read gently

optimism builds things the opposite could not, will not ever imagine. optimism is love. optimism is truth. optimism is loyalty and the inability to be inconvenienced. optimism has one fatal flaw. it slaps hard in the face of the hurting if not tempered thus: it must only be felt, not heard. it must radiate a modest heat and follow through gently with easy embrace. despite the blows and contest it receives, if given well, optimism is the fountain of youth and the heart of empathy and shared sorrow. in optimism we wake and we try. death and cursing ensue when one empties his glass.

jPayne2011

(photo jP 2009 - click to enlarge)

my very own, my love

when the food is gone from the morning table and the hours of work have fainted into the midday, i can still taste you..
we were warm last night and again this morning.. i put on only clothes and keep lively the smell of you on my wrists.. i walk in straight lines.. i know exactly where i'm going.. the arrow is fixed..

and when i am old and i've written, i want NOT paradise, nor riches, nor fame, nor toys..
i want you and my life's best years yet lived

(photo by m. mckee 2010 - click to enlarge)

for Jerry Maguire

i toy with an idea i don't own
pouncing adopting on marriage bed
sleepytime, i stroke the black curly notes
as if they grew from my own head

singing our song of circumstance
i foster a godless inheritance
disdain the tune of society's dance
and give the little bastard a chance.. to be Man

vindictive vigil, my amber tune
brown but i know they're really blue
revising correcting fathering i assume
thought i am not the author

jPayne spring 96 (ouachita archives)

i rode my motorcycle down the trace along the lake in old iuka
the cool of your mouth still rung the nerves against my skin
and the drone of those miles took me high above the road into the thermal canopy
where swarms of birds rang out like making love in fall against your sweet blue hands

i can't say it truthfully my darling that there is even one broad second
that you don't crowd in earnest hard against the core of my pretense
the pang of those tender moments leave a less than steady current
and my chest tightens anxious by the hour, i am stanley running heavy against the pavement

though i'd like to portray the lionheart, like some indestructible uriah
i'm drowning remembering last night as you cooed fantastic in my dreams
the lavender satin doff came slow underneath our pressing-struggling desperate to illuminate
to apprehend those breaths we missed of us while meeting ends and ripping seams

to settle in to some perpetual groove, to sweat pelf and see efforts dominate
acting like its ok to be away when the world spins violently
every moment we misplace touch, every word we don't speak easily
strikes unkind against these childhoods we gave in turn near shouts of joy like christmas playthings

could i actually take you for my own and say i'm here beside you always
my nose will sleep beneath your neck until i'm dead
the travels i must take i will only take with you with me, ours
roadside wines and foods and beers, perfumes and plush motel beds

to see you bright, your fire fulfilled in the knowing that you can survive alone the heights in confidence
i understand and do not underestimate the plight of that beautifully vital hub of thoughts
but i also know you, and at last arrived, you'd satisfy those longings
pushing back new ships to life, if we could forever journey by, holding closely, disavowing the normal caveats

not losing eyes, blowing out the candles, before i leave you lying
in the scent of us,
it might seem to dissipate under the smoldering glowing mirth
but long after the ashes fly, my love, you will still smell engines burning
we are eternal we are the sun we are the nightingale come autumn
we are the fragrant oil seen traveling back to earth

jPayne10.3.10

to do

useful.. its days like these, i want to come, and take your lists of things, to quietly fulfill, working in the cracks, to see you offer one single sigh of relief from your tired anxious breasts. come rain. the magnet pulls in sunlight.
jP 9.30.10

voices of dogs

(click to enlarge photograph)


when there are beans, there are poor people
eating them in the sheds south of the water.
they are destined to struggle. they will die
in the city of their birth.

dogs like buddy don't come around but once
in an age, and he'll tell you the secrets of time-
the things that went missing since he was here
the last time, and you'll die to know that he will
soon be gone while you are living on
beans.

i used to grow them in my yard to taste
and remember the shoes i wore holes thru by night.
nothing would tag the innocent children of poverty
like the rags they put back on.

dogs they don't care. i am animal, i am man, i am
the sweltering heat of the pavement south of the water.
the life of happiness is nothing but loving to be loved
and the gross part of humanness is seen echoing
in the voices of dogs, complaining about their beans.

jPayne 2000something

(photo by jP sept 2010)

holland

we choose to need. we choose to depend or we choose to be alone. leave me on the other side of the world without her and i will relish the time it took to get there; the plane ride where she almost believed that i would love her for all of eternity.