The Personal Us

After a day consumed with tasks that have us
passing in the hall, kissing fast
by the kitchen sink, then
moving along,
night begins to creep across the daylight sky. Soon enough,
you come through me, shaped like
new limbs shooting upward, wires
suddenly taut, alert to your presence,
the simple activities of day disappearing
in the beckon of your night skin,
your laugh that makes my heart arch,
the shift from passing each other by to
lingering, now, fingertips staying
connected all the way around corners of walls. Soon enough,
the task-marked gates that
confined & defined today's hours
sway open, shift away, disappear,
leaving me the unopposed view of
you, inside me.
Deep deep deep I linger,
here where you find me,
steep me in tenderness & indigo longings,
remembered moments birthing promises anew. By day,
you are the balance of
presence beside me, history & present,
joined forces, unity of effort.
By night, though,
all my inward glances turn sideways to you,
my vision altered through lenses of
the personal US. How you are,
how you look, how you summon me,
how all day long I miss your hands
on my face, our eyes that can't leave
a gaze. The richness of US!
So many years, yet still these
new shoots, ribbons
blooming ME ME ME loving
YOU YOU YOU, reaching,
reaching, reaching! & then,
from side-by-side
to the one we become.
You have taught me,
& brought me,
surrender, joining, a love that
can be this erasure of
anything but sensing you,
waiting for you, seeking you,
& knowing you are there. It is our time.
Come, now.

Given to an Uncertain Sky

A day given
to a sky uncertain of sun or storm,
and so parading its moods of clouds
driven by breezes stippled with cold. I clean the bathroom.
I put groceries away.
I make a fresh pot of coffee. I choose a pen color,
knowing I won't capture
how the sky & my soul hold hands
on a day like this,
cavorting with atmospheres
internal & external, unable to stay in one place,
or hold one expression.
I surrendered a long time ago
[early morning]
to a dance with new tempos introduced
every other moment.
Let's play.

Toast: Poetry Journal

This is how one of my poetry journals progresses.

Toast Catalog: Poetry Journal

Yesterday, I posted this picture and presented this bound 'catalog' as my new poetry journal. I got a few questions about what that means -- will there be art? Is it a regular journal?
This is an example of what will become of these catalog pages. Because I find the photos within so evocative, so personal to my dreamscapes and daydreams, I'm just going to write out the poetry and/or prose lines that come to me as I contemplate each picture. Not every entry will be this long ... sometimes it's just a word, for now, but then later a paragraph ... as for adding art, I may do some of that to cover over parts of the catalog I don't respond to.

New Poetry Journal

Please meet my new poetry journal. I requested this catalog from Toast ... when it came, when I looked through it, I couldn't stand to hurt it, rip it apart, anything like that. So I asked my buddy Doug, here at work, to drill me some holes and then I put these sturdy brads through - voila! A journal! Every image seems to be directly from a mental moment, a dream, a fantasy, a wish. Below are some examples.