here is another one of my very old poems (written in 1990). it has its badsmoosh moments, but i am still very fond of it, it's one of my 'baby' poems. i feel as if it is a very good portrait of who i really am. i think it shows a side of me that i don't normally display to the world, a side that i smokescreen with the loud or mad or bouncy bits o' sam.

Twelve Easy Steps

I passed a window on an open room,
filled with ballroom dancers.
Men who must really love their wives
grinned like teenaged boys
and stared heavily at their feet.
Even from my hidden place
I could see them counting time
to women that I wanted to be.

I stood and watched
unlikely couples
swing and turn
past sidewise blinds
with grace they never guessed at,
then stop to steal a kiss
and laugh at how old
and clumsy they are.

I watched
and bit my bottom lip,
pretending that I could hear them,
closed my eyes
to fabricate the smell of Old Spice
and the feel of a heavy arm
around my waist.

I wanted to leave
the square of soft light,
and let go...
But I am like a moth,
and I wanted at least a smile.

The cold dark settled on me
like dew on a nettle,
and I realized I would be late.

I just stood for another long minute,
holding my arms,
swaying in the wind with the bushes.

* * *

take a moment to look and listen and feel, folks.
-sam

Hello, lovelies.

Your Sam is having a sad day. Lots of physical pain. There is a cold front coming in, and I am feeling some stress, too, and that adds insult to the injury, for sure.
Tonight Chris and I are going to WLOS in Asheville to a candlelight vigil and listen to someone read the names of all of the American soldiers who have died in the middle east since Mr. Bush declared payback - I mean, war. This will be happening on Nightline, too. They will be reading the names and showing a picture of each soldier, but our local CBS affiliate is one of the stations under gag order, and so will not be showing the special report.
These stations can not even read off the names and show a family photo of these soldiers, but I don't think any of them hesitated to show the broken bodies in the ruins of the Trade Center, or to repeatedly show the faces and names of the people killed at the orders of the evil Osama Bin Laden. They only seem to be prohibited to show the names and faces of the American citizens killed at the orders of George Bush. So I will go and pay my respect for the hundreds of dead men and women with other people who realize just exactly what is happening to this country right now. Hopefully the 'Patriot' Act won't suddenly include gatherings like this as an un-American act as well.
I'm sorry, I'm very very sad and worried about what's happening to all of us, and I am just doing whatever I can.

Here is a poem just right for today.
I wrote this in 1999.

Stand Up

Here it is now,
my chance to stand up and ask
out loud,
"Do you wake up feeling ugly?
Or like something is just wrong?"
We live and dream in a world
where a woman,
Mother, sister, daughter, friend,
will stand in a coffee shop doorway -
this door -
and say
"Do you serve my kind here?"
Her kind is just like me and you.
Working lungs and beating heart,
clicking mind and money struggle,
sadness,
anger,
love for little things...
desire for a cup of coffee.
Shame on us. Me and you.
Don't let this be!
Don't ask "But what can I do?"
Here it is now,
your chance to stand up
and ask out loud:
"Do you wake up feeling ugly?"

Metaphorically and literarily speaking, you have all seen me "naked", so I don't feel too bad about this next little bit of poetic nudity. It may be trite, but it's also veryvery true, and unfortunately some true things, and some things that are beautiful, or that hurt, are trite. No apologies, not for writing this, or for sharing it, or for feeling this way.

(And speaking of poetic nudity, where are you, Seamus? I miss you and those green hills and fields and hedgerows... I know we'll always have TdC, but I could stand a little bit of Wains Cotting or Lower Tadfield or Knob End* too, y'know... I'm here, and I'm with you, too. xo-s)

I wrote this one in 1999
's called:

Night Blind

Riding high,
questioning my Dianic depth,
my heart is full and heavy.
The steering wheel seems to be
the only substantial thing in the world.
Crickets scream, guitars scream,
and the road unfurls fast in this small spray of light.
Curves rise, treetops break,
and the full summer moon
hammers fall into me like a nail.
I am 31 now, afraid of winter,
and somehow sure that reality is crashing
around me like burning dominoes.

Beyond headlights beam,
the world is as dark a place as there is.
Straight bone arrow to the heart dark.
Humans have a weakness - compassion,
and yet it is our only real strength.
What do we cleave to -
worship of body or mind?
"Both" seems impossible for the urban, uptown ape.
Speeding through this void, I see that light
is two-faced.
We burn candles and say our prayers,
but those tiny motes
seem to illuminate nothing.
We light fires as a beacon - or warning -
and set explosive raging blaze to innocence.

I love the moon**
I think of it as the face of god.
The same face that follows me
no matter where I point my car,
laughs, reminds me that time is
pouring out of the world,
and disappears when I need it most...

The sun is constant,
and as dangerous as good,
but I soak in its light and warmth,
trying to store it, like a battery, for the long night.
It will make me ugly,
and I wonder if anything is more than skin deep.
When the shine is gone, what will be left?
There are memories -
of fires tearing down childhood;
candles flickering inside glaciers of loneliness;
the moon, laughing at what the sun
has done to my face;
the blue nightlight that seemed at times
the only comfort of my youth
turned off with the smallest click;
and at the end of the road
my yellow porch light
fading into the wash of another breaking day.

. . . . . . . . .

love,
me.

*hur hur hur...
**WE LIKE THE MOON!!!! heheh... hey. do you think this means that i am a spongmonkey?!?!