Okay?

I feel it more tightly
than before, the lack
of her deep inside me.
This moment, for some
reason, i miss her
so much i think
i might die.

Noticing

It's 2:23 a.m.
my pants are in
a pile around
ankles and toes,
the nails of them
unclipped.
outside my window
the light from the
stars and probably
the moon, too,
twist with the street-
lights, and make the sidewalk
sleepy, beautiful,
cold-looking.
I can imagine
perfectly
how the snow will
settle on this street,
how the flakes will
land and stay
just from this moment,
maybe in a month
or so, and I can't
wait.

Upper West Ruminations

Writing until I forget how cold my feet
are right now. My Manhattan room has been
'has been' for over half a century. The stone walls,
the crumbling furniture appendages swell with my
tossed laundry. Entering this room feels like
walking into a cavern, the staggering stalagmite
piles of books on every free flat surface.
This space gets smaller everyday,
my pages turn quicker, my words get smaller.

Our phone calls never seem to lighten the dark
maybe only tonight my humor has that old
tangy flavor she misses, or just remembers
missing.
Her heart palpitates regardless of what I say.
Mitral valve...something, she says
Prolapse--welcome to the club, now we
can really know each other. Not just the nine
years we've spent trying to scan each
other like cats, now we can X-ray your
whole body and match our defects.

We are soft machines, I tell her.
I imagine her heart failing. I would gladly
give her mine, but it beats with the same
irregular problem she's trying to rid,
ha, much like our relationship
it beats and beats, pumps and gurgles
and eventually misses a step and burps something
violent. We were meant to destroy
each other with this disease the hospital
calls love.
The most potent strain is almost rare
definitely contagious, definitely deadly.

What philosophy is for

What if we are all right?
or what if we have all just missed the whole fucking point?
the trick to life--the way we should have done things.
maybe the buddhists are right--at least what they say sounds nice
like i want those things to happen to me, even though i don't
know them, or necessarily believe them.
maybe the christians had it right from start--maybe we should stop
whining and follow the rules.
maybe it was the greeks or the egyptians, the ancients--
when i was in san diego on the pier facing the pacific i understood completely
why they used to worship the sun. even when i write this
in my manhattan bathroom, the sun peaks through the window
and goldenizes my paper and i thank it for accompanying me
on the most royal of daily occasions. i continue on my throne.
Maybe the guy sitting behind me at the yankees game had it right.
just drink 'til you pass out and laugh with your friends, scream with strangers.
that sounds easy, even enjoyable.
maybe i've been doing it right, though most times i doubt it.
but i guess it doesn't really matter at the end.
the only thing i hope for is that i get all my moments
on tape, a film of my life, nicely edited, when i sink
behind my eyes and into the earth.
maybe then everything will make much more sense, maybe i'll finally get
relief, maybe it'll just make me miss this place even more.
either way i think it's about realizing the beauty in being
wrong sometimes, too.