a cold, wet day
The road’s a lake with white fins shooting up as cars roll on
The sky’s a bleak gray cross-hatched with lines of water
Worms like snakes oozing out of the mud and ants lining my walls looking for someplace dry
It’s winter, not a snow globe mirrored in the bulbous multifaceted eye of a giant praying mantis
Who might, godlike, link this weather to the inauguration of a demonic troll
It’s just winter, when my mom’s deteriorating like a fire left to burn too long in a log
And the log crackles, spits sparks, collapses in its crematorium
I’m alone in the big house with pine floors and no porch light
My bed’s an altar to something that’s missing
And that’s why I’m writing this morning
I don’t know why, it never made sense to me, the abandonment, the divorce
The two beautiful children, boy and girl, prince and duchess of the apple trees
Condemned to watch their parents axe the crown in two, Solomon’s baby solution
Me in this giant house all alone, my ex-wife in our cozy, homely hovel, a Rivendell
Tucked in with her graybeard (and I don’t want to imagine what they’re up to right now)
But as compensation I have my memories of you
I look at them now in a different place, a forest where you will join me soon
And I know, whenever I write, the online forums cackle and hiss at me, the critics scoff
That I speak directly to One Person, as if you were all that mattered in the world, your heart
Or my heart is so much greater than all the proud hearts of the readers with their troubles
And I indulge the conceit that "heart" means "love" or that "love" means anything at all, it’s slimy
To which I retort, we live in a world of worms, ants, rats, murderers, Donald Trumps
Does it matter that to survive loneliness I would write eternal words for the sake of one woman?
Is it so very wasteful? Is it wrong? Then I build my soul on wrongness
You are my future and past
Memories no more than cell phone photos, a scribbled note or two in your handwriting
We never embraced the way lovers do, my breath becoming the wings of angels
My desire folding you into the dizzy brandy of my holiday nog like egg whites
Until next Christmas we sit naked before a truncated pine tree daubed with red and gold
Laughing and caressing at all the Hawaii that’s melded around us and blazed our financial success
The world can change, only we can change it, we must survive to make a difference
And I am slowly fading, extinguished for lack of adoration, my altar has been left bare
Not even pickings for crows, not even soft repose for crones, no, not even a fruit
A forbidden red apple, glossy as plastic, no, not even that made its way to bolster my godhood
I hammered my life with this kind of blasphemy, a Japanese swordsmith
Who ribbons liquid steel in layer after layer, pounded to thinness
Until the profile becomes invisible, the edge that cuts through clouds, lightning, age, death
And with this sword I made a place for us
I see you, I know you, it is not hard to understand you want my muscles to surround your skin
Why then do you say nothing? You do not believe this fountain of potency holds magic for you?
My friend, there is no other enchantment
I did not put on the mantle of Eternity lightly, as it were a maroon cotton scrap tugged on
I spent years tickling the letters from pages, the curving black squiggles that hold secrets
Linked from writer to reader, preparing the next hatch of spirit-thirsty life
And these, stirred to breath and pulse again by virtue of my attention, I absorb
I concentrate, I radiate, to benefit the young
With my head bowed to the ignorance with which I began this quest:
Long ago, I drew the lover in myself, my one and only tattoo
The risk of wagering my entire life on one draw did not daunt me, I was a teenage fool
I put my pride on the table, risked years of loneliness, obscurity, failure
Because I felt sure a woman would respond to my enormous vulnerability
And the payoff would be a galaxy, a night full of stars, a paradise life
But the odds turned against me and more rational bets served my rivals
I failed to observe the rules of the myth, did not feed the Fenris
Drank too much Lethe, and so I cracked in the ire, the punishment of the gods
More fair to say the hearts of women are no more profound than those of men
And as I am unique, afire, gold and silver like tinsel, a nebulous crown on my head, unseen
So too must I embrace the woman who knows the same is true of her
No lesser girl will do
This pride of mine, it has no great claim to virtue
It does not concern the choices of a nation or society
Nor words of the Bible, nor Grimm’s Fairy Tales
I write my own choices
In the voice of the god I know, the faithful one
And this terrifies you
Don’t be afraid
Come to me, take my hand, tell me you want me to embrace you
You know you desire it
The dread inhibiting you is the only barrier between your loneliness and my orchard
Look beyond the gate of the garden, to the green lawn, the crooked pomegranate tree, the pear
It is almost summer, a warm day under a blue sky, and I have a bottle of dreams in my hands
Can you believe it? I’ve been waiting here for you for decades, and I am so happy to see you come