World Walker - ghazal

World Walker

Knock me down if you like, sweetheart. I'll land on these feet.

Oh, the revolutions I've measured and planned on these feet.

I am a balloon animal, tied all up in colorful knots,

Head in the clouds and sweet hot sand on these feet.

Hey honey, I know things. I've walked over pebbles and shards.

Over dirt and concrete, and across hallowed land on these feet.

I have been worshiped and spat at, kissed and ignored,

I've been puny and I have stood fiery and grand on these feet.

Failed at wheels. Fell from trees. Scared to jump. But I've walked!

Count the decades and roads that I've trampled and spanned on these feet.

There will not always be another sky, another loud horizon.

When the sea cracks and the earth boils will I still stand on these feet?

You can't prove I exist. You can't see me or touch me.

But I chase you and whirl to my silent big band, on these feet.

You are my whispered wish and I am yours.

We keep going, my secret, hand in hand, on these feet.

An American on a train - ghazal

I can be whatever I please for a while, an American on a train

I can snarl and trip little kids in the aisle, an American on a train

If the moon is chasing my werewolf phase I can slip into clouds of oubli

In German or French I can fool them and smile, an American on a train

See them skim in and out without knowing the stories I spin about them, about me

I marry them, wait for them, love single file, an American on a train

With the lurching I fall into strangers and laps but the smilepardons set us aright

And I know I'm still me, even stacked in a pile, an American on a train

I am old enough now I can snap them all up in my memory-washed rainbow traps

All they see is my middle-aged blandself, sans guile, an American on a train

When the fancystrike hits me just so, I can make my own movie at grandmagic speed

Stardraped with blinding invisible style, an American on a train

Where we go doesn't matter. The rushing makes bitterness sweet if I watch it askew

The hopewaking comes to me mile after mile, an American on a train.

Each to each you hold my hand - ghazal

When I'm flailing topsy-turvy I beseech you, hold my hand.

All I ask is that across the snaggled breach, you hold my hand. 

When we're storming and the world is far too small to hold us both

I still love you. It's no walkfest on the beach. You hold my hand.

Please, when both of us are lurching, keep me steady with a touch

Just ignore the flameballs raging each to each. You hold my hand.

There is something that I do for you. There must be. Don't forget.

I'll be fine if you don't lecture me or preach. You hold my hand.

What is bitter now will be the thing my heart craves most of all

Though I'm thrashing at you I just want to reach you. Hold my hand.

Birthday ghazal for Michel

I think, after all, I must like you a little. I follow you!

From the glorious coasts to the towns you belittle, I follow you.

All those airplanes we've caught by a hair, by a prayer.

All those leases we've signed with a jot and a tittle: I follow you.

You have thought that I'm guilty of not enough caring.

Here, love, is my perfect acquittal: I follow you.

Houses, walk-ups, and rentals. More boxes, more movers.

Together in zigzags. Is that noncommittal? I follow you.

Here we are in this crazy-paint treehouse, amor

Slowly finding some kind of routine that we whittle. I follow you.

We're looking for things we have lost or we've wished for.

We're mellowing, softening, things that were brittle. I follow you.

In the ground a fragment of glass - ghazal

In the ground a fragment of glass, curved, blue, like a cup

In the mirror an angle of cheek I can see right through, like a cup

In the heat looking anywhere, everywhere, breathing

Reaching for sky, air, ice, like a prayer that flew, like a cup

On the wall a thick flat blue Madonna and child

He ignoring her white round breast, firm and new, like a cup

In my thirst crooking hands to catch trickles of anything wet

To capture the least hint of lingering dew, like a cup

Everywhere I look are the bowl-shaped curves, mocking drought

Collecting and pooling my bitter dry kisses for you, like a cup.

On the balcony there is a yearning bloom - ghazal

On the balcony there is a yearning bloom, bright yellow.
It is watching the sun and deflecting the gloom, bright yellow.

You came home hot and dry from the day, footsore and dusty
Found the flower that beckoned you through the room, bright yellow.

A drink for you and a drink for the potted plant on the railing
Boom, the leaves perked up and the flower: boom boom, bright yellow!

A pot and a stem and a spiral of buds in waiting
Where this flowerhead wilts there the next will resume, bright yellow.

Swirling reds on the floor and the blues on the wall fan into the dusk.
But again you look up with a smile. Va-voom: bright yellow!

The island of slow-burn treadmill worry - ghazal

I have these awful habits to unlearn (not yet)

You send solicitations that I spurn: not yet!

I am on the island of slow-burn treadmill worry

I will return I will return I will return not yet

The kind rowboats circle, shouting Strawberries!

Books! Dance parties! They peddle and churn. Not yet.

Backache, deadlines. Checklists shop-lists do-lists

Self self self. Can't you hear my stern "not yet"?

I am the island, we are locked we are closed.

Rowboats go away! Bridges, bridges, burn! // Not yet!

The sweet rebellion has not freed these shores.

When will I clasp and not just yearn? Not yet.