Three Leaves Fall On Me

In a Glance

2012-01-15T19:42:00.000-08:00

In a moment
A mere glance becomes a stare
My eyes mapping
The curve between your eyes and hair

Another moment
And I'd surely go under
My heart now pacing
Between fear and wonder

At what moment
Will I be able to confess
My admiration
Which you can already guess

Give me a moment
To compose the right word
Before you turn
And see my brief glance deterred

Dampening

2011-12-12T20:31:00.000-08:00

In the white and cold crush,
Light snowflakes drift and hush,
Dampening sound and light,
Whitening up the night.
And when it is all done,
Snow covers every one:
Each fir tree with its cones.
The night colored like roans--
Running through the deep wood
Silent as silence could--
Sets itself in for good.
And here is where I stood.
Out here is where I stood.

Invention

2011-12-08T21:33:00.001-08:00

You needed an excuse
And never mind the reason
And never mind the truth
For the truth is out of season
And rationality be damned
In the name of moving on
Making up mistakes and flaws
In the name of moving on...
Reason, truth, reality
Are all now proving gone.
But an excuse was needed,
Or at least so it seems.
To this whim I've conceded
So you can walk away from
The one you saw in your dreams

Of the Sky

2011-12-01T19:05:00.001-08:00

Clear black rain fell on me
And you silently stood
As far away as you could ever be
But not even an inch from where you should

Faint clusters of distant stars
Strained to be seen
By both of two fools, eyes blackened with tars,
Who now are not allowed to say what they mean

White snowflakes drift
And melt where they land
Facing north, my eyes lift
From wondering at an empty right hand

The Colossal Squid

2011-11-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

Under the breaking swells and shipping lanes,
Many fathoms below the photic zone,
An Enigma hides, whales and men his banes.
The Kraken creepeth: the dark depths his own.
Around his secret arms black eddies have swirled
Imperceptibly through the millennia,
But the ocean, nature's last parthenia,
Now hosts ships with no sails to be unfurled.
And submerged yet mobile, metal whales dive,
And the creature slides deeper, avoiding capture.
There he has hid for ages and will survive.
But spotted finally after immense pains,
The newly-named colossal squid under reigns,
Unable to elude scholarly rapture,
The once-mighty Kraken will be taken alive.

The Reproductive Derived Trait Exclusive to Primates of Genus Homo

2011-10-18T20:49:00.000-07:00

The thought that we are merely intelligent apes
Makes it all seem sort of pointless, doesn't it?
Love is but a beat within the breast of a beast.
It was just random mutation, wasn't it?

In this light (or rather in this lack thereof),
The wistful chase of our hormonal drives
Is the actual quantum of romance:
The computed value from which love derives.

Perhaps another species will one day
Develop its obligation to mate
To include such wastes as love and heartbreak.
But we're the only foolish species to date.

A Bit Too Serious for a Limerick

2011-10-17T17:35:00.000-07:00

I could find comfort in tangible things
During escapes from life's many stings
But that upon which I was leaning
Was itself devoid of meaning
As empty as that to which the heart clings

Poe M

2011-10-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I am just a reader
Yet not uninspired.
Lacking though I may be,
Poe's skill I have desired--
Perhaps his muse I've required....
Though she's not visited me.
A dream within a dream
Within my head--
As my eyes grow slowly tired--
Begins to start to perhaps seem
To be more than just a dream.
If any muse has thus desired
Affectations such as I deem
To begin to start to perhaps seem
Like real poetry...
Then one day I hope to be
Less lacking in skills fired
In the crucible of poetry.
And the muse of whom I dream,
May my rhymes and poems seem
To her as things to be admired.
May they be at least by her admired.

Lament of Memory

2011-10-06T17:13:00.000-07:00

Lamentable things
Lamentation brings
Laments and dirges
Lamented urges

Memorial heart
Memories depart
Memorize cost
Memories lost

Along Your Way to Nowhere

2011-09-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

I know you lost something
Along your way to nowhere
And it will always sting
Unless you leave that life out there

I can tell you feel dismayed
But somehow you must continue
To love what has you betrayed
In every bar... club... every venue

What exactly did you lose
Along your long way to nowhere?
Did you ever even truly choose?
Do you know what you lost? Do you dare?

An Ounce in the Ocean

2011-08-05T22:37:00.000-07:00

Without a choice and out of control
That which beats, beats out its devotion
Waves that rhythmically erode my soul
Now amount to just an ounce in the ocean

Our current affairs could never know
The frequency of the currents between us
How troughs would sink and crests would grow
Living waves of unknown species or genus

Under the surface a tsunami swells
And surges toward the gently rising shelf
Onshore await seawalls and warding spells:
The meager fortifications of self

Saccharin

2011-07-31T20:37:00.000-07:00

Effusive and effervescent
We secrete crystalline sweetness
An overabundant affection
That dulls the senses
And fills the heart with confections
Made of jittery pretenses.

If taken too far,
Saccharin makes metastases
Out of our molehills
And causes even the strongest stomach
To require charcoal pills.

The irresistible cringe
Following the saccharin high
Blends a wince, endorphins, and shame.
And at the last, that metallic tinge of regret
Reminds us that we went too far
And how far back down we now have to get.

Bad Alchemy

2011-04-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

Like a Midas whose world grows cold,
Every heart I touch turns to gold,
Then drops like a rock to the ground
With a metallic crashing sound.

No amount of alchemy will suffice
As gold turns--somehow--into ice
And begins to melt down on the bare floor--
A once-rich thing now a puddle dirt-poor.

I look back to survey my wake,
Which consists mainly of heartache,
And try to smooth that which I've waived.
But water simply will not be paved....

Perhaps We'll See

2011-03-21T19:56:00.000-07:00

*Written in response to a poem written in response to a poem I wrote.

A poem to answer a poem--
And it was really quite good--
Flowed through your xylem and phloem....
Flowery, but not understood.

Who puts words to white?
And do you speak to me?
Or do you write just to write?
I sigh. Perhaps we'll see....

Maple

2011-03-15T19:42:00.000-07:00

A single maple amongst the fields,
Atop a hill, and bare against
The orange-pink sky which coldly yields
A wind by which leaves are dispensed.

The maple cannot reach down
To gather up its fallen deeds:
The parts it grew and now are found
Below the sticky sap it bleeds.

What happens when only one leaf
Remains tethered to a barren trunk
Which the winter wind assaults with grief
Leaving that one. Last. Hope. Sunk.

Midnight Conversation Revisited*

2011-02-22T22:37:00.000-08:00

*This is a hindsight perspective on "Midnight Conversation," which can be found here.

The hour was late…
On a midnight conversation…
The banter sparkled….
Set alight imagination…

The street lights outside…
Watched with indignation…
As our hearts burned brighter…
Than their illumination….

My mind wanders….
Wherefore elimination…
Of a thing we both loved:
Our midnight conversation...?

On Being a Cliche

2011-02-16T20:09:00.001-08:00

You said, "I have never felt this way,"
Yet still you chose to drive me away.
I could list the contradictions all day.

I try to justify the price to pay
For making myself a lame cliche,
Believing that you wanted to stay.

But either you would lie while we lay
Around your house, conversing all day,
Or you are as crazy as you say.

But you know...nonetheless, either way...
The net result is my heart's decay.

Whatever it was you tried to convey,
It seems as though you made me your prey.
Yet, chewed up and swallowed, I still weigh
Whether or not you were honest that day....

That you loved me, I take on hearsay.

Black Hole

2010-12-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

When I learned the truth,
The darkest curtain dropped
As the veil was lifted
On how your heart was stopped

Sources cited septicemia,
But by suicide secretly slain.
They covered up your death,
Knowing the degree and depth of pain.

Faithful though you suffered--
Devoted but terminal man--
Now I wish I knew
If you prayed with gun in-hand

Your family endured much
But could a frail trigger-finger-squeeze,
In making this life the past,
Truly put their hearts at ease?

My picture of you is shattered,
And the dark truth has blackened my soul.
The knowledge you had, you spattered,
And replaced it with a black, black hole.

Poorly Worded

2010-12-08T16:39:00.001-08:00

You thought my speech
An alibi.
I tried to reach
And to deny
The silent screech
Behind my eyes.
As I beseeched,
You thought I lied.

Who now can teach
A heart that’s plied
How then to reach
Past words that fried
The sands and beach
Where now we lie
Clinging to each
Bit of blue sky?

Into the breach:
At the quayside,
Recall the beach
We once walked, side-
By-side, where each
Black flame of pride—
Cleansed and bleached—
Flickered and died.

Now you have reached
The darkened pit of my
Heart’s bitter peach,
As "apple of my eye."

But please don’t impeach.
For all clichés apply,
And you now are each
And every thing that I
Could and would not
Ever deny.

Floodplain

2010-12-08T15:47:00.001-08:00

*Another old bit from back in the day*

Dawn is late, along the plain
I drag past the beech and pine
Trying to lose what I gained
The instant your lips touched mine.

Why should it be so heavy?
The price of my desire seems high
Like I’m the one smashing the levee
The woods will flood, but why? Why?

No high ground on the plain
No escape from the flood
Can’t push love through a vein
When your heart pumps dried blood

Worse Than

2010-12-08T15:45:00.001-08:00

*Old two-stanza thing...written a few years ago...*

I can’t enjoy your presence
I mustn’t let myself smile
When you stand in front of me
And I’m lost in you awhile

Because I’ve realized the truth—
Lit up like a street sign:
Worse than losing you is knowing
You were never really mine….

No Ending

2010-12-08T15:32:00.001-08:00

The branches above
By the winds are bending
As I pray our love
Will be spared an ending

Lying next to you
In chlorophyll-hued dreams
I take my heart’s cue
Let you direct the streams

Your saline glances
Cause the well’s overflow
The forest dances
Slow-sweeping leaves brought low

A single branch drops
And tries to gently clutch
The river then stops
To feel its lover’s touch

The wind in your hair
Pulses my heart’s bending
For this love I dare
Pray we see no ending

Love Strings

2010-11-30T19:17:00.000-08:00

*An old bit of unfinished free verse...don't remember when I wrote it...*

You're pulling at my love strings
Which can only make my heart jump
But have the power to make my stomach a gymnast
What I'll never tell you
Is that one more tug and I'll be a marionette:
All flesh and no control

That Shadow Has Extended

2010-10-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

There, that shadow
I see has extended
Its owner's leaves'
Time is nearly ended

And the burning sun
Whose cruelty disappears
Now reserves its bite
For southern quarter-spheres

A new gold-sepia
Chaperons a fresh wind
That breathes a tiny chill
Into my spine--to its end

But this shadow
Is longer, slightly, and
Bends its caster
To meet the light's demand

My World Prefers Me In a State of Longing

2010-09-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

My world prefers me in a state of longing
Friendly advice confirms it's true
And you, to whom I was once belonging
You'd rather I longed for you

My golden dreams blossom behind a tinted pane
They're both visible and beyond grasp
At least I can see them as they grow and then wane...
As my cries of "Wait!" degrade to a rasp

I once asserted "in my heart, love will reside,
Bloom and bloom again, ever-refreshed"
But the wheel only dips briefly beneath the tide
Hydrates just enough to keep my heart fleshed

Yet, for the chance to feel the words of any love song,
I'd still trade any idle contentedness.
I've got your memory for now, 'til I'm too numb to long.
And, invariably, I'd have attempted bliss.

Scarlet Letters

2010-08-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

And so you’ve read it:
My scarlet letter.
No need to argue
About whose is redder.

I never once begrudged
That you had a letter, too.
Never thought I’d be judged,
Never tried to acquit you.

They cannot be erased—
They’re not written in pencil—
But they don’t define us:
Our lives aren't penned by stencil.

So please keep this in mind:
Simply because you believe,
Karma is rendered blind
To the character on your sleeve.

And Again

2010-08-09T22:16:00.001-07:00

Last time, I was a child
Pretending to play an adult's game,
My heart's flags rippling wild.
I'm older now, but it feels the same.

Last time, I was a kid.
We were pretending and playing.
Not knowing what hearts did,
Mine broke by words you were saying.

This time, I'm a kid again.
Your presence finally returned
My heart to where it had been--
Its restoration gently earned.

This time, again you have frozen,
Although I can't seem to figure out why....
The same hopeful me you'd chosen,
Thus the same ending? Ah! I see. I sigh.

Just like every time, I have been tossed.
Though I didn't pretend or play a game.
It matters not at all; I still lost.
Whether child or man, a heart breaks the same.

Blood Diamond

2010-08-07T09:04:00.000-07:00

An arabesque crystal
Exquisitely carved
Buried deep within
The fetid flesh
Of a ravenous beast
Only seldom bound
Its rabid muscles
Pressing down on
The delicate surfaces
Cracking
Chipping
Wounding
Why should such a gem
Be confined to such a prison?
Where ever-increasing pressure
Threatens to crush
And blacken it to coal
What then, if the heat
And pressure
Within the heaving chest
Of the pestilent creature
Consume it further?

The Price of Adventure

2010-07-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

I rode the river alongside them.
I waved and smiled as,
One-by-one,
They began to grab onto
A root
Or a log
Or some piece of flotsam
And navigate ashore.
I laughed at them.
"Fools," I mocked.
"They're missing all the fun."
They chose to get dry.
But I stayed in the water.
I chose adventure.

The currents turned me,
Spun me,
Forced water up my nose,
Into my ears.
I surfaced, spat,
And continued to enjoy the ride.
It was exciting and
Fast-moving.
I had swallowed too much water
But not enough to get sick.
"Hahaha," I laughed at myself.
"That was stupid...."
Why had I done that?
Several of the others remained.
I nodded to them
Then swam hard
To escape
The currents that had pulled me under.

Another two or three were plucked
From the water
And placed on dry land.
I questioned their sense
Of self-determination.
I scoffed again,
But something told me
To keep it to myself this time.
Moving over the rapids,
The river's current
Accelerated.
It was thrilling!
And cold.
It was chilling.

I swam harder
To escape the cold patch.
Swimming warmed my arms
Though they began to burn
And tire.
I thought I saw the others
As they sat
And dried off.
Through my bleary eyes,
They seemed warm
And happy.
With a fatigued hand,
I massaged away the scowl
From my forehead.

The river widened
And divided
And warmed uncomfortably
As I reached its mouth.
It pushed me through
Muddy sediment
And mangrove pneumatophore forests,
Tumbling,
Tumbling.
Turbid water was forced
Into my mouth.
Tinged with salt,
Loaded with silt,
It flooded my lungs.
I coughed
And choked.

And suddenly,
The water felt cooler,
Cleaner.
A current forced me up,
And I surfaced.
I cleared my lungs
As a wave smashed
Across my face,
Filling my mouth with saline.
I vomited.

I finally opened my eyes
To find myself at sea.
I scanned the horizon for the shore.
And there it was, behind me.
I could see them--the others.
They had been next to me in the water.
Now they all lined the beach.
My vision cleared for a moment.
They looked happy,
fine.
They were happy.
They waved and smiled.
I had always been so kind to them.
I extended my arm
Straight up
To wave back.
Then something pulled me down.
I sank beneath the surface
And accelerated
Through the photic zone.
My breath left me.
Its formless bubbles sliding away,
It was no longer mine...
And would eventually return
To the atmosphere.
The light at the surface began
To dim.

Blackness consumed me,
But I saw faint glows
Of bioluminescence:
The apparitions of life.
I continued accelerating
Into the abyss.

A Desperate Itch

2010-07-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

I had a desperate itch
That I crashed in order to scratch.
I had to see for myself,
Then broke the key off in the latch.

I crouched and peered down the hole,
But the light burned my eyes.
I excavated like a mole,
But the ocean never dries.

I sought out the hidden cities,
And missed entire continents.
I awoke to hear the insults,
Then slept through promised compliments.

I knew I needed to reach the moon
And quickly burned up in the sun.
Riding meteoric desires,
I missed the point before I'd begun.

Three Leaves

2010-07-23T17:57:00.001-07:00

Clouds grey, dramatic
Across Lake Estelle, a horse
Three leaves fall on me

The Spirit of Generosity

2010-07-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

I feel
Incredulous;
I share,
Generous;
I make
Jealous—
I guess?
Presumptuous.
I try
Disingenuous.
I smile,
Poisonous.
I help.
Ruinous.
I lose,
Victorious.
I know.
Unambiguous:
I lack…
Voluminous.

A Poem, of Sorts

2010-06-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

A little bird once spake to me a sonnet
A little girl once bore to him a bonnet
A little man once writ to her a letter
A little hand once fit in my glove better

The First Day

2010-04-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

Clocks will continue ticking out their warnings.
From here, the world outside moves on.
The first of an indefinite number of mornings
When the sun still rose though you were gone.

Today I look toward your place beside me
—The spot now filled by the invisible air—
On the first day of the future you’ll never see,
And try to remember how it was when you were there.

Only yesterday you said,
“Don’t take your eyes off me—not for one second.”
Now my heart itself is dead,
Regardless of the will in the gaze you had beckoned.

My only options now are distance, numbness.
It all reminds me of you—every single bit.
Condolences will be met with deafness, dumbness.
But I’ll eventually, cruelly, begin to forget.

Today is the first day I face without you,
And though its darkness won’t pass as quickly as it came,
Things will take on different meanings, as they often do.
Like one word that’s already begun to sound strange—
Your name.

Honey

2010-03-26T20:39:00.001-07:00

Too busy lapping honey
To taste all that is rotting.
Browned, decomposing money:
Rewards of greedy plotting.

You are an unwitting horse’s ass:
A father to a mule.
And a grazer of greener grass:
An envy-consuming fool.

What’s wrong—haven’t you got it yet?
All that you need so categorically?
The things you’ve got to—got to get!
The question asks itself rhetorically….

Swarming all around you now,
The bees and wasps do not think it’s funny.
You should’ve known you’d go down,
Dripping, dripping, dripping with selfish honey.

Midnight Conversation

2010-03-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

The hour is late…
On this midnight conversation….
The topic ranges…
From love to immigration….

The street lights outside…
Light my imagination….
Like a lamp in a cave…
Lights steps toward salvation….

My mind wanders….
What is your consideration…
Of the things I’ve told you…
In this midnight conversation?

Anagram Minus One

2010-03-05T22:46:00.000-08:00

I rearranged the word "heart"
And changed it to "hate."
"Not an anagram," you start
To say. But just wait.

Something is missing from
That equation--a letter.
Algebra won't find a sum
Nor will any typesetter.

It isn't logic-based.
Satisfaction can't be gained or
Earned by changing the case...
Until you drop the remainder.

Something major is missing for sure
When a "heart" is changed to "hate."
Removal of the "r" will endure
In the newly-toxic state.

There's no "love" to be had
Inside the word "heart."
So subtract instead of add,
And the process will start.

The results are unexpected,
And I fear that it's too late...
Because love has been rejected
Since I changed my heart to hate.

A Memory Without Consequence

2009-12-07T15:58:00.000-08:00

A memory without consequence
Is really just a dream.
You never felt our embrace the way I did.
...or so it would seem.

How many years can pass
Before remembrance feels silly?
It depends upon whose heart
Was the one branded, really.

Your thoughts were elsewhere…
Though your lips were engaged
And your pulse, while there,
Rose and rose and raged and raged.

Oh so short a moment
Did, nevertheless, endow
My heart’s seared tissue
With a memory so old, now.

The unseen consequence
Hidden long and deep, deep
Made a memory of my confidence.
Now dream return in sleep, sleep.

Shhhh....

2009-06-12T22:11:00.000-07:00

Drooling lips don’t hold their water
That Sea—indiscretion’s daughter
Your debt—wet! –has bought her
The Sun—undone!—has fought her
Vapor phased from her dim water
No drop spared molecular slaughter
So hold your tongue just that much tauter
Until that Sea, you’ve finally caught her
Apply the earth and then the potter
Sculpt a dam and hope to clot her
Lest the Sun arrive with cauter
To find you adrift or underwater

Sweet Boredom

2009-04-06T21:33:00.001-07:00

Sweet Boredom,
Where are you now?
You laugh incredulous.
Surely I jest.
Don’t sulk deprecated,
My Boredom.
A joke had better
Be cleverer.
Listen and believe,
Oh estranged Boredom.
That Devil’s Playground,
So it’s called,
Was more a Muse’s Quill
In innocent composition.
Pen to paper only when
Necessarily idle…
Now affairs large and small
Loom nonetheless.
Wake and sleep oscillate
Little more than eyelids.
So come on home,
Missing Boredom.
I’ll part the waters—
The River Work, Sea of Play.
Make a little space
For a lost friend.
An idle mind I once
Spurned: Boredom.

If I Spend Enough Time

2008-10-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

If I spend enough time
Lost
Playing dreamer
I might be under
Long enough
To see a dream
Materialize
No matter how
Twist, Twist, Twisted
Wrung, wrung, wrung out
By two huge hands
Attached to dark arms
Leading away to nowhere
Nowhere in particular
Who’s at the other end
Of those things?
Or what is?

Slipping farther down
Feels like freezing to death
“To Build a Fire”
An unforgettable description
Frigid
Then strangely warm

No, that’s the sun.
Wake up….

I Rotate

2008-09-17T11:39:00.001-07:00

the need with the want…
the truth with the lies…
the song with the sleep…
the “lords” with the flies…

the you with the me…
the pause with the dare…
the land with the sea…
the glance with the stare…

the once with the new…
the dawn with the hot…
the sweat with the dew…
the God with the Naught…

the clouds with the sky…
the space with the earth…
the ends with the why…
the Sin with rebirth…

The Lesson

2008-07-07T12:45:00.001-07:00

My lesson is not to long for
My lesson is not to miss
The Prospect

The only thing existent
In That Place which nearly ruined me

What's easy grinds me down
My mind lets it—makes it
Takes it.
For granted…

My lesson is to appreciate
My lesson is to appropriate
Any prospect

The future is not there
In the place that nearly ruined me

Can what's easy be right?
Can my mind make it?
Take it?
And run with it…

My lesson is to leave
My lesson is to liberate "me"
From all prospects:

The good ideas poorly pursued
In a place that would ruin me

It's not about what's easy, but what's good!
My mind must make it,
Take it,
And never look back.

When Our Bodies Are Torn Asunder

2008-05-23T07:29:00.000-07:00

When our bodies are torn asunder
When bit by bit flesh removed
When Death’s dark call resounds with thunder
Nothing yet, Death, have ye proved.

The great Usurper, Death, ye may be
But when God’s light downward shines
No hold, no power, no strength have thee:
God’s light warms e’en the deep’st mines.

All thou claim’st, Death, may be thine today:
Thy conquests hath yielded much
But thy cold grasp easily gives way
At the slightest heav’nly touch

Be prepared, then, oh, Usurper, Death
For Almighty’s freedom call
With which comes an almighty breath
That will break thy grasp on all.

Pearl

2008-05-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

A pearl, shining in the ocean
The blue tides glide above
And lay a pattern flowing across its body
The sands imitate the waves
In a perfect field
Of dusty brown crests and troughs
As sleek and mysterious creatures fly by
On invisible wings
And in their midst
A solitary pearl gleams
Like a heart enamored
With a love so pure and glassy white;
A love that shaped the ocean
And its tides and sands and creatures
And manifested itself
In a pearl,
Shining in the ocean.

You and the Sunset

2008-05-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

How’d I get here?
It must’ve been beautiful at first

You’re on my left
And a rose-colored horizon is on my right

I didn’t want to take my eyes off you
But I see the red sunset in my periphery

And now my obstacle is clear:
You’re behind a sheet of glass

And I’m stuck to it,
Staring at you

The sunset calls to me, though
I turn my head, slowly, to look

There it is;
The sunset is what was beautiful

I’m starting to remember now….

It was what drew me in—
It wasn’t you

The sunset calls to me,
Through the haze of these thoughts

It now fills my vision,
I turn to face it

And run.......................

How Cruel the Wind

2008-05-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Fear?
What is it brushing about at my window?
Must be the wind.

Wonder?
I dream it’s you beyond the pane and sill.
But it’s only a breeze.

Deception.
Your fingers are leaves, your grace the wind—
How cruel the wind.

The Hallway

2008-04-25T11:25:00.001-07:00

“So does she like you or not?” Tyler asked his good friend, James. “I don’t know…. What does it mean when a girl says yes when you ask her if she wants to go to a movie? Does she think it’s a date? Does she think you’re just going out as friends? It’s impossible to tell.”

“Yeah, it is. You can never tell with girls,” added Rob. The three friends’ discussion was usually the same as they walked from the hospital cafeteria back to the campus of their medical college. Girls, video games, movies—those were the things on the minds of these typical college boys.

Their school was a small one. It consisted of only three buildings—two for classrooms and a dormitory. The college was part of a hospital system that wanted to develop their own curriculum for training nurses and allied health technicians. The college’s campus was located right next door to the main hospital in the system, and the hospital cafeteria was where a lot of the students ate the majority of their meals.

Despite the close proximity of their campus to the hospital, it was a five minute walk from the dormitory to the cafeteria, and repeated trips called for some innovations in walking routes. The route that most people walked took the longest. And the majority of it was outside, which made it unpleasant during the hot summer months and the chilly winter weather. So Tyler, who had been at the school for three years, had gone exploring and had found other, mostly indoor ways to the cafeteria in his search for the quickest, most comfortable path. Tyler chose one path in particular that not many people knew about. It was as direct a route from the campus to the café as possible. And whenever Tyler’s friends went with him, they took that path. Soon, it caught on, and every one of his friends began following the same route.

James and Rob were freshmen. Fresh out of high school and fresh into the wonderment that is college life, the two quickly became friends with each other and with Tyler. The three were close, and they belonged to a larger clique of friends at the school. Their lives were almost stereotypical of college kids: they studied constantly during the week, had fun on the weekends, and squeezed work into their schedules whenever they could. Their concerns were with the present. Which girls were good-looking, which fast-food restaurant was the best, and which movie were they going to see the next weekend? But James was having trouble with the future.

“Ok, so you’re going out this weekend…. What movie are you going to see?” quizzed Rob.

“I dunno. Probably some chick-flick. She said she’d call me Friday and we’d see what’s playing then.”

“Are you going to go to dinner afterward?” asked Tyler.

“Um….I guess. I don’t know yet.”

“Well, what do you know? You got her name, right?” Rob heckled James. Tyler laughed aloud.
James sighed, “of course I did. Come on. My game’s not that weak.” Tyler looked at him disbelievingly, as if to say his game was, indeed, very weak.

“Bastard,” James said to Tyler and pushed him against the brown, foldable wall of the meeting room as they passed by. Tyler slammed into the wavy folds of the solid curtain with a loud crash.
“Hey, punk, there might be people working in there!” Tyler scolded and then pushed James across the hallway to the other side.

“Sorry… But you’re still a bastard,” James retorted with a devilish grin.

The three barely noticed their surroundings. They’d walked through this hallway a million times before. But Tyler did get a strange feeling sometimes as he traversed the hall’s short distance, especially when he was alone or not talking to anyone. No one ever seemed to be in that hallway. It was always kind of empty. But the eeriness of strange places wears off with time and repetition, and Tyler had been down this hall many, many times. Occasionally, he’d see a person or two in scrubs or other attire worn by hospital personnel, but he never paid much attention. In fact, he—
“So what’s up with Spring Break? Are we staying at your place or what?” Rob wanted to get off campus for the break, but he didn’t want to stay at home where he knew his parents would nag him constantly. After all, he was in college; he did have some form of freedom. And Tyler had an apartment off-campus.

“Oh, uh, yeah. That sounds good. We’ll go to the beach or something, too,” Tyler replied.
“Yeah, I want to get a tan!” James added. The three laughed hysterically.

“Uh, Jimbo, you’re black, you can’t get a tan, buddy” reasoned Rob in a shaky, still half-laughing voice.

“Yeah, I can get even darker,” replied James, and the three laughed even harder as they walked down the stairs and out the door of the hospital toward campus and into the midday sun.

* * * * *

The weekend came, and the three friends did what they normally did on the weekends, except that James went out with the girl he had liked for a couple weeks. After his date on Saturday night, he got back to Tyler’s apartment with a huge smile on his face.

“Ooh! What happened? How’d it go?” Tyler and Rob both asked, almost in unison.

“Um, I think she likes me….”

“AH! Did you kiss her?”

“Did you hold her hand?”

“No, no, none of that. It’s too soon,” James had expected such a barrage of questions.

“Too soon to hold her hand? You’re such a weenie!” Rob harassed.

“Come on, give me a break,” James replied.

“Yeah, leave him alone, he’s not a weenie. He’s…uh…just testicularly impaired,” said Tyler.
“All right, you son of a—“

“Hey! Watch your language! We’re in the presence of a lady.” Tyler pointed at Rob. The three laughed, and the weekend ended on a good note for the three friends.

* * * * *

Kaylee was one of Tyler’s closest friends. She’d been at the school for two years, and she’d been in most of his classes. The two studied together a lot and had formed a close bond through their schoolwork. Tyler and Kaylee had a test coming up, and it was their ritual to go the cafeteria to get some food before the test.

The two walked to the café through the same hallway they always went through, talking and laughing, paying no mind to anything around them. Then, out of nowhere, Kaylee said, “this hallway looks like something out of the 70’s…all the browns and lime greens…and these lamps look so old. It’s very ugly.”

“Oh yeah, it kinda does look old,” Tyler replied, a little annoyed that she had cut him off in the middle of a story about one of his exgirlfriends.

“Anyway, you were saying?”

“Oh, uh, nothing. Nevermind.” Tyler tried to hide how put off he was. Kaylee walked ahead of him, and he stared blankly at her backpack, noticing the stitching she’d recently had done in the center of the main pocket—“K. Hwang” and beneath her name, “Go Wildcats!” She had mentioned being raised a Wildcats fan, having lived here all her life.

As the two sat down to their pretest meal, Kaylee began to quiz Tyler on the material for their test. But Tyler began to think. Not about the test. He was thinking about what Kaylee had said in the hallway. He hadn’t really paid that much attention to it before, but he decided that on their way back, he would look a little closer. After what Kaylee had said, there seemed to be something about it that was intensely strange to Tyler.

“Hey, are you listening? What’s λ in the equation λ = .693/Т?” Kaylee asked.

“Oh, it’s uh…half-life.” Tyler’s answer was detached. He had, probably inappropriately, a look of grave concern on his face.

“Dude, you ok? What’s wrong? You look like you just lost a bet or something.” Tyler believed that he thought too hard about things sometimes, and here was the evidence that it was true. Why would he think so deeply about a hallway and the poor decisions of its interior designer?

“Oh, no, it’s nothing,” Tyler laughed, realizing his silliness. “Forget it. Anyway, what’s the next equation?”

The two continued their eating and studying, focusing on their gummy bears and physics equations. Tyler forgot his plan to look more closely at the hallway; this test could be what brought him above the average in the class, and he was very competitive when it came to schoolwork. Numbers and Greek characters swirled around in his head. Physics was a challenge for him, but he had managed to stay on top by paying close attention in class and making the cafeteria trip with Kaylee a pre-test ritual. At least, he pretended to believe the ritual helped. It was fun to make-believe sometimes, even though he should have outgrown that long ago.

* * * * *

As Tyler lay in bed that night, he waded through the lambdas and pi, trying to forget everything he had learned for his test. Physics was not his world, and he decided he had better things to think about. But once he got past all the velocities and centripetal accelerations, he found himself thinking again about what Kaylee had said about that hallway. Why was that on his mind? Why did it command his thoughts like this? There was something eerie about the hallway; he couldn’t deny that. But it was just a hallway with a style that seemed to belong to the 1970’s. So what? He needed to go to sleep. He had kept himself up until 2:00 a.m. with a mindless video game, and he had to work the next day. Why wouldn’t this strange idea just fade away so he could sleep? He fought the ridiculous idea of thinking about that stupid hallway until he finally did fall asleep. What a strange day it had been.

“IN OTHER NEWS, A NEW DRUG FOR TREATING HEARTWORMS IN DOGS HAS BEEN DISCOVERED, AND IT…..” Tyler’s alarm clock volume was much too high. He didn’t get enough good sleep, and every sound was a shriek, breaking his comfort and forcing him out of bed.
“AH! Geez, that was loud.” Tyler stretched and yawned. His head was pounding, and his jaw felt like someone had punched it with all their force; he had slept awkwardly. The first thing he thought about was that hallway. He shut his eyes tightly and tried to think of his current favorite song to get the image of those brown, foldable doors and those ugly lamps out of his head. He determined that his lack of sleep was responsible for this annoying invasion of his mind by images of that hallway. He put on some music to drown out his thoughts while he got ready for work.

* * * * *

Work was the same as it ever was. Tyler just sat there, staring most of the time. He didn’t have to do much, as a teacher’s assistant, other than answering phone calls. As he was getting ready to turn off the computer and head home for the day, James showed up at the office door.
“Hey, what’s going on?” inquired James.

“Nada, man. I’m just about to leave. I’m so tired. I didn’t really sleep well.”

“That sucks,” replied James, “you want to go to the café and get something to eat?”

“Sure, why not?” And the two of them left the office and began walking toward the cafeteria.

There was absolutely nothing strange about this trip to the cafeteria…except that now Tyler could not deny the feeling that something was indeed very strange about that hallway. He found himself thinking again about what Kaylee had said. As they climbed the stairs and rounded the corner into the hallway, Tyler’s eyes darted side to side, looking for any evidence that something wasn’t quite right, but the more he looked, the more he started searching for something that was quite right. Every little nook, every crease in the wallpaper, every nuance, everything was right out of the 1970’s. The light fixtures had covers of amber-colored, oval-shaped, blown glass checkered with rough and smooth squares as they hung from their curled, black iron lamp-stands attached to the walls. The wallpaper had an argyle pattern of lime green and marigold—then he looked closer. In spite of its old styling, it looked brand new.

James never stopped talking the entire time Tyler was noticing all this. He just looked straight ahead as they walked, arms moving through the air in elliptical patterns as he described in great detail the unpleasant meeting he had had with his boss that day. Tyler didn’t listen to a word James said. He couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the hypnotic quality of the argyle wallpaper and the hideousness of the lampshades.

“Hey!” James punched Tyler in the arm. “I’m talking to you!”

Tyler looked at James with a look of bewilderment. He had been abruptly snapped out of his trance by James’ punch. Just then, they walked out of the hallway, and Tyler actually forgot about it for a while as he tried to listen to James’ rant about his unfair supervisor.

* * * * * * * * *

The next morning, Tyler woke up. He had slept well that night, without much thought given to the hallway. In fact, all he could think about was the girl he had a continuous crush on—Sarah. She had recently moved out of state, but not even 900 miles of distance could keep Tyler from thinking about her. They talked on the phone a few times a week and every now and then online, but that wasn’t enough for Tyler.

But this was ridiculous, and Tyler knew it. Why was he stuck on her when she wasn’t even in the same state? He tried to shake it. He tried to reason his way out of it, but nothing seemed to be able to take his mind off of her.

* * * * * * * * * *

“Hantaviruses are very dangerous…. They have been known to cause—“

“Geez…I don’t know how much more of this I can take today. I’m just not in the mood for it,” Tyler whispered to Kaylee.

“Shhhhh…. I’m trying to pay attention,” Kaylee seethed back her reply through clenched teeth, trying to keep from looking like she was talking. Their microbiology class was small—only four students—and Tyler was usually very interested in the subject matter. Not today, however. Today, it was Sarah on Tyler’s mind.

“And that’s it for today.” As soon as those words hit Tyler’s ears, his textbook was in his backpack, and he was standing, swinging his pack around the front of his body and over his left shoulder. “Next Monday is your test over chapters four and five. Better make sure to study hard,” the teacher was saying. Kaylee looked up at Tyler, smiling at his obvious need to leave the room. His reply was a roll of his eyes, letting her know that she was right: he wanted to get out of there.

As they passed out of the room and into the lobby of the classroom building they were in, Tyler said, “I’m hungry. You wanna go to the café?”

“Nah, I’ve got a religion test in an hour, and I haven’t really studied yet.”

“Alright. Fine. I see how it is. I’ll just have to go by myself, then,” Tyler said, jokingly.

“Oh, come on, you big baby.”

“Hahaha,” he laughed, “all right, I’ll see you later, then.”

“Ok, later.”

Tyler walked toward the hospital. As he walked, his steps were automatic; he just let his feet guide themselves. They knew the way. His thoughts were focused, unintentionally, on Sarah. He thought about how he hadn’t talked to her for a few days and how the last time they talked, he had rushed through everything he wanted to tell her without letting her get a word in edgeways. He did that every now and then, which was way too often. But why was that on his mind?

He looked up and realized he was walking through the hallway. He looked into one of the rooms with an open door and noticed a few nurses sitting in chairs, facing a man who was facing them, and they appeared to be listening intently as he spoke. The room was fairly large with what Tyler guessed to be 30 chairs lined up in curved lines forming several semi-circles around a small stage, which was little more than a broad, wooden box six inches off the floor and covered in brown shag carpet. The chairs all looked heavy to Tyler—pale, lime-green, plastic bases on steel legs. They looked old by their style but brand new by their unscratched shininess. He then noticed the nurses were wearing little skirts with little white caps—not the scrub tops and pants he was used to seeing nurses wear. And most of them had hair styles that reminded him of old pictures he had seen of his mom and her friends in high school—layered and bland, without a single dyed strand of hair. The man speaking was tall, wearing a brown plaid suit with pants that widened slightly at the bottom. A slight chill went down his spine. He did not stop walking. He continued out of the hallway and on to the cafeteria.

* * * * * * * * *

“Sarah? Heh-hey! How are you doing? Good, good. I’m—me?—yeah, I’m doing good, too. Yeah. So how did your registration go? Really? Did you get all your books in time? That’s good……………So, uh….I was walking through that hallway that we always walk through to get to the cafeteria, you know? That weird one I was telling you about. It was so eerie. It was like I was in the seventies or something. So strange. Hahahaha.” He bit his lip, ashamed that he couldn’t keep his cool. “Yeah….what? Oh, yeah, it’s just that it seems so seventies in there. I guess it’s just bad decorating or something. I don’t know….”

“My goodness. Is Tyler on the phone with Sarah again? That boy can talk to any girl as smoothly as he wants, and he’s totally fine. But whenever he’s talking to her…he just keeps going and going. She doesn’t get a chance to speak,” James said to Rob as he finally landed the combo he’d been practicing in the latest iteration of Soul Calibur. “Woo! Eat it, Mitsurugi!”

After eating at the café, Tyler had gone to work and then on home. His day had been uneventful—other than his weird hallway experience—and he had wanted to talk to Sarah. That always made his day more interesting.

“Damnit, guys.” Tyler walked into the room.

“What? Do it again?” Rob asked.

“Yeah,” Tyler sighed, “I don’t understand it. I really want to hear about her day and her life and everything. But I always do that when I talk to her. I don’t give her a chance to talk at all. I go so fast. What is it about her?”

“Maybe it’s you, dude,” James said.

“Yeah, you need to just take it easy. Girls like to talk. Just let her talk. Don’t worry about it.” Rob added. Tyler knew he was right. He just needed to relax and give her a chance to answer his questions and talk about whatever. She was probably interested in what he had to say, but girls want someone to listen to them, most likely more than guys do. He knew that. He just couldn’t seem to pull it off. Ever. Why?

“Well, I’m going to get a sub or something. You guys want to go?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah, let’s go. I’m so hungry I could eat a rotting elephant carcass.” James said.

“What the hell?” Rob was amused but grossed out.

“Inappropriate,” was all Tyler said.

“What? What’s wrong with you guys?” chuckled James.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Morning woke Tyler with the piercingly loud radio he could never quite get used to hearing. Although, today, Tyler didn’t care. He simply sat up, turned off the alarm, and lay back on his bed. He was tired. His senses weren’t fully working yet. He sat back up, knowing he had to force himself out of bed if he was going to make it to class at all, and he stared blankly into the closet at the foot of his bed. He was certainly groggy.

There it was again in his head—that hallway. It was like something was trying to get him to focus on it, to discover something through reviewing its weirdness in his mind. It was just bad interior design! But he couldn’t shake it, and it annoyed him a lot as he got into the shower, got dressed, and drove to school. He simply couldn’t get away from the image of the nurses in that classroom that he had seen on his last trip through the hallway. How bizarre it was that even the people there all seemed to be straight out of the seventies! He suddenly realized he hadn’t allowed himself to think about that part of it before. But now he was seemingly forced to think about it, and he began to embrace the thoughts, wanting to know what was really going on. He was going to find out.

He had planned to walk the normal route from his car to campus that morning, but the hallway made him change his mind. He walked to the hospital and down through to the hallway.

Upon entering the hallway, he was greeted with that same feeling of strangeness he recalled from his previous visit. The feeling seemed to grow with each successive pass through that part of the hospital. And this time was the strongest.

A nurse passed by him and said hello. He slowed mouthed a hello in reply as his eyes followed her while she passed. She was absolutely gorgeous. She was dressed in that old style he had noticed from before. Her eye lids were painted with bright blue eye shadow and her cheeks rosily rouged. His eyes shot back forward as a doctor with a stethoscope around his neck walked around the corner toward him. He noticed the doctor’s fluffily coifed red hair and his brown and green checked pants. He was heavily mustachioed, and he wore penny loafers. The doctor walked past him.
In the instant the doctor walked by, he thought to himself, “wait a second. This is ridiculous. There’s no way this hallway could be…some sort of time warp or something. Ah! I must be crazy.” But he decided to watch where the doctor walked. If he exited the hallway and could still be seen, Tyler reasoned, then they must simply be having a “seventies week” or something at the hospital. Although that wouldn’t explain the rest of the hallway, he thought he could reason that part away as bad decorating.

So he watched the doctor as he walked. But the doctor didn’t exit the hallway. He simply turned and headed down one of the similarly decorated corridors within the hallway. Another doctor came by, and Tyler began to follow him, but then a man bumped into Tyler, and he stopped. He was distracted from following the doctor by this man, also dressed in seventies-style attire. “Oh, uh…excuse me,” Tyler said.

“No problem,” replied the man. He then walked down another of the corridors as Tyler watched, transfixed.

Another nurse went by, and she went down another of the hallway’s corridors. He watched maybe eight more people in seventies-era dress walk through the hallway, but they never left it to enter the modernly decorated areas. They never left the hallway. Then Tyler realized that he had never seen anyone modernly dressed enter the hallway after he was already in it. Never. A chill unlike any he had ever felt rolled down Tyler’s spine.

“This can’t be real. There’s no way this is possible.” He started thinking of physics class. He envisioned Einstein’s equation for the theory of relativity—E=mc². Another person walked by, and Tyler spun around, watching him walk. He thought of discussions they had had in class about wormholes and bending space and therefore being able to bend time, and was it all possible? “No!” he screamed inside his mind, “it’s simply not possible!”

He began to feel panicked. He needed to get out of that hallway, get outside. He started walking back the way he had come but began feeling light-headed. He stopped, put his hands on his knees and closed his eyes. He opened them again and saw, on the floor beneath him, a black and white newspaper. The headline read, “President Ford Celebrates Bicentennial in Washington.” 1976?! Tyler’s head spun. He could practically hear the blood pump into his brain. Darkness crept into his vision from all sides like fractals spreading, closing the aperture of his eyes. Black.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Tyler woke up on the paper covering of an old examination table. Oh, thank goodness, he thought, it was just a weird dream. He sat up, looked around. Just then, a petite nurse came through the open door, wearing the old-style uniform. No, he thought. No way. “Are you alright?” the nurse asked. “We found you passed out in the south hallway of the new addition— ”

Eyes wild with fear, Tyler jumped up abruptly, ran to the door, and pushed the nurse out of the way. She hit a metal cart behind her with a loud crash and fell to the floor, stunned. Tyler needed to get outside. But wait. He had left the hallway, and it was still the 70’s. Just getting outside may not be enough. If he really was, inconceivably, transported back to 1976, he might be stuck there. Get back to the hallway, he thought, and get outside from there. That was his best bet.

As he ran, he saw a sign that read “3rd Floor” in big letters at the top. Panting, he bound down the stairs and onto the first floor. Tyler looked around and noticed that the hospital looked totally different than it had when he was there just a day ago—or was it 30 years from now? This is insane! he thought. Trying to find his way out, he finally spotted the brown, foldable curtains of the hallway and ran toward them.

Running hard through the hallway, gathering stares from nurses, doctors, and patients, Tyler found the exit. He almost allowed himself to smile as he burst out into the sun and looked around. Ah! I’m out. Out of that hallway! Out of the seventies? This is some sort of crazy dream. But something didn’t feel right. He turned to see a woman exit the hallway behind him. He was too out of breath at first to notice what she was wearing. “Excuse me,” Tyler said, then paused a moment to catch his breath. The young Asian woman looked at Tyler, surprised.

He glanced at her old-style nursing uniform, noticing her nametag said Hyo-Ri Hwang. “Oh, your last name is Hwang,” Tyler said between deep breaths, “please tell me you’re related to Kaylee…. You’re her sister, right?”

The young lady replied in a heavy accent, “No, I don’t know a Kaylee…. But… what a pretty name…” She smiled to herself.

Mud Brick and Straw

2008-04-25T06:32:00.000-07:00

Mud brick and straw
Half asleep, half dead a boy lies
Damp, hot, and rank
Bloated belly, emaciation, and flies

Outside, in dirt
Dust and famine—a man plows
Sweat pours and dries
Dark skin, aching back, no cows

Road—no—dirt path
To white tents and white health
A doomed boy borne
Upon a back that bares no wealth

Give the boy up
From visible ribs to blue eyes
“Take him from me;
Or else, he surely dies.”

The Only Thing Good In This City

2008-04-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

Winds and waters swirl
Over the sand compacted
Behind, blue waves twirl
In front, the scene enacted:

Solitary palm:
Fronds battered and blown round-about
Green is nature’s psalm:
City broken open, life grown out

Recurring Dream

2008-04-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

The red glass,
The broken face…

Déjà vu…

I’ve seen this place….

Knuckles white,
There is no ground…
Mirror broke;
There is no sound.

Lids tight shut
But eyes still see
Blue, black, brown
Haze around me.

Here before,
In this same place…
Please, no more.
To wake I race.