11/30/09

I await You

the sea oats dance
feverishly,
as the nor'easter's presence
gets cranked up,
and I await You;

the clouds fly by,
hastily heading out to sea,
blocking the winter sun,
sending me inside,
and I await You.



November 27, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/26/09

the author is

sometimes saddened,
when along comes someone,
who thinks that they are the next Hemingway,
and yet cannot describe how to catch,
and properly throw back, a rainbow trout;

sometimes saddened,
when along comes someone,
who thinks that they are the next Faulkner,
and yet cannot tell the reader one damned trait
of a rounder;

sometimes maddened
when along comes someone,
who thinks that they are the next Bukowski,
and yet cannot tell the reader,
who was Chinaski, or who was the leader;

sometimes saddened
when along comes someone,
who thinks that they are the next Updike,
who cannot tell one teen-age bathing suit,
from another;

then reminded, in an etymological epiphany,
that all that follows
is borne of what preceded thee.




November 26, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

anticipation

I peer around the corner:
is that you? it's raining so hard,
I can barely see;

You look out the car window:
is that him? it's raining so hard,
I can barely see;

I walk out into the downpour,
not quite nonchalant,
knowing,
that all the times I that I have
gotten soaked,
eventually, I always got dry;

my heart skips beats,
and I cannot find my feet,
as I approach,
and see Your smile;

You alight,
and my heart takes flight:
oh, baby, it's been quite a while.



November 25, 2009, for the Wifey. I am pretty excited.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/25/09

signs

juxtaposition,
by definition
always an eye-catcher,
a brand new rendition
of a least a pair of images,
intended to really
sink in,
and be absorbed;

so the other day,
on the streets,
perhaps an unintended
mingling:

"New 2010 Mercedes S-Class
starting at only
$87,950!!!"

and,

next door:
"Free tote bag
with every
pint of blood sold."



November 25, 2009, from the forthcoming collection, Spoken Rage.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/23/09

health-care

you sit there,
you yammering, stammering,
well-heeled, well-oiled asses,
arguing about whether people
should receive adequate health-care
as a civil right,
while meanwhile I sit here,
slowly disintegrating,
day by day approaching
a vapor, that the next winter wind
will casually blow away;
while millions, yes read it again,
millions, face certain early doom,
demise that they will realize
in the stark darkness of some lonely
room, where no one cares, nor is
aware, that a person is about to depart;
unscrew you, you self-satisfied henchmen,
you well-fed, well-cared, benchmen:
as you debate our fate,
we will come to press your face
to the red-hot grate,
and see what then you think
is worthy of mention.



November 23, 2009. From the forthcoming collection, Spoken Rage.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

just like Ferlinghetti

and always on the fucking margins, man,
always playing it a little safe,
like even Buk, although I adore
that sonovabitch every day of my life,
never crossed some lines,
never sometimes cast down a few stones,
worried over some rhymes,
or pissed on the dress shoes of a few real pomes;
goddammit had a little fucking fun
at the expense of nearly everyone
and said fuck you to the guy next door
and laid my dick in wet sawdust
on a bar-room floor covered with wet whores
and stayed up all night long
just to see if I still fucking could
and watched with fascination
as I goddamned well got wood,
thinking about you,
thinking about you.



November 23, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

mightier still

while I was starving,
lying in the middle of your orchard,
you, and your compatriots
destined me for the kill,
and yet, I write these words,
lessening your thrill;
and so I stand,
resolute,
and I thereby constitute
your most avoided nightmare:
I am now what you wished
that I might never be:
I am now where you always hoped
that time would never find me;
Your Master,
your disaster,
your undoing,
and all of your machinations,
spewing
regret,
but never willing to forget,
will not declaim me:
I am of you,
and your protests
reaffirm me,
and Yes, I will live past
all the derision
to which you have
consigned me,
because I am more
than what you foolishly
had sought to design for me,
and yet,
I live on,
as your tremors overtake you,
and your bladder empties
on your feet of clay.



November 22, 2009. From the forthcoming collection, Spoken Rage.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

never forget

your blood stains my shirt,
and I am supremely unimpressed;
I look at your body
with the same disdain
as when you were alive,
moments ago;
you are gone now,
no longer a waste of oxygen,
no more a brute,
no more a monster;
you now seem so small,
so incapable of horrific deeds,
and maybe that smallness
is just what my soul needs;
you now go, wherever it is
that we all go,
eventually,
to nothing,
or to everything
for which your putrid life
qualifies you;
and I sit, quite unconcerned,
as the bloodstains go from
crimson
to brown,
and as life is now righted,
having been turned
upside down;
justifiable?
not even a question,
as your obituary
will never mention
your whippings,
your derision
of all that I ever sought,
not to mention
all of your machinations
to gain more attention
of an ego so overwrought;
you miserable, wretched,
bitter old person,
now you have learned
the ultimate lesson:
an abuser always meets
the fate that they set,
and what they receive
is that the abused
never forget.



November 22, 2009. From the forthcoming collection, Spoken Rage.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/20/09

the prayer to Grampa

time recedes,
and memory bleeds
too-short memories of you;
I was only 13 when you died,
and I remember,
forty-two years hence,
how I convulsed,
how I cried,
when the sirens were quieted,
and Dr. Baxter came out
from your room,
and said the obligatory
"I'm sorry" and then trudged
down the hall of the hospital,
to the next aggrieved family;
Oh, Grampa,
I need you now more than ever,
as life throws one curveball after another;
please be here with me,
sharing an apple,
or some fish drenched in molé,
as I unload all my uncertainties,
to you, a man always so certain:
"measure twice, and cut once,"
you taught me,
and now I need you to help me
measure the second time,
because She is too precious
to lose because of an inaccurate
measurement;
She is the world, and I am merely
a distant moon;
and I swear, on the heads of your
great-granddaughters,
that She is the One,
whom, down through time,
I have chased, and sometimes
gained, the One that was always
my aim;
so please, Grampa,
help me to claim
what I seek:
contemplating any loss of whom,
makes me weak.



November 16, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/15/09

morning comes forever

my lust is transparent,
and Her satisfaction,
translucent,
as morning comes forever;
and somewhere,
in the many mysteries
hidden under rented bedclothes,
hands find warm flesh,
and hearts pound out
a salsa beat,
as tender mercies
give a home to restless loins,
and Saturday night fantasies;
and morning comes forever,
as sleep is left aside
for the times of separation,
which are treacherous and wide;
and want becomes need,
and we are like sucklings,
ready to feed,
heated but not sated,
and morning comes forever,
even as we waited.



November 15, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

the beckoning

She floats, in that white dress,
just slightly above the ground,
Her head back, at times,
with the music of Her laughter
echoing off the lighthouse,
off these rocks, born when
the Earth was an orb slowly
cooling;
he hears the sound of Her,
and he runs barefoot
through fields of broken glass,
while snipers, heavily armed,
take aim;
and She softly calls his name,
and Her smile lights every
dark corner of the nighttime world,
and even the dark places
in his soul;
he runs, undaunted, determined,
and She beckons,
with that trademark crooked index finger,
and he runs and runs;
one day, he will catch Her,
and bring Her into his arms.



November 15, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

sailboat

it is November 15,
and there is one sailboat
still resolutely moored in the harbor,
and I wonder:
is the owner
merely an optimist,
who firmly believes
that Winter's sting
will not come,
or is he a wild-eyed fool,
who will sail in any weather,
so enamored of the salty spray,
that he would risk his life
in dark, icy waters,
heaving his craft up and down,
side to side, threatening
to swallow boat and sailor,
whole;
or maybe he is dead, and no longer
has need of his jib;
or maybe his wife's ass
has enough allure
to keep his boat moored,
while he is otherwise engaged.



November 15, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/14/09

mostly whole again

You credit me,
with having helped you through
a time most difficult,
most fraught with anguish;
and You tell me that not once
did I let you languish
in self-deprecation,
in unspeakable despair;
that, time after time,
moment after moment,
day after day,
that I was there,
there for You in a way
that held a flashlight forward
to help You find a way
back into the life of today;
and I blush inwardly,
and remind You that I am
all in, committed to whatever
it takes for You to regain
Yourself, Your health,
Your sense of worth,
sense of purpose,
Your innate raison d'etre:
and how I manage to get You there
does not matter,
and any small, silly sacrifice
that I make in the course of things,
is not worth noting,
if I am able to send You back,
mostly whole again.



November 13, 2009, for the Wifey, and in honor of our nine months together.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/13/09

the hospital

the dull hum of the air handler
creates enough white noise
that you could easily fall asleep,
if not for the fact that
you sit in the foyer of the
house of death,
watching as all the wounded
and afflicted in the world
wander by, seeking aid,
searching for cures,
for hope in a hopeless world,
scrubbed daily for all that it's worth,
bleached and sterilized
by the terrified,
the keepers of empty whiteness
and blank minds,
that have never savored sonnets,
or gently kissed nipples of elegance,
nor drunk deeply a fine Port,
while the taste of a good brie lingers:
kept clean,
and so left barren.



November 12, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/12/09

poetics

easy, it isn't,
peeling off layers,
"waxing poetic"
about love and life,
following the critics'
acceptable aesthetic;
as I once wrote,
"unscrew you with a hatful of bananas"
like what you think
really fucking matters:
if I move my readers,
and as a writer, grow,
wtf is your opinion worth,
win, place, or show?
I rhyme too much,
that was long ago leveled,
but as Byron long ago knew,
such a corner, finely beveled,
would be lost on the likes of you:
"Sir, I will agree with your general rule,
That every poet is a fool;
But you, yourself, may serve to show it:
Every fool is not a poet."
amen.



November 11, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/11/09

more than a few times

when You sleep
(dormirse bien, mi ciela),
and I listen,
something flies
right through me:
Your spirit, or
maybe Your majesty,
or maybe just an echo
of the ecstasy
that we have known;
either way,
what is shown to me
is spectacular,
singular,
in its particularity:
it is, at once,
fondly kept,
and a reason why
I have wept for joy,
more than a few times, baby,
more than a few times.



November 11, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

more than a little good

"nice ass,"
I say, each time
she runs past the pavilion;
she has her ear buds in, though,
and hears nothing
on this quiet morning,
with fish racing,
gulls hovering,
leaves rustling,
time playing out
its last bit of string,
as the sun continues
to bleach these rocks,
and an older man
tries to record it all,
reflecting,
refracting,
recollecting;
but dammit
someone needs to
pull those ear buds out,
and tell her that all that running
has done
more than a little good.



November 8, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/10/09

alive

the cries of gulls
and the drone of Cessnas
interrupt the tinkling
of wind chimes,
as I look upon the millions
of dead bodies
strewn across the face of the turf,
as the tide rushes for the shore,
and the church bells
all proclaim salvation;
most of the sailboats
are gone now,
off to their winter berths,
and the squirrels nervously
gather and scramble
to their oak leaf nests;
this is the season of dying,
and the way we meet --
like the sky and the gull,
beautiful, but gone too soon --
till the next gliding arc
of the rising bird,
like the days coming up
when I will be with You again;
each morning now passed
is one more closer to You,
and amidst all this mortality,
I suddenly feel very alive.



November 8 and 11, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

Sunday morning

the sun is bright and the wind steady,
out of the northeast,
as I watch the tri-mast schooner,
in full sail, crossing the harbor,
the cut of its jib,
like the Tip of the Spear,
like a proud young man
before his blushing virgin;
the gulls sleep,
as the flag flapping
stands erect over
the ants marching;
I watch her drive to the water's edge,
idling, palms sweating,
heart racing,
as she stifles a sob or two,
tears cascading down
powdered cheeks;
and then, resolve restored,
she guns the engine,
and sails into yesterday,
momentarily triumphant.




November 8, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/8/09

poets die

at last, he was not sure
if he had consumed the drinks,
or if the drinks had consumed him,
but either way,
the work got better
and better,
the wetter he got,
sinuses filled with snot;
and yet he soldiered on,
until most of him
was gone:
one more to be admired
muchly,
long after he was gone:
a bunch of silly lines,
left to linger on.



November 7, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

sunset at Ned's Point

I hopped out,
and trotted
about fifteen feet,
and shot it
just at the right moment,
and I got it:

one sunset
from Ned's Point,
for a woman
like no other.



November 6, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/6/09

rope

he asked me,
the smartass little prick,
when I thought that
I might stop swingin' at pitches;
and I looked at him,
dead in the eye,
and said:
"when you're dead,"
and he let out a big laugh,
damned near big enough
to split himself in half,
and that's when I shot him.

never brandish scissors
in front of someone
who is at the end
of their rope.



November 6, 2009, from the forthcoming collection, Spoken Rage.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

union

encircling me:
wrapping yourself
around me;
intertwined,
tangled,
wrangled,
as if of one mind;
possessed,
obsessed,
as if caressed
into submission,
we melt together
in a muffin-warm heap,
a divine delirium.



November 5, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

Great Phone Conversations 16

"Well, I had my day in court."

"And this should interest me, how? You managed to get acquitted. You and I both know that you were guilty, you pervert."

"Well, mebbe. Wanna do best two out of three?"

Click.



November 6, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

soon enough

the kid's harmonica
wails
ever since Grandma
turned him on to
Dylan,
who he thinks
he can be,
Lord willin';
I reflect on
the impossibility
of him
manning the watchtower,
while these times
keep changin',
and I figure,
what the hell,
let the kid dream,
he will know,
soon enough;
maybe he can be
Popper instead.



November 5, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/5/09

evermore

he fought on,
to the end --
swords clanging,
blood spewing,
limbs left
dangling --
and still,
in such a witches' brew,
he thought only
of You:
what he sacrificed
life and limb for:
a time eternal,
You, evermore.



November 5, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

poetic license #2

fingers hold pen,
or punch keys:
feelings register,
images appear,
crystalline --
words convey
what I missed
as much as
what I have seen --
and maybe
some of the murky
becomes clear;
or maybe some of
the long lost
once again
become dear.



November 4, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

I missed you

dormirse, bien,
mi ciela;
it is beyond wonderful
to have the musical,
magical,
mystical
sounds of you
sleeping,
back in my ears:
toils, soils,
tears, fears,
trails, travails;
all fall silent,
become distant,
as I listen to the constant
rise and fall of your
breathing,
wreathing all of this love
that we catch,
faultless,
leaving
nothing
unexpected,
only union,
unanimously elected
by a wide margin
of only two;
the best of choices,
only the two voices
that matter in the matter
at hand, at all.



November 3, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/4/09

scar

I noticed in the mirror
yesterday,
as I was shaving,
that the scar
where your fingernail
removed a small chunk
of skin from my left cheek
when I was thirteen
is getting easier to notice
as I age;

I'm guessing
that when I bury you,
there won't be any tears
running down through
that divot.



November 1, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

memory

the green, the blue, and the grey,
all well-lit,
as I am astray,
akimbo,
when the cloudburst arrives,
considering
how many lives
it has taken me
to find You again;
this time of broken glass,
shards piercing
the bubbles of time passed,
and once again,
I remember now as then,
I am better than I was,
since I have loved You
when the Earth was young,
and when it explodes,
and there is nothing left but
memory.



November 1, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

on reading Buk's "an empire of coins"

I sit, pensive,
not quite warm
nor cold,
as gulls disturb
the peaceful quiet,
assisted by a noisy Cessna above,
and I read:

"a woman's a woman, I say,
and I put my binoculars
between
her
kneecaps and I can see where
empires have fallen."

and I want to
put down the pen
forever.



November 1, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

11/1/09

amidst all this

November begins today,
as I sit at our picnic table
at Ned's Point,
eating the three Lindt truffles
that you gave me for Halloween,
looking out at the harbor --
a Jerry Schurr rendering
of sun, clouds, sea and
the islands, set out in a long row --
a gull spots my candy,
and lets out a loud cry:
"No," I say, "not for you.
They are mine, a gift
from Her. Go find a mackerel."
and off he goes,
but not happily;
the wind swells
for a moment,
as I decide that
there might be a poem
amidst all this.



November 1, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

ebb and flow

outside, the wind bellows,
as if it has some particular purpose,
and I recall that You are
suddenly
on the other side of the map,
and yet when my thoughts
curl up, fetch their slippers,
and smoking jacket,
I remember that I am
the whole man that I am,
despite the lack
of You, warming me,
disarming me,
making me just so,
your ebb, a counter
to my breathing out,
a stop to my flow.



October 31, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

sedulously

when You quiver,
I feel a shiver
right down the middle of me;
when you glow,
I know,
and I can find You
in the dark;
when You feel me,
I know You,
I feel Your spark --
it energizes me,
exercises me,
opens me up
to stark reality,
You and I --
You and me,
finding, exploring,
remembering,
sedulously.



October 31, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

serendipity #2

though I am no Prince:
lovin' hearts
and secret wishes,
BANG!
and I appear before you:
three thousand miles apart,
and at once
we both think of
stolen kisses,
and how much, my love,
the mind wanders,
when the hand
misses the glove;
that we met (again),
kismet:
the beauty of fate
is that no matter
how great one perceives
oneself to be,
most of life is
serendipity.



October 31, 2009, for the Wifey.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.

creaking

I was panicked,
and she was stagnant;
then one day,
she packed it all up,
told me once again
to shut up, and
she left;
and I sat, and
longed for some trigger
to pull,
but there was only silence,
sliced
by heavy footsteps
on hardwood floors,
as hundreds of windows
closed,
simultaneously
with hundreds of doors,
creaking.



October 30, 2009.

Copyright © 2009, Ricky A. Pursley. All rights reserved.