The wind of a hummingbird's wing on a flower petal: the child holds a candy sweet with his thumb and forefinger; the tension in the corners of your mouth. (The measure of a loving touch)

The new emptiness

The new emptiness coming on like a movement, like a thunderstorm. All the kids are raving about it. They face it bravely, and having disappeared into it completely, come back out with their sleepy eyed teenage bravado and exclaim the virtues of apathy. I play my mandolin under the olive tree.

sketches

Tattoos, evidence of a burst of joy that joined body and mind in a manic union and made it ok to carve this design, which she can't even tell you the meaning of, into her beautiful skin (the beauty of which she doesn't even understand, all she sees in the mirror is her big nose and graceless hair). How sexy.

Manhattan, a place for people for whom money is no longer a worry. And their frustrations with their trivial other problems (such as love) populate their faces with expressions such as that which can be found on a rich artist's boy toy assistent or a doctor's daughter (her beauty makes her quite deserving of affection, but she doesn't know how selfish she is).

A time when making money was a matter of choice

A time when making money was a matter of choice:
I walked as an old man out of the woods to sell
Those things He placed in my way of living, in the woods
I do not look for things to sell, they look for me
And find me in my forest nook of carven trees.

I walk back home with pockets full of treats
That in their useless charm remind me of a woman's touch.
The touch of a woman was something rare. And bought -
Oh, to only have to give dollars in return for love -
It was something I wouldn't get caught up in.

And now, in times of two lovers (bear with me now)
Gazing into each others eyes and demanding to be loved back,
In these times of her dancing in the pleasure of belonging to me
And in her sleeping with the comfort of owning me, I dream

Of the time I belonged to no body.