Diane Laurie

Ocean Park

The pier was a place

to play

to make plans

to hold hands

to jump off.

It was a place

to spend a day

knitting time

into Jersey sweaters

to be worn

on winter days

when knees are weak

and hair is gray.

It was a place

where life stuck out is penis

in the mother sea

groping in eternity.

The day it burned

crowds watched from the beach

while homeless men

looked for land

huddled by cans

searching for anything warm.

They had lost their Jersey Sweaters

to be worn

on winter days

when knees are weak

and hair is gray.

Horizon

The horizon is holding up the sun

shining as a floating torch upon the sea.

The moon is rising in the east

pale as a see-through disc

above the cliffs.

Time is now both night and day

black and white exchange to gray

as the tides move uncertainly between

a premature birth

and a lingering end

and the moment s p r e a d s into infinity

upon the pastel sands.

Space

I.

You

entered my life

this time

saying

you would give me

no space.

I smiled.

No one could possess

someone

who had grown

so free.

But like the sun

you filled

sheltered

places of my heart

with a light

that consumed me.

II.

When you left

this time

I was trapped forever

inside a void

caught between

what never was

and what used to be

searching for traces

of you

of me

finding only ghosts.

Too haunted by

echoes of love

I walked

as a shadow

out into the day

and stood

as a silhouette

through the night

waiting for life

to hear me.

Then morning

brought faint sounds of rage

that rose as the sun

and grew

with the day

and pierced those

places in my heart

those spaces that you left me.

III.

Now

is a gentler day –

the ghosts are gone

though spirits remain

and rage has turned

into a quiet anger.

Now

is a gentler day –

and in moments of grace

I see

your face

and know my rage

was not with you.

It was born

in the void –

that space you said

you wouldn’t give

you left in me.

Passages to Anywhere

Driving through the city’s spackled streets

sun dying in the west

smog sinking in the east

radio set to news and static

lost in a labyrinth of passages to anywhere

filled with impersonations of sensations

that take edges off of squares

and roll my life into a ball

bouncing to the rhythm of motor cars, movies stars,

foreign wars, sex affairs of senators

the somnolence that numbs my senses

and sets my spirit to sleep.

Reflection

I look into a pool

and the clouded form I see

is only me mirrored

then distorted by the morning breeze.

It could be no more than that;

no past or future schemes

are shaped within

this puppet image

lying in the water

prompted more by the noon flurry

than me.

And evening gusts shall own

what was once

my reflection.

It could be no more

than that –

no silent pool

echoing

in virginous clarity

the truth

without the wind.

Outside the Office

Outside the office

across the street

boys riding imported racing bicycles

with twenty gears

shiny tires licking the sidewalk

passing up old women walking

wearing

pastel low neck silks

boldly showing wrinkled skin

the tires spin

the boys laugh

the women walk

and walk

and talk

about disgrace and how fast time goes by

though each moment seems an hour

and how the sun has gotten hotter

and how the boys

and the bikes are signs of

things to come.

The Child Within

To be real.

Not to catch a star

but to be only

what you are.

No God

or Purple Phantom

can show you

until you know you –

the way you feel

without even a fly

in the room.

I used to believe

in a Galaxy

until it devoured me;

now I believe in

Something

that takes me from

the Nothing.

It is not a thought

it is without reason

and is as natural

as the seasons

flowing

one into the other.

It is a whisper

my baby’s breath

upon me –

the Child within

giving birth

to its

Mother.