Month: February 2013

Memories of dreams

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I awoke to find I had lost a pillow
And memories of dreams flooded in with
The expected emotions.

I remembered you,
So many of you,
and I I had to choke a dream memory
That felt too real for comfort
and likely caused the flung pillow,
Either in my sleeping rage at having been
Disturbed
Out of the dream of love
Or in the slow realization that it was
Not the reality any longer
And would never be again.

Some things once broken are never truly fixed
And some things once fixed are never again whole.

The importance of being Ernest

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Names are symbols
Even when they are unceremoniously chosen,
But their meaning is rarely a given.

I was lucky to share my middle name
With two great men in particular,
My grandfather and Hemingway,
Both men of great strength,
Courage
And character.

Sometimes names were a life sentence,
A bar whose expectations one could never
Live up to,
But I took strength in mine.

If I am half the man they were,
When all is said and done,
I will have lived well
And somewhere between
Hearst and
Paris.

The breaks of life

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I watched the steam rise off my skin

like flames licking at my bathroom ceiling

and watched as my mug of chilled water

clouded over.

 

Hemingway,

I thought,

was a man broken over the back of time

over

and over again

but it was the break in his 20s

that killed him.

 

A man broken by a woman

is nothing new

even if that man faulted himself

instead of the invulnerable one,

but it is a lesson in love and

loss

that we should all hear.

 

The heart is not to be played with

tinkered with

or deceived,

because life will dig its powerful talons into

your skinny,

fragile

neck

for playing love like some game.

 

It could have killed me before

when I sat

desolate

puking in my shower

from the loss of an Artist,

or the, scared boy I was, having to leave

the Scientist that captured

my heart in the depths of a depression,

somehow,

more magic than science and I

didn’t eat, sleep or feel much else for months,

or when I rolled back and forth,

body heaving under the weight of the news

the Teacher was leaving,

my heart in her luggage,

or when you grabbed my convulsing arm,

“come here!”

the Nurse said so forcefully

and pulled me into the bathroom,

stripped off my clothes and made me sit in the

scolding

hot shower with you

like we did for so many years to talk.

 

Love was not lessened by having

been felt many times

if anything it became more severe,

at least you knew the stakes,

and only the ignorant or

incapable of love

would suggest it got easier or

hurt less.

 

Life had not quite broken me yet,

but triggers like angels danced in dreams

for many years past,

and certainly dance still,

to the same

macabre

song

of life, love and loss.

Man out of time

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Months no longer mattered
Much less days
And time itself took on a liquid form.

Time was never much of a fact for me
I never gave encouragement to notions of
Supper time or bed time
And especially
Time to unwind.

My mind was already unwound enough
And it could never be reunited or relaxed
It was as it was.

There was no sharpness to life lately
And everything took on the familiar
Grey, blurred qualities I was used to.

This was how it felt to be out of love,
Out of life
And somewhere part worries or doubts.

Who is that poem about

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The postcard sits on my fridge,
that was our fridge,
Not as a sad reminder of
Better
Times
But as a reminder to miss you.

I don’t miss you anymore
And there’s something cold
And seemingly empty about that,
As if you had meant nothing.

Its from Switzerland’s Chateau De Chillon,
And you said you missed me
Although we had only hung out once
And you disguised your love by saying
‘Much love’
When you signed off,
But we both knew it was a quiet misdirection.

Happiness washes over me reading this
Postcard from a mystery woman in my past
Because that is not who you are now
That was another you
And another me.

I wouldn’t bet the farm that those will be
The happiest moments of our young lives
but anyone hedging bets would not
Handicap that bet too much,
it might be a favourite.

And the beautiful Irish had said
I reminded her of Hemingway because
I was handsome
Honest
And a hell of a writer.

Maybe it didn’t matter what anyone else said,
Besides a handful of lovers,
Because I was handsome and honest,
Worthy of hatred for my vileness,
And I could write.

More importantly,
I was worthy of great love
the deepest sadness
And was hellbent on passing away talent.

The kick

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Familiar receptors from an old me
Have opened up again
Begging me to be fed.

The great human condition of loneliness
Asks whether I will give up
Another piece of my heart
Or feel the familiar sting of bring alone.

It’s tempting to spend some heart,
Even in today’s tight economy,
For some relief from the dull suffering.

I’ve handled worse than this,
But being stoic isn’t always the answer,
And often its just being stubborn.

Familiar fingers run their phantom fingers
Through my hair and down my chest
And I realize my desires will stop at nothing
In their efforts to feed.

the weight of a bad hand

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The corner of your lip is set in a

frown

that shakes the world.

 

How could the beautiful be so

sad

and left behind,

and what type of world is this?

 

There is no justice

and any talk of karma or

a justifying force is laughable

or downright idiotic.

 

Sadness and loneliness will

rape

and pillage the

dreams and ambitions of even the

most noble and purest

and it is up to us to respond.

 

It was more in your eyes than

your beautiful lips,

that sadness,

the pervasive,

indifferent

sadness.

 

Life had dealt you the same hand

as me

and we both felt the weight of it

bearing down like hard chains

tugging

at our soft flesh and bones.

Streams of consciousness

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One after the other

they flood through my mind

as water rushes over rocks to

create a waterfall

and never let you sleep.

 

The sound of the waters

slams against any

tranquillity

and maybe you were

beautiful and friendly enough to

help me sleep

but maybe you were

empty

just like me.

 

And talking about being

empty

does not make me deep

or profound

or philosophical,

it makes me honest,

and maybe not even that.

 

We run away from loneliness

and the sadness that pierces every

corner of our lives like the high afternoon sun

and we can’t run forever.

 

Numb it away with alcohol,

but the alcohol only pushes it further

like a hammer wedging splinters deeper

into your already bleeding heart,

and I hope you don’t

choke on the blood.

As the quiet came in

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The quiet came

and I remembered I

was not okay.

 

There was no sweet embrace

or somebody special to lie next to

and there would not be

it seemed

for a long while.

 

I could taste disappointment

in my mouth,

especially on my tongue

but it was strongest in my

veins,

flowing with my blood,

and there was something fierce

and unforgiving

about it.

 

I remembered how my dreams

let me down

and abandoned me on some

dark

corner

to fend for myself.

 

A life once seeming so full of

potential,

as a golden child,

a prodigy,

now idling on a hill

unable to climb further,

as a runner looking up a steep climb

only to realize they had the freedom

to stop

and it meant the exact same as

moving forward.

winners and losers

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One day life is going to swallow you whole

it’s going to bite through your weak flesh

and flimsy intentions and ambitions

and I won’t help it or you.

 

You’re both zero-sum games to me,

there is no victory and only

defeats that snatch away all hope

for something better and

meaningful,

like hearing Wagner and waiting for

the climax to come

only for somebody to kick your

record player to shit,

of your iPod dying right before the

 

drop.

 

There’s a Circle somewhere reminding me

that you fucking disappoint me and

it was not always the case,

but most of the time,

it was.

 

I guess you aren’t unlike life itself,

there’s no winning or losing in the end,

because the end removes all value from the game,

and the only way to live is to

enjoy it all

the bad and the good

and the in-between

because it’s all something,

for

now,

until it all rejoins the inanimate

nothingness,

that our souls have sought our entire lives.