never again

These days I cram my head with digital trash
When there's time left over I read Faulkner and some Hemingway stories
Those about men and women
They're all about women and men
They all give me well-deserved headaches
So I sleepwalk in town, greedily window shopping
Sometimes buying spicy olives and fancy pastries
(Eating them fast and absentmindedly while I avoid bumping into people)
Then I deliberately forget time in secondhand bookshops (where else?)
Get high on the perfume of autumn hued paper
And pity the dog-eared pages and silently mouth
The names of their old abandoned owners
Scrawled neatly and uselessly above the titles
Wine is good company too for levity
For long dinners, for failed attempts at night reading
When the truth that things are always slipping away
Becomes permanent, a bulky presence in the room
A stranger you sleep with restlessly
Upon waking up I drag my body to the desk
Take up the pen, feel its lightness, envy it
Get drunk on large convincing cups of coffee
I imagine people who work in the dark
Early at dawn, with somnolent and regretful faces,
Moving slow and resigned, steady like time
The street sweeper dragging an awkward machine
Men with helmets on and thick heavy boots
The bus driver, the baker, and women with mops and buckets
Sullen commuters, suicidal bikers, and severely punctual mothers
The pen loves them all and creates them all
Prodding memory and caressing paper with ink
(Oh to write like Blake or Twain! I say to myself!)
It's at times like this that a thought of you slips in (typical!)
I curse my brain of course for being too powerfully greedy
Saying yes to everything as though it were a matter of olives or pastries
Wanting even the doggoned, the properly abandoned, the shed leaves of a life
I muster will to command hand and pen, subdue them to obedience
Reminding them that they're mine, they're me, and there's still me
They should know by now to never ever write of you again

Addict

I confess I was an addict:

There was this drink I couldn't get enough of.

It's as darkly potent as coffee,

Smooth and calming like Irish whiskey.

I had it before, long ago.

Just plain, I thought then,

Not my cup of tea, I judged then,

Not suspecting that a second encounter

Would leave me utterly besotted.

Is it its color? Golden brown

Like a pair of wild romantic eyes.

Perhaps the distinct stubborn flavor 

That seduces, lingers on the lips

And makes the mouth glow with desire.

The stirring warmth it sends to the chest?

Or the levity it carelessly exchanges

For the burdens of consciousness?

I don't know--I don't believe in mysteries,

I'm sure I'm too level-headed for that.

But I enjoyed every gentle sip,

Each caress of the tongue and throat,

Every greedy French kiss with the bottle.

In our trysts, there was nothing else, 

But, er, this drink and euphoric me:

There was security in temporary pleasure.

My so-called friends insisted that I quit,

Resist in cold-blood lest I completely lose it

And I know, I know they might have been right

And it's not like I never tried to stay away.

But they know nothing of the small doses

Of unearthly happiness she granted me

Each time I crawled my way back to her

Eager like a dog, panting for a touch, a treat.

--But that was some time ago now,

When longing was pure and absolute.

Now I stand here dry, sober, and clean

--I confess I was an addict. 

Oh yes I was. I was.

19 March 2014