Lazy Day Saturday

I remember that one Saturday
we laid in my bed for hours
taking turns reading each other
poems we found in the
piles and piles of books we
had left on my night stand
from nights
and nights
before.

From Bukowski to Dickinson
Shakespeare to Silverstein.
Milton to our own.

It started because we woke
up ate breakfast and wandered
back to my room because
I said I wanted to organize it, but
you jumped on my bed and said
“read me something
romantic”

So I reached for the first book
I could find and
Bam, Bukowski.
“Girls in Pantyhose” about a
dirty old man checking out
13 year old girls.

You gently slapped me
“No, no, No, no, no,
something romantic.”
trying to hold back your laughter.

I again reached over blindly to
the book pile,
knocking books
over. I read
the first poem I found,

The Tiger

“…Then in a leap
of fire, blood, teeth,
with a claw slash I tear away
your bosom, your hips

I drink your blood, I break
your limbs one by one.”

“shhhh stop, stop, stop!
What the heck,
of all the Neruda you pick the
one where you kill me?
Nope, Not gonna do.
I want something,
something like, uhh” you reached
over me and grabbed another
book by Pablo Neruda and
flip to a folded corner,

“I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

and as you continued reading
I started reciting along with you and
you slapped me again saying,
“shush, this is my reading,
Patch.”

As you finished your poem
I started reading a tattered book
from childhood about a
“Danny O’dare, the dancin’
bear” and you
interrupted me comparing me to
a midsummer day
and then in turn interrupted you with
Kerouac’s Haiku
“The little worm
lowers itself from the roof
By a self shat thread”

We did this trading of poems
back and forth, back and forth
until finally you looked at me
shaking your head,
amused yet slightly
disappointed

“no seriously, hot shot,
read me something
Romantic.”

So I decided to do
what I’ve
never done,
I reach beneath my bed and
unwrapped a leather binder
and read poems which I’ve never
read, my own
about you.

As I read
I could see
tear swelling in
your eye and you
rested your head
on my shoulder.

I stopped for a moment
and just looked at you
“no, continue.”

And as I started
another poem you
places your finger
On my lips,
“wait, my turn.”
You then went over to your
purse and grabbed
a small note book
and starting reading
to me, poems
which I never even
knew existed, and
although I’m too “manly”
to admit it,
I, too, my have had some tears
in my eyes.

Some where we got
lost in language consumed my
our words engulfed in
Passions we had never
felt before. As we turned pages
and time slipped by like
smooth verse the sun
settled into the night
and my room became
too dark to
read.

I went to turn
on the light, but
you said “how
about we go out
to eat”

“sounds good, I’m
frick’n starving.”

So we went out to that
little Diner down the
street to our favorite old
waitress named “Babs”
who always seems to make
inappropriate jokes about
the dinner specials.
Then without paying
we both ordered
the same thing.

Later as you sipped your strawberry
milkshake, you looked at me
and then said

“You know, I never
realized that you and
I are really this
perfect.”

“You mean I’m
perfect?”

“no, hot shot,
but we are
definitely perfect
for each other,
agreed?”

and I agreed and
still do.

Tainted

Some days
I curse you
I loathe you,
I detest you,
but I’m
addicted…

Days turn into cinder—
other smiles
into cement—
flowers,
leaves and
sunrises
dissolve in a cloud
the smeared dull brown of
a water color in rain.

Your poison:

I use to find comfort
in nature,
its small features
cradling my sensitivity;
I cradled life.
I appreciated beauty.
A flower’s meticulous design
was enough…

I bowed down to
the setting sun’s montage—
God’s brush strokes drew me into a heaven—
until that autumn I saw the sun set on you.

It was your poison.

The amber flushing from the sun
at war with the amber waves of your hair,
the constant battle between amber god and the amber deity.

I stared, lost, into you
the sun set as you gazed
at the sleepy star
reflecting its shimmer in your smile.
God subdued to your aesthetics
resting his brush, He left you the sky.

You surveyed the night
placing the constellations

one
by
one,

Commanding the Angels;
they lifted the moon for the faint light.
I could see your eyes
twinkle
like the stars,
Deep in cerulean iris,
I could see day in night.

I was immersed in your poison

My pallet forever tainted
By your Cristal

I tried
so hard
to regain appreciation for His work.

I sipped the chardonnay of flowers,
indulged in the whiskey of the babbling water,
chugged the tequila of the sunrise ,
chased it with bourbon of birds’ song

…not a buzz
I just craved you…

… but
on those some days
when trapped
in the cold dank cell of the outside
I wander aimlessly
through life

and God serenades me
with His orchestra
A complex finale
for my ears
Melodies and harmonies
reminding me
That it was He
who created
Mozart,
Beethoven,
and Berlios

with climaxes of trumpets,
violins,
and, your favorite,  cellos.

People everywhere
hunting for the correct answer
in whispered songs
all with those complex entities of syncopated
rhythm
that drags us willingly or not through his creation
we march

one
by

one.

I prayed for silence,
but how does one plead his conductor and composer for a rest?

Then there was you
all was silent
except for our breath,

In
then out,

In
then out,

that was silence enough.

Heaven:
no longer a place but moments.
each one of them is you:
Your soul;
pristine innocence
Your voice and presence;
Divine Magnum Opus—
each causing my world to bow down to you.

Most days
I adore you;
Your poison
is euphoric.
I’m a glutton when it comes to your eyes.

Not even the arts could help
readers, listeners, and spectators
understand that.

But on
those some days
when locked in the free range
of everything,
I hold the freedom to do anything
so I take advantage
to hate that void
of doing something.

So while doing nothing
I pray for freedom from
it all,
that silence you create,

your Poison.

The smile in the setting sun,
gracing and creating my smile,
gives me that escape
from the painting
from the music
and from the constant
dull drum of time.

You are in dreams
and I can’t say
you are better than life
because you’ve become
a part of my life.
You have shaped
a new point of reality
even with drips of beauty
falling from your eyes
on horrible days.

I’m grateful
as much as I humanly can be.

On days you’re absent
I sit and stare at the sun
as it sets I curse its lack of luster.
I listen to music
and the orchestra is too loud
and scream out for silence
and I’ crave your poison!

and when it’s not there

I curse you
I loathe you,
I detest you,
because I’m
addicted

to your poison.

Dream or No Dream

If I remember right
we were walking
in the District of Colombia
and the blind beggar
stopped us with his stick
while his faithful friend,
a cute Labrador,
sniffed at our feet.
For a split second we
realized how lucky
that beggar was to have such a compassionate
sniffing companion.

You said, “hello”
and pet the pup,
and then in

in soft growls
the blind beggar mumbled something
could have been anything who knows
what a mumbler mumbles when mumbling
but I do know after the grunt
and those few snorts
he said
“Hey Beautiful,”
to you and then to us,
“can you spare some change”
I slipped him
a fifty (or was it a five)
because for once I met a man who
saw the same things as
I.

Or maybe that
didn’t happen,
did it?
I might be slipping
in some imagined
madness,
but Dream or not,
He still has that
money in his jar
and his compassionate
companion by his side

and you are
indeed
still (and
always will be)
undeniably

beautiful.