Thumb Suckers United

Students still suckling at their thumbs
Portable teets
Young men and women stuck
At some infantile stage
Passing through high school corridors,
Sitting in classroom
Thumb thrust into mouth
Drawing on their big digit
For support and security never received.
I try not to be too judgmental,
But feel compelled to say,
"Can I have some of that?"
Or "If you are going to
Suck on that in class,
You'll have to share it."
Not trying to shame them,
Just make them aware.

Leap Year 2 Years in a Row

We lay in your bed, eating matzoh in the moonlight
You were my first circumstancial lover
But like a meteor our love was burning out of control
As we approached Earthbound realities
Offering sacrifices to the god of Mattress.

Would you pour me another glass of Cabernet
And kiss my big toe again?
I find my peace in your embrace,
And again when you leave.
It seems that love has become an artifact
Of our relationship, something buried
Like the ruins of an ancient civilization.

Juba

Can you give me technicolor dreams
Or paint my heart in extremes?

I live inside a black and white
And stark expressionless room
Most of the time even drugs at night
Do not lift me to passion, instead resume
Dark memories of the void
As if the universe annoyed with me
Won't say my name, but asks
Where is your head at?

Now is the time for the visitation,
I am ready for first contact
The noise of creation
No longer deafens me.

The space between the stars
Is slightly greater than the distance
Between my last romance and the next.

Touch me. I am not crystal.
I will not shatter like glass or broken dreams.

You asked me to dance
But I just sat there
And wrote another poem.

I can not always tell who the heroes
Or villains are.
Who was that masked man, the one
Who came knocking at your door?
You wedged the chair beneath the doorknob
And hid in your closet.
Who gave you that nightmare?
Who made you afraid to sleep?

You burned with brain fever,
Lying awake all night
Until you gave me your pain.

Revised: Aug. 4, 2008