Wondering where all the idle time has gotten lost
vivid once-warm memories now turned to frost
escaped and denied no matter what the cost
children on the swings whose hearts were crossed

you my savior, unclouded my thoughts—i your regret, your woeful albatross.

What I Carry 

The moment they told me 
I was lost
That is what I carry

Every gilded word with 
shining promise
That is what I carry

Lips
And the lines and the soft pressing insistence
That is what I carry

Dark so long
And then new light
That is what I carry.

The tingling anticipation
Of the best still yet to come
That is what I carry.

Bluest algorithms
Tapping a rhythm-less beat
That is what I carry.

Clinking spoons
The rise and fall of your chest beside me
That is what I carry.

Memories
A once welcome weight
That is what I carry.

Feel like the bad dog
Tail between my legs
Feel like I’ve done wrong
More and more these days

Feel like the bad dog
You won’t come near to me
Feel like you’re tired
Of my once-beguiling ways.

Oh, let me breathe
Beside you
Oh, let me be the one
To guide you

Cause I can’t wait around
To hear that lovin’ sound
So unsure of what you’re lookin’ for
And to where we are bound

Feel like the bad dog
Left out in the cold
Feel like I’m broken
And this cryin’s gettin’ old

Feel like
The bad dog
Feel like
I am done…

porro-s:

i like my body when it is with your body, e. e. cummings.

Hey Daddy dear
Don’tcha remember when these tears
Didn’t fall

Hey Daddy dear
Don’tcha remember when the sky was clear
And we stood tall

Little child
Holdin’ Daddy’s hand
If there’s anybody who can do it
Oh, Daddy can.

Hey Daddy dear
When, oh when, did it start
To fall so far apart

To questions with no answers
Pink satin shoes without a dancer
This girl is grown and cannot even feel
Your hand close around mine

Hey Daddy dear
How can I hope to make you proud
When I’m only living half out loud
And half hiding deep inside of me

In the place where I’m still yours
The place where sun shines on the sandy shore
Sadness, gloom, and pain are no more
I’m standing in this open door

Hoping you’ll remember me
And that one day we will be free
Oh, Daddy dear
I wish that you could see

I wish that you could see…

Spent twenty years of his life that way.

Where? Beneath that old tree, resting, eyes twinkling under heavy lids, moving, moving, always imagining some far-off place that he’ll run off to when he wakes up.

Distant skies and the stars living among them, invisible in day’s light. Not forgotten. But waiting, longing for when they’ll earn a place too, rightful…rightful beside the ones they love. No one stops to think for me or what I can’t see, and sometimes I forget to breathe.

But he’s there with that tree, grey hairs tickling the wavy bark, brushing, brushing. Scrrtch, scratch. Like sandpaper but softer, but still not the kind you want to feel against your breast. He knows that, of course, and trims it away before he comes close.

I’m watching the pigeons, coo-cooing and tip-toeing, like some skittish ballet. Ruffle their feathers, though tussle they might before escaping into that precious dull night.

Everything I love flutters and flies away.

i like my body when it is with your, E. E. Cummings

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside him in her apron
To tell them “Supper.” At the word, the saw,
As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap -
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all -
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart -
He saw all was spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off -
The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!”
So. The hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then - the watcher at his pulse took a fright.
No one believed. They listened to his heart.
Little - less - nothing! - and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

I am a fool.

I am a fool for this love

That you brought

Set it on the porch and waited

For me to answer the door.

You’d come to call

me your love.

Your bright-eyed girl, your wilting

wondrous waif

without whom the world

withers.

I am a fool.

A cheering fool

Who sinks as she waves

Deeper and deeper into the earth

Gibbering fool

Quivering fool

No matter how you ask

I cannot pretend

That once is enough.

Look alive. Alive and well and well is good but not all is good that is well. Pressed against the flex and pecs and chests lightly haired and dense. Warm. Warm is the skin, is the in, the out, the what it’s all about and when do I send you my regards. To sir with love. Love’s the thing, the song we sing, the ring, the ping. Intimate notions signal the ocean’s motion and the rhythm, the rhyme, all the same time. Can you feel me? Can you feel me, oh, skyward, upward, spinning, winning, sinning in the seams. It’s nutritious and delicious and secretly pernicious. Look alive. Look alive. Fall in line as it says on the sign and you will be aligned. 

The check is in the mail.