New poem: "My Books and Me"

 

My Books and Me

 I’ve always been a lover of books,

more than lover, actually; I’m more

of a lustful possessor. Or, I used

to be. Now I don’t know what I am

in my relationship with my books.

A very tired lover, perhaps; all used

up by the knowledge, wisdom,

and guidance that my books have

given me. But, try as I may today,

I cannot seem to find a book

that will light my fire like books

used to. I’m not burnt out. And

that’s the irony. I’m still on fire,

but not the same kind of ravishing

fire that books always inspired;

and—O, happy days! —I only read

books out of habit now, no longer

out of lustful desire.

 

New Poem: "A Certain Kind of Man"

 

 A Certain Kind of Man

 

I watched “Paris Can Wait” with Diane Lane,

whom I’ve always loved since her powerful

performance in “Unfaithful” with Richard Gere

playing her cuckolded husband, but who in

this romantic drama played an underappreciated

housewife needy of attention from her hotshot

Hollywood producer husband played by Alec

Baldwin. (Who else?) They travelled to France,

but he’s been called away to Budapest, and his

associate, an annoying Frenchman called Jacque,

who just happens to be a certain kind of man

who wants what he can’t have and when he gets

it no longer wants it, volunteers to chauffeur

Baldwin’s wife Anne, played by Diane, from

Cannes to Paris; and en route to the city of love,

that another certain kind of man with more élan

and four wives to his credit called “a moveable

feast,” what should’ve been a seven-hour drive

turned into a days-long road trip through La Belle

France, complete with vistas, fine restaurants, vin,

and vats of fromage, but how sweet it was that Anne

denied that certain piece of merde what he tried

to get; and out of the blue it came to me, as these

kinds of epiphanies often do, that “Paris Can Wait”

was the opposite of “Unfaithful,” and I marveled

at how the Cosmos always works to keep life

in a state of lilting grace.