Those Dreams of You in Santa Fe

In Santa Fe, the sun sets over those

ancient

arid

Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

          Beautiful Blood Red

          Beyond Blood Red

                                                                              Clouds like the tails of palominos.

 

Under the sun

and those clouds

          -whispy-

          -white-

I strummed steel strings

strung along a birch body;

          curved like a woman

          it sang for a woman.

 

And I sang, mon cour

And I sang, baby doll…

She was everything this young man needed

and I would be there for her 

          as long as she was there for me

          …as long as she was there for me.

 

                                                         My guitar gently wept before I knew I would have to.

 

In Santa Fe the sun sets over those mountains

again

again.

The newly cristened, Sangre de Corazon, mountains,

dyed each night in the blood of the love of my heart

which had loved and had lost love and was love lost…

 

And in Santa Fe I wept on a sun soaked dashboard;

I held my breath and felt a pulse paranormal;

I took a pen to my jugular to write of life.

I slept in relentless dreams of you

I slept in relentless dreams of you

I slept in relentless dreams of you

relentless recurrent resurging restricting…

 

I slept in a picture of my hand on the small of your back

while your breath whispered warmth in a wandering ear.

Marie

Marie and I went out for coffee today. That’s exactly what we had. Coffee; Nothing more, nothing less. She didn’t know that I was just aching for an excuse to get lost in her gorgeous hair just one more time. In her warm, friendly embrace, I tried to hide my passion – my love.
We sat down and caught up. She was mellow, polite, cordial, and did everything in her power to make this moment as normal as possible. It was not hard for me. I had resolve. I would stare into her eyes, savor her good nature, and mope around the house for a couple hours later on in the day. I asked her:
“What’s Alicia Doing nowadays?”
“She’s an accountant. I don’t see how she doesn’t blow her head off, it’s such a boring job, but that’s just Ally.”
She sipped her coffee, and looked out the window. With her same old concern she asked:
“How’s Jake?”
As many times as I’d heard the question, this time didn’t make it any easier.
“He’s alive, but that barely describes him.”
She grabbed the pot from the center of the table and topped of my white, ceramic cup. I tried to push Jake out of my mind for now, and focus on this one little, stolen moment. Marie was only in the country for a couple of days. She had to fly to Brazil before heading back to France, so I only had a couple of hours. She set the pot down and smiled at me. She said how well I looked.
“It’s the California sun. People turn colors out here you could never imagine in France.”
She laughed, and I laughed. It was the sweetest, most savory, tingling, butterflies in the stomach laugh I had ever laughed. It was the remedy for my woes. It was also the catalyst which ignited my belief that maybe she might still feel something. I searched her face for another hint. God, California was too filthy a place for this beautiful Goddess. Starbuck was a smirch on her reputation. The United States were not civilized enough for her countenance. And I, I could have been just a little better in bed for her liking. Nut no, I wasn’t too bad (thanks to my partial Latin roots).
“You know, Jake asks about you every time I visit. He said he’d make sure I burned in hell if I didn’t tell you he’s still waiting for that kiss.”
She blushed. I wasn’t really sure what it meant, and had no idea how to press the issue.
“Tell Jake,” she said, “that he is most assuredly up on my list.”
There was my opening:
“And who’s on top of that list?”
She took what I felt to be an ill placed sip of her coffee.
“My fiancé.”
I took what she probably assumed to be a necessary sip of my coffee. That solved that question. She was getting married, and I would probably sit in one of the back rows, trying not to sob like a drunken asshole, later on turning into a blubbering drunken asshole at the reception. So I looked into her eyes, and thought to myself fuck it. You’ve got only so many years on this planet, are you going to pass on the only opportunity to stop her from marring this asshole?
“Congratulations. I certainly hope you’ll invite me to the wedding.”
“Do you really want to be there Sam?”
No. No I did not.
“Of course.”
My subconscious was going to kick my ass with a bottle of Rum when I got home. Marie felt all of this. My chest had been pried apart. Nothing was secret anymore.
“Love can only stretch so far, Sam.”
I wasn’t trying to learn a lesson at the time. I knew all of the circumstances and the limits and the differences, but I was too caught up on the similarities to see the truth. I tried to close up. I tried to stick with the matter at hand:
“So, where are you having the wedding?”
Marie refilled her cup.
“In Chartres. And I would be delighted if you came.”
We continued the small talk. Apparently this man’s name was Jean. And I was sure the typical Jean was going to match quite badly with the lovely, smart, funny Marie quite terribly. I said nothing.
I hugged her one last time, and this time it was the pain of half a planet’s distance keeping us apart that made the moment so strong. It was the closing of the door of opportunity – the sealing of the window of our romance.

There was a message on the answering machine when I got home, and I called Marie immediately.
“Yes Sam?
“Marie, I- I have to – oh god.”
What is it Sam?
“It’s uh – it’s Sam, he-“
I couldn’t say it.
“I’ll cancel my flight. I’m coming over Sam. Just have a drink and I’ll be there as fast as I can.

I closed my eyes, and bowed my head, and prayed to my God.

      God, I don’t pray as much as I should. I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done. Please let mom be wrong. Please let Jack be okay. And if he’s not, please…give him back…

Sponataneity Poetry

Blown glass words
Take shape from a blowers lips
speaking about what I heard about her.
but all is just rumors – verbal slips

Let’s talk about birds,
I mean, about how some girls…coo.
call it all sexy, absurd -
I’m just gonna call it that thing you do.

Makes me shiver
just a little bit.
Makes me quiver.
but I know you don’t think much of it.

Yeah, they all talk.
Yeah they all talk about you.
They stare. They gawk.
Since when was that new?

Girl, you stole sexy.
And nobody could take it the fuck back.
How would you like to sit next to me?
We can do anything – but relax.

It’s all just spontaneity.
I’m just preaching perverted poetry.
But you’ve been alone lately.
And I think I’ve got the remedy.

May I have this dance?

Dear, you know who you are.

Dear “Love of my life”,

My name is Stewart Sinclair, and you are the only thing I care about. My friends and I have argued as to whether you even exist, but I truly believe that if this world has any semblance of a purpose, it lies holistically on you. It may seem like I have set the standard pretty high, Love, but you are so worth having that anything less would be selling myself, and you, short. So I am writing you this letter to let you know that I want to be there for you, as I have thought myself to be many times before, only to find out that it wasn’t you. Because, Love, you hide around every corner, and there’s so many substitutes in the world that I get lost and confused. This is my general plea for you to make yourself clear.
When I was a kid, you were always on my mind, and always so simple. You were any girl that smiled. I wish I could say that age has changed my perception, but that’s bull shit. Pardon my language, but eloquence is not so easy to come by under pressure. God, am I under pressure. But I am losing track of my point, and becoming lost in the sea of beauty that has masked my perception of what you really are.
Who are you, Love? Where did you come from, and why doesn’t that place have an address, or at least a P.O. box? Has your life been as hard as my search for you? I would like to think so, but I’d also like to think that I’ve had you, and that you’ve simply slipped through my fingers. At least then, I’d feel like I understand what love was. The only down side is that my life would never get any better if I’d already had my turn with you. Perhaps I do prefer it that way though. I think you do too. I think you are patient, and damned good at life’s game of hide-and seek. If I could express it realistically, than I would avoid speaking in metaphors, but I’m a writer, so I have to ask that you bare with me.
I’ve seen you in so many movies, and heard about you in so many songs, but you’ve never gotten an oscar or a grammy. In fact, more often than not, I find your good name being slenderized and diminished to gossip colony fodder. But I still worship you. I still love your music. I think the world underestimates your worth, and miscalculated what it is that makes you so valuable. You are Love; the essence of every decent act and the characteristic that sets all good things in motion. I hope your blushing, because I can’t think of a more fitting shade on the cheek of you, than that crimson of humility. But I think I’m getting to soppy.
What I really mean to tell you is that you have been looking for me as hard as I have been looking for you, but as little as I know about you, is the extent to which you know about me. So I am building the bridge to bring us together. Fuck everybody else, Love. It’s you and me against the world, and I honestly think we could take them A friend of mine says he has met you, and that he knows a guy who can give you this letter, and I sincerely hope so, but I do not necessarily see that happening.
Ouch, and just like that, I begin to lose my faith in you, and start writing more for myself; of my own loneliness and desires, and of how I will never find love in this world. I doubt more and more that you even exist, and I feel more and more about what satisfies me, and I pray that this gets to you before the next pretty woman comes my way, calling herself by your name, and beating me down again. You see, Love, I will treat every woman I meet as if they were you, but you will be the only one that will truly appreciate it. Until then, every kiss; every hand held; every whispered “I love you”, will press against dead lips, squeeze against stiff hands, and fall upon def ears.
If this gets to you, than it will only be by accident, but it will surely do what it is meant to do, and that is to say, in many more words than necessary, that I love you. I love you I love you I love you. And I’d really like to know your name.

Sincerely,
Stewart

In Love with a Voice

          Have you ever fallen in love with a voice? Something low, loving and longing? I have. I wonder what the voice sounds like when I can’t hear, or what it would sound like if she spoke to me, as I have never spoken with her. I hear her soft, heavy tones on a regular basis, and I’ve never replied. She sings songs; sometimes I sing with her. I want to every time, but sometimes I know it is best to listen.
               I lie on the floor and let her notes breeze past me. I wonder what she sounds like in the morning. Would those vibrations hit my ear in the same, perfect, way? When the highs rang out, would I still shiver? When the lows hummed, would I still be frozen? I imagine myself closing my eyes, rolling over the bed and allowing our lips to gently touch. She would still be singing, speaking, breathing. Her sounds would tickle my lips, and I would quiver in ecstacy. I would be drawn closer, she would speak quieter until her words were more physical than audible. This is my quiet quiet love of her soft resonance; this is my desperation for her…viberations.

she made me speechless, and here’s the words I forgot to say.

In my mind,

but off the record

is the thought of your thousands of curls.

I can swim, inebriated, in that blonde sea

until my cheek finally lands on the small of your shoulder.

I like to think of it,

as Al Pacino once said,

as the line between the body and the soul.

The shoulder: the modern day frontier,

Timeless and insurmountable.

Incalculably enticing.

Suggestive of the seductive.

But the innocence you reincarnate

is what makes me ache

-explode in agony-

in a desire to better myself,

to be deserving of you.

My hand takes hard hold round your hip.

It keeps you close so my thoughts cannot stray.

And if they did, one might wonder

where they would possibly wander.

Simply off to fantasies of you,

though nothing can compare to

the heat of your breath,

the stare in your hazel eyes,

the melodic resonance of your laughter,

the halting purity of your tears,

the words which compose such bewitching spells

dancing about a bubble-gum tongue,

bubbling from luscious lips.

Together, our silence is a bleat of the world’s last hope for sanity.

Apart, I am insane.

But not while I still have your words.

Words that give rise to palpitations.

Words that ring like symphonic harmonics;

choice for a thirsty ear.

Who would you hurt that didn’t deserve it?

Who do you fear?

They will be given reason to fear you.

I am at your whim while you are at my side.

Pull, push, or prod, I surrender.

For what other choice does a sane man have?

I offer you all I have

All I am

All I will ever be.

And all I ask in return is that one syllable,

the one that means

“I promise”.

The four letters that say

“forever”.

Just Another Mad, Mad Love

This mad, mad love; this institutionalized emotion, is the very one which torments the souls of the most honest character, but will not pierce the skin of callous. Its unjust principles are palpable to the lonely, and desolating to the scared. But to all else around; all those who brag of strength, charisma and class, it is a def note; a lamentation blown in the wind. And this is to say nothing of the kiss: the little trick of nature designed to stop speech when words become superfluous. This action is a vulgar display to the careless, and the cruel use it as a plague on mankind, tossing Tantric tongues in a Tatumesque flurry. It is simply a precursor to pervasive actions. Where the hearty act to make love, the heartless make love an act. It makes me laugh. And nothing is more hollow than a solo laugh in a desolate room. Like an evaporating glass of water in the desert; A cruel joke.

So I lick my lips at the sight of the holistically beautiful, and watch them fall, holistically, beautifully, into detestable relationships with contestable men. I watch them tumble through iniquity, and dance their way through the pitfalls of pervasive propagandists; package deals with no warrantees, guaranties, just pleasantries. I love them all. They love them all. I weep for them as they weep for themselves. Their aren’t enough tears amongst us to replenish their souls from the scarlet consonants, curses, and crosses they bare. But this mad, mad love for the lonely is a longing for the last lovely lady, who will at long last lose her love to the lively lethargy of a lamentable fool. May her heart rest in peace.

Sweat Shirts, sweated words.

A conversation I cannot hear.

A door I dare not enter.

It is a cold day in December

and the heater bill is through the roof.

I know what it means

to be alone in a crowded place.

Another man’s voice pounds in my head

reminding me of another woman.

The essence of excess.

A tear drop my tongue failed to lap up.

The lights of the Christmas tree have burned night and day.

Another beautiful woman stretches eagerly in its presence.

People come and go, go and come,

always wearing a new pair of shoes.

Of all the women,

in all the malls,

in all of California,

I have chosen the obsequious one.

Pig tails, pony tails, buns, braids,

No child wants to be on the naughty list for Christmas.

But all Children are.

When is it acceptable to chew gum?

When you step in another man’s shoes,

would Gold Bond be advisable?

I am lost in the garrulous tones of a population gone awry.

Does anyone around me realize that I am a man of high aspirations?

We are the first penmanship to develop good penmanship by three,

and incinerate it by twelve.

LMAO

We no longer have stores, we have shopping experiences.

The cheesy Christmas music remains the same.

I want to ride a beautiful woman,

but they are all saddled by hideous men.

I write with one eye on my paper,

the other on you.

I am Walt Whitman’s soul

incarnate as an outbreak of ebola.

I can’t stand fortunate children.

They make for an unfortunate future.

Men should cry more.

Women are cruel, cruel beasts…

Whom I worship completely.

I love you, woman of another man’s fantasy.

You’ll dance with me, kiss my lips,

but tell me you are his?

It is unfair and unjust.

Kiss me one more time and profess that you do not love me.

My pain is yours, so why do you not scream with me?

If we scream together, we will scream no more.

And when we finally grow old, your wrinkles will be my joy.

Your aches will be my groans.

So let your hips touch my hips,

And I will give you all of me, all the time.

You may think you love your novio,

but I will make you my novia,

when you see freely what is true.

My writing may be chicken scratch,

but my words will ring in your ears

until the glass that separates us

is a melted, molded, sobbing mass on the floor.

I will not step over the glass because you will come to me.

And you will apologize, but I will not accept it.

Because from then on, our future will not be concerned with our past.

We will disavow the un-ashed tip of the cigarette,

and burn down the rest of our lives in the most romantic of forms,

consumed by the most juvenile love.

Over and over, every time more potent than the last. Every kiss like an injected sedative; every touch like a shot of adrenaline. We are lovers outside the box; friends within our boundaries; lost on the line which separates. Her brown cream skin and light chocolate hair are more intoxicating than the first snuff of a fine glass of brandy, or the final sip of a cheap glass of back-country moonshine. She tastes like angels ought to taste, though our actions are of a most condemnable nature. But we have a silent contract of iniquity. Whatever the consequence may be, the moment is beautiful, like a molten magmatic bubble in the innards of a blown glass work of art. It draws far more attention than the piece itself; its imperfection is its beauty.

She is gyrating and dancing, suderiferously swaying like a dew glistened window pane in a howling storm. My hands ride her hips, following her lead like the wild Sioux, bareback on his painted pony. What will be said will be said, and judgement will be passed, but we will not take back our actions, though we may hope to silence the repercussions.

You to me

     A begrudging woman has captivated my conscience, making it hard to think; hard to act; hard to see; hard to breathe. Choice words and chosen expressions are my only source of consolation, and both lack worth for wear, for when it comes down to the women I set my soul to, it seems that the only source of compensation I receive for my efforts is a precursory glimpse at a relationship: the bit that makes you believe your in love, and then it cuts straight to the bit that leaves you with spit in the eye, and vomit in the stomach.

     My only hope is that the female of the species is more deadly than the male, for that would mean that my anguish will be short lived. All you women who have plagued my conscience, your time spent in my thoughts is incalculable, the true words you will never hear from a better man’s mouth are mine, and the true care that emanates from my heart, mind, body and soul, are the truest you will ever never know. I am the man who has no chance, because I have too much respect to take my chance. Chew these words, and taste the bite of a good man gone sour, for it will take a mad woman gone sane to bring him back.