Nebulous Creations

I'm sitting with two young men
At a picnic table in cold wind
One throws ideas at a white space on his wall
Kept vacant for this purpose
One stuffs a file full of pieces of an invisible world
That no one will ever see if he can help it
And they expound on these nebulous creations unashamedly
And I sit mute and burning with a history
That maybe five people in the world have followed
One became a different person who was an unscrupulous stranger
One lost their mind, then reconstituted it
In a strange robotic form
The others had babies and learned a kind of importance
That makes nothing else important, least of all
Solo selfish bastards like me

And there are clues I drop to this history
And there are dark spaces I hammer words into at night
That all the world can access
That tell all my stories plain, if they only ventured to go there
And I'm a business-minded, practical person
Who knows the importance of a good elevator speech
But I don't want to do that work
I want those who need to find me come and find me
And find themselves burning as they turn the pages and start
Fitting the pieces together


Roses

Last night I went to a panel talk
And there was one who caught my eye because she sat
With her legs crossed in purple tights
And her elbow hooked over the back of her chair
And the corner of her mouth was upturned in a knowing way
And when someone tried to pin the spotlight to her
She spoke in nonchalant generalities
That shimmied out of the way
And tossed a few clues that I caught
But the depths remained
Rippling, dusky, and un-plunged
And even more beguiling, she said,
"I'm just here to listen"
And I wanted to shower her with roses