June, 2002

Friends of friends

gather around the table,

cardboard hats and confetti

strewn about.

One part restaurant,

one part gift shop.

It’s cold in here,

animatronic animals

dance unconvincingly,

vines wind around exposed

pipes.

This place has a great atmosphere.

Recordings of monsoon season

in the Amazon,

echo through unseen speakers.

A prix-fixe menu,

presents the illusion of choice

to people too young

to travel alone.

Kids I spend every day with,

whose names I will soon forget,

don’t talk to me.

A cheerful orangutan robot,

turns it’s head

and says “help me, I’m critically endangered,”

but that’s above my pay grade.

We don’t get to choose

the bricks

that line memory lane.

I wish I could tell you,

“the journey beats the destination”

but I haven’t

gotten there yet.

Generation Loss

Forgery begets forgery,

begets forgery,

to the point that

even the watchful eye begins

to doubt itself.

Infinite renewal is not

continuous preservation —

what we forget accrues

and crystallizes.

The patina looms

the colors wash-out

and dry-up,

leaving behind bleached bones

and shadows.

Gaps grow

into gorges,

cleaved apart by

refrozen murk.

Even garbled noise and static,

is buffed away

by graininess.

The record becomes the message.

If you wanted to see it so bad,

you should have been there

when it happened.

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Through The Prism

With every matter of perspective,

we must take into account

the beholder and

the contours of their mind’s eye.

The way the light refracts

is a matter of the tool used

and what we project.

Conclusions drawn from

kaleidoscopes are more colorful,

to be sure,

but how much is just distortion?

Does the pair of binoculars

miss the forest for the trees?

Beams need not

be straight like arrows,

they curve,

pitch,

yaw and bloom

on their way.

Everything that’s absorbed,

is obscured —

only what returns to our vantage point

is what we remember.

Our minds,

starved for stimulus,

scrounge for the scraps and

fill in the blind spots

where our retinas are.

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Traces

The loose change

from the time I’ve spent,

often falls out of my pocket —

landing on the sidewalk,

slipping between the cracks.

The things I’ve said,

for real or in jest,

left behind their residue,

whether I recall or not.

Those moments never left,

but for one reason or another,

didn’t stick with me.

Do we know

how much of our live’s,

fall down the memory hole?

Consult the hourglass.

I have to ask,

can I take some sand back?

Every spare moment

sloughed-off and discarded,

like old clothes,

like dust.

Where does the time go?

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The Rumor Mill

If someone told you something in a dream,

did you hear it from them?

It wasn’t the beating of my eardrums,

but the wind-chimes in my mind,

that really shook me.

As clearly as I heard that phrase,

Just like when I’m awake,

I can’t quite place

a name to a face.

Some times my mind,

plays tricks on me,

some times,

it speaks outright lies.

To pursue,

embedded memories,

is not worth the energy.

Perusing,

confusing illusions,

only leads you back,

to the directory.

Et Cetera, et cetera

Please,

Spare me the details,

Your verbosity,

Will only derail,

The course of the story.

Your memory will fail,

Halfway through the tale,

And it will all be gone with the wind.

In it’s place: an awkward laugh,

A mystified grumble,

Or even a comment about how old you’re getting.

You’ll wonder why your memory lapsed,

Though this is mere curiosity,

As you free-fall down the rabbit hole,

Stroking your chin,

At terminal velocity.

Eyes to the heavens,

You’ll see,

The entrance to the chasm,

Shrink,

Until,

It becomes a twinkling,

North Star,

Imposter.

Remember?

Holding a stack of Polaroids in my hand,

“I was there,

I was there,”

I said counting and recounting.

My thumb stuck to their glossy surfaces,

I turned them over to find the dates scribbled in black sharpie,

“April 10th, 1997– Hannah’s birthday,”

Curly, unruly hair and a missing front tooth,

And a little frosting on the tip of her nose,

And her brow.

She was laughing,

We all were,

Now I am.

The next picture,

All of us,

Surrounding,

A dented cake,

Seen from a bird’s eye view,

In a fisheye lens.

The next picture,

Blowing out nine candles,

Her face amber through the dim light,

While we stood nearby,

In the shade,

My face was buried in my hands,

Now it is again,

The stack falls to the floor,

Spreading the moments all about,

I look toward the hall,

I hope the door opens,

And you’ll be back again,

Someday.