I went to a party last night and the literary value of the personages was like fine linen paper in a box of stationary and a very expensive fountain pen. There was a sitar and an accordion player on a veranda overlooking a spring garden in full bloom. I talked to a woman in the most exorbitant array of textures and colors I have ever seen, but which gave me the impression that she had arranged them artistically and fashionably beneath her orange-streaked and brown-hair color. Her hair was Cleopatraesque and her eye glasses were honey-rimmed and olive-lensed and she wore one pink semi-precious stone in gold on her lip. Her lipstick was streaked on her left, which is where I wanted to put my hand and wipe it for her. I also wanted to kiss her. Her clothes were so thick. And the weight of her bracelets seemed like she was dragging a Persian carpet on an old wooden floor. She left before I read “A Prescription for Remembering Flowers” over the musical piece “Gliding Grace.” Each person was as deep and as interesting as the aforementioned.  ∞

At home with flowers.

Inspired by Elka Eastly Vera’s advice in having flowers around, here’s a view of a vase, candelabra, and painting of mine.

In Our Souls

I was in the back bar this evening listening to the hum of the air-conditioner and I started to hum too. In the hum of something created by another man, I heard myself and I started to sing.

 

Tears connect us,

like old friends.

Some started helping me.

Through the sands of time

there was light

water from the foroughs

sandy escape

only time could tell

as I began to dance.

I listened to my core

from cold-to-hot

smokey journey

landscape bare.

Through the tuning fork

were invisible

mirrors in the sand.

 

I stood before a masterpiece in

red.

I grazed my hands upon

the canvas

then walked away.

People thought I was

crazy.

I spoke to myself

and grabbed my head.

Children were afraid.

I fell and for the

longest time no one picked

me up, until someone

finally called.

I am just not well.

Knowing as much as I do

so I run from you

into the empty space.

Combing the planet

raising my arms:

“Hear me!”

What is within my soul

speaks to yours.

I know nothing but the quiet
In the night
Having gone to the unit
Where a woman lives.
Outside a man was smoking a cigarette.
When I called after having texted,
Someone hung up and turned off the lights.
I heard the dog’s chain,
Then I drove away.

When I awoke
The sun was shining
And a message was sent.
She had “miscalled” me and then went to sleep.
But it wasn’t her argument that persuaded me.
It was the fact that when I picked up the phone
She was talking to a woman
Reading my message and getting angry that I assumed
The man was her’s,
When all she did was go to bed early.

Still, the drama in all of this
Is what makes it so tedious.
I am not in love,
Or if I should be
I don’t feel it.

But, who am I after all these years?
I am not in the running for what I want.
I am an old man living the flirtations of the past.

When I wake up tomorrow
I will be too old to consider dating as an option.
We laugh about the old having such ambitions.
There comes a time when two people
No longer look credible holding each other.