Crazy Girl Platitudes

Friday afternoon post-snowstorm sadness
Get behind me
I've gotta love my man tonight
The only one standing at the back of the horde
The only one left
Choice and grief and faith
Forever and ever, stay true

Meeting

I had just parked my car on the street. Driving around for a late-ish morning smoke and strange coffee. I pulled out my wallet and I saw him walking directly to my car, towards me, asking. And so I got out my two 1's for the electronic meter and opened the car door to greet him. He had already begun passing me by, no longer trying.

"Sir, you can't just go up to young ladies in cars."

"Oh, sorry, did I scare you?"

"No, but what I if I were someone that would be scared?"

"You're right, you know what they say, 'they can arrest you'!"

We laughed and I responded and he started away again, but I knew what he had been asking for and I held it in my hand and didn't want to just let him walk away.

"Can I help you with something though?" He knew, I knew, it was just a little help. Too bad it was only money.

"Yes, I was going to ask for a little change to get some breakfast." His coat and boots seemed warm. His skin was dark and soft and his eyes were aged in that young sort of way. The words were not crisp and clear and separate and I was thankful to understand them. More like a burbling bird, the water kind. His head was covered from the cold. Some breakfast.

"Well I don't have change but I have a couple 1's."

He thanked me; "I hope I didn't mess you up for your parking" and I touched his shoulder and told him to be safe. He was happy and couldn't walk away for a minute.

He told me how pretty I looked today, that I look like a leprechaun. I was delighted and laughed into my shoulder. It reminded him of something else, he started to tell me, but I couldn't make out the words. He told me something, a single sentence, a lesson- what? And I couldn't understand the words. Were they his words? Listen to the silence. But I had to respond. Work called, I didn't want to be rude, I had missed it.

"You take care." I meant it.

"You too." "Thank you!" He called as we began to walk in opposite directions.

"You're welcome!"

I smiled at never having been called a leprechaun before. I still wished I had made out what he said. It's the silence in between the words. Had I just met a master? He was coming straight for me, and all I did was nothing, and I don't know how it happened, but here I am, changed.

Spring Moment

Fat pussy willows
Bee-mimic fly!
What green bark you have
Every drop of nectar from one flower
It is enough

Masochism

The true sadist surrounds the self with sorrows
"There there" and "It will be ok"
While drinking quietly of the sadness and suffering
Sharp-eyed to need
Quick to offer help in disaster
And nowhere when the sweet wine of playing hero
Is gone
Like any hint of empathy
Only that cold and silent stare
That says "I don't see what's wrong"

The heart of...

There is no peace in the revolutionary heart
Because we know we will always be rats caged
and tamed and no amount of gnawing
Will find our freedom
But maybe someday our babies
Will bring down the house
And all our ghosts will sing and dance
But not today and not this dread season of war
Purpose can turn to despair quickly
When you are afraid of dying
And all small victories lead
To more fevered dreams
Of peace unseen

Towards the end of April

My love's eyes are darker
Than any deep pond in the forest
His mouth wiser than the carved lips
Of any stone Buddha

And so...
His looks must lash me more than any other
And his words horrify me more than my own confessions

Symbol Evolution

The messages came

In dreams of purple wounds and missing cars

Sudden knowing, letting go

Late-night Spiritual Pleadings

       With more answers than I asked for...

Better than these

       Your head on my chest        My arms around you

Beaming faces

Effortless

You read your own signs

Invisible to me

Do I have to turn away?

You feel like a long-lost friend

And I’d play any game to keep you laughing

Original Symbols

Did you know I saw the signs in you

Of you

Different than those symbols frantically grasped at

Now I can no longer remember

And I must reject them all

For you

Maybe the signs led back to me all along

Must I really say no?

I’d play any game at all

If it kept you smiling

At me, with me

And only because

You felt like an old friend

Long-parted, long longed-for

And never more secure

The messages came to me

In dreams of missing cars and purple wounds

Repaved roads and magic numbers

Sudden knowings, letting go

Late-night desperate Prayer

Giving answer to more than was asked…

Mournful Cry

The last bite
Tastes of death
I wish I had a beautiful love poem
For you
For the end of days
But all is lost
Except I promise
To be a friend always
And forever let you down
May we never stop loving
So we may learn forgiveness
Before the wheel stops turning

Another Eulogy

The bird flies before you
A trail of burning bushes
Burning eyes clenched in your fists

It's too damn easy to love
Especially to those who can't give it
Can't even take it
Though anyone can be worthy
If they have some combination of all
That you crave so strongly
Longing to be given
And possessed
Free and sure

It's too damn easy to sit down
Keeping your hands busy
Waiting for someone else to feed you
      And take you
      And make you
      And let you love them with all
The little that you have-
But they never want you-
Or your gifts
In return for nothing you ever ask for...
Hope and misery
Fear, eternal fear
And so many deaths
Surround the present
Killing yourself with bad habits
Born from worse memories and forebodings

There must be a place where the well springs
And there will be no more smoke
From dead dreams that keep me warm at night

This Time

Every time I fall in love

I pray to remember

My dearly-departed’s

Face and eyes and ears and neck

The way his chest felt against my cheek

How his kisses melted me

And I flush to recall

Nothing sweeter

Than our hands held together

Walking in the woods

Flashes

It’s hard to think

With memories of you

Wrapped around my neck

Choking me in clearly perfumed images

Visions of your glances

Like so many others

Lightning in my mind

I can’t sleep at night

Again, always

Love will forever run me ragged

For so little