Monthly Archives: December 2014

Poetry, This work copyright 2014 Thomas Kreek

Scars on the Sky

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There are scars on the sky
There are stories in those scars
Going home, leaving home
Vacation, deployment
There are tears and there is excitement
There is chatter and annoyance,
Loss and beginnings.

A new grandmother, anxiously trying to learn to knit before the child is too old to wear her handiwork.
A woman still shaking from the pat down, because it was just like the game her older brother used to make her play.
A salesman almost completely focused on his PowerPoint, trying to shut out the thoughts that, if he doesn’t make his quarter, she will actually leave.
A college student, heading off to his first study abroad, with eight extra sets of batteries for his camera, and a map from his older brother that shows the best places to get high.
An ex boyfriend, going home from the funeral, where he wasn’t welcome, still wonders if he could have changed it.
An almost child, going to a place he can’t pronounce, to wear sand camo and an assault rifle, to meet new people to fear.
An elderly woman, on her third cocktail, fights back a tear as she remembers her daughter’s parting words.
A young woman excitedly shows her engagement ring to the gentleman next to her, who just received divorce papers.
A bride and groom on a honeymoon paid for by his parents, because he doesn’t want her to realize he’s lost his job, until after the trip.
An AVP who blames the airline for not automatically upgrading him to first class, but fears it’s because his expense account was cut off.
The copilot, who has once again decided this is his last time he will fly with intoxicated.

There are scars on the sky,
Lit by the morning sun,
and in a day, they will have faded
and been replaced a dozen times.
Each one contains a hundred scars.
Those may never fade.

Poetry, This work copyright 2014 Thomas Kreek

Prairie wind

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The wind makes its own decisions. Like any farmer on generations of loess, those decisions are very similar from year-to-year, but always they adapt to the current conditions. Occasionally it loses its temper, and scatters sod and silo, board and batten. Force of nature becomes force majeure. But it soon regains its composure, and goes back to moving soil from farm to farm to shed to house and vibrating in the gutters and corrugated.

The wind makes its own decisions. On those faces that etch the prairie with plow and hoe, the wind carves the same lines that it does in the unprotected earth at the edge of the field. Wind and sun burn indistinguishably except for the pattern they make. Wind, horizontal, sun vertical. Face, head. Draw the tear, dry the tear.

The wind makes its own decisions. It is always coming and leaving at the same time. It has travelled hundreds of miles with no interference, bending the wheat and slashing the corn. It is never static, never staying. Its direction is not predictable, but it can always be felt. It stalls and waits in lee or copse, or behind the house or in the barn, and then it’s cool and its movement feels like a caress, instead of a slap.

The wind makes its own decisions, and I have made mine. Now that wind sings of a place I am from. The sound is only in my ear as a whisper, and the daily grit in my eyes cleared many tears ago. But it calls to me, at night. I can taste the fields behind my home, and hear the weeds rustle over 5 generations of my family’s graves. But it is not the wind that drove me away. The wind and I are friends. It found me and sang me to sleep. It invited me to climb high into the elms to feel its gentleness rock me back and forth. It brought me flowers, and the smell of huge silos of corn and the cotton candy of the county fair.

The wind makes its own decisions, and it has made me its companion, and I left with it. Prevailing from the west, my only choice was to head east, so that some of that grit and fragrance and bluster came from home, though now it mixes with sea and maple and ice and hemlock.

NSFW contains adult language, Poetry

The Look of Arousal

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That look in your eyes was not sexual. Not exactly. This was before I knew a man could be aroused by the cascade of destruction that he set into motion, simply to punish me for some wrong i will never understand, because it is too complex or too subtle or too specific to your past and your way of thinking. And I didn’t see it coming.

I had met your hardness, before. Sought it, welcomed it, craved it, asked for it, thanked it, and asked for it, again. There were times I thought it was my greatest gift, that it owned me, or times that I thought that i owned it. But never before had it spoken with such power and certainty and disregard and sheer aggression. Never before had it sought to make me sorry or to make me afraid or to make me cry or to make me nothing. I did not know there could be so much energy in that particular act, in that assault with a friendly weapon. That arousal in you so potent, frightening. Sexual and yet something else entirely.

I will never forget that look in your eyes. Still, I search every lover’s eyes for a hint of that shadow, afraid of what it might mean. And I always find it. Even when it is not there.

Poetry, This work copyright 2014 Thomas Kreek, Trigger warning

Drunk Texting

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Yeah, I know. I drunk texted you every couple weeks, since that day 6 years ago. The words made no sense to me when I sobered up, but that didn’t last long. I know I pocket dialed you, at least a dozen times, because yours is the only number on my favorites list, and sometimes I look at your picture and I read the address, and think of better days.
Always, you have the grace to ignore them. Always, you have the sense not to reply.

But now the world is drunk texting me, and I don’t understand. Crazy messages that make no sense. A lead rainstorm in her gymnasium. A hidden fortress in a home room coat closet. Counting children from too many to too many more.

Please. This one time. Please respond and tell me that someday, she will grow up to ignore my messages, too. Tell me she will grow up at all.

Poetry, This work copyright 2014 Thomas Kreek, Trigger warning

The End of the Hallway

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It’s amazing how long that hallway is. A long hall papered with bad dreams. It takes a long time to go down it, before I am confronted with that door, waiting at the end. And how frightening to know what is on the other side of that door: is it the light we sought? The darkness, and eternal fire that we’ve been warned of? Or is it another hallway, a long and tedious walk, with those same dreams haunting me?

When I last met that door, I stood in front of it for several days. It’s like it was calling me to experience it. The few times I touched the knob, it was painfully cold. But something inside called anyway, “open it”. But I didn’t.

Certainly, what stopped me was the fear that it was another hallway, that hell doesn’t end here. Because even the darkness seemed to be a good alternative to this dream world.

Other friends have shared that hall. Sometimes, we walked down it, together, so that one of us could pull the other back, away from the door. Late nights sitting beside him, telling him “no.” “Stay.” “It’s okay.” We had a phone tree, we did shifts, we made calls, we held hands. But those were the ones who chose to ask. Those were the ones who were able to ask.

For them, this life seemed something to save, not simply to end. People always discuss whether this is an act of bravery, or of cowardice. But it is neither, because it is an inevitability. It is a force stronger than our own will. And when it is time, the intervention must come from outside, because inside there is only emptiness.

To sleep, perchance to dream. And in that sleep of death, what dreams may end? If those prayers are answered, all of those dreams will end.

NSFW contains adult language, Poetry, This work copyright 2014 Thomas Kreek

Metal

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Rose petals bloomed along the thin straight line on my inner thigh, where no one could see. The thorn that drew them was taken from my father’s medicine cabinet, by a hand that never yet had to hold one to my face.

I love the metal. I love the fineness of the grind, the glint of the edge, the coolness of the steel. And it was a double bond. That edge helped reconnect me to a body that my mind wanted to escape. Each crimson petal a chance to feel, again. The steel converting emptiness into somethingness. Pain as a pathway to the corporeal

I met him at a party. His metal attracted me, made me want to be close to him. Septum, PA, nipples, fraenum and a few more, all perfectly placed. All making him seem powerful and free and beautiful.

He gently took me by the hand, down into the basement, and whispered, “I’d like you to feel something.” At first, it was the kiss of his leather on my back, and then, the feel of his hand making it hard for me to sit. And always, I would kiss his metal. And always, I would feel something more.

This time, he showed me his blade. So similar to the one I knew when I was younger, but this one was in his hand, and that I trusted completely. This time, the straight lines bloomed with rubies. Precious gems that would never wilt. And he drew them out with a gentle but commanding hand. In that passionate moment, he repaired the damage I had done before. I was reconnected the way I never thought I could be. As he finished placing his mark, he put his metal on my lips, and, in gratitude, I mixed the rubies with pearls.

Poetry, This work copyright 2014 Thomas Kreek

The Transcendental Transaction of Touch

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Please. There is an emptiness, that can only be filled by the texture of skin, and the thrum of circulation, and a warmth that is not my own.
Yes. Here I am, not with an emptiness, but an openness to meet you where you are, and to share in your hunger.

Please. The last time? I cannot account. Fluids were exchanged, but hearts were not.
No. This is not how I think about us. That is not what we are to each other.

Please. But last night, you…
Alright. yeah. ok..

Please. It aches, inside, where you are not.
Maybe. Let’s see how good you can be.

Please. Even in the lights and noise of the city, it is too dark and quiet, here, alone.
Let’s talk. How much do you have to spend?

Please. We never do, anymore.
Not now, I’m tired.

Please. You are so beautiufl.
Yes. I love you.

Please. I am lonely.
No. Loneliness looks bad on you.

Please. You are so good at it.
No. You are not.

Please.
Yes.

Thank you.
Our pleasure, shared.

Poetry, This work copyright 2014 Thomas Kreek

Timepiece

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I love the clock in the mantel of your breast. It ticks with an organic precision, which is not precise at all. Time flies in moments of anger and excitement, but when you are content and at peace, the flow moves slowly. I love the ticking of this instrument, and I know it well.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

My days are measured by 1000 clocks. I hear the clicking of their mechanism, occasionally the whoosh of their gears, and sometimes the sweep of their second hand, as it counts down to nothing. Some, I have heard race too fast to count, as their first seconds of life begin. Some, I was the last, ever, to hear. Some, I knew, would not take long to end, as the rhythm became broken. It is the measure of their lives.

Tick tock. Tick tick tick tock.

But yours is the measure of my life. The joy, the wonder, the peace, the fear, the love. With every tick, our life is built. Each tock, our love grows to entwine us. In every hour and every precious second, it is the rhythm of our dance, the meter for the orchestra of our experiences and our plans. It is the metronome for the student, humbled in how much he has to learn, yet excited for the beauty that is now open to him.

Tick tick tock tock.

If I could no longer hear that sound, then time will have run out, for me, too. For 20 years, 630 million seconds, I have lived to your rhythm, danced to your meter, sang the song of your prosody, and I pray to run out of numbers before I stop counting its precious beat.

Poetry, This work copyright 2014 Thomas Kreek

five weeks of walking to his place

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He he lived in that yellow apartment house just between the liquor store and Get the hell off my property Lady.

Week 1: it was a left, a right and a left. There were a few shops and houses that I had never noticed. A newly painted grand Victorian, fronted by a garden newly cleared with some small plantings just getting started. As I crossed the street toward the house on the corner, I could hear Get the hell off my property Lady yelling at some kids in the side yard. My palms were sweating. I made it to the front step in 23 minutes.

Week 2: beautiful day. On the quiet part of the second street, there is a small craftsman, with a porch draped in ivy. The porch swing was still gently rocking, with two steaming cups of coffee and the half finished crossword on the table in front. I glanced up, just to see the bedroom curtains drawn. My hands were fidgety. I got to the front step in 21 minutes.

Week 3: the out of place cape, across the street from the Victorian, has some balloons and a table just at the edge of the yard. One part of the table cloth says congratulations, Pat and Stoney. I cut through an alleyway. Get the hell off my property Lady was glaring at a couple of teens coming down the sidewalk. My hands were warm. I got to the front step in 23 minutes.

Week 4: in the alley shortcut, the lawn chair captain was finishing his fourth beer in the six pack. He was glaring at a cluster of sparrows on the guy wire to his house, as they fluttered over to a nearby tree. His BB-pistol next to him. They’re not the birds from the movie, you know. He said, “yeah, but they could always turn on ya without warning.”  A car pulled away from the space right in front of the building just as I arrived. I stopped off at the liquor store to get a nip. My hands were shaking. I made it to the front step in 24 minutes.

Week five: the garden in front of the Victorian was cleared again, just after it finished blooming, like it only had a short purpose, and then was discarded. New starts of different plants are already sprouting. That car was parked in front of the building, but no one came to claim it. I ducked into the liquor store for 2 nips. They burned going down. I went around the block, again. My fists were tight. I made it to the front step in 32 minutes.

I waited 12 minutes, but there was no answer. As I started to walk back home, I heard a voice. “cheer up, young man.” It was Get the hell off my property Lady. The flower she held out was just past its prime. “here, it’s from my garden.”