Poems, thoughts, and stories.
To stop digging deep, to stop. All magic and truth napping in a corner while what I've done neither clears the way nor impedes; now content on ebbing thought, soft-stretched in a warm bed, morning and clean sheets like a park before birds, fog-muted city to cool clear sunlight -- quiet, quiet loved by quiet, mountains and memory books in silent rooms, all-beautiful, pillow under my head, rest for my back, soft hands, yes.
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Don’t put me in a coffin. Much better to find a small box for ancient gray ash that could be Vesuvius or that little dog I used to pet. I want no more me, no more memories etched around empty eyes or lonely hands that would’ve carried more, so much more, but were robbed by other death, nearer loss and love that still-chokes all earth. No, burn me into nothing for I endure no more.
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What does freedom feel like? An open gate on a busy walk, house set back and door ajar, anyone welcome, all memories. They come with their stories or pass by without a word on journeys I know nothing about and don’t need to sift, but will if one or two cross that threshold and walk the yard to find me sitting on the stair having a wonderful conversation with Mistake.
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If you like this, give Late-Night Lucid a try here.
He was everyone's note splurged his song jumped from bed to bed looking looking finding! losing the tune.
All we’ve talked has burned, embers smoothing silly me, impatient you — until we ease into each other to enthrall Dark.
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Feel free to drop a line here.
A collection of poems for the late hours of the night.
Available at:
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I once fell in love. I once found a prince. He stood on a beach dark against the rolling surf, full with the universe. I once flew into daring rough hands, mute, lucky, held — an odd fish silent and ready, silent as hope. “Why couldn’t you be a woman?” In rowdy hands I wiggled the signs, did my best to become sexy, curvaceous, something — but slipped lonely-homeward back to the sea that rushed for me.
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“You came out talking.”
I hold my breath against this metal world, this chewy phlegm and snot-dripping contraption, close tight my eyes against the green-gowned monster and think: “What the fuck! Deceiving womb!” Sweat and salty tears now on my cheeks — why is she crying? Narcissist. I was the one ripped into a rotting cell that tasted of — is that excrement? — birthed into man’s horrendous hall, his macabre theater of death and religion. And she’s crying? I scream. (Was that the “talking” you heard?)
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Note:
Coming home from college for the first time, I told my mother what I’d learned in my philosophy class: “Your fifteen minutes of passion condemned me to death.”
Her response: “Sounds like your philosophy teacher needs to work on his stamina.”
New doctors are like puppies. They have to play with all their toys and can be wildly cute. Fresh out of obedience school, all they know is rules and cutoffs; they cannot yet lay by the fire because they are the fire and have trouble being still. Old doctors, like old dogs, aren’t so eager. They know our secret heart, the love we’ve spent against coming back and smile as we wave So Long.
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The coffee pot sticks a little to the warming plate. Sliding-glass door’s a bit rusty. I love it cracked open, lake-smell gets in, grass and summer rain, trees on the breeze — maybe the morning doves will come again. It’s good to feel stiff old shag, see stacks of books we’ve partly read, stacks and stacks. Your grandpa’s kitchen table, Ruth’s worn chair, dusty Mantovani on the player. Paintings hang crooked, curl on paneled walls, fading in memory and slow-days, that other house, the city one, already forgotten.
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Greg Beckman 