jrlewis's blog

Before we

Were facebook friends.

I stared at your profile, hour

After hour muscular arms across chest

Hinting at your farmer’s tan and

Cerulean blue eyes.

Your eyes form very acute corners.

The same attraction as my first

Day school teacher.

Your smile was leftmost window

Open on my laptop.

My inspiration

While I wrote a paper,

Justifying my unpublished novel,

Concluding in a relationship,

With you.

I was trying to work

Swear! When distracted by a young female

Waterfowl. 

Precocious omnivore, she is

Sucking the dirt of my life from denim

Such stringy nutrients.

She deserves better

Than what is furnished by the poet,

Day old pastry.  Now

The young one needs

A napkin for the half masticated treat

Outlining her bill.

Gelatinous peach sticks.

Neither the Red Cross, nor Bio courses

Teach Heimlich on a mallard!

The satiated duckling naps

Across from the dreamland construction site

And I return to the computer

Domesticated.

My browser windows

Are a modern widows walk.

Your beast is a great white mass of

Printed and bound pages.  Publication is

The difference between an author

And a writer.

A harpoon is your sinister pen;

What do whales know of chirality?

I’m a biochemist.

Dear storyteller, I’m too full of you

For porcelain knobs, boys

And this poem…

“Tell me a story” because I feel very alone. 

Or tell me what novel I’m quoting.  Say that you love Jeanette Winterson’s writing.  Maybe you know Pew and have felt the salt spray breaking against the lighthouse walls too.  I haven’t touched a bald man’s head since Pew’s.  I could feel sweat and veins, the life in your brain.  The brain is wider than the sky I was taught in neurobiology and behavior. 

To be a writer is to write, I think.  You were a writer.  When was the last time?  How long is a long long time?  How do you think writing evolves?  Do writers need other writers in their lives?  Could you trace your intellectual lineage back to a famous author?  Tell me your favorite book?

Truthfully, I’ve never known a writer up close. 

What is sex a metaphor for? Pleasure

Flesh oiled and salted to taste, squelching on my

Tongue is Cupeidae’s family. 

Swallowing ends all.

In record-breaking heat I bathe

My baby with an ice cube. 

Together we slept outside and

Our night light, the full moon created

The curves of his face. My beautiful boy

In black and white photography. 

A playground scene.

Below the anthill, I reside in

A dark underworld of desire thrives

Where I am milking the blue caterpillar.

Truffle flavored smoke rises from his lips in

The summer of lager and honeydew.

He is feasting on my youth.

His chrysalis is a car; 

He will drive away from here.

But first he asks, “want to fork?”

“Yes, I have never liked spooning,” I respond.

“A fork makes a poor microphone,” I shout.

Imperfect passion, the love is not faulty

The lovers are like Alice talking to Absolem.

Answer 1- my cognitive unconscious

Answer 2- storyteller

How many times do you have to make love?

After humpty dumpty falls 

Only eleven eggs left…

Onze is seasoned with his parsley

Sprig soft mustache. 

Dix becomes scrambled.

I am the yoke and white he is

Whisking together so swiftly his fingers blur. 

The result is thick custard.

Neuf and huit are covered with béchamel and tomato paste

The color of my nipples, sauce aurore.

A two tone stipple coat eggs sept et six

Teal overlays aquamarine, reflecting

His brilliant blue eyes. 

Cinq is served sur les canapés he is

Baby cakes, burns eyelashes and all.

Just call me Emma.

Quatre requires a well-lubricated pan for

He plans to make an omelet of me. 

Tongue tastes the fine pores of my skin

Deux and trois

They pair eggs and white wine

Copying Julia Child, why else

Would one drink champagne on cinco de mayo?

The ultimate egg in her lap

She cradles because it will taste better when

Cooked from room temperature

This ultimate pleasure.

Masticating

Swallowing substantial nutrients

Gut absorbed, proteins are taken into my cells

I have digested my sin.  It sits

Memory, making me into a dromedary

For my travels through the desert Elizabeth

Like a prayer I repeat her name

Lizzy, Elizabeth, girlfriend.

Your woman, me

An animal. 

Who slept with you for a poem.

Can you say it three times fast?

A solitary figure

Continues to wage his war

Against the sand.  This worker

Is out late, the others already retired.

Charged with guarding the compound

From elements and predator’s alike is

Twisted bits of wood and wire

Fortifying the exterior

The burden of a mature ant.

He is patrolling the Cliffside

Listening for rustling

In the grass.

He hears leaves

Overturned by fluttering

Of a young queen ant.  Female

Calling syndrome, this courtship

His transformation from worker to male

Makes him a morphological monstrosity!

Beyond the biological sciences

The nuptial flight commences

Away from the anthill

I revealed cornflower blue

Eyes, a passion for soccer, signs

Of humanity.  He is a man big enough

To ride my father’s bike.  “part pirate,

part precious metal” sterling sideburns roan

chest and back.  I am telling my own

legend of the silver stallion.

But tertia non datur…

The name Nantucket

Faraway land in the words

Of the Wampanoag. He is a son

Of the Grey Lady and I an aphid

He tended me only for my honeydew

Off the coast of Cape Cod

Is a grimacing monster cyclops

Creature of three eyes, all owl yellow

Carved jack o’ lantern watching, wondering

Forming an equilateral triangle of sight

Guarded against surgery, removal

Of the simple vestigial lump

Ever frightful

Her tempestuous mind

Moods dancing on a Cliffside

Before melancholy storms brewing

Beaches being overwhelmed by waves

Raging wild words with Apollo or lunar cycles

Eroding dunes and dragging away roots

From fields of salt grasses growing

Fine feeling skin hairs

Ripping apart

It hurts

She cries out

Great gritty tears

Streams of sand grains

Chunks of stone gliding down

Cowering with cracks and weakness

Wrapped in an obscure suspension is she

“William Faulkner

Failed freshmen English

Three times,” said the professor

Shaking her head, ringing sterling bells

Clapping against the nape of her neck

A triplicate charm or choice

Of silver stirrups slapping

A horse’s stomach

Carrying the rider

Further, higher, way away

Following a well-worn bridle path

With powerful long flanks flashing

In the soft sunlight she herself flourishes

Horses are a potent metaphor

A student sitting

In the spring light studying

Illustrations of olive leaved algae

Sargassum, abundant weeds of deceit

Feed and shade a special seahorse

Grazing on anthozoan inhabitants

In the sea without shores

The doldrums