I have lived enough to knife
through precious indifference:
time to say goodbye, sang
Andrea Bocelli through my
childhood’s echoing eardrums,
banging through the baseball
game of stressful situations.
How I overcame my fear
of public speaking was when
I was believed in, once,
to deliver Wayne’s wedding
from obliteration (green
in the cleaved landscapes
I scampered fully across)
and the contentment rings
high in vibrato today.
(originally published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Fall 2023)
singer
Al Jarreau
In Spain I did love and adore you. I did.
But in Spain, it is easy to love and adore anything–
the paella, her rabbit flesh and beans;
even the sidewalk– acera.
With her language an aphrodisiac,
you do not wonder why you fall, or sustain, in love.
We spoke our ugly language around beautiful tongues
which filled the air with matrimonial vows.
In the beginning, we were the sound of stars, the language
of kisses. I can fall in love with anything skybound
and I do.
Those moon-colored nights were our yesterdays,
and tomorrow we return to our familiar,
where love is not wordless
nor as easily presumed.
(originally published in Memoryhouse, Spring 2016)