Men without muses

Aging memories and youthful desires in perpetual flux, expanding and shrinking to the calls of unknown voices – sometimes friends and sometimes foes, directing and misdirecting, TELLING but never SHOWING. The trickster, STILL slithering around the proverbial garden, spouting the same old lies, leaving a trail of dead poets waiting to be reborn: Agonizing trinities of father, child, and vacated lovers.

SHE remains elusive, incommunicado, camouflaged among prickly underbrush and apparitions of yesteryear; taken hostage by the thieves of muses and destroyers of gray bearded men with orphaned writers. HER fiery womb appearing far-off in the distance, bubbling up in the heat of bone-dry pavement: ILLUSION set ablaze by the desert of shame.

Rambling love

Dear Rebecca,

First off, I’m not being critical my love. I love you as is! It is just that, well, you always seem to be in flux, eluding my mental net of insight into you, which sometimes frustrates me to no end. And so I’ve been wondering, is this a premeditated effort on your end, for the fun or adventure of keeping me guessing? This seems to be a popular pastime among younger women nowadays. Or, is this changeability the product of your young, restless mind, always channel surfing or role playing one possibility after another, never settling down for long? I think it is mostly the latter.

Continue reading “Rambling love” →

Grimace

Dreaming on my bed cross-legged
Surrounded by still images:
memories, so to speak –
thousands of them
scattered and strewn
across the sheets,
carpeting the floor
from wall to wall.
Disorderly piles of them
like mountains and valleys
rising and falling
No rhyme or reason.

Continue reading “Grimace” →

Her Smile

Hey Anne,

Found this poem in one of Isaac’s boxes. Do you know anything about this woman? Did she really exist? Doubtful huh? 10,000 miles? Not sure anyone would travel 5 miles to visit a loon, except for social workers. Just being real, not mean. I’ve always loved our little brother, but his issues pushed everyone away.

Our ghost, Mr. Shrink, is back again. Poor Isaac!

Be careful, the paper is dried out. Looks like something chewed on it. Wash your hands afterwards!

Lizzy

Continue reading “Her Smile” →

Old man in the gym

Gazing into the gym mirror, old man Isaac observes a bloated belly; a fat neck that balloons out in every direction; skin transitioning to wrinkled leather; a generous portion of randomly scattered skin tags; arms and a chest with no muscle tone; bony, stick figure like legs; and a head gone bald. Yet, Isaac persists in turning this way and that way, searching for his 25 year old in the mirror, hoping to find a vestige of his youth somewhere in the reflections. For now though, every angle in every mirror shows the accumulated wear and tear of many years of despair, with no sign of the young, physically virile man of his past.

Continue reading “Old man in the gym” →