First Chill

I love Chicago when it's finally cold like this. When it truly belongs to the locals who can survive certain things bitter. When there's wet fallen leaves all over the dropping-light of the early evening walk home...

I'm so fascinated by the people - by how they act, and react now- with more barriers between the outside world. More barriers piling up, before the snow piles up where the rain puddles are now growing, and growing murky with yellow leaves….

But I cherish that. I ache for all the layers - the precious layering of different textures. The lace, the wool, the denim and the over-washed cotton, the black on black on grey…. on the black and blackened concrete that sparkles grey like this… 

Not quite white. Not quite warm and sunbaked anymore. Not quite so demanding. 

It makes me desirous. So much more the desirous, of everything to flow and come and burnnn so good…

So please, burn my face with the cold wind. And burn the imprint of a palm into my waist.

The tombs, the wall, on which ochre gets painted by ancient fingers. Tracing a genetic trail of images that one eye found interesting. 

Tracing the line of places that one soul found welcoming….throughout a million seasonal changes. 

I could spend all my days now hibernating and writing - if only there was such an indulgence. If only there were months for paintings, and mornings for tea in bed and watching the schoolchildren pass, and evenings for wine and long talks of life, and nights for all the embraces he readily brings, that I long for. 

If only there was time. For everything. 

If only there was an outline to play between, and break apart, and settle into when the wind was just a bit too rough, even for me. 

But for now it's my season. It's when there's family, and red candles that melt the tablecloths, and champagne, and welcome hugs….and there's delightfully chilly dotted lines to make all around this expansive city of steel. 

It's letting itself be cold again. 

It's letting itself remember its strength, 
And its roots -

That'll soon be captured with delicate pounds of snow. 

By the Church

I wonder what it's like to sit below that little Fall tree, by the gothic Church there, - basked in the nighttime green&yellow light of the streetlamp above and mossy bark. I'd rest my wearied legs + limbs atop the city concrete and just listen to all the moving things....
Rustling leaves, clicking traffic lights, passing cars, distant voices...and my shaking hands and pounding heart. Wish it would rest.
Wish I knew all the answers to the unstarted sentences. To the unfinished memories - moments - that just...went interrupted. -- Pardon me, I've got work to get back to at my desk.
And none of it could ever be real.

None of this great wide & steel city could be real at any sudden moment. Though I see it all around, and all around it does sparkle and egg me on, to call on, any - every - strange face in all the crowds.
It still thrills me here somehow.


Sigh. I'd lean with that thought back on my elbows and feel the soft sting of little pebbles digging into my cold skin. But it'd feel so fitting.

And who knows what I'd learn there.
Who knows where the hell you and I are headed. You seem as confusing and countless as the entanglement of leaves above that I so...I so...wish to have more of.

So tell me you'll meet me. Tell me you're already here. And tell me it'll be alright.
Just one piercing smile in my dusty macabre thoughts and the light will flood everything through. Warmly.


But there's a million more scenarios I could create from this spot.
And there's too many train stops to where you're always at.

So tell me you're on your way back tonight.
Cause I'd rather not miss the return.


.

Cut the Lines

It seems, that at the SEAMS - we're so eager for a change of life again, and I'm just, ..I just,…FEEL like it won't embark already. 

Not sure how to cut the lines. 

Cause when you're sailing a single little Laser by yourself - and the wind is finicky and too stale - you can lean yourself all the way to the side all you want. You can shake the boat and shout all you want. 

To all the "heart's content" you can make such a NOISE.

But, hah, -- you still won't be flying across that lake of waves… 

And all that metaphor doesn't even mean anything I guess…the temperatures are dropping, and the season's over. The HEAT, you may say is slipping away. 

But it's been...it's merely been begging for more instigation. 

So why don't you- my friend, and I, sit down and share some new stories. Why don't we breathe in cinnamon and exhale - and why don't you tell me something new I haven't lived. 

I'd like something I haven't lived to have - to love on it. 

Well, maybe not loved -
but in that amber, illuminated way - enjoy and be filled -
and have a NEW place to be haunted by... 

Since, oh.., all my haunts 
have been there too long. So long, ya know…I once begged: "give me all those dead things from lives past" …. but today they're just dead to me. 

They're just brittle to the touch - like the soon-to-be-browning leaves - 
they'll break when I TRY to GRASP them. 
They'll stain when I try to POCKET them. 

Pocket it. 

They keep telling me to… Change. Quit. Stay. Return. Leap. 

But I can't seem to know (just) which line to cut first. 

When I can't seem to want any particular direction. 

This endless, wistful staring up-
 at the should-be-blustery skies. 

This shouting at nothing. 

This successful loneliness so oddly played. 

Daily headphones: Indie Arie's "Heart of the Matter"