Lost Writing

I just realized I lost a piece of writing.  Written in pencil
on a piece of looseleaf the morning November 10, I think.
Up north.  I’m in the south at the moment.

I’d promised myself to transfer it to my book, or to here.

It looks something like this:

I have everything I need in the world
A coffee, a cigarette, a girl

________ silence here to talk to
A job that I can walk to

__________ ….

If anyone finds the rest, please contact me.

gh

Morning Mourning in The Kitchen

No poetry here but silence.
Not the poetic kind of silence, either,
but the kind fashioned out of
panic and
retreat.

I broke my own rule last night:
talked in bed.

I am gobsmacked—truly amazed—
at my ability—my utter willingness—
to disobey myself.

Needless to say I did not get laid.

gh

Come Spring

There is a garden
beside this house I’m in.
I didn’t plant it.
It’s not mine.
I’ve never tended it.
I just got here.

It is deep November
and the garden is a square
of twisted fingers,
long, bony, and brown.

It looks ravaged.
It was ravaged, though “harvested” is the proper term we use.
Balls of red lay nestled in the ruins;
tomatoes that, for whatever reason, never made it
to a salad or crock-pot.
Never invited to dinner.

It looks like death
but we all know
its’ temporary.

Come spring
the garden will be brought back to life
by the stranger who put it there
in the first place.

I take comfort in that.

gh

2 B Open

Here I stand
Just outside
The kitchen door

Of my heart’s obsession.

Very soon
I’ll lay upon
Her kitchen floor

And make my confession.

The cup of trust, the cup of sex,
The whip that tastes of tenderness…
This is what waits for me.

If you’re gonna
Fall in love
You better pray
To G-d above
Waiting for
The kitchen door

2 B opened.

gh

Architect

You have to hand it to the Architect
Of a love unique
That left the spirit wrecked
And the body weak.

gh

Promise

I will find a way to let you down
If there is a way it will be found
I will do the crime without a sound
I will find a way to let you down.

gh

Venus Framed

On a blue night sky
Venus,alone as usual
Appropriately framed
In an upside down triangle of  branches.

I think about you.

gh

Widow’s Peak

My heart races in a manner I can feel all the way to the back of my head on the pillow.  Caffeine and nicotine, it occurs to me, are likely responsible though I would never admit that to anyone. I’ve publicly proclaimed myself immune to the effects of those drugs.

Maybe my heart wanted me wide awake to see the mist rise off the lake. If that was the case, my heart should have been clearer with my mind, which started a race of it’s own shortly after realizing that it…we…me, my head, my heart…were all awake.  My heart is nostalgic.  It would no doubt liken the mist on the water to the way emotion moves through a body or something poetic like that and would head straight for the comfortable territory of slightly sad.  My mind is more pragmatic.  Soon as the fog clears, it begins its’ cataloguing of every dent, hole, crack and seized-up joint on the suit of armor I’ve been wearing all my life.

The phone says 4:47am. I wrap myself in a sweater (gift from my lover), pull on some track pants (gift from my lover), and step over shorts, 2 bamboo shirts, and a hemp hoody (all gifts from my lover) and slide out the side door on to the widow’s peak at the side of the cottage to light up -why not- another cigarette.

The sky looks alien. Orion’s Belt hangs so low, so close to the horizon, that i dub it a hip-hop sky. From up here I can see the lake top smooth and unblemished like the inside of her thigh and just as tantalizing.

Later on, when the mists disappear and the surface is kissed by the inevitable morning wind, the lake will talk.

Not on its own, of course.

The sun will rise over the trees and will reflect itself on to the ceiling that i will undoubtedly be staring up at. There on the ceiling in temporary ink, flashing and laughing, will be the question that i have sworn to NOT ask, that I refuse to ask, that I am afraid to ask:

Why? Why do you love me?

The sad thing, reader, is that she’s already answered. A few times, too.

I just keep forgetting what she says.

Learn to Pray

If you want to sing
You had better learn to pray.

If you want to dance
You had better learn to pray.

If you want to make love
You had better learn to pray.

If you want to do business
You had better learn to pray.

All these things taste better that way.

Caution

It isn’t a sin to have hope
But it is to sell it
And there’s no danger in seeking the truth
But there may be if you tell it.