Love Song V: Empath

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Empath (for N.D.)


gather
the pieces of your wounds
packed neatly in dusty attic boxes
swept carefully under the kitchen rug
dropped haphazardly in bedroom corners
gather the pieces
like hard candies…
wounds
alive
denied
but never
forgotten

gather
the days of your pain
the days
liquid-red
once bloody
and throbbing
now years-hardened
into stiff
brown streaks
lying in bottoms of coffee cups…
gather
the leftover
signs
of hurts
yet denied
but alive
and well

gather
your night terrors
strung together
and hanging
about your neck
like
a noose of pearls
strangling
all breath
cutting off
all life
terrors denied
but still alive
still
well


gather them all now
and
bring them…
wounds, pain, terrors…
press them
etch them
release them
into
onto
me…
for I am your empath

your empath
wounded…
as your scars become mine
your empath
broken…
on the wheel of your pain
your empath
tormented…
by demons of your nights

I am your empath
I am
a balm
to restore
an elixir
to heal

I am your empath
come now
to you
with love
unconditional…
your empath
come
gladly here
with love
for you.

9/9/07

Love Song IV: Sea Change

Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

Sea Change... Summer of 2007


your lodestar

shifted
the angle
of the sun

bent
the radius
of my perspective

folded
linear time
past
present
future
into
triangled planes

while
your
moon power
raised
sublime
possibilities
exponentially

placing them
just
there
above
my horizon…

your force

disturbed
the poles
of
my world

charged
changed
their
magnetic direction

while
like
a riptide
you
pulled
my sea
into
to your
sphere

displacing
my currents

drawing
my tides
skyward
to
arc
upward
evermore
to
you…

your moon

imploded
the mysteries
of you
of me
of us
together

shooting us
like stars
somewhere far…near…

somewhere
into
parallel universes

where
the equation
of us
burst
into fire
and sparks
and
circles
unbroken
without end
or beginning…

circles
spinning
out
beyond
eternity.

9/15/07

Love Song III: Pied Piper

Copyright 2007 – All Rights Reserved

Pied Piper

ain’t no turnin back now.

you
beckoned
you
summoned
you

compelled me

to

follow you

play my role

in this here

love story
where

there ain’t no script

well
never mind that
since

ain’t no turnin back now

you
set the stage
cued me

you
figured out

how to get me

and here I am
standing center stage
with

no lines
no directions
with

no blocking
for my moves

well
never mind that now

cause

ain’t no turnin back, my love

ain’t no turnin me back
ain’t no turnin me round
ain’t no turnin us off this road we on

cause
the curtain’s already up
and the house lights are down
sho’nuff

rehearsal is over
and

baby, this show
is

already
all the way
ON.


8/3/2007 and 9/5/07

Love Song II: Lyric 2 - To Stacey

Copyright 2007 – All Rights Reserved

Lyric 2: To Stacey

play goodbye
frankie

drop
a coin or two in the box
and
play
goodbye

listen to
the blues
listen to
the muse
the song
that
tells you
why

you
have to
finally
say
goodbye

go on
say your
last
the cards
are stacked
the die is cast

say it
now
while daylight
fades
play it
now
in twilight’s
shade

play it now
frankie
so you
can
forget
to
remember

the lyric
and melody
of her
spinning round
in your head

drop a coin
for goodbye

because
you never
wanted
to play it

drop a coin
because
you never
wanted
to say it

drop a coin
even though
you will
never
ever
say it

your goodbye.

8/28/07

Love Song I: Play Goodbye, Frankie

Lyric 1 Play Goodbye, Frankie
Copyright 2007-All Rights Reserved

play goodbye frankie

drop a coin or two in the box

play that song

goodbye

listen to the blues

the muse

the song that reminds you

why

you have to say goodbye

no

you

never

wanted to say it

but play it

this goodbye

play it now

in fading light of dusk

play goodbye and forget

the sound of her

play goodbye

say it now

and soon

(god please make it soon)

I’ll be too old to remember

what used to be

too old to remember

what I can never forget

too old

to

remember her hello

just say goodbye

frankie

drop

a coin or two

in the box

and

play

the sounds of her

saying

goodbye

8/3/07

Love Songs: Twelve Poems

Table of Contents

(Order of Appearance)

Love Song XII: Moon

Love Song XI: Opposites Attract

Love Song X: Memory Quickens

Love Song IX: La Loba

Love Song VIII: Dancin

Love Song VII: Eyes

Love SongVI: Conjurer

Love Song V: Empath

Love Song IV: Sea Change

Love Song III: Pied Piper

Love Song II: Lyric 2

Love Song I: Play Goodbye, Frankie

The Book of Days III: Back in the Saddle

Copyright 2009- All Rights Reserved

No matter if I’ve been out of town or not, transitioning back from summer vacation into teaching the fall semester of college is usually easy. I always have my syllabus copied and ready for each class since the copy machine is subject to break down from last minute overuse by instructors. No hassle. No frazzle. But…this time was different. I had to cope with an unexpected problem that started almost as soon as I landed in L. A.—jet lag. I haven’t really been plagued with jet lag before last week and it took me by surprise. Had I known that it would show up, I’d have made some changes in coming back to town.

Time zone change. Jet lag is born out of crossing time zones. Crossing time zones throws off the biological clock and upsets the body’s natural patterns and rhythms based on day and night, sunrise and sunset. According to what I later found out, a two hour change isn’t too bad but a three hour change is trouble. I had gone through a three hour change coming home from vacationing all summer down south. My watch said that I’d landed at 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon but my body recognized the time as 6 p.m. It was ready to wind down but now that I was home, there was way too much for me to do to give in to that.

My first class was going to be at 9 a.m. the next day and I had to get ready, jet lag or not. In the sixteen hours between my plane landing and walking into the classroom, I greeted my neighbors who’d kept watch on my mail and my apartment, unpacked and put my clothes away, drove to the grocery store for food, put my dinner together and ate, made some telephone calls, put my classroom materials in my pack bag, laid out my clothes, checked a box full of mail accumulated over three months, and, finally, at 10 p.m., I went to bed. I didn’t sleep well—not a good thing; still, I got up at 6:30 a.m. the next morning. Although I was feeling tired, I walked my neighbor’s dogs for 10 minutes (my usual morning exercise routine), fixed and ate my breakfast, bathed, dressed, and left for work.

For three months, my days had started around 10:30 or 11 in the morning and I’d enjoyed living life at a decidedly slower pace. No more. Here I was back to alarm clocks, time schedules, negotiating morning traffic, and setting myself up to do or accomplish entirely too many things in one twenty-four hour period. As I drove to work, I heard on the radio that the weather would be in the upper 90’s. Great. I thought I’d left that kind of weather in Georgia. But here it was again! By the time I got through my classes, I was definitely feeling jet lag symptoms—grogginess, tiredness , mild depression, and disorientation. The heat made things worse and I asked myself a thousand times what I’d been thinking of when I’d booked a plane back without giving myself a day or two to rest before going to work.

I was fading away by Monday evening and I knew I had to find a solution…quick, fast, and in a hurry. Logic and a little internet research helped me come up with a plan. What I decided to do was slow way down for the rest of the week, stay in a cool place more often than not, take afternoon naps and cool baths at night, eat light meals, and put a limit on the kind of exercise I’d do every day for a week. It’s worked pretty well. Next time I travel, though, I’ll find out what other things I can do to minimize jet lag. That includes coming back home a couple of days earlier, not a few hours before I have to go to work.

Jet lag made it a bit harder and longer that first week to shift back into L.A.’s fast lane. I do miss the lazy days of summer, the sound my “Songbird” singing me awake every morning, my leisurely breakfast each morning with my summer hostess. Oh, well. Time to take my sweet memories of summer into fall and the new school year. It’s back in the saddle for me.