the accidental poet

she’s a ghost

I catch her drifting through the room,
pale and translucent.
Eyes flit over her as if she isn’t there.
but she is, isn’t she?

An ethereal spirit of milky white skin,
I have trouble focusing on her.
My gaze passes over her and around her,
smooth and pale as she is.

Now I find myself staring at her, willing her
to become more opaque.
I quickly glance away, embaressed by my
rapidly growing obsession.

She drifts from point to point, person to person,
a vagebound spectre.
I can’t help it, I keep my eyes on her,
I am enchanted.

I am now afraid that if I look away,
she will dissapate.
And I will be left with nothing but a memory
of her pale, creamy existance.

She serves me drinks,
beer to be exact.
Or so I fear.
I sit and watch her
in motion, moving from
patron to patron.
All get a smile,
all get a taste of
her sharp and sexy wit.
But I get a wink.
Maybe I am the only
recipient of this…
Maybe I am not.
But it sure feels good
to think I am…

The smoke twirls and roils in the air,
just over the tops of the buildings.
Silently it disperses, never to be touched
by human eyes again.
Where did it come from? Was it
from a wisp of fire, rolling and
frolicking before it was snuffed out?
Or maybe the smoke from a semi
as it begins or ends its long
journey to or from this city.
It could have brrn the exhaust
from a bus, stopping to pick up
and drop off its daily load of
passengers.
Or maybe, just maybe, a fault
opened just the other side
of that building. A fault that
beckoned with all the answers to
the mysteries that lay deep within
the earth. A fault that was
only there for a moment, but
long enough for smoke, probably
older than me, to escape.
But now it’s gone, a casualty to the
atmosphere. And I am left to wonder
at its faintly shrouded origins.

droves, herds of them,
pass me by while time does too.
I sit on my porch.
feathered quill in hand,
beer at my side.
And watch.
A wave, a smile,
ut yet they pass.
Do I expect more of them?
But of course not.
For I am a watcher.
As much as I am
loathe to admit it,
that is the lot that
Fate has cast for me.
So I sit and watch.
Bottled beer in hand,
quill at my side.

I remember.
I remember it so well.
Do you even remember at all?
Do thoughts of me cross your mind at all anymore?
Or have all those memories of me
faded until there’s just a hazy reminder of
who I was?
Unknowningly I spurned you.
Unwittingly I rejected you.
I’ve always considered myself one of the
biggest victims of unrequited love.
But I never stopped to think about the ones
whom I victimized.
Had I only known.
Everyday I wonder at what I’ve missed.
The chance I had before me and
like a fool I turned away.

The one moment that sticks out in my mind
is what melted and broke my heart.
“She signed all of her Christmas cards ‘Love’
so that she could sign your’s like that.”

I only wish you happiness.
For as long as I’ve really known you,
that’s the one thing I’ve always
wished for you.
Over the years, as girls have come and gone,
through jobs and friends, heartaches and worse.
We’ve been lucky though.
Things could’ve been horrible,
but they really haven’t been.
We’ve been so extremely lucky.
The jobs are better off gone,
as are some of the friends and girls.
The heartaches have been small
enough to heal, and the worse…
Well, we haven’t seen a whole lot of that.
So here’s to a friendship that spans
the distance.
Here’s to a friendship that will always mean more
to me than you’ll ever know.

Chatter, pratter, endlessly on and on.
The guys so desperate to impress,
with their gruff voices and don’t
care attitudes. So quick to slam a
Half & Half to illicit a giggle or two.
The girls so quick to laugh, so quick to
lay a hand on.
Leaning intently over the table, looking,
waiting to leap in with something
witty, disgusting, and semi-hilarious,
so that someone, anyone will respond.
Of teenage promises and pinky swears,
and much swearing to god.
They come in waves, eager to pray
to their commercial gods of Nike,
Tommy, and Abercrombie & Fitch.
Is this there existence? Is this what
they are reduced to doing?
Or has this become my existance?
Sitting in my empty booth, watching;
cynical and sarcastic.
So quick to write them off.
I see them as outcasts from my
social strata. But I know that
they see me as the same outcast
from them.
All I can do is shake my head at them,
and myself.