I Could Get A Girl Like That
In Another Dimension
I'm living in two dimensions seeing you across
this wide room.
The 80s pulsing in my renewed veins make me know
I'm still a man.
In one dimension, I approach, broad shoulders
weave the heavy, dark scene strobed.
In another dimension, through whiskey mirror,
eye disinterest in pale reflection.
In this current reflection, a man who knows
a discontented woman.
In this dimension, a man still worthy enough,
despite the divide.
Time warps a man just as a young woman's mind,
by a fool eons past.
He would smash virtue; who, like a boy, only knew
how to drive to that goal.
In this dimension, the older man reflects
on opportunities wasted.
In this reflection, could take his time, drive
the length of her field.
But, in the final quarter, 80s nostalgia divides
my brain in hypothetical delusion.
I walk past, tip a cap to reveal the same blue eyes.
Harmless to her, she returns a smile.
For:
"The Soundtrack of Your Life"
Languages ▼
Languages
This obtuse, underground language
You forced me speak; irksome,
I know --
Like the minds of children,
Unable to express to the busied parent,
In crisis, un-counseled
Un-able to form sen-ten-ces
Your ears disavow.
Not ready,
Never prepared to give answers --
A language you haven't mastered.
So, you set me down,
Crying.
Regret yet having me?
These languages;
One learned, the other unreasoned,
Linger beneath tongues
Tied, idiocentric.
I hide in the wall closet,
Build forts with good blankets
In your home
Mortgaged; tied
To offspring like me
Who won't grow up fast enough,
Move out.
Inspired by mood of 'In The Waiting Line' by Zero 7. I just hear this song and poems like this are produced. I wrote many more last month. Great song for January.
Idle Thoughts ▼
Idle Pursuit and Time Machinations
I have a thought. I want to speak it
into existence, in the air between us.
The fan blades slice molecules,
silent re-assimilation about my ears.
But those fan blades hold dust
from Krypton. Someone would have to
turn off the power to inspect, decide:
Mix a bucket with chemicals or simply
use anti-bacterial wipes to daub clean?
My yet to exist thought will wait until
I've slowed time, gears of machination,
to consider phraseology and
the right time to utter my notion.
Your eyes dull yellow in this fading light.
I know you could crush me, too.
Speak this thought into existence,
While I remove the blades; one by one,
unscrewed, delivered to a bath in the sink
to scrub? How long has it been? I must
put each cleansed wing, inspected and
delivered, to a dry towel, then view
a gritty sink I should scour next.
I think about political correctness, if
I've fully grasped societal norm, avoid
shame from speaking like a racist old man,
uncouth. The white arms return
to their house, bolted securely, as I wonder
about your quiet. Not a word. Alone
like me, couched in distraction. Housework
and games and freedom of speech. No
freedom from humming on high, or the hungry
refrigerator, sucking ampules, too. When
will I speak thoughts into shared reality; daunted,
knowing you've said, you know my every story?
You've critiqued every word uttered. The sink
is where my head will go next. The minutes
to night you don't count, drain in my idle pursuit.
Head Like A Hole - Nine Inch Nails
'Black as your soul'
Mess We're In ▼
PJ Harvey
Mess We’re In
Strumming strings in your white gown, I linger,
humming my hymns in heartfelt ignorance.
Please don’t give up on me before I give up
on myself, plying your anthems unattuned.
This gravel, smoothing, rises above the small buildings,
bound eternal like damnation to hard ground.
Your ignorance strums sweet bliss I yearn match,
agony gripping tight these tender-meaning chords.
Bittersweet, our symphony attempted, you know
all the cues, lining sounds with concrete words.
Our divise harmony, raining on rooftops, separates
my voice; never waves like a red banner for you,
fly like love, aiming not to hit hard the sharpest
pitches where my songs catch like errant balloons.
This emblematic cape draped around my neck tangles,
fumbling down in a clump at your careless feet.
You take your harmonic instrument to an open street;
chain me to the hydrant, just so I can see you go.
LoveBound ▼
Rise To It
Bonded by mysterious responses in the humid air
only we two share.
Half composed sentences linger,
unable to strike a chord
on that opening note.
Our glances could become stares,
if one of us dared.
We happily shoulder the space between,
assumed platonic,
purpose binds our union.
If light shoulders the sun
upon our horizon, will we
rise to it?
Last Night ▼
BAYNK - go with u
Last Night
The rhythm returns in morning glow,
gliding into the room, sliding beneath
the warm sheets. We were cool. Life
was blue before I drank your oxygen,
consumed a fire. Scenes: from party
to street and cab, to your apartment,
slow we danced,
nose to nose, progressive, unclothed
desire. Our scattered garments reminders
of our blind choreography in dark. Now,
the rescue I sought, revealed in two blue
worlds clearly, deepest seas, lava-ignited.
Treasure sought, discovered within you.
Swim Without You ▼
Go Wild - Friedberg
Swim Without You
Pulsing rhythm rains warm on this bright ocean.
Heaven-rhythm repeats, penetrates solemn dark.
Where I submerged, swum this unknowable sea,
unexplored to you, fathomed in dreams by me.
I hear your anthem, begging, come ashore.
Your verses I deny, because here I sleep.
In this ocean, I can breathe in the deep.
Learned to hold my breath this long, since
you came along, implored I seek your love.
I can swim the deepest ocean, see no need
of your oarboat, able arms to lift me out.
This aquatic dream I realized, when dumped
over the side of a vessel like yours, trolling.
This is for the ignorant likes of helpless me who
learned to swim against waves I've struggled --
against the land's greed and complacency.
I would have strolled those golden sands,
inhaled frozen Kool-Aid, infused and fermented.
I can swim this deep, deep blue, huddle amid
lost dolphins, communicate to bluer whales
in languages learned -- languages you refuse
understand, sitting far off on your idle sand.
The Other Side Of Reflection ▼
Judith - A Perfect Circle
The Other Side of Reflection
Pontificating, saintly as a man
in ragged jeans and loose knit cap
sagging above one eye blind; he
stares with the most intense blue orb,
warning ignorance will be the death of me.
I’m relieved the world is not doomed, as
I have recklessly played upon it. You
are not my god, but a judgmental, aging fool.
Now, turn from the mirror.
It was my dad who inspired me
not be him. And here I look like him and
on the day I reach his age when we had
our first disagreement.
Hint: If you don't know who's talking to who, I could explain it to someone (other than myself). See what I did there?
Paper Heart ▼
Paper Heart
The container solid, you can't penetrate; but inside,
Yes, there exists a paper heart protected, a place
Drained of blood for love like yours -- fragile, but
I'll never let you see.
Through these eyes, you view a soul that's just a hole,
Something I've emptied long ago. Locked up; hid
The key, won't let free, because your lurk outside
The fragile love I keep.
So, I need you. So what. I'm a paper heart who
Can't fill up, drained you see. Spent eternity
Avoiding the likes of you who play carelessly.
I'm sensitive and fiercely protective, something you might view as adversarial?
World Rolls Away ▼
My Friend - Groove Armanda
The World Rolls Away
Beneath the comforter, low beneath the thread count,
Woven in dream, I can sing -- a paranormal world free
To embrace all I see. You were there. But, missing
Were restrictions from pursuing the fluid scenes.
Flowing, time-lapsing, teleporting out of control,
I roamed hearts like thirsty flowers, lining yellow streets,
Higher, lifted by light and eyes of any and all embracing me,
Until
Sudden arrival; I wake at three, turn to view your head,
Hair draping the cotton pillow, more somber. I envy awake
Your empty slumber in this dark. The world rolls away.
I wish you could dream like me. The window clamped
Will not open in this frosty winter. Hint of moon glow
On the glass my only romance, too early for coffee.
I wrote to the music. The video is incompatible.
Black Receiver ▼
Why Can't I? - Liz Phair
Black Receiver
Sweet romance, a black receiver echoes
from the wall. Tender calling, in dreams
she could sing just to me. Sweet Liz,
your voice clear, never within reach,
at the speed of sound from slow towers
containing all your information, but not for me.
Those secrets whispered to your
black receiver, never overheard
by parents keen to the wild-eyed intent
of a horny teenager. A black receiver
hangs cold in memory in a wide room
eons ago. Why can't I stop dreaming
how quiet the wall from our fluid past?
Safe Harbor ▼
Give A Little by Maggie Rogers
Safe Harbor
In our shared dark, stolen glances.
Your eyes like intent sends signals,
cut through this humid room,
a beacon. Will I climb the hollow
tower; a captain with lonely vessel
might find safe harbor? Reading
transmissions, salty, sea-worthy,
yearning the spiral stairs to your vault.
Shall I near the lamp, inspect
your brilliance close? In shared dark,
no danger to cross this divide.
May I thank you for landing me
safe in your arms, let other lights
mechanically pulse new like love?
Lovely lighthouse keepers could
dance with lonely pilots seeking safe
shores away from the lifelong drift.
Here And Now ▼
Here And Now - LettersTo Leo
Time machines and other inventions of the lazy mind
could not near me to you. Fantasies of heroism
appreciated by the damsel I would put in distress,
I save in fiction.
Lips lined by cherry-flavored bubble smacker, flowing
blonde hair obscured all but one focused, blue eye adoring.
Still remember?
My masculine prowess, wasted sweat on hardwood
with an orange ball, you witnessed from mezzanine,
a balcony for princess to peruse my perfect form --
purpose of flexing.
Wonder, would our dream be consummated in flesh --
blonde and cherry for disciplined sinew, horny green.
Hold that fantasy; fiction crafted in thirty-year dreams,
wayward on after plane.
Time Loop ▼
Just Wanna Dance - Clara-Nova
Time Loop
All the years you missed, I gained the longer
we were apart
when I wanted you to stay
all the smiles I learned since
not the same
You've been haunting my dreams, never age
never committed to a once burgeoning love
all in this dulling game, alone
All the years I missed, I lost to the widening divide
of time when I wanted us to stay
all the smiles have gone away
Ageless in this sleepy head, with the elusive one
who took my hand to climb rocks
accidentally touch one last afternoon on duvet
trapped in a loop
trapped in a loop
trapped in a loop
recall stored in unconscious mind a life, ripples
in my head. I never asked you to dance, but think
my actions actually did -- noticed but refused
Two lives severed since, in the drift
I'm ashore while you float in and out of this sea
inside a dreaming, dumb head
I just want a conclusion, not stuck endlessly with
what would have been.
She smashed the end of a reckless dream last night by re-emerging and ignoring me in scene where I thought she was about to receive my approach but offered her open arms to two friends instead (like some movie trope). I got so close our shoes brushed/bumped before I woke and could not get back to wait for her to notice me...which she typically doesn't in these dreams.
About the poem (if we can call it that): Mel Brooks said, "They all can't be gems."
Under The Skin (Eternal) ▼
Under The Skin (Eternal)
Jump in, the water's fine?
With touch
they could take dreams away but
I won't let them.
With the repeated tapping
of fingers on my tender skin,
memories would wash out to sea.
I was convinced
I needed you here with me.
But time widens,
drains into
that empty ocean I've been set adrift
too many times.
Weightless, sails bend
in rippled, parallel ventures searching,
seeking. No salt, odorless
breezes unseen ply
my veins full, beating in rhythm
somehow without you
on these time waves returning.
Strapped in,
no oars, a needle could
sink so deep,
fill my blue until I'm green
with a fluid that leaves me empty
on this glass,
reflecting unfulfilled for the rest of life.
Some eternal sunshine,
not spotless
in this foggy mind; needed
your compass to bring me to your shore.
I won't let them take you away; visions
seldom seen, recreated in vexing dreams.
My skin, my own. My heart, alone until
time returns tangible visions, spinning
on this plane I'm anchored to eternal.
If only once I closed my eyes by your side.
In Behavioral Health they use a method of tapping your wrist/hand to wash out the pain of bad memories that could have set a person's life on an emotional course away from rational thought. There's a more current method now I won't get into. Makes me think of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or a scene from That 70s Show when an angel offers to take away all Eric's happy memories of Donna. Sometimes it's hard to give up the bad, connected to what is still good.
Bonus track (both songs featured on Canadian TV Show Private Eyes):
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