Liftoff

In years to come
I may stare out a hazy window, indifferent to time as the dingy white walls and routines,
or crack a final grin at the sunlight dancing on bayonets.
But it is of little consequence because one cannot tell,
and yesterday news arrived, once and for all.
At loss for words,
I paused, glimpsing my relationship to the future
from the eye of a hurricane --
the windows were not properly boarded and I had not wanted to evacuate --
but could not distinguish the figures, or make out what survived,
and thoughts flew and collided like debris.
While others hesitate before the daggers of fate, then disperse wildly,
I was amazed, and didn't think that I had it in me to greet them
as a monument of possibility.
One will eventually learn that there is never any choice,
yet, careful responses matter --
there is nothing else to give.
So I dialed the number, twice, and she returned the call:
the past, which precisely lives, perished for me then and there
when I heard her voice amidst every uncertainty,
and noticed I had grown older.
Even so,
we are none the wiser,
and like the one to come, too young to see.

How I Started Smoking

When our schemes fail,
remind me to grin without envy
at those who keep saying 
good morning and good night.
When the conversation fades, sing 
to me of sleepless dawns, 
hallucinations of another world. 
Even if my eyes wander,
and nausea sets in.

The blisters on our feet were there
to demonstrate we did not make contact,
the ground was unforgiving,
banners chants and rage, forgettable:
people yawned, sought alternative routes.

If I spoke of learning curves, or rising action,
then you might confuse stories with textbooks,
and precise formulas might spare you 
the precipice.

The timing was not, is not, right.
Your ears were caked in wax,
and my social graces, pedestrian --
we were younger than our balding heads suggested.
Our convictions, which littered the sidewalks,
have since been recycled.

We are learning to wait.

Stray cats

Where we are going is not clear,
and one cannot stress enough
the inevitability of detours,
further,
the impossibility of a road.

The crows know better,
though also having overstayed their welcome,
they remain perched on a lonely oak,
divinely indifferent to the wind
that stings our fingers.

There are vacant rooms and boarded windows
to whisper everything that we lost,
and a eulogy no one could bring themselves to compose,
because the others stroll by, absorbed in the day,
like so many stray cats.
We have joined their ranks,
and now wander the streets
without plans or appointments.

The red bricks are unmoved,
and their coarse faces taunt the numbing air.
They teach us to view things
from the heights,
to endure without complaint.
And if victory is gritty defiance,
good times in the absence of friends
who no longer call or respond,
then let us offer a raucous toast
to fortunes we cannot tell,
and memories we cannot erase.

Such quiet

I walked the streets home,
bathed in orange mist
and serenaded by silence,
there were neither bums
nor sirens to accompany me.

The city is too loud!,
they always swear,
and keep chattering among charts and graphs.
But screens cannot replace eyes
or newspapers ears,
the hidden costs of noisy schemes and ceaseless movement.

Yet the tree limbs barely rustled
and the grass lay dormant,
along with the dogs,
undisturbed by lonely footsteps.

It is not that such quiet is better
so much as a prophecy
of perils to come,
and, perhaps, the promise of reckoning.
Still, the ground did not stir
and the dirty snow lingered defiantly,
as if casting aspersions.

Past

There is past,
a heap littered with rotting corpses
that will never heal,
and unknown horizon to squander
while sorting through the wreckage.

Only the future could ever be ours.

The storm blowing from paradise

The years pile up with anonymous wreckage,
and scattered images become latent feelings
bereft of details.
But you learn
to glance backwards,
without nostalgia or remorse,
just tranquility.
Turmoil is done,
loose ends returned to oblivion,
uncertainties banished.

So, onwards!,
to unfolding and future disasters,
every peril you sense through drowsy eyes
and nascent depression.
Another cup,
and tar to coat your lungs --
the world is not your oyster,
and they have got your number.

Where does it go?
How does it end?
And why ask questions
only the world,
and the world alone can answer?

The future uncertain

Again we were passengers
on their train,
but this time in the company of friends.
For once the ride was ours,
and we did not pay.

You asked for a paint marker
and I wondered what you would write,
how the walls would receive your poetry,
how the streets would greet our unruliness,
and whether we would last through the weekend.
We parted ways,
it's been months.

It was fleeting,
this opportunity to celebrate,
link arms and hold hands,
share cigarettes and conversations,
and kisses and stolen embraces.
All of it passing,
and we scarcely began --
we never quite shook the cops,
and you did not grasp.
I did not let go.

But goodbye to the city,
and farewell to each other:
we must return to our worlds,
separately, like bandits on the lam,
sworn to silence.

Tomorrow I will smoke on a back porch by myself,
and despite the urge,
I will not bother to call,
because I have already whispered into your ear
of a future that may not come,
of a forbidden innocence too easily
lost among the noisy routines and confusions that we survive,
and don't particularly like --
still you were reserved,
and you were not touched.

Already, I can tell
we will have tasted fresh air
a moment before suffocating,
And it was too stale,
your lungs were not ready,
so our wildflower will have bloomed in late fall,
without apology.

But I will not forget or forgive,
I must wear my broken heart proudly,
like these skinny black pants and weatherbeaten shoes.
And I will not feign indifference --
not in this world --
when rare beauty disappears without notice,
and I am,
rather, we become,
nothing more than quiet echo and memory.
And the future uncertain.

World dissolves

A chilly breeze
snuck past the blanket,
and waves of sunshine were cascading
over your nose
as you awoke.

Welcome, mystery! --
but faintly, groggily,
your grin-creased cheeks
chattered in defense of overgrown gardens.

Love?
Too trite a word,
too passe,
to convey what happened
as the boundaries separating you
and this drafty house crumbled.

There's a pot of coffee,
when you're ready,
a poorly-rolled cigarette,
and a few grandiose plans
I'd like to share.

Let's make for the coal-burnt horizons,
even if it takes skinned knees
to find our friends
in train yards or on highway embankments,
every place the world dissolves
we'll take fragile root.

Dedicated to Kirsten Brydum [January 22 1983 - September 27 2008]