Engagement

we tried making it

up the hill

where there was that damned bird

(hawk)

encircling the steep

and air knifing so cold

but you told me

your parents would adore me

as we gracefully opened the door.

I wanted to linger by the door,

since something told me

that the bird was trying to

listen in. I fisted my hands,

but they thought I was scared.

we tried winging it,

up the hill

where there was that damned thought

(fear)

circling my eyes

and abandon was stripping so fierce

but you told me

your parents might ignore me

as we forcefully opened the door

I wanted to run out of the door

since something had told me

that the thought

was trying

to listen in.

I covered my ears but they

thought I was deaf-

thought I could land/lock/land/lips

not knowing to embarrass;

so we told them about the engagement

and I stormed out and lit a cigarette

and that damned knifing air

that damned stripping abandon

killed when you said you’d do anything for me,

but since we came by cab and I left by cab

I payed on my own and it was on my tab

and I left you, a ring still on my finger

but it was like living in a dream

and I don’t know if

I dropped it in the ocean half-asleep

or swam inside to get a closer look at the

ocean’s water breaking, and decided it wasn’t even worth the trouble

of diving beneath the waves to save it.

Copyright 2015 Golden Star Poetry

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Two Men of the Same Name, or: Forgotten Phrases

The First One has been

on the road of his life for only a few years

just long enough to seem wise beyond his years

His eye smiles are sludgy, mixing in with

almost every other facial expression.

I doubt that he has a real faith in anything,

(he mostly said it himself)

so I wonder if we might really be alike.

If you asked my opinion,

I’d say that on a walk in the park he’d

wonder about the way the squirrel thinks about his life,

if at all,

but in a joking sort of way,

of course;

He might think about the influence of a song to a poem

or a poem to a song or which came first,

but he doesn’t mean it usually.

Some days he isn’t actually joking-

those are the days I think I love him the most.

On the spot he will spew out the ridiculous

his teeth and eyes a fascination,

his face an endless infinity

that I might go around and around,

never getting too near,

smiling and crying for lack of response

smiling and crying.

The Second One always drifts away from a conversation;

a winter face, a thinner face,

the face of a small boy.

His lips demand to be deftly kissed,

like a victorious action

he speaks to you like a friend,

but seems to dismiss you.

Nothing in him says permanence.

He seems to deeply understand words and yet

act as though he is completely naive about them

maybe he’s a fraud, who knows.

Then in the back of my mind

I am sure and scared that he may just be a

fresh-faced, ever-youthful idiot trying to get you to

smoke in some back alleyway, but he listens, he seems patient,

he wears nice clothes, and you speak.

you speak to him but he keeps on changing the subject,

he keeps on smiling and you don’t know why it

never rubs off of his damned sweet looking face.

he might be innocent, maybe,

but it’s such a coy little smile that you have no choice but to smile back.

(when he walks into the room,

I stop everything I am saying and stare at him

and when they ask me what I was talking about I

suddenly don’t care about what I was going to say anymore).

Copyright 2015 Golden Star Poetry

On Epiphanies

16
Bright as a daisy, ready;
Somerset Maugham would have
liked this day,
he picks up thorns from your ashes
and says you could have been happy,
once.

17
tailor made, new shave;
you return to the daily grind
you begin stripping maple trees for
syrup,
rubber trees for sap

18
they won’t let me see, and I’m still drowning
I’m still in the bathtub and I’m blaming my stubbornness
I’m held in a circle that is your arms and I said it was nothing
and feeling, like acorn to seed, small and give feed
you said hush and gave me your shoulder and I said that’s all I really ever asked for

Copyright 2015 Golden Star Poetry