Monday, February 22, 2010


longing makes you do the things you wouldn't
and you grieve the pain your panic might have caused her
but belonging makes you become the thing you never could have been otherwise
tasting is believing
and the joy you found in solitude seems bitter
as you relinquish time alone for time in love

jPayne - 2.22.10

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

to my love


i listen to older couples speak of old hats
and listen to them say the thrill is gone.
the world passes outside the curtained room
and the creeks rise frantically unnoticed.

when a house is on its stilts living above itself,
the facade of a morphine drip pushes the button down.
a rebel in the corner listens on
the grass inside his pipe is newly picked.

they whittle away at the hours laughing loudly,
and the wine flows evenly thru forgetting glasses.
the sciatic nerve glows hot with rising fester
but unbent knees know the floor is for little children.

a widow said her term life policy was up to date
and she made sure the younger old were staying current.
she lost her husband but at least he had insurance
he dropped dead after not touching her 18 years.

there is a gradient set that worries the masses
and another set of policies that most adhere.
the life to bond becomes updating a kitchen
and the wallpaper in the north bedroom needs replaced.

i looked all around me to find a connection deeper
than the one in that moment they found among the friends.
i saw it poor akin some fraternal order where
woman separate themselves from the men.

when we were young they say we used to be so carefree
but the loss of resources fostered a dim perspective.
and the medals of respect, of persons grew in that very moment
but diminished again when based on profits and net worth.

he's a self made man they hawed and changed the subject
another lofty station to admire.
but all the rooms in the biltmore do not linger
more than a second when i'm looking my love in the eye.

2 years have past with no sign of fading.
the flowers bloom and i plant in you over and over again
they tell me give it ten years and i'll feel different
but they don't know the power of my pen.

i write my own life, i write my own romance
i write the words to love by and ever live in.
the idea of my affection is enough to turn the pages
and i will never go a day without you in them


jPayne - 2.4.10
photo jP - jPaYne charcoal sketch summer 09

Thursday, February 4, 2010


you asked me a question and i answered. then i finished your next question as you answered it for me. we laughed in unison and awe, and reached for each other simultaneously.. your hand over and around my neck and i ducked in to help you put it there before you moved to do so and i reached around behind the portion of your lower back and pulled you in just as you crept forward to take me.
we smile now intently in the amazement of how well we meet and how well we know each other as we glance over at ourselves in the mirror on the wall. we laugh again at how beautiful we are and the times you are cold i am warm, and the times you are warm i need heat and my hunger is always met and your dishes always washed. we are in sync and amazed to get to be so close, confounded that we actually get to love like this. the way we move in sheets and the way we touch in shadows and the way a single bed is enough to lie on, we are peaceful. grateful in each others arms and mindful of the now, we thoroughly give in to joy.

jPayne 2.4.10
photo jP summer 09

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

the trouble with rage


the trouble with rage is that it is locked in a room. the door has been sealed by the magician capable of disguising doors and there is no distinction between the walls and the floor. one can only look up into the pane of glass reflecting the mustache of his postponement and the world freezes outside to a steel halt as ones existence moves within and on without him. there is no whiskey in rage. no coffee cup or side-fire to make one weep in his soup. no calling dogs or firing roman candles into summer relief. cousins live next door and the voices and rumblings of words one can't make out push thru these walls at all sides and the seething is unkept erupting into the mind and wasted imploding into the ashes of his tears. finally when one is forced to empty the door unlocks, but no man is empty, until he is empty.

jPayne 2.2.10
photo jP - studio winter 2010