by Terry Scott Niebeling

Tender Thought

She asked me if I ever got writer’s block…
I thought about it…
Yeah… I thought, but only when I’m in love; I can’t seem to get out of bed…
***

All that stuff in the past, I can’t rewind that.
Think as it passes, and then relax, its as good as trash at this juncture, in relation to my head.

I was gathering dust and rust with lust, so I traded in.
And found something underrated.

I found something that was there with patience:
Greatness.

Like rocks in a river.
Like cold to a shiver.
Like heat to a blister.

One another, together; behold a symbiotic situation.
A generation waited in anticipation.
Baited with cinematic inspiration.

And mildly let down…

Until…

It Feels like a lifetime since I’ve said I love you like this.
It Feels like bliss.

Like that.
Like old hat.
Like a first kiss.

Like this:

Not unlike the heat of super-glue placement on flesh, but absolutely benign.
Love is hope.
Love stops time.
Love is divine, and blind.

Love loses coordination; A sea-sick sailor, oh(!), on weak knees.
A maladroit, worth being teased.
It’s not butterflies within my stomach, its children on trampolines.

Trapeze.

Water and debris, in all its glory, just float by me.
All to see; my mind’s absorbing and storing.

Stuff like this needs to be remember for later, saved for a rainy day as they say.

Call it Zen, call it mother hen to chicks, call it being logical and simplistic.
We all need shelter.
We all need a little helper.

Every movement of the eyes is categorized, recorded, and translated into a statement.
What do they see?

Check the facts, there are no stats on love.
Nothing hanging above, just pure perception, intention, and honor.

Like subjective minutiae worth the weight of the world sitting on your chest.
Like boys and girls.
Like coming unfurled; sprawled for all to see when you’re not at your best.

There is only true feeling.
No embarrassment, guilt, or regret.
It is heaven-sent, even to the non-believer.

To live without such love would be oppression, regression of my true nature.
Not a misunderstood nomenclature, just part of my culture.

How one survives without someone like her, I’d be damned to know…
She is like a warm drink and chaser in midwinter, she and I sat bedside as the sky turned grey.

We had only good things to say; no stones to throw.

And that is what I thought of on New Year’s Day.
I thought of writer’s block, and how it felt when she and I were alone.

We See but We Don’t (Easter Love)

I guess there’s not really all that much to worry about.
We are all dying, and everything is predestined.
My grandmother and grandfather are dead and soon the rest of my heritage will be gone with them.
Spread love while it lasts, while we last, while society and language languish into the past.

I guess I was mad for a moment, I came back to sanity and I’d dun’d know’d it.
I was mad at she and she at me and we just didn’t see all there was to see.
I to I.
We talked but harsh words and those words ended overheard and misunderstood.
Period, over-a conclusive conclusion, not convoluted with expectant prolongation of deceptive illusion.

I guess at the moment I am rich with marble counter tops and classic grand pianos, a charming brilliance of eloquence, alone I sit.
She seems to find me out.
She seems to not notice and go with the moments.
I haven’t the slightest clue so I won’t own it.

She’s 84, and she can’t poop or rather party, she is part me and partly alarmingly charming.
Surprising, huh?

Gift-wrapping the package which lacks all adjunct and adage.
I suppose this present is as appealing as a subpoena on Easter.
But we will be seeing ya, Miss Senior.

The desert looks friendly, alone and of plenty.
Lacking worms to devour the corpses.

The Twilight Zone does not crumble it grows as it rumbles.
Thoughts tumble as we tumble.

Above you sits the humble, below you we don’t know who, but the jumble is like a jungle of tongue-throws and bumbles.
She sits and mumbles as we sip the bubbles.
Only to know where I rest later, who I love later, what I become later, its all so subtle a wager.
And who’s to judge who?

In all time and in all place there is only one thing to remember (even while staring into the mirror):
I love your face, for better, forever.