Haiku about concentrating while infatuated.

Attempted to write
So I could stop feeling struck
And start feeling whole

Burgeoning, brooding
Background noise drowns out my thoughts
I cannot connect

Detached from feeling
Perforated edges rip
Me along the seams

Alone used to hurt
I keep myself company
A book or two helps

A phone call from mom
Not worried, her voice soothes the
Burgeoning, brooding

I hang up the phone
Lying on my bed restless
With no place to go

Watching ashes float
In an old cup of coffee
Sitting on my desk

I should clean my room
But I can’t concentrate. Fuck!
Watching ashes sink

My hands might be chapped
And the dishes need doing
The plants need water

And I need water
To quench the thirst of ages-
A drink by his side

Burgeoning, brooding
I know I should get up now
But I watch ashes

And think about him
Today’s only lucid thought
Is of his laughter


which echoes through me
and sits on my surface. Like
ashes in coffee.

Thoughts on a 94 degree afternoon

He is like the floater
In the corner of my eye


Sitting on my couch after work
I let the A/C chill me
while my blunt burned
Calming down & cooling off
as my high kicked in-
replacing anxious with lonely
I checked your status,
Hoping to catch you
before you signed off
But you weren’t there
Instead I studied your pictures
over the internet
&it isn’t lying to say
I wish I were in them.
& it isn’t telling you the truth to say
I’m happiest as friends
But it’s fair of me to say
if given the chance.

Thursday evening so
I had fresh fruit
from the farmers market
I walk through on lunch breaks
lemon cucumbers cool-at 94 degrees
We shot the breeze
partly about current events
but mostly about men
&U found it easy
to tell the perfect friend
how he is a reminder
of some perfect man-
but again were ‘just friends…’
&Im only a ‘just’-
a world of ‘just’
the most desperate way
to begin a sentence
is to 'Just'
until I’m ‘too much…’
listening to your wants,
willing to tailor my needs
&I almost blurted I love you ,
But by then you were already
In the middle of telling me
about your date.
I didn’t want to seem rude,
So I mumbled and trailed off
&blamed my banter on the weed.
&spoke only with jubilance
to mask my misgivings.
Then I lost track
of what you were saying
cause you’re always
just out of reach

The floater,
In the corner of my eye,

Untitled

I meet his eyes and uncover such beauty
all at once, all in that instant &I cannot look away.
My chest becomes a peppermill
&my heart pops and cracks &wrenches toward him.
Leaping, I am the morning catch of a fisherman’s net
& I brave such rivers flooded by his might,
but kept at bay by the tenderness of his touch
Or is it the timbre of his voice?

He has never been mine
our lips are strangers;
but our hands have brushed-
& I have studied every fold of every curve
of every layer of his skin.
I swear our minds have met-our eyes have bonded.
The edges of his mouth turn upward in conversation
And I smile at this man, like a child witnessing the divine.
In awe of the sincerity of his delivery.

He is the only man- so beautifully human.
& my heart paces on his whim-
Paces like my feet when I think of how to tell him
that I want to be closer to him than the ink of his tattoos:
I envy their proximity &admire their method
of getting under his skin &into his blood
Which leads to the source of this whole production.

This morning I thought of him as my pancakes started to bubble
&crisp around the edges-wondering how he takes his coffee.
I whistled softly to myself & knew it was love.

Only

I only write poetry
When the drapes are on fire
When the heart is imploding
When the sun is floating
Near the rim of my glass
and I take a sip &watch it split
like a fractured yolk;
like my past.


When the world has no plan
& I’m in trouble, a regular ol’ calamity.
When I’m mad that I am only a man
&question what the plan must be.

I only write poetry
When he is beside me
My clay skinned Adonis,
dipped in ebony.
When he must leave
& I’ve no place to go
‘cept to my wineglass
Where the sun is floating
a subtle glow.

While I am living, but too busy fearing.
When the voices start singing
&I don’t like what I am hearing

When I can hear my neighbors making love
While I lie alone,
tuning out their huff n puff


I only write poetry
When the day is created
&the clouds are lavender bruises
Draped across a muscled sky.
&for a moment I know God.
&it is so beautiful –
&I sit alone &wonder why

sensory

Sniff me,
And learn the history of my scent
Olfactory; rolling musk –candy sweet,
The taste of me gingerly
On your palette
Salted skin,
Sampled secretly
Dine on me.