Eidetic

I remember

getting caught as a

teenage boy staring

at a girl sitting across the room from me in class

and her response:

“take a picture, it will last longer.”

(Gen X is nothing if not masters of sarcasm.)

In 1983

if I wanted a picture

or

something that would last longer

I’d need a little 110 camera

my grandmother gave me before a summer trip to the beach

and a couple of bucks for some film

and the patience to snap the other

twenty three photos on the roll…

so that I could

drop it off at the Fotomat

while Carl, the night manager

perused my choices of scenes I deemed

worthy of

wanting to last a lifetime.

It’s 40 years later and

we’ve all got Carl and the Fotomat in our pockets

and I’d imagine if some freckles

or pig tails catch a young boys eye now

that girl won’t say

“take a picture, it will last longer”

but

 “Mr Jones, Stevie is taking pictures of me!”

and that’s a whole ‘nother level of cringe.

Looking at pictures this afternoon of

my mom and dad on their wedding day

and of my boys at the mall shortly before

telling Santa how cool a new Playstation would be

and of my daughters, trying to look cool and unenagaged

while on a family vacation

I realize that

pictures really do last longer.

That constant need in me to

capture a moment in such a way

that memory doesn’t fall victim to

age and

time

and

rose colored revision…

(or, worse, cluttering that memory with all those other twenty three pictures filling up that roll)

just the thought buries me in regret and melancholy.

How can I possibly take enough pictures that

last remotely long enough to

remind me of just how beautiful She is every single day?

Photographs of mountains in the distance

a chalky gray sky against a burnt umber sunset

or just mom and dad standing in a shot that invokes

a memory of my grandmother standing there,

her Kodak camera in hand,

telling them to smile…

they all tell a story and

fill in the blanks that

memory tries so hard to recreate.

I sometimes wonder if my wife

When,

for the 14th time this evening,

catches me

staring at her again

thinks to herself

“take a picture…”

I am, love.

I am.

Brackish

There are no refunds on anecdotes:
There she goes: the other shoe.

Potential is little more than a moral victory

While you’re waiting for the moments that never come,
You can’t start a fire if you have no kindling
no Flint
no lighter
no match
Bark
and
soul
and
attraction…

Things that don’t grow on trees.

good morning beautiful only works if she wants to hear it from you
or maybe that’s just my Jangled sense of catastrophe

Larceny:
The ash leftover from love burnt to the ground
She’s a lost continent
Atlantis, within her
Just beginning to sink under the weight of the sea.
She’s written all of the other major characters out of my storyline
But I fear I’m still just an extra in hers.
Would I be better off not knowing that
She doesn’t feel for me like she did him
Or like any of the people she’s been infatuated with
That there are no fireworks
No great romance
No sense of “woo”
No fire.
It’s the words we say…
What they mean now,
What they meant then
What they’ll mean later.
All these years of pages
Smoldering in the inferno.

Capitulate

I woke up this morning and

said “thank you”

for the smell of her body

the delicate sigh of her breath

the soft curve of her back

the warmth of her skin…

her mind a forest fire that

no boy has ever been able to contain.

and so the morning,

evaporating into

afternoon

where there are no more words

to say all the things I’ve already said

when she asks me to say

good things about her:

but I’ve already stated my case;

she just won’t listen.

I look at my face in the mirror-

this man, a stranger

who seems too far away…

the distance a war I’ll never win—

her hand in mine

a battle

I fear I’m losing.

Repine (for Molly)

in a few hours

the birds will be singing their song—

your song—

floating on the wind with

a little less vigor than before.

the love you gave,

the love you made

imprinted on hearts, on this world

on people you knew and

people you’d never met

flowing out of that song

that laughter your friends will hear in

quiet corners of their mind when they remember

all you are.

we’re not wired for this.

grief, loss

anger

all the things that run counter to

the very fabric of you

juxtaposed against the way your love

ameliorated the world around you;

the way your voice would

rise

and

fall;

ebb

and

flow;

the way music heals all

but somehow not where we need

the healing the most.

Rest, love.

sink into your peace knowing that this morning—

every morning…

the birds will carry this legacy on.

caducous

this evolution-

the path of least resistance

to a future we can at least stomach

never quite quenches the thirst we’re feeling

from that dry parched throat full of loss…

we’re never ready;

it always comes way too soon.

we wonder about the arguments

still resonating in our heads

never considering that it’s more about

the fights we never had,

the words we never said,

those catchphrases never spoken and

never reminisced about tomorrow.

it’s always that twinge of sepia our minds fabricate so well

lulling us into believing this was more than it ever could be

lying to us about how broken we all are

convincing us we’re losing the farm

when we never knew the first thing about harvesting this crop.

kicking back, nursing this drink while

watching the dinosaurs die out

drowning in the melancholy of the loss of the moment

instead of taking advantage of new plans and better opportunities

in a fresh new world, on this brand new canvas

Hiræth

the darkness had been falling

just a little too long

I don’t think anyone really believed

she’d ever find her way back

 

that’s where I found her:

standing around

a little lost

a little scared

looking a lot like Gretel

after the bread crumbs had ran out

 

the hunger…the fight

it was still there

just under the surface,

if anyone cared to look hard enough;

it seemed as if she’d lost the

willingness to try

but when I brushed the hair back out of her eyes

it was still there:

that fragile hope that

Love might win.

 

maybe we all get a little lost

looking for answers to

the wrong questions we keep asking ourselves

clawing our way back out of the well

and trying to find our way back home,

when all along we never knew

just what home could really be.

Jacquerie 

She’s got me in the clip, 

But always someone else 

in the chamber… 

And though I know I’ll wait here 

Pent up, alone 

Never even getting the chance to 

Expend the energy to 

Explode into her environment the way 

He did or 

He does or 

He will… 

I sit here patiently,

The last kid in gym class :

Pick me…

Pick me. 

reify

bobbing up and down
on a sea of uncertainty:
worried.
waiting.
wanting.

you

in so many ways I
never knew before…

held up.
held close to my heart
held close to my hands
by you,
with the calming expectation
of
promises you made
but give no indication
you plan
to keep.

lost and alone
I seek solace in
an early exit-
a controlled departure-
knowing you
will always wonder what
I was running from
even though
deep down…
all along…
we both knew:

it was you.