Forecasts

The cold outside is seeping into me
By slow degrees I sink into myself
And weary of the world's extremity
Won't move. I see a book up on the shelf
And think it too much effort to extend
My leaden arm up to its promised weight;
I think I used to think I could depend
On my exuberance to heal my state,
But now I know - dull certainty - that I
Will not rise up, whatever is the cause;
I blame it on the boredom in the sky
And how it hammers home to me my flaws.
Perhaps the sky will change, but ere it does
I fear I will not be as I once was.

Culpability

I beg forbearance from you all
For every single time I've been
A little mean, a little small,
Obsessed, perhaps, with will to win,
Unkind, irate, beneath the man
That we all know I ought to be,
Less empathetic than I can
Or even should have been, easy
To anger, slow to be at peace,
Scornful of others, self-concerned,
Oozing my own selfish grease,
Uncaring who or what was burned
When I was hot. I'm sorry, too,
For every time that I hurt you.

Improving Spirit

What would I have ever done without
Her smile and the way it makes me melt?
All she has to do is quasi-pout,
And I am filled with more than I have felt
For weeks on end without her - she inspires
Far more than I had ever thought she would,
Not merely love, or fleeting base desires,
But happiness, and will toward doing good
In ways I never would have thought before.
I do not mean to say that I was bad
Before I had her - rather, that the more
I see of her, the more I wish I had
Been always with her, for she makes me better
Than when, before, I did things to the letter.

Happy

I marvel at the things you do to me:
The way the least tilt of your lovely head
Can tell me what I ought to do instead
Of what I'm doing; the sweet way you see
A speck of cherry clinging forcibly
To my top lip, and wipe away the red;
The way you listen to the things I've said
And answer them - and always thoughtfully.
I wonder that you choose to do this for
Me, who cannot claim desert, but must
Confess, if I for all my faults am just,
That I for you should always do much more.
And then I cease to puzzle it, and know
Love does not ask permission where to grow.

Able

I cannot gaze forever in your eyes
Nor hold your hand indefinitely long;
I cannot touch your fingers in this wise
Unendingly, and though I know I'm strong
I cannot always hold you. At some point
I must let go and turn my head away,
I must reflex and rest some tender joint,
I must release you and no longer stay
To touch. Yet even when I do all this
Do not imagine that my love is gone
No more than, when I breathe after a kiss
It means I do not want you. I love on
And will continue to, no matter which
Way I am showing it, or if I switch.

Beau Ideal

Holding hands for no reason at all
Except desire still to hold your hand;
Wandering around a shopping mall
Because we're too excited to just stand,
Not looking at the stores - who wants to shop? -
Just being in a constant sort of whirl
Of motion and emotion, 'til the cop
Tells us it's closing and they want to furl
The little awnings on the shops, so could
We move along please?, wandering at random,
Talking of nothing but still feeling good,
Perhaps explaining some still-unshared fandom,
Or new discovery - this is the way
To spend a perfect unproductive day.

Coffee, Black

Coffee comes in many flavors now,
Decaffeinated too, or so I hear;
But somehow I still doubt you will allow
A drop of milk or sugar to come near
Your precious cup of black - nor can I blame
You for this deep tenacity of yours:
For coffee will not ever taste the same
Once anybody overzealous pours
A drop of milk or cream into it, or
Adds sugar to alleviate the bitter,
And I know you desire nothing more
Than pure black coffee - and what could be fitter?
I think that is a good sign, too, for me:
You do not change what you take lovingly.

Fireside

Love need not be immediately sprung
By willing eyes on an unwary heart;
Nor is the virtue of an honest tongue
Contained in giving an aggressive start
To sudden-born affection. Love is not
Only the quick boil of desire
That gives off steam as soon as it is hot,
But also - and indeed, is more - the fire
That slowly roasts beneath the logs unseen
Heating by radiation all around
Until the wood is kindled, though still green
And all consumed before the spark is found.
Love is a heat that grows from little coals
And must - and shall - be fed with loving souls.

Defrag

There may be joys unfound beneath the skin,
Lurking in the corners of the soul,
Unwilling to come out, safe in their hole,
Forever burrowing on, deeper in
Than introspection ever could begin
To seek them out, though that should be its goal
Forever, or confession could enroll
Though it should work upon them as on sin.
Yet though potential bliss should hide away
Within, forever daring to defy
The searching mind until it comes to die,
I do not think we'd need it anyway:
There is sufficient joy in that we know
To let the search for other pleasures go.

Thanksgiving

Chill days are better spent inside
With those you love, perhaps with food.
And if a purpose is implied,
It's just to warm the present mood,
Make everyone remember why
They brave the cold outdoors to come,
And maybe split some kind of pie.
On days when clouds make sunshine glum,
It's hard sometimes, sans company,
To find a reason to be glad.
But when there's warmth and food, there'll be
A greater joy still to be had:
In common contemplation of
The way that food expresses love.

To

The world is cold enough, my dear
Without us adding to its chill;
Do not be coy, do not be queer
In exercisement of your will,
Do not stand so far away,
Do not be miserly of heat,
Do not reflect the morning's grey,
But make the cold beat its retreat
And gaily laugh along with me
To warm yourself as I'm designing:
By each reciprocatingly
Limb to other limb entwining.
It is better thus to seize
Our love than, separated, freeze.

All In

It seems a long time to be far from you
Yet I know well enough that it is short.
That hardly matters though until I'm through
This period of waiting. At the airport
It may be so; but here, still far away,
I cannot yet internalize the fact
We'll be together soon. As yesterday
Fades into nothingness, my cataract
Grows stronger, and I cannot see the past;
The future's still uncertain, so I feel
As if this lonely lack of you will last
Until forever, while it is unreal
To think that yesterday we were as one
And will be when tomorrow has been done.

Grey-Eyed

A gray day is a hard one to use well:
It wants to slip away, and all be wasted.
Waking up is a much harder sell
On such a day - there are no joys untasted,
Just dreary flatness stretching end to end
Slopping about within an uncast day.
It's days like this that send you round the bend
In their too-dismal and destructive way.
But some of them are purposefully dull:
Days of regeneration. It can be
Quite difficult to positively cull
Those from the others which, more boringly
Drip into life. But why discriminate?
Make them all such, and then embrace your fate.

M6

It's never really that I want to leave,
Just sometimes that I have to go away.
I think it's quite important you believe
That I would much prefer to spend each day
Close enjambed with you than take this bus
Three long, unbroken hours out of town,
So even though I may not rant and cuss,
Imagine I am feeling rather down
About this stern requirement that I
For varied reasons show myself to be
In far Chicago. Think that every sigh
That you in prior days had heard from me
Now speaks of sadness at our separation:
This is very busmanlike vacation.

Hit

I really didn't need this. Not right now,
Not ever, really. Yeah, I'm pretty sure
I'll never need it - and I can't allow
That sort of thing to happen. If a cure
Is found, please let me know, although I doubt
There could be one for sheer bad luck. But still
If there is any way to clear it out,
Please let me know. Right now it seems to fill
Every bit of me, and that's not good.
I'd like to hear some options - are there any?
I didn't think so, but I thought I should
At least have asked - there couldn't have been many
But maybe one? No, this I didn't need
And never will - that part is guaranteed.

Windowflower

The rolls of distant thunder in the air
Threaten to unravel on my head
And in a sudden instant freely share
Their load of rain. I should have stayed in bed.
Why did I leave? The window was sufficient
To have portrayed the beauty of the storm,
And therefore it would be much more efficient
To keep myself in bedclothes, dry and warm,
While still observing nature, than to be
Soaked through my khakis in the sudden flood.
But I was always tempted easily
Into these maelstroms of rain and mud:
I love to stick my nose outside and feel
The thunderstorm, to know it's really real.

Written

Were I to tell you, love, the way I feel
In any other way than how I do,
You would no longer think my feelings real
And that is something I don't need from you.
Therefore I always tell you my emotions
The same slow way - by posting these long rhymes.
And by such complex indirect devotions
Your crablike knowledge of my loving climbs
Backwards to its goal. Direct approach
Seems strange and out of place. Instead I use
Descriptions that can, line by line, encroach
On your awareness, so you can't refuse
To know exactly what I'm thinking of:
My too-poetic, yet ecstatic, love.

Caffeine-aided

Coffee is a magic plant
Whose beans remain beyond compare;
What other steaming mixtures can't,
Coffee alone will always dare.
It lies beyond the ken of man
To speak the fullest measure of
What coffee does, and what it can:
And so, from many, it takes love.
Among those lovers is my own,
And I by coffee am displaced;
A love that is not wooed, but grown
Is not so easily erased.
Yet I have found a way to swerve
Her coffee love to me - I serve.

Knishes

A little room is space enough, my love,
For all that we require; yet the world
Is far too small for the fulfillment of
What we desire, though 'twere squirrelled
Away efficiently as it could be.
Each atom of the earth, made an intent,
Each bond between them metaphorically
Standing for a wish we might invent,
Would not suffice in the entire globe
To tell our wills - yet they are summarized
In but a word or two, which daily strobe
Across my brain, and cannot be excised:
You want to be with me, and I with you;
That all these many wants aspire to.

A Scanner

In three long hours I will be with her,
Finally at home, though long from where I rent.
I cannot help but wish that that time were
Already, by some cosmic power, spent
So I might say at last that I am here,
Not half away and half remaining stuck
Halfway away. Ah, then my sight will clear
And focus, so that I may finally pluck
The mystery from things - not see reflected
In some black mirror what my eyes pretend
While truth and beauty slide by unsuspected,
But face to face behold my promised end.
Three hours left in which to sigh and groan
And then I shall know as I shall be known.

Two Seats Up

I swear she's braided up her hair
A dozen times or more by now,
But still it is in disrepair
More than she's willing to allow
She reaches back again to seize
The central lock and twist it 'round;
Another half-twist done, and she's
Complete - and yet once more she's found
She does not like the way it sits
(Or maybe how it makes her seem)
So she dishevels it and fits
It once again into her scheme
Perhaps by Indy she'll have done
Her hair down straight - or in a bun.

Double Falsehood

Theobald wrote it; that is sure.
But what matters is before:
Do his changes still immure
Shakespeare? Is there something more
Than the eighteenth-century
Could invent itself? Is there
Something in the text to see
That rewards our constant care?
Is it even Fletcher's work
(As once Moseley registered),
Or is Theobald just a jerk
(Something no one finds absurd)?
Every hundred years or so
Some say yes, but most say no.

Chicago Weather

Chicago likes to play these dirty tricks:
A day like this one, cloudy, dull, and grey,
Will be much warmer than the wintry mix
Of sun and cold that falsely fills the day
Throughout December, promising a heat
That, like this morning's cold, is seen, not felt.
On days like this the sunshine will retreat,
And yet I daresay water would still melt;
But in the coming months, the sun will shine
In lying beams of bright frigidity,
And those of us who cursed this day will pine
For greyer lies lapped in liquidity.
Yet old Chicago will keep keeping on
Lying until the winter too is gone.

Artless

I've lost the art of being without her.
There was a time when how long it had been
Since I last lacked her mattered; now, I'm sure,
Though it had been an hour, I'd begin
To feel the pains that used to take a week,
While weeks, which used to be my currency,
Are endless episodes of hopeless, bleak
Despair. I used to think it bad to be
Without her for a month - now two days feels
Already just as long. I had the touch
Of knowing, when the Megabus's wheels
Had rolled away, exactly just how much
Time it had been - but now times matters little:
When she is gone, I mountainize a tittle.

Plain

I hope it will someday be ordinary
To have you sitting with me, side by side;
And though I know our schedules will still vary,
I hope they will not frequently divide
Us from each other - that, in time, we two
Will become used to being in one place,
Accustomed to my being next to you
And you being engaged in my embrace.
I hope that it will be a common sight
To see us sitting at one dinner table;
That it will not seem some trick of the light
To have us very close - that we are able
To always be so. This I hope - yet pray
We won't forget the way things were today.

I Presume

Whenever I set foot in a new place,
Exploring where I have not been before,
I feel the pressing lack of your embrace.
I do acknowledge that we did explore
Without much contact, but I have since learned
The wonder that is wandering with you;
Therefore the thing for which I only yearned
Is necessary, and I greatly rue
Its absence, even though before we went
Not hand in hand, or even side by side;
Now I am used to having your arm lent
To me, and so it's harder to abide
This solo exploration. Please come back
And with your loving arms fill up the lack.

Substitutes

Froth of a sort can fill the emptiness;
Activity suffices for a while.
What it produces isn't happiness,
But isn't sadness, and sometimes can smile,
So it will do. It whiles time away,
Pushing aside a little of the gap
Between the visits, coloring the gray.
But this soft methadone is just a trap:
For when it ceases, the withdrawal pains
Can be far worse than what there was before,
Negating what had seemed to be the gains
It brought, leaving a pain increased the more
By past palliation. Now all that is there
Is absence lingered out in constant care.

Old

I remember mornings with Safe Ride
No longer evenings, though not quite yet dawn,
Waiting for the call from just inside
Tired, and barely stifling a yawn,
Yet eager and excited still to be
Beside you, even at this weary time,
Basking in your warming company
Inspired to a retrospective rhyme
That could not be expressed in public. Then,
I was more cautious and yet no less thrilled
To be by you - and when I am again,
That happiness will be again fulfilled,
And I as joyous to be next to you
Though likely not, this time, quite frozen blue.

Corrupted

There was a poem here - I swear there was.
Not a good poem, no, but workmanlike,
Touched with a couple of delicious words.
But then the Internet, as oft it does,
Decided on a small impromptu strike,
And shatter that old poem into sherds,
Leaving me with nothing. I could try
To write that poem out again and see
What would come back; but that just seems absurd.
So I am forced to simply let it lie,
And have this poem be what it will be,
Instead of what, at first, I had preferred.
Still there's one thing I'll keep: the final beat.
With you, all things are better on repeat.

Communications

Letters can get lost
And emails fail to send;
Little notes get tossed,
Attachments don't append;
Texts can be deleted,
So can files too,
While an unrepeated
Phrase can slip by you;
Gchat has its troubles,
(Some times disconnected),
While iChat's bright bubbles
Cannot be resurrected.
I don't trust them much:
It's better if we touch.

Sniff Test

Coffee fumes are wonderfully wild,
Painting the image of another clime,
Where summers were inevitably mild,
And winters easy, over in no time.
They speak the wordless language of the nose,
Preaching, not of the wondrous world to come,
But beauty in our own, which climbs and grows
Within the coffee grinder's selfless hum.
A sniff of coffee can deliver bliss
Beyond the humdrum world of most of us;
It doesn't matter if it's weak as piss:
The smell of it alone's miraculous.
There's only one scent better, and it's you:
You smell of your own self: and coffee too.

Breakage

I hate to think
That you might be
That which puts me
Upon the brink;
But when I blink
I always see
You smilingly
And then I sink
Into my heart
And let it fly:
I cannot try
To keep apart.
So I, from you,
Split through and through.

Typology

There are some people that you need
Only when you're feeling low,
Who help you get up and succeed
But aren't that wonderful to know
When you are at your best, because
Just as they pulled you up before
Out of the sucking mess that was
Your painful life, off of the floor,
Now that you're high they cut you down,
As if they cannot stand to see
Either a smile or a frown,
But look only for blanks to be
Around them: these, thank God, have passed
Leaving true friends, who truly last.

Excelsior

On days like this I like to settle in
With hot cocoa, a blanket, and a book;
To nestle far away from what I've been
On warmer days, when all was bustling,
Ensconced in the embrace of some small nook.
I like to hear the wind still whistling
Around me, merely heard but never felt;
To feel the warmth around me, certain that
No matter what, I'm safe. Oh, I have dealt
With many days of sorrow, wet and cold,
And wished myself inside a cozy flat,
With some half-steaming beverage to hold.
But now I venture forth into the damp
To seek your warmth under a cold streetlamp.

Counterclaim

Self-knowledge is the hardest victory,
And hardly worth the winning when you do;
Who wants to suss out every mystery
Inside of you, including even you?
It hardly seems worth troubling about
When you consider what you could have won
With much less effort. Sure, there might be doubt,
But just ignore it so you can have fun,
And everything will seem OK. Explore
Nothing but a hedonist embrace,
And there will be no need that you do more.
Except when you desire final grace
And see the limit of yourself was void
Unthought, and useless, though once much-enjoyed.

Blow Winds

It isn't often that I want to break
Something (even a line) in order to
Make something that isn't in me quake
Under my pressure. It's not what I do.
But now I find the need and feel the urge
To smash and smash and smash at something small,
Making it break itself beneath the surge
Of my frustration as it takes it all
And leaves me less. I want to vandalize,
Leave shards of something hanging somewhere odd,
Destroy something and leave it where the eyes
Will catch it, crack the soil and the sod
And leave the earth aware of how I feel.
I couldn't do this, though, to something real.

My Favorite Things

There are a few small things I know
Can always make my mood improve,
Infuse me with a special glow,
And put me right back in my groove:
A day of rain with sun behind,
A calm within a thunderstorm,
A light plot perfectly designed,
A blanket wrapped to keep me warm,
A line or two from Shakespeare's plays,
A game involving strategy,
A balanced Wildean phrase,
A mug of steaming Earl Grey tea.
But more than these I know that you
Can make me redshift when I'm blue.

Downpours

I long to feel the rain cascade on me,
Washing away the grime of life, setting
Me free of failed responsibility,
Impatience, anger - cleansing me, and letting
My soul fly out into eternity.
I do not wish to die; merely to sail
Beyond myself into an astral sea,
Mysterious and open, blankly pale.
I want to end frustration, and to be
Emptied of weariness and doubt - to rise
Above the everyday, prosaically
Boring world I live in - to surprise
Myself for once. I want to feel the rain
Soaking my body, wringing out my brain.

Textual

After a while words don't matter.
What good is saying yet again
"I miss you?" All it is is chatter,
Know and repeated, so that when
The words aren't needed, they've been said.
It doesn't mean I do not mean
The words. Just that their meaning's dead
Although the thought is evergreen.
I cannot live - no more can she -
By simply typing every day
I miss you and I love you. We
Know that already. Still we say
Those words because they're markers of
What can't be said: the heart of love.

Slick

The smell of pavement dripping after rain,
Cut with a little oil in the air,
Brings me back to youth. I feel the drain
Of fifteen years dropping into nowhere,
And I am playing by the street again,
At the old house, with the shorter fence,
Laughing with my friends. A young me, then,
Only half-grown in both body and sense,
Would chase balls to the street and dodge the cars.
The smell returns me, but I cannot play
As once I did; maturity disbars
Such folly, and it's better in a way:
I'm safer now. But oh, the fun we had
Even if the things we did were bad.

To Do List

There isn't much I want to do with you
Except the thousand things that we have done
Again. That's really all I want to do,
Although in new, exciting ways. It's fun
To do things with you, and what we've begun
I always like to finish, then repeat.
You know I'm not like this with everyone,
But something in you is so deeply sweet,
So necessary to make me complete,
That doing what we've done again is good,
Because it means we once again can meet
And join together, doing what we would:
It's not so much the details of what we
Do, as the fact that it is you and me.

Ouch

It really sucks to feel my head in pain
And not know what to do - to want to lie
Low in the dark, listening to rain
And hearing windnotes whistling me by,
But know I must remain awake. I am
Tired to weariness, but cannot tell
The reason for it. So instead I damn
My forehead and its painfulness to hell,
And wish I were asleep when I am not.
It's not a pleasant or an easy way
To be - but now, alas, it's all I've got,
And feels like it is all I'll be today.
Someday I hope I will feel better - then
Perhaps I'll be more purposeful again.

Up Up

The calm of morning is a pseudo-rest,
A feigning pause within the storm of day.
It has the normal giddiness, but dressed
In mirror-coats, to shine the stress away.
Only because the tired, half-awake
Problems of the day are coffeeless
Can morning any seeming headway make
Against the cares that so painfully press
On other hours. Day has not yet risen
To its full height, and so neither has worry:
Yet it is not that trouble is in prison,
But rather that its normal desperate hurry
Is half-allayed by being sleepy-headed:
But so are we, so it must still be dreaded.

Common Theme

Patience is a necessary thing
In very short supply, sometimes, with me.
I do not like to simply wait and see,
Or pause for breath. I find such pauses bring
Only frustration, and I firmly cling
To my belief that patience ought to be
Less necessary. I disdain to be
Staring at life, waiting for its ping.
And yet her absence makes me droop and wait:
I cannot hurry it, although I would,
Although I'm certain it would do me good
To see her now, not have to hesitate.
But I cannot, and so patience must come
I really hope somewhere that I have some.

Is Coming

There are days that beat you black and blue,
Spin you around, then kick you in the knee,
Slam you to the ground with awful glee:
Those days are bad. But when they bring their crew,
And all of them do just the same to you
For weeks on end, you can no longer see
A point of rest or calm, but hopelessly
Keep on attempting to pretend you do.
This is Chicago winter, deep and harsh,
Unwilling to allow for human pain,
Turning the Midway to a soggy marsh,
Covered by the snow and freezing rain,
While we all wonder with increased vexation
Who thought this city fit for habitation?

Temperate

A hot November is a quite strange thing,
A false reminder of the warmer days
Implanted with the memory of spring,
Untinged by winter's fast approaching grays.
Summers are used to leaving in a blaze,
But what replaces them? Autumns can be
As warm as summer in its golden haze:
Where should the line be drawn when, quietly,
The heat refuses to depart? When we
Speak of the fall, we have some expectations,
Which, still unmet, can leave us out at sea.
The seasons are not merely our creations,
Yet sometimes seem so: still, a hot November
Seems an omen for a bad December.

Bargain

Yet who, when dealing with immortal God
Thinks merely of a bargain? True indeed,
The promise of a good the Lord will heed,
And also often the avenging rod
Scourges the sinner, as was promised us.
Yet mercy can wipe out outstanding debt
And God by massive mercy can still let
Grace pass beyond the bargain. Who can truss
God to mere justice? What is owed can be
Let pass, if creditors agree thereto:
And death for sin, accounted properly,
Is not a wage forever falling due
But penalty for bonds we broke - and so
God in his grace could let that duty go.

Faustus

Sin's wages must be death, and they are paid
In total justice and complete desert,
Fully and well, for sinful creatures die.
Yet so does virtue, and the virtuous
Beside their sinful brethren must be laid,
Their lives as painful, terminally curt,
And therefore over. If we should ask why,
What answer can be ever made to us
But "all have sinned"? Yet when that has been said,
The question lingers: "And if God is great,
Why are the good and evil just as dead?
What is the purpose of this common fate?"
But virtue in its heart knows its reward
Is that content it will itself afford.

Silvius

Sometimes I tell you unimportant things
Just to hear the tickle in your voice,
See how amusement in your body sings,
And feel you smile. I despise James Joyce,
And yet I would, if only for your sake,
Listen, if you had reason to desire,
To someone read his whole Finnegan's Wake
Or all Ulysses, though I think it dire.
In short, you may command, always, from me
No matter what the purpose or the reason,
Great heaps of willing, fond absurdity
In every situation, place, and season.
Some I'll invent, and others I'll endure,
But in them all, I am your servant sure.