My Father's Hands

One of the things I loved most about my father was his hands. He had these very strong looking hands with impossibly thick fingers. They were not the hands of a “working man”, he did not build skyscrapers, didn’t work on cars or make his own home repairs. They were the hands of a salesman, but they somehow managed to look powerful and elegant at the same time.

My father didn’t build the better mouse trap, he didn’t write the great American novel, or invent the longer lasting light bulb. He didn’t teach me to play ball, or how to rebuild a carburetor, or even how to shave. He didn’t teach me any of the things that growing up I thought you needed to know to be a real man.

Here’s what else he didn’t do: he didn’t drink, or smoke. He never cheated on my mother. He never went round to the bar after work and crawled in after midnight. He never backed down from a fight if one presented itself, and he never broke his word. Most importantly, he never gave up. No matter what curves life threw at him, no matter how hard it was at times to get up and face another day, he never bowed his head and admitted defeat. There were always clothes on our backs, and food on the table no matter what.

And he loved my mother.

Uncompromisingly.

And though she’d been gone nearly seven years, he loved her until the day he died.

These are the things my father taught me, and these are the things that to me are a shining example of what a real man should be.

When my father died, I looked down at his hands, the same hands that clutched at the sand of Omaha Beach on D-Day, and I noticed how similar my hands were to his. The same curves to our fingers, the same knuckles, the same shaped fingernails. And although time and age had withered them some and turned his fingers a bit more inward and yellowed his nails, they were still the hands I loved.

And despite the similarities, I know that my hands will never measure up.

They can never be that big.

This was written shortly after the end of my marriage, and as such, it is a portrait of me laid completely open and bare.

Katherine

I remember the very first time I saw Katherine. The instant my eyes fell upon her I was overcome with the certainty that this was the most exquisite creature I had ever seen. Her beauty made such an impact on me in fact, that had I never seen her again but for that brief moment, her face would have stayed in my mind forever.

Had I known then that that angelic face would lead me to the most painful heartbreak of my life; I would have been no less able to prevent myself from being drawn to her than a moth is capable of avoiding the seductive lure of a candles flame.

My life up until that point had been filled with minor disappointments, and its fair share of the triumphs, losses, loves and the drama that are unique to the human condition. At thirty-two years old, I had reached a crossroads in my life, and with no clear vision as to where it would lead, I found myself at that one perfect place at that one perfect moment.

Our initial meeting was brief, over in a matter of seconds, but the impression that it made upon me was to last a lifetime.

I have always been a romantic at heart. I have always truly believed that love conquers all, and frequently found my eyes welling up and a lump in my throat as I watched a love story unfold on a movie screen. One thing I had never put much stock in however was love at first sight. I saw it as a charming notion that worked best in novels and movies and found its way into the writings of untalented poets.

That all changed for me the moment I saw her.

Katherine was twenty years old, and had arrived here from England several months earlier on a one year contract to work in the United Kingdom pavilion at EPCOT in Walt Disney World. By some strange circumstance I found myself there as well, although technically I should never have been there in the first place. In order to work in each pavilion, you needed to be from the country it was representing. I of course was not. It was one of many coincidences, or signs if you will that over the next four years I convinced myself held great significance. After all, what were the odds that I would end up somewhere I technically wasn’t even supposed to be at just the right point in time? What were the odds that she would follow suit and arrive thousands of miles from home to be standing in that room when I stepped into it and first laid eyes on her?

It didn’t stop there. There were more portents that pointed to fate bringing us together. Among them a Moody Blues song “Nights in White Satin”, and an aluminum Knight falling from a shelf. Nights and Knights. Even there, the symbolism could not be denied. I won’t go into all the other instances, occurrences and coincidences here, suffice to say that the sheer number of them alone was uncanny, and only served to convince me all the more that fate had played a hand in bringing us together, the odds against us having met at all being astronomical.

Katherine’s beauty is of the sort that poets have struggled to describe for centuries. I however am no poet, and my chances of giving her beauty its full due will no doubt fall short here, as many poets of the past have found out as well when trying to describe something so ephemeral as this.

First, there is her hair. Soft, silken, blonde and radiant, it cascades down tenderly to frame a face with such delicate features that to look upon them can bring a man to weep. A perfectly straight nose surrounded by eyes a color of green that weakens even the most hardened heart. In those eyes one could truly get lost. Her mouth. Her mouth is perhaps the most exotic feature on an already indescribable face. Her lips are plump and sensuous, with a slight point in the center of her top lip. To watch her speak is erotic, to see her drink from a bottle is sinful. Within those perfect lips lies a smile so affecting and beautiful, that to see it once is to fall in love. Her front two teeth are just slightly longer than the rest, giving that radiant smile a seductive hint of little girl playfulness. When she turns that smile upon you everything else fades from view, and the world loses all importance save the desire to see it again. A slender swan like neck, leading down to a collar bone that was created solely for the purpose of being kissed.

Small perfectly round breasts, a tiny waist and beautiful supple hips trailing down to legs that end in the most gorgeous shapely calves and beautiful feet.

And her back, her back is so perfectly flawless that the skin there appears to be made of silk.

As I said, I am not equipped to do her beauty justice. I simply don’t have the vocabulary for it. To see her is to know, and to have seen her is to have fallen in love. At least that was how it was for me. That is how it continues to be for me.

But her beauty goes far beyond the physical. You see, there is beauty in her frailty and in her insecurities. There is beauty in her fears and desires. There is beauty in her laughter. And there is beauty in her love.

I know this because she shared it with me for a time. And being on the receiving end of Katherine’s love was magical. She made me feel truly adored. This was a feeling I was not familiar with, and one that I will never forget. While she was mine she made me feel as if there were no other men in the world. They simply held no interest for her, and she showed me devotion the likes of which I had never known. I in turn was deeply devoted to her, as I still am, and will likely be for the rest of my life.

Katherine had a way of picking me up from any depth to which I fell with the simplest of gestures; a wrinkling of her nose, an adorable pout, or the simple act of knowing just when to reach out and touch my hand. She was intuitive to my every mood. She is the only woman in whose arms I have openly wept, and never did she fault me for it.

Her laughter is musical. Nothing gave me more joy than those moments when I said something to bring out that laughter. When she lets all her shields down, and allows herself to be truly vulnerable, she is so delicate and unassuming that you can not help but to drop all pretenses yourself. The intimate moments we shared will stay with me forever. When I speak of intimacies, I speak of those moments two people in love share when their guards are completely down, and they are able to show their true inner selves to one another.

Sexually Katherine and I shared a connection I had never experienced with another. Experimental, uninhibited, passionate, and at times quite dirty. When we made love, slowly and devotedly, she would cry in the aftermath having been moved so deeply. Although she never knew it, I was brought to tears on occasion myself, when we would lie together drifting into sleep, at my happiness in having such an amazing woman sharing her life with me.

She made me laugh more than any other woman I had ever known. She gave me more satisfaction in myself and more confidence than I had ever had before. She stimulated my need for conversation, and never disappointed me in her ability to hold her own in a discussion. The pride I felt introducing her to people as my wife was indescribable.

There were nights when I would sit on the edge of the bed as she slept, watching her breathe slowly and peacefully, and the sight of her alone would bring me to new levels of happiness.

I adore everything about her.

For four years, by the hand of fate, or the simple stroke of luck, I was the one this angel chose to spend her life with. To share her beauty, her heart, her smile and her love. For four years I truly lived in a heaven on earth.

Now, as I sit here and write this, I am in purgatory, for my angel has gone. Now some other man bathes in the pools of her eyes, places kisses upon her slender neck, runs his hands over the silken skin of her back, and is blinded by the radiance of her smile.

I suppose I should be grateful for what little time I was given. I should look back upon that time as a dream that I had to wake from eventually. A dream that provided me with enough memories to last a lifetime. But my mind is unable to stop the torturous descent into imagining what she is doing now.

And as for my romantic conviction that love conquers all? Well, I now know that this is as much a lie as it is a ridiculous notion that is best left to the poets and their weeping pens.

So, in the end, if I had known that I would end up here, in the most indescribable pain, longing for something that I can never have again, would I still have taken that chance?

Yes.

Yes. Because like the moth to the flame I would be compelled to. There are some people in this world that cannot be denied adoration. They don’t ask for it, it is just unavoidable once you meet them.

For me, that person will always be Katherine. My love, my bride, my reason for living, and now, it seems, my cross to bear.

Evocations

Pavlovian nightmare
Intrinsical sin

Exhibition

Filling rooms with vacant stares

Explorations of motion
Footprints in dust

Stirring memories

Like smoke thru shafts of light

Awakening


Invoking truths

Embracing lies

Subtleties of motion reflected back through mirrors cracked and shimmering.

A departure.

Reaching out you stroke my cheek and laugh, the sound of it musical in the cramped darkness.

Limbs entwined.

Like a conjuror coaxing up ancient secrets you cause me to rise, and parting slightly, invite me in.

In your heat I feel an awakening.

In the softness of you I know myself.

Missing


Mis-construed
Mis-directed
Mis-understood

Ex-communicated

Missing.
Something.

Daily stress
Nightly release
And a new bed

I need a cleansing rain

She gives off light
Blinding
Like a reflection off of a calm liquid surface

All answers are found within her

Within the color of her cheek
Within the pulse beating butterfly quick in her neck
Within the comfort of her breast
The safety of her arms
The dewey sweat upon her skin

Secrets are revealed and renewed
Recycled for future use

She squeezes me inside her
And I forget all reason

Hepcat Jazz


Out of season

Out from behind

The ghost of Jack Kerouac follows me

Taunting me with beat verses
and hepcat jive

Words like improvised jazz
Spiraling

Rhythmic

Pulsating with life on the road

Stories from backwater bars
in backwater towns

Tales of too many cigarettes
and cheap beer

There's a rhythm to the words

Can you feel it?

Dramatic pause

Dramatic tension
Dramatic license
And invention

Spiraling

Downward
Outward

Outwardly drifting

Words like tumbleweeds

Innocence


Once there was honeysuckle
The air heavy with the fragrance
The night wet with promise

Once there were fireflies
In the sweetness of the grass
The heat of the day mercifully lifted

Once there was wonder
The night sky cerulean blue
Ablaze with a million stars

Once we walked our neighborhood streets
Exploring vacant lots and gardens
The light from the moon our only guide

Once we shared our dreams
Lying in hammocks
Drinking Coke from green glass bottles

Once there was innocence

Once there was

Stories


Stories
Everyone has them

The man in the Gucci loafers
finds no fullfilment in his job
At night he cruises the streets
looking for something
Anything
Going home more distressed
Waking the next day
Feeling nothing

Standing at the sink
the girl with the hollow eyes
listens to her mother's
labored breathing from down the hall
She was pretty once, had prospects
Now she washes dishes
changes bed sheets
Waiting for her mother to die
So she can live again

The old couple across the street
toiling day after day in retirement
Wondering where the years went
Was it so long ago that they crossed the country
vital and alive
The bodies of three young girls
in the trunk of thier car
They never felt more alive than they did then
Sitting now in the home they built
watching daytime talk shows
Unable to share thier story

Stories

Secrets

A little girl lies in her bed
awake in fear as she listens
for the sound of daddy's footsteps
coming down the hall
He used to be her hero
her knight in shining armor
She would ride on his shoulders
her pigtails flailing behind her
Happy and safe in daddy's arms
When did her hero become her monster?

He sits in his chair
Shame overwhelming him
as he struggles with his desire
Time and again he has considered
ending it all
It would be so much easier
than living with himself
than seeing the look in her eyes
the loss of innocence
He drinks scotch to deaden the pain
and rises up from his chair

Stories

Behind the closed doors and curtains
of every home on this street

Secrets

The face we show the world

The one we see in the mirror

Painful truths

A turning

Dusk

Something about the ethereal quality of the light
as it shrinks from the day

and the subtle change in the smell of the air


This is the time I miss you most

3:17 AM


I can't sleep.

I find myself struggling once again
to find that comfortable spot.

Flipping over my pillow every 5 minutes
to get the cool side.

My mind wanders down lanes of my memory
that I would prefer stay locked away.

The death of my mother.
My father.
The end of my marriage.

Specific memories
that only come back to me
at night

when I can't sleep.

I can't sleep.

Finding myself wishing I was one of the vacant
who's nighttime thoughts are of things inconsequential

Cars and clothes and office crushes
Does he, will she, should I?

And I am so envious right now of the lucky ones
who fall asleep moments after thier heads hit the pillow.

The pillow.

I cover my head with it to drown out the sound of the ceiling fan
and I hear my heart beat.

I can't sleep.

And the thing that becomes more clear to me
as I toss about in a tangled sheet
unable to turn off my mind

is the most simple and glaring fact.

I am alone.

More so now than at any other part of the day.
More so now than at any other point in my life.

More so now.

And I can't sleep.

This was beautiful.

Thank you sir.

I wonder if you miss me from time to time.

If your mind ever wanders
and you find that you linger there a bit longer
than you thought you would.

And I wonder which memories of us
are the ones you have,
the laughter and the love,
or the discord and the seperation.

Do you ever get
that momentary pang of nostalgia,
just for an instant,
and wonder if nostalgia is all it really is?

When you think of me,
do you do so fondly,
or do you simply see me as
an object lesson?

Do you ever feel
as if there is something missing,
and for the very briefest of moments,
wonder if it's me?

Just for an instant?

By the way, i've read all these and enjoy them.

(Sometimes I read and don't ever post.)

I'm not much of a poet, but I've tried and can appreciate the effort, work and talent it takes.

Thank you John. I appreciate it. I really do. I have a habit of reading and not posting as well, and have in fact read most of the posts here in the Writer's Block, but only commented on two or three. That isn't to say I didn't enjoy many of them, truth be told, I am damn impressed by most of them. I need to make more of an effort to respond I suppose.

Formation and Circumstance

Formation

Events unfolding in time
shaping us

defining us

So many miles
So many choices

leading us down a single path

A bump

in the timeline of our lives
and divergent paths cross

Circumstance

bringing with it new choices
new events

and a journey shared

Rampant promises
Meaningful stares
Strangers sharing intimacies

Ritualistic dance
Sweat, smoke and noise
She says she wants to be a teacher

Out into night
Fresh air and rain
He hails a cab and opens the door for her

Fumbling with keys
Laughter in an empty hallway
Entry

Awkward tenderness

I want to be like Chris' father (real or fictional).

For a while there
I felt like I was in control

Of my life
Of my situation

We forget sometimes

We forget that the world is random
That events unfold without our consent
or approval

And in forgetting, we feel free

My guard was down

Because I was comfortable

Because I was cocky

Because I didn't see the warning signs
even though they were right there in front of me

Even though I should have

<<has sudden urge to shower>>

Thank you Jay. Sincerely.
I wrote that a few days after my Dad passed away.
Every word of it is true.