You Never Invited Me Inside

You never invited me inside
but I peeked through the crack
in your heart and
I saw the light of one lonely lamp
veiled a bit, of course
with something tossed across it like
a table cloth your mother gifted
to insert some class to your bachelor life
or maybe your threadbare woobie
doubtful a blouse or skirt since
you never invited anyone
inside
but I peeked in and
was drowned in your drabness,
in your heaviness
it seemed an opaque spirit, no
a weighty portion of your humanity
no, a timid dragging flightless bird
no, a denied potential of lightness
no, that’s the wrong word,
nothing fits
but whatever it is, this entity
that lived there inside you
it would be grey or brown
nothing vivid, nothing translucent
and it would hang like a
wool blanket on the line,
wet and dripping despair
and it would sluff through life
with sliding footsteps
in shoes too big to lift
and it would be, not shy but
undetermined to be anything but
hidden behind
something large like
a bookshelf or
a refrigerator or
another man and
it would lounge about there,
halfway concealed
stuck between wanting connection
and its protective brick wall
and it would peek out like
it wanted simultaneously to
be found and
never ever ever to
be seen
and its eyes would say
please please
but they would also say
go away and
pretend you never saw me and
that is what I felt, this
intangible thing living
inside you, the thing that
peered at me as
I was studying you for
who knows how long
maybe days or years or
who knows how long
but after this length of time
maybe we could have
been friends after all the
more than friends and the
less than friends
took its exorbitant toll from
both of us but
who knows because
you never let me
inside.

I am Seeking Hush

I am seeking
a palpable knowing
the kind I can dress in
the kind that will shield me
a bubble of light to surround me
a lens through which I can discern
an understanding that answers
in peace

for this search
I need only my heart
and energy that is bigger than me
and quite a lot of solitude
less of the world
more divine
more shining from my bones
and absorbing through my skin
much less of the more
and much more of the less
more of me
less of them
less of me
more of awe
in quiet

so will the loud of the world
and the chaos of the mundane
will the flesh-born temptations
and obligations of busy
will the superficialities
and surface-floating nothings

please forgive me
if I insist upon

hush.

__