Paradise and Blue Sky

For my two loyal readers, some stuff to tide you over until Friday. I'll be out of town visiting the windy city for work...I'm trying to expand the subjects of my writing, so the first poem is for my best friend and the plans we made. When we're rich, well, we'll see if we follow through with them. Have a good week :)

Paradise Plan

We made a plan you and I
Sun and sky and sea
millions to spend and share
days pass lazily as the clouds drift

We designed a pink house, you and I
With chefs and maids and all
We’d hang out on the beach and write
days pass lazily as the sun fades

We said we be philanthropists
We’d give to those in need
We’d hobnob and be famous
days pass lazily as the waves crash

We figured we’d never tire of it
We’d find passion along the way
tan men and muscles walking past
days pass lazily as the wind blows

We made a plan you and I
a dream, a wish, a longing
we laughed and schemed and laughed some more
days pass quickly as the world speeds by

Blue Sky

Blue sky
Do you see it?
Hot ball of fire in the distance
She reaches for it
Higher and higher she flies
A world of swirling dreams below her
An ideal life
Captured in scattered images
Of movies, songs, pages of books

Red lips
Can you touch them?
Hot ball of fire raging in her body
She reaches for it
Higher and higher she flies
A haze of swirling images surrounds her
A moment of hunger and passion
Captured inside her mind

Hard body
Can you feel it?
Hot ball of lust burning between them
They ache for it
Faster and faster they move
The faces of one another swimming before them
A moment fulfilled

Blue sky
Red lips
Hard body
All so distantly near
Yet never close enough.

Mid-Week Blues

She sits staring vacantly at the blue sky outside. I should be out there doing something. I should go for a walk or sit by the pond. Really, I should be out there. She sips a beer and watches kids chase each other with paper cups filled with water. Man, to be that age again...no, no I was fat at that age. Huh. I can't really think of an age I'd prefer to be. Her brain is tired. All day she has written and researched and written some more. She has mediated, long-distance, the problems between co-workers. She is tired. She sips her beer again. Maybe I'll at least open the door so it seems like I'm outside. She forces her body to move, uncurls her legs from their lotus position in her computer chair, and walks into the sun.

Sunday Ramblings

Dreaming

She nestled down beneath the covers and closed her eyes tight. In the quiet darkness she focused on him. On the fantasy of meeting him in a place of anonymity; a place of sanctity. Desperately she clung to the idea of him, even as he faded from her mind. Thoughts drifted deeper and deeper into a mix of real and unreal. She slumbered, body snuggled beneath the covers, dreams shifting in her mind.

Country Road

Traveling a long country road together
they laugh.
A corny sense of humor surrounds them both
as they discuss the painted houses passing them by.
Oak trees and plantations one after another
Life as it used to be
Markers showing the way back to the 19th century,
to history and a new-born America.
She drives and remembers why she chose him.
They fly over the hills and around the curves.
Relaxed, happy, fulfilled.

Vignettes

Salvation

She had to get out; town was no longer enough of a refuge. A million thoughts fly like clothes into a wrinkled dufflebag. She checks the purse for cigarettes, money, keys. She racks her brain for reasons to go, reasons not to go, reasons to need reasons. Hopping in the car, she lays the directions and map on the seat beside her and drives into the night. Wind streams in, music blares, time passes as she races towards salvation and the beach. Her eyes blur, miles tick past...she finds him and reaches a weekend of bliss.

Sand on the Beach

They walk, hand in hand

Sand underfoot

Salt in the air

Waves crawling closer

Birds flying high over the water

She runs, wild and wanton

Sand underfoot

Saltwater splashing

Waves crashing down

Footprints form by the water

They laugh and fall down

Sand underfoot

Water droplets in her hair

Tide slipping backwards

Kisses given in the sunlight

They sink into one another

Sand underneath

Bodies pressed together

Reason melting away

Ecstasy felt beneath the sky

What Would It Be Like

What would it be like I asked you.
It would be bliss, ecstasy, like coming home.
It would be bagels on Sunday
It would be festivals and collaborations.
It would be me knocking on the door,
you answering, and us falling to the floor together.

It won't ever be as good as we think.
It never is, I say.
It could be, it is in my mind. But then,
everything with you is always that good in my mind.

What if we'd always been together?
Then would we have learned what we know now?
Would we really be different people?
I would have been there for you.
Through all of it.

Now I am here and you are there.
I am content and you are looking for the spark.
It's there-you'll find it. Find the spark for today, the spark for now.
Now is all we know anyway. Tomorrow is another story.

Life and the Mundane

Spring is finally in bloom here in the Capital region and with it I feel as though I'm shedding my old skin and revealing a new and better one. I feel like I'm making progress at my job, at home...and I might even get to move again soon. It's been six months, it's time to go. Don't get me wrong, we've enjoyed our time here, but our itchy feet usually only leave us in one place this long...then it's off to a new land. A new land, new house, new grocery store...

I don't know what I'm feeling right now...I was metaphorically slapped in the face the other day with the statement "you're still working on being a good wife." Fortunately it didn't come from my husband, but by someone who normally understands me, but totally blew me off course with that statement. I do write poetry about secretive loves and lusts, but I consider it a release. Usually those poems occur once or twice a year and are all written within days of each other--when it's cold and rainy, or just rainy at least, and I'm alone with those crazy ideas swirling in my head.

Those poems do reflect things I've felt and things I wonder about, but not things I'd act on. I fully believe in the idea that things happen for a reason and I am young enough still to believe that my life has not ended and is not over. There are adventures for years to come, challenges and expeditions and who knows what else. I write those poems mostly for myself, but I write them for others too. I write them so that others know they are loved and missed and fondly remembered.

Getting back to my earlier point however, I am a good wife. Of course, many will say that if I really was I wouldn't have to say it. Maybe that's true. All I know is that I feel safe here. I feel comfortable and content and protected and loved. And I give that back. But, reader, my life is dull. And so it is through the poems from the "private collection" that I bare my soul and admit my fantasies. And if that makes me a bad person, then so be it. I love deeply and I love many people. I have a very hard time letting go of the past and just living in the present. I like to remember and sometimes I even remember the bad stuff just to wonder what I could have done differently.

Someone once told me I should have these poems published...to which I replied, "but then everyone would know what they were about." So perhaps I feel a little guilty writing them but perhaps too I only like for them to be read by the people they were meant to be read by.

Some poetry to share from the "private" collection.

Small Talk

Person 1: Well, fancy seeing you here.
Separation no longer. I couldn’t have stood it had I not seen you here.
Person 2: (laughs) Well, you know. I try to get out and be social every now and again.
How did I ever think I could see you and resist you?
Person 1: You look good.
Kiss me. Please kiss me.
Person 2: Yeah, so do you.
I want to kiss you. I want to feel your lips against mine.
Person 1: I was about to get a drink. Join me?
Please join me. Just so I can see you a minute longer.
Person 2: Sure.
I could never resist. Never.
Person 1: (with drinks, sits) Such a great opportunity-being here.
Being here close enough to touch you.
Person 2: I’m glad you were able to make it.
So I could see you. So I could touch you.
Person 1: Should be a good couple of days.
If I could only…
Person 2: Yeah, I think so.
If I could only…

A Cryptogram
A cryptogram perhaps
A coded little rhyme
A quote that I like
A way to express without expressing
Is everything too clear?
Should it be more muddled?
But then is too muddled too unclear?
How to speak without speaking
How to say what you’re thinking by only thinking
By not really saying
It can be written
But can it ever be shared?
Is it ever worth sharing?
A poem perhaps
Too bold
Perhaps too unclear
Or just clear enough
A quote that I like
A way to express without expressing

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking
What I’m looking at, what I see and what it means
What I want and what I fear.”
~Joan Didion

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
~Aldous Huxley

And What is Life?
And what is life?
Is it idealism?
Is it roses and wine and love and great sex?
Is it responsibility and bills, work and conversation?
It is nothing.
It is everything.
It is hard to live.
Is it realism?
Is it the daily tasks of laundry and dishes?
Is it night moves in the dark beneath the covers?
Is it the cover of darkness beneath the night?

When I was seventeen life was rebellion.
Life was beer and sex and older men.
Life was making it through Spanish and Calculus.

When I was twenty two life was marriage.
Life was dogs and supper and television and silence.
Life was bad sex and no sex and pretty soon nothing.
Life was

When I was twenty three four life was chaos.
Life was lies and deceit and passion.
Life was men and more men and Mexico.
Life was meaningless and confused.
Life was never thinking of life.

When I was twenty seven life was living.
Life was responsibility and maturity, sex and laughter.
Life was in a different city every six months and praying
For just one more day of life.