Confession

Bernini



Each moment.

Fleeting.

I hunger for your lips, stalking you from this safe distance. I hunger for myself more than you. For something I cannot quite touch.

What lay under our skin that is defined by chemistry? Who is to say that that boy driving the garbage truck, dusty with sweat and work, is not my soul’s silent quest? Or the man who I exchanged sultry looks with in the library? Married. Always, they are married. I wonder why this is...

I do not believe that there is only one person for our soul. One perfect match. If this is true, then I may as well just lay in the ditch and rub dirt in my hair and weep. No one wants to believe that there is only one. We may have fucked it up, playing God in our lives. Playing Zeus to Fate.

Speaking of fate… I say, no. There is no such thing.

But here, in my inner heart… I crave the romance of it. Fate. We make choices… follow the twisting paths of our lives… but Fate has the final say. Treacherous woman. Fate. Careful if you smile at her when married… your ring finger glinting in the bright overhead lights. She might just smite you. You may dream of my red hair while laying next to your wife.

I was happier when I thought that I created my own destiny. Arrogant human. And this might explain my story… but on the other hand, she did me a favor. Life is only rich if you have been poor.

So, back to my heart…

I want to believe in fate. That life unfolds as it should… that we are given choices… each defining our destiny. Was this week one? Last week? This kiss? That lover? Or simply… should I have gone the other way home?

I think Fate has better things to do than clog me in traffic. But, let’s not forget, she is a treacherous woman. Careful. Irony is not something that escapes her.

So. I will secretly go on dreaming little girl thoughts, hoping that this road is leading me somewhere… WONDERFUL…

Tell me, do you believe?

G.

Other Stories, Other Windows............

The Indigo Bunting – Robert BLY


I go to the door often.
Night and summer. Crickets
lift their cries.
I know you are out.
You are driving
late through the summer night.

I do not know what will happen.
I have no claim on you.I am one star
you have as guide; others
love you, the night
so dark over the Azores.

You have been working outdoors,
gone all week. I feel you
in this lamp lit
so late. As I reach for it
I feel myself
driving through the night.

I love a firmness in you
that disdains the trivial
and regains the difficult.
You become part then
of the firmness of night,
the granite holding up walls.

There were women in Egypt who
supported with their firmness the stars
as they revolved,
hardly aware
of the passage from night
to day and back to night.
I love you where you go
through the night, not swerving,
clear as the indigo
bunting in her flight,
passing over two
thousand miles of ocean.

Taking You to Galiano

I am craving the ocean. Soon. I can almost smell the warm pine needles on the path.

Take Nothing Serious

With the heat, comes the hunger.

Last night, as the moon was wandering across my window, I had to force myself to ignore those summer urges to drive up to the lake.

I keep calculating how long it will take for the water to heat enough for swimming. The beach is already hot enough for Pacificos. For laziness.

In weather like this, it's impossible to not be light. To laugh often. To flirt a little.... to just BE.

Now it's time for Sangria and the music of frogs........

G.

The Road Behind, A Memory Best Forgotten....

March 2003

The sky has that strange brightness it gets after a heavy rain. In through my window sneaks the scent of rain on concrete. The sky is a flat gray slab, just a tone to add to all the other grays in my view.

I love this time of year.... the plants sneaking up from the ground, the leaves unfurling. Soon there will be the scent of lilacs and magnolia. Along my driveway are the deepest purple lilac. So dark they look black in their throat. The scent is cloying and sweet.... and at night, when you stride down the lane, the birds singing their dusk lullabies, it's the lilac that greets you.

We moved into the house in May. Or rather, I moved in with my paint brushes and stereo. I would fill the house with music to cut my uneasiness. The windows black eyes that told my secrets to the street. Sometimes I would stop painting and go sit on the front porch. There used to be a large cedar shrub near the front door, the old chair hidden from prying eyes. I would sit there, with my green tea and listen to the trees. Coming from my apartment surrounded by concrete, this was so overwhelming. I remember the first morning I slept in the house, the birds in the big old maple tree woke me at five in the morning. I felt like someone had tuned on the radio right next to my ear.

I had loved that house in the beginning. It was like a pearl. A gallant old lady that only I could see the beauty in. My friends had thought that it would never be nice. It was so scruffy and frayed at the edges. I had faith though. I knew she had good bones and with enough elbow grease I could make her beautiful. And although she is not beautiful, she is far more handsome than I found her.

The day I drove up the lane to take my place in the houses history, in her story... the garden was over run and filled with possibility. Much has changed since then.

I have changed since then.

I am so frightened some days. If I allow it to live in me, if I give it any footing, I may not go through with it. There is always money, always a question of "can I make it through this, it's really not that bad". But, if I listen to that fear nothing will change, and like the house, I will outgrow myself.

I am tired of not being me. Of not living in truth. It is a burden that I can no longer stand, like gritting one's teeth. I know you understand what I mean.

My first night, alone in my new place... I am going to buy my favorite bottle of wine and sit in all my rooms.. as small and shabby as they may or may not be... and be thankful. I am going to toast my future. I am going to revel in the fact that I just made it through the last eight years .... and now I am free to be alive again.

Then I will go listen to the birds. It may not be the old Maple tree.... but it will be my new world. And that will be enough.



G

Abandon

Confession

I have a very dear friend who says that I do not “do” alone well.

This worries me.

Is it that I don’t do well alone, or is it that I always see myself alone even when surrounded by people? I am alone. Always. In my own mind. In my home. In my bed.

I am not sure if this ice sculpture (beautiful and sensual, beaded water and reflection) is melting as I get older… or if it just gets thicker, more clear. Soon I may have to put up one of those tacky stickers one installs on a sliding glass door so the birds do not fly into it. All I know is that the longer I carry on, the harder it is to share my “alone”.

It’s not for a lack of desire. I am as open as the summer sky. Ready for the swoop of barn sparrows and bats. See how the edges of the horizon are a darker blue? Can you hear the crickets start far off, coming closer with the dark? I am ready for those warm summer nights to steal the ice wall. I am ready.

Yes, dammit. I am.

I do not do alone well. You are right. But I have lived in my skin alone for so long. I do not know any other way. I am like a drunk who seeks a shot of rye to chase away reality. Give me skin. A kiss. I will make do, until my soul is unclenched.


G.

Other Stories, Other Windows............

Clenched Soul - PABLO NERUDA

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening walking hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.

Confession

I worry, losing myself in the tedium of asking too much about things I don't need to know.

Fear is something we all have living in us. Some, better equipped than others, prune it down diligently so that it does not flourish. Others feed it, lending fear the ability to send out sweet green tendrils into their outer lives. Like morning glory, we think it's pretty at first... never realizing it's potential to choke out the hardy perennials.

What is my fear? This is confession after all. Tsk tsk. Not yet. Or maybe that is my fear... that if I tell, there will be nothing to weed.

Denial is a beautiful thing.

Or maybe, just maybe... I will tell you one night. Late. The wine almost gone. I will lower my voice and lean in, tell you everything. But then, I would have to keep you. Like a pressed flower in one of my books... or that river stone on the shelf. Capture that moment, when I felt free of myself enough to show you who I am under the modern, independent, double shot americano for me please, woman.

G.

Other Stories, Other Windows............

Istanbul in January


The ruined Roman road
lined by pillars
carved of marble
shipped across the sea
carried by Turkish slaves.
And there we are
walking across it
idle
as the birds that shit upon those stones.

We drink that black stew
they call coffee
and you laugh at my hunger for the sweets:
powder sugar
and almonds.

They do not know we are not married,
it is a punishable offence;
our noon lovemaking
in the oppressive heat.
The sound of afternoon prayers
humming
low in the sky
as you touch me.

Tomorrow we will go to Crete
and then
who knows
where that ruined road will carry us.

Confession

Across a million miles of silent stars... Potential. I know I promised. I am good at promises. Whispered words heard only by adoring ears. (How far is your ocean? The cage that tames you to your Melbourne ways?)

Outside the frogs are having a riot, making 'froggy' love in the creek. The night is filled with thier calls. If only we all could be so reckless. Gorgeously passionate. Rolling around in the mud, making love out loud

Are we there yet?

G.

Other Stories, Other Windows............

And Now We Know


It is like walking that wooded path,
through the flickering green light
of the overhead trees
alive with the voices of bees.
It is like smelling the blackberry vines
and the wild roses along the stone
and know it is not my fingers
but the thorns that tear his shirt.
To be my lover
is not a simple feat, but stand nipple high
in solomon’s seal, feel the arc
under the palm and one knows
there is no better time then now
to be walking down to the sudden
surprise of the ocean
on Galiano bay.

Other Stories, Other Windows............

Florida, November 21st
~ For Dena



Somewhere in the gulf, a woman;
her name written in red
on nautical maps, (danger in the air)
swirled clouds and tidal runs
the water seething with her fury.

The weather man said she was coming
and we battened down the hatches,
tucked in the skirts around our knees
and marveled at the beauty
as she sliced that turquoise turned slate
of ocean, singing rain and thunder

lace fingers stroked the ancient lover land
and then the men on TV said:
tonight
she comes
tonight she rages
tonight she will thrown her tantrum
and beat down the tall palms…

And she did come,

Eventually

in her own time
her fingers slicing the waves delicately
and rose, Adonis forgotten,
in her froth dress
and strode the thousand steps
to high tide, and whispered
seduction to his ear:
maybe, Mr. weatherman
maybe,
next year.

Other Stories, Other Windows............

Dialogue
~For Richard

There is nothing cute
in this (cute would be
not wanting to
bite your lips
or
drive the rain away
with our fucking)

Instead, there is
beaded condensation
(misted words
ticking out the paused
questions, until a flurry
of ripe flight)

In that moment,
I touched the solid wall
of your
caged Eros,
the boat rigging quiet
(the air cold on an empty cheek)
as if waiting for response
to fingers’ silent request;

red lined windows open
eyes to the night
(take my lips,
translate the dialogue
of this landscape)

BlueLips

Taking You to Galiano

I love the smell of the trees there.
How the ocean and the evergreens mix.
It is something like magic.
Magic. And then the moonlight.
creeping up, past the stand of trees to touch that sky
that I have seen a thousand times grow darker
then floods with stars.
Azure black purple.

I hear the frogs and the whisper of wind
and the chorus of crickets and the two lovers
who have snuck down to touch secretly,
their backs against the rough logs of the pier.

The breeze up off the water is warm and sings
of things far off, the glass balls from Japan,
messages from other beaches, green and amethyst,
and sometimes if you are lucky, blue.

I brought you with me, to this place that means
we must navigate those boulders above and
the overhang of arbutus, but here you sit,
perched above the phosphorescent water.

I stand and turn, slowly remove my dress,
slipping it to the stones.
The moonlight kisses me, as I turn
to dive into black water; the stars
fracturing, the sea turning bright.

And now, I am a siren that calls you,
danger and desire in the cold.
Come, make love to me
suspended above the kelp, the water
touching my skin how you should;
you rise to darkly watch from a distance,
jealous of another man’s fingers
even if it is God.
(But he alone does not leave bruises
the color of night sky.)

Closer to Dark 

Something Blue..........

Trying Not


I can feel this
potential
(like headlights, far off
cresting a dark sky)

feel the pulse
of limbs long forgotten
stretch
and unfurl
eloquently (the sun
in your eyelashes is
a poem I must write)

Your frightening beauty
cleaves
a February Lake
(beaded light dressing
your summer stained skin)
and when I stand
behind you to kiss
the water off your spine
(your splendor
made me shy)

I feel this potential
(a firefly
captured in my palm)
stir.