3-1-10 Journal Excerpt (The Forgotten Piano)

I stumbled across the forgotten piano,
wasting away in the dusty recesses of a basement,
underneath a house falling down in the green wasteland that flowers so rapidly, engaging all the tendrils wrapping themselves around
the way you used to wear your hair like a towel,
draped over your breasts melting off of your chest
with longing for other nights we may have recalled
if only our brains weren't such a mess.
Now I can hardly keep my eyes open long enough
to gently caress those dusty ivory keys
to play a song that will burn through the ages
to sweetly tap the strings of the last setting sun
as we slow our way
into stasis.
I can never remember the words to songs.

2-21-10 Journal Excerpt (You were there)

We followed spectral images down endless corridors,

swallowed pale excuses to wind our ways through the haunted night,

surrounded by the bare walls closing in around us,

avoiding those conversations in which we would discuss so many superfluous emotions,

and we would never admit that this was all just a game we played

to keep ourselves occupied

while waiting for the sky to open up and unleash its fury on the earth. 

You were there, flitting about on the edges of my vision like a dream, 

like a memory that should have been so clear,

but instead remained ambiguous in the haze of other days

spent grasping for an exit.

And I delayed for one moment the satisfaction laying dormant

inside closed rooms tiled with aged photographs

of ancient history,

like the one where I stood proudly dressed in gothic attire,

conspiring to bring about some change to the world

through recitations of ancient rituals,

lighting candles with habitual calm to summon gods that were never named,

like your sweet breath on that night I was tamed and trained

to stand in the middle of your room and watch you swoon

among the flickering flames,

dancing shadows painting our faces.

Those ghosts still wander down the lonely halls,

calling names that seemed to represent creatures we once called friends,

but they have all been lost in the fog of passing time.

Will an invocation solicit a response?

Can those apparitions solidify into

something more real?