Waiting

"Table for one?" she asks.
She grabs a menu
and walks so very slowly, painfully it seems.
She must be in her mid-40's.
I do not understand.

When she sets my place,
I see her hands,
fingers bent the way my mother's were,
impossible angles -- arthritic.

The food, when it comes, is delicious.
With a relaxed, uncomplaining face
she sits and watches customers,
awaiting a finished plate
or a half-empty water glass.

She must be here
because she very much wants to be.
She wouldn't think of leaving,
of not working for a living,
I tell myself.

When she comes to clear my plate,
I am ready to tell her to stop,
to go home,
to carry my own selfish mess
to the dish-room.

distracted

the Jews retaliate
when the jihadists
make jihad
both of them seeking
the elusive will of God
both missing the point
the real prize to win
distracted by each other
from the God within

on neural highway

mind -- not well
crinkled fissures
fold and fizzle
blood course, brain goop
sugar shock, shutting down
stutter stop, starter stuck
and all the blazing neurons
crash tip-deep into the backs
of the next in the chain
pile-up
on neural highway
fucked up
from too much too much
grounded
in hospital once again
gowns have wings
to fly into neon skies
psychotropic paradise

agony of apathy

didn't get this way
from years of caring

proud,
so proud
of being able to say "no"

like it was the next big
jazz

just because it could say
"screw you"

with carte blanche

under cover of sleep

French kissing her
under cover of sleep
in mystery of dream
a coming home
to the electric heart
this is what I've wanted
to be
this is what I've been
longing for
without knowing
every moment
in the years
since we last met

calling all sainted flowers -- #4

calling all
sainted flowers,
brushing the epitome
of epiphanies
gorging on honey
and sea air
growing like
life itself,
packed infinite
in each
cubic inch
of space

like loving not -- #3

Love
like loving not
the absence of absence
the filling of that which has
no more space to receive
remark - refund - retrieve
re-circle the situation
you felt to be a difficulty
while it was not
it was a question, rather
with no answer
hands extending outward
to embrace the All of us

Greyhound -- A2 #2

I didn't find the Greyhound station
godforsaken -- it was downtown quaint,
gritty-great -- Greyhound is good!
throwing out an un-thawed chicken
salad sandwich before boarding
sleeping while passing cornfields
a trip to my young adulthood
the university town that has haunted
my dreams, my psyche -- I can not
move on with my life until I face you,
Ann Arbor, you were my destroyer,
you were Shiva, my transformer

only these rolling wheels, these reaching
souls, quiet companions on a journey, 28
years in the making -- only these can carry
my heart to its destination

magnet -- A2 #1

the dense Earth, a magnet
pulling me toward the crash site
rounding it, rounding it
not able to
stop falling into
the devastation
pin prick
finger lick
pull all ties
to this,
divest from
catastrophe
I am soaring
in-to, out-from

I am traveling

at last

trip to Ann Arbor -- intro

What follows are four poems I wrote en route to, and in Ann Arbor on a trip there recently. It had been 28 years since I left the University of Michigan on a sour note -- hospitalized in a psychiatric ward and sent home to Cleveland where my parents welcomed me, and I spent the next 2+ decades in remission, relapse and remission from poor mental health. Currently doing pretty well, I thought a trip back to A-squared was in order, to reclaim my soul from both awful and ecstatic memories and to take some time out of time to experience the city once again.

yes, but how

"...there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."
-- Vincent Van Gogh

to love -- yes, but how to love?
we all love differently, some
with yellow, some with blue
some by carrying others
on their shoulders, others
by haunting them after leaving

and how do I love?
not with open arms and a radiant smile
but through reading my own soul
through consuming a volume
of uncompromising fullness
with a hand under my pillow
that holds a stone,
my truth, ever-turned
as I dream, seeking out
its hard, sweet secrets

parameia

I feel watched
even while she faces
the other way

I look down
realize
with certainty
that it is I
who am doing
the watching