

In overflowing grief. Could anyone
Bring happiness to my heart, warm my blood,
As you do every day? If I looked, none
Could step up on the shore out of the flood.

But you will always bring me joyful light,
A life of pleasure, full of love and fun.
My heart fills full of warm blood at your sight --
I marvel at the fortune I have won.

I want to drown within your sun-warmed dew --
To drown's the only way I'll live -- in you.

Garden Fields

My love for you's a set of blooming fields,
All fenced off with an ever-folding fence --
And interest in their growing detail yields
An attraction that tightly bonds each sense.

I'll tend the fields and make the flowers grow
More beautiful as I try to remove
The weeds that in their growth will try to slow
The flowers' growth -- this garden, I'll improve.

Yet, in the bound of the environment,
A natural growth emerges and unfolds,
Insisting on collecting what it's lent,
So we cannot know what the future holds.

But nature yields more when we till the ground,
And love grows only when it's tightly bound.

An Alba for Anna

The sun breaks on the Texas fields
For the first time for me when I
See you every day. A cavern-
Like darkness descends, a dreary
World of shadows, chains on a wall --
That was my one world without you.

You are no mere mirroring moon,
You're a sunny source of bright light --
Your creative color cascades
Brings life to my world, my nighttime.
The dawn -- you are the dawn, the light
That brings life, lingering, lovely.

Without you there are no new dawns --
Bare your breasts to bring the bright dawn
As the Hindu goddess does -- rose
Rays rising radiantly up
Into the sky's highest reaches.
Always bring me beautiful dawns!

Melina on the Beach in Monterey

The sea is gray and rolling slow upon
The beach beneath a haze that never lifts
And never lets us see a dusk or dawn.

With every wave that comes the water sifts
The sand that swirls around my baby's feet
As she, unmoving, grunts at waves. She shifts

Her gaze away for nothing. Waves retreat
To stop more waves from reaching the small girl
Delighting in each rhythm and bored beat.

What does she see in this light sky of pearl?
What does she see in each wave that's withdrawn?
What beauties will for this young girl unfurl!

To Prosper

Could I give up the magic I have earned,
The power over spirits I have fought
To gain? To see the spells I love be spurned
By me and never given any thought?

Perhaps I cannot do it, since I waste
These talents, rarely casting these true spells
To animate the spirits. I can't taste
The potions bottled in the cowrie shells.

Yet even though I often fail to live
Up to what I know I can do, my spirit
Is willing, though my time is weak. I give
In spells that come so rare I almost fear it.

I'm not a sudden flash in iron bowls --
I'm slowly burning magic cauldron coals.