This is about a boy moments before being introduced at his post–bah mitzvah bash. I was in a hotel lobby talking to a friend when he passed by with his parents. He was all nerves and anticipation. I immediately sensed this was the biggest moment of his life.

What once seemed the faintest flick of light,
     Has hurried forth unto this gala night;
And the short he viewed in bedtime theatre,
     Now heeds the call of the bandleader.

Parents beside, he stands ever nervous —
     A diff’rent dare than the synagogue service,
Where he spat out verse and chanted rhymes,
     Of his luckless lineage, so sublime.

In shirt and tie, Saturday’s best,
     Well-earned praises he soon shall accept,
‘Long with the chills of a hundred more leers,
     Than the aggregate sum of thirteen years.

With gentle whisper his mother assures,
     “The hum of the crowd will soon be a blur.”
But the helpless fretting of untold days,
     Has spiraled into a manic malaise.

Heavy with dew from the sickly suspense,
     From the scourge of time he hath no defense; for
It’s always the longest, the time just before,
     The final steps through manhood’s door.

When I was young, my sister and I used to ride our bikes to a big ditch down the road and then try to climb out of it. We were usually unsuccessful.

[‘Twas a healthy tract of great unearth, 
Matched in size by its own dearth.]

Quickly into the ditch we stole, 
Then, at once, gaped up a hole 
Only steam and steel could cajole. 
 
Up its walls we scratched and pawed, 
‘Mid showers of the falling ground 
Loosed by our tugs at sheared roots, 
And all that we jarred underfoot. 
 
Then, at once, we stopped our shimmy, 
To cleave between our soiled digits 
A rich and dun cross-section of clay, 
That did implore our hearts to play. 
 
But first we thought to imitate, 
With fingers curled, the bucket shape, 
And trembling lips, the sound it makes — 
 
    The claw that left 
            the earth to bake.

Young love: What goes up, must come down. 

Like a rusted bronze October sheaf, 
In spiral to the earth beneath, 
From our nimble limb we twirl, 
Leaflets on a windblown trail — 
    And soon aground, both are we.

Life loses all color when a relationship ends. I wanted the reader to be able to smell the oil paints as they were reading this. 

No mauve, no puce, 
No primrose hue, 
No violet-red, 
    Or spot of blue. 

No peach, no sky, 
No orange dapple, 
No van dyke brown, 
    By green of apple. 
 
No pink, no teal, 
No champagne blush, 
No emerald streak, 
    On flame-tipped brush. 
 
No rust, no chrome, 
No burnt sienna, 
No black, no gold, 
    In gob-like manner. 
 
No taupe, no snow, 
No two-tone thistle, 
No turquoise stain, 
‘Midst amber bristle. 
 
No brass, no wine, 
No navy glaze, 
No scarlet daub, 
    Like liquid clay. 
 
No jade, no beige, 
No deep sea pearl, 
No fuchsia tint, 
    Nigh melon swirl. 
 
No slate, no gray, 
No ivory swab, 
No lilac shade, 
    Without your love.

I wanted to create a feeling of human despair through a series of images of everyday objects. Used all lowercase to help with the mood. 

empty, 
like a tin can dented, 
by the side of the road. 

empty, 
like a barren, cold 
pipe and stove. 
 
empty, 
like a roadside clerk’s  
dusty till. 
 
empty, 
like a gaping hole, 
crying for fill. 
 
empty, 
like an abandoned old, 
steel mill town. 
 
empty, 
like the moment after 
you let me down.

The first time away from a lover can be trying. One remedy: Think about anything else. 

A new angle on Pythagoras? 
In its web I’d gladly get lost; 
Five pages on Frost, perhaps? 
The subject matter matters not; 
Study maps of Ancient Greece? 
A topographical relief; 
Translate verbs in foreign tongue? 
I shall attaque every one; 
Organic lab analysis? 
In the details lies a trace of bliss; 
An overdue art assignment? 
With deft hand I’d underline it; 
Computer skills need some practice? 
I long for peace in its distraction; 
An anthropology retreat? 
Into the project I’d dig deep; 
Conduct a basic Q&A? 
To find the words might take all day; 
A sociology review? 
The entire course I’d redo, 
    ‘Cause then I won’t be missing you.

It’s a drag rolling over in bed to find nothing instead of something. Real happy with the imagery and wordplays here.

[When my love beside I cannot shake,
Horizontal’s the lie I fabricate.]

Each morning as you depart,
        Our sleepy feather bed,
        A slight depression always sets,
In the down,
And in my head.
So into your body,
My pillows I reshape,
To cushion the sorrow,
To fill the hollow,
Your absence doth embed.

In a mash of questions 
With answers none, 
    Stirred by feelings rent with love, — 
One thought alone breathes verily: 
“Who ‘neath God’s blue tent above, 
Can claim to be as blest as thee, 
When thine heart doth bleeds, for 
    Kristen Marie?” 

In this chest of small delight, 
Rests a symbol of a larger truth, 
For these sweet candies are but a pittance, 
Compared to the treasure I found in you.

Waiting for the train, ‘top
Aged hick’ry floor,
Something filled the air,
Swirling as-if to storm.

No early morning rain,
Unborn before the land,
Or thinnest veil of fog,
Hath ever felt so grand.

‘Twere naked to the eye, like
Some spastic cupid spritz —
A caged magic dust,
Loosed by an angel’s twist.

Then ‘round ‘bout eight, the
Pixie ebb ‘n’ flow,
Coaxed me o’erhead,
Into its ghostly undertow.

Wiping the elfin spray,
From the corners of my eye,
A vision cloaked in shadow,
And cashmere did I spy.
Hereupon I strode, with
Particles in pact:
Conductors of the heart,
On the right side of the tracks.

Arched o’er the rails,
Hands plunged in pocket,
“What time,” queried I,
“Arrive the engine’s sprockets?”

“Ten past the hour,”
Came her rapt reply,
And with those words,
The spritely dust did fly.

Then a thousand million specks,
Electric’ly discharged,
Expressly did collect,
Back in the fairy jar.

With cap firmly fastened, we
Boarded the train anon;
My journey new I embraced,
My platform past … “Begone!”

When I was in school, I never had the guts to ask the pretty girls to dance. Stole the title from a song by the band Queen. 

Only last week, I walked these hushed halls, 
To gather my lines and settle my heart, 
For sitting alone, beyond love’s brick wall, 
Was an unwritten play, in which I was cast a part. 
As slender as a stroke from Keats’ quill, 
As fair as morning’s faint scarlet, 
In her beauty I felt a spineless chill, 
That sent me scrambling from my Valentine starlet. 
A poet in distress, I scuffed the dusty floor, 
Searching for the right role to choose: 
To hang my head and retreat to’ard the door, 
Or go forth and pray the Lord sees me through. 
With Brahms about, the scale teetered to ‘n’ fro 
(My heart ‘gainst a tongue which would not speak), 
See ‘twas not her arrow I feared, but Cupid’s bow, 
Since I just might acquire what I seek! 
Alas then, in Blake and Byron my decision was had: 
A foolish soul, Rome’s ancient Christian martyr, 
For a romantic is never so happy as when he is sad, 
So I slipped away, heroically ever after.

A first kiss in the moonlight. Over-the-top, syrupy romanticism … but so much fun to write! (Opium refers to a brand of perfume.)

[In perfect union,
Breathed the heavenly bodies above;
One cascading dreamy incandescence,
Upon the other’s fly-by-night love.]

Like a pale blue pasture,
Sheeting through the long-leaf pines,
The moon’s light shone upon her body;
Her face fluoresced before mine.

Like sparkling waning crescents
(Evening’s crowning celestial beams),
Her eyes were a study in focus and passion,
Hesitant jewels that twinkled green.

Bathed in gentle, loving rays,
She explored with soft, tender caress,
While the shifting warmth in her heart,
Remained a crime of passion unconfessed.

Alas, a stolen romance in her hands
(A trace of Opium upon her wrists),
She leaned into the faraway moonscape,
And sealed my fate with a kiss.

A Renoir when rekindled,
But one query looms in my picture:
Was that ‘deed a sparkle in her eye,
Or merely a firefly’s flicker?

For my wife. The last four lines still send me: “’Tis the red, red apples aglow in her cheeks …”  

The kiss on me you planted, 
Planted deep the seed, 
That bore the fruits of love, 
Resplendent in all I see. 
Your skin a velvety peach, 
Your lips a kiwi treat, a 
Slender stem your neck to me. 
Your eyes, a shade of  
Dusty boysenberry. 
Your soul casaba sweet, 
Your cherry philosophy, 
Your plum personality, — 
    All ovaries under the sun, 
    Maturing in every degree. 
But of all the pomes I thee list, 
To befall this novice botanist, 
‘Tis the red, red apples,  
Aglow in your cheeks, 
That ripen most my heart, 
And plenish most my tree. 

In gray chilled air or slivered sunshine, 
Tethered are we by her fingers in mine; 
Now soon all our cares we shall abscond, 
Into the trees and water beyond, 
    For all is well when circling Horn Pond.

Every time I look at you, 
Another breath of mine is stolen, 
One by one you wisp them away, 
From this innocent you have chosen. 
 
Without guilt, you doth inhale, 
This clear swallow meant for me, 
Leaving you with strengthened mind, 
And I with weakened knee. 
 
How you live when we’re apart, 
I’m left clueless to explain, 
Since on my breath you depend — 
Your chest and lungs I inflate! 
 
Bereft of breath, I pain to grasp, 
The facts that logic’lly must follow: 
There are others who are victims to, 
This crime of love so hollow. 
 
But like a thief without a trail, 
Blamed you’re not for these capers; 
Like the proof, you’re in the clear, 
A victor by the thinnest of vapors.