This is for the sleepless.
It is for those who’s souls
stir with words and pictures,
emotions and ideas.
The souls that still hum
like mad as if to
awake the sun itself.
This is for those who’s night time thoughts
are bird’s wings,
beating frantically against
the confines of a skull.
This is for those who’s eyes
grow heavy but
their mind has gotten lost
somewhere
and cannot come home to rest.
This is for the sleepless,
the companions of stars
and streetlights.
Skin like woodgrain
pocks, knots, wrinkles,
imperfections.
This wasn’t here last week
I didn’t see this yesterday
I’m sure that wasn’t here
this morning.
Flawed wood is
rustic,
vintage,
original.
Tell me, because it seems
I’ve forgotten,
but what do we call
flaws of the skin?
Ugly.
So another year
fades out like a cigarette
thrown onto pavement.
It trails off like a mistaken question
and no one asks
what you meant to say.
The past year has left
a funny taste in my mouth,
so pass me a drink,
and lets chase it with
another year with which to grow.
Your eyes that lust for sleep
are folded between lavender wrinkles
from too much black coffee, up-all-nights.
Fingertips like the lay-here-all-day light
hazy grey that washes over my sheets
filtered through an autumn rain storm.
You wrap me up in sleepy love
and darling, I’ve got nowhere to be.
And so I fell in love
with the grain in those old photographs
and their yellowed edges
with the coffee rings on postcards
and the stamps with the state bird on them.
I fell in love with
pink peonies from the backyard
stuffed in empty jam jars
that decorated the picnic table,
and the tire swing that fell out of use.
If I can fall in love with all these things,
what’s stopping me
from falling for you?
I want to test your skin.
I want to watch your hair stand on end
as I run my fingernail over its surface.
I want to feel it give beneath
the pressure of my finger
as I press
here
and
there.
I want to hear your breath catch
as I circle your naval.
I want to follow
every line, bend and curve
just to see where they go.
Darling, I want to test your skin.
It’s 8 o’clock and
the street lights follow suit.
A soft rain breathes over the city
turning the streets into
pages of watercolor swatches.
An air of intoxication
washes over it. Like
a young couple drunk on merlot.
The tension eases and laughter comes easily.
The hues of companionship and conversation
become tinged with warm lust.
The edges become blurred and
the steam rising from the streets
blankets historic district
in a romantic haze.
And so the cobble stone and oak trees
sing drunkenly into the night with the rain
and the street lights dance without inhibition.
I do not have a mind.
I have an attic.
Light spilling into a musty room
through moth eaten curtains
catching startled dust motes
turning them to glitter
kicked up by the grey mouse mother
scurrying back to her nest
with a dinner of crumbs.
Look closer.
Photo albums full of photographs
of people,
of places,
of moments.
Monica, with her daybreak soul,
challenging the world through the sunroof
of the Volvo.
Smoking cigarettes with someone
who needs them more than herself.
To think this started in a church parkinglot.
Denton and the white porch swing,
his “I can do anything” jaw set, but his eyes
are like notes plucked from a banjo,
ringing pure, deep and true.
The stars and “World at Large” were there
the night everything changed
but stayed the same.
I am a ghost,
the fog on your Polaroid,
the dead leaves
in the doorway
that startle about your feet.
I am the scent
in the pages of the books
you read in coffee shops
as the late evening sun
pours in through
the shop windows
catching the steam
dancing up from the
white cardboard cup.
I want so badly
to be tangible to you.
To be more than
a fleeting specter.
Dreams
half awake, or half asleep
whichever, I don’t know.
You sound so far
far away.
Like the TV mumbling
in the room down the hall.
You’re splashes of color
flashing and morphing
against the walls in the dark.
Formless shapes and
muffled sounds
please find the remote
because I can’t sleep.
When does one learn
how real death is?
When does a child learn
that death is more
than a forever vacation?
Is it when Buster
runs into the street
and yelps his last
as the white Sedan
paints its grill red?
Or is it when daddy
takes his youngest
and by far most sensitive
little boy hunting
and a loud blast fells
Bambi’s daddy?
Maybe the comprehension
of something so finite
is a quieter affair.
A slow realization
as we grow in age
like a silent snowfall;
the white building on black roofs
until all is covered.
And so the late night rain
falls on Tuscany
intoxicating her with strong wine
blurring her lights across wet black streets
like the watercolors sold by
so many art vendors in her piazzas.
And so she intoxicates lovers
with scents of jasmine and
coffee which float disembodied
down her streets.
They pull each other into
heated embraces fueled by
“ti amo”, the romance language
crushing into one another
in secluded courtyards
and rooftop gardens
and then run giggling through
puddles, their young love
echoing through the Tuscan night.
Feed me to the wolves
maybe then I’ll be good for something.
Then collect my bones,
bleach them in the desert sun,
and string them up.
Make them into wind chimes
and hang them from your window.
Finally, I’m beautiful.
I follow your scars with my fingertips,
like when you look at a map
and you know where you’re going
but your fingers trace over
the black line roads as if
trying to memorize
every curve,
every turn,
every intersection.
-
Your body is a map, perhaps
faded yellow from years stored
in the glove compartment of
a dusty powder-blue Ford.
Unfolded and creased,
your endless routs and landmarks
fill me with wanderlust.
Curving seduction across the page
is my lover’s script
A joyous tumbling and turning
sends my heart to stuttering madness
-
The end flares are my smiles
and ink spits are my nervous laughter
bubbling forth, broken and shaky
A quivering love beautifully scrawled
-
In their entirety, the letters’ lines
remind me of my lover’s form
each character carefully complete
each word evenly spread from the next
-
But the end is what most thrills me
“With all my love,” and a signature
a name that captures my heart,
a set of simple curves at the bottom of a page
With all my love,
Your funny little artist.
