Morning Time In The Office

The ladies all gather around their coworker and marvel
at the nice rock that adorns her finger.  They get
an infectious case of giddiness as she announces
that her boyfriend proposed to her.  Her moment
has the cubicle cheering and I'm starting to wonder:

Maybe I could chance it and scream out loud right now.
But I keep my mouth shut and speedwalk
past the celebration for I was in no mood
to smile and join in the festivities.
Call me a grumpy man if you want,

but I realized that stopping by to offer
the briefest of congratulations would only
prove to me that in this environment, my task here
is to go along with the flow.  In fact, that's my
only real task for the week.  Talk about vacations

and baseball games and upcoming projects.
Yesterday was the last day I got to be
outwardly honest for a while.  I shared
parts of myself with a lady in a downtown
coffee shop, things that I usually keep to myself

but somehow started to fall out of my mouth.
Maybe she brought a level of comfort
to the public atmosphere where we sat,
where I didn't have to worry about
keeping a public face and a calm demeanor.

I shared and she listened and I probably
could've gone on forever.  But closing time
stopped this makeshift nirvana from continuing.
We said our goodbyes and went along
our separate ways, and I knew

as I walked further down the city streets
heading toward my car to drive off
away from here onto my residence of
Suburbia that a moment like that
will have to last for a while.

Online Dating

She's thin.
She's pretty.
She's blond.
I told her not to worry.

I think she'll be fine
making an inquiry
to the world, letting
everyone know she's available.

Surely there will be the
unwanted come-ons of
the unattractive and unmannerable,
but she'll have many more options

than the rest of us.
She's been blessed with a
triple dose of attractive that
men will stop and check out.

Preppy

Blue dress shirt,
khaki pants,
beige loafers.

The uniform of
preppy men
never changes.

A sea of them
now approaches
and I find myself

laughing, young and old
dressed the same,
a single mode remaining

consistent through time.
Thankfully I was
never part of that crowd;

I have my own style,
sitting comfy, casually
smiling in my blue jeans.

Don't Bother Knockin'

I already know who she is.
She's that friend you
told me about who
saw me when I wasn't looking.
I knew it was her
when I happened to
peek out of my window and
saw her standing next to her car.
I thought to myself,

Damn.
She's as broke down as I thought.

Figured that
was going to be the case.
because I've learned that
just as attractive and classy
tends to attract
attractive and classy,
broke down
tends to attract
broke down
and I've always felt you
were broke down.

Of course,
I won't say that to you in public.
I'm a good neighbor.
I keep my mouth shut
and go about my business.
You told me one day
she had stopped by and
you weren't sure if you
should've come over and knocked.

I'm glad you didn't because
I hate to be cornered by desperation,
her desperation to find a man
and your desperation to help her out.

Let's be clear.
We're on different levels
and I'm not lowering
my standards for anybody.
So if you want to help,
tell her the bar is high and
her ass better start jumping.

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Mirror

Sometimes I look in the mirror
and I see a younger version of myself
staring back at me with a snicker,
wondering how the hell I got to be
so damn mellow, retiring
for evenings at the same time
he's ready to run the town.
I can see the youthful features of me
glowing in the mirror, looking
forward to blaze trails
across the great unknown.
He dares me to stop with
the suburban routines and just run,
run all day and night,
run up and down the streets and highways,
run until you drop,
and then just keep running.
But I have to tell him
time is moving on and
the days of youthful indiscretion
are things of the past.
His running then
has me here now
wondering if I could've been
somewhere else had he just
stopped and thought it over.
But it is what it is
and we are both here
staring at each other
forever connected.

Why I Don't Write Love Poems

I knew this would happen,
but didn't think it would be
here sitting in my office
on a typical Tuesday.

So here I go again
tearing myself to pieces
because I wrote
another one of those poems.

I should know by now
that when I write one,
my mind is never forward.
Looking back at her,

she may have been
the only one I ever loved.
The others
were something else.

Lust,
infatuation,
even wishful thinking;
they seem to fade away

as my words gravitate
toward her, leaving me
in the inevitable state of
bleeding all over myself,

the scars on my heart
reopened.  Good thing
here at work I can close the door
and turn my back on the world.

taking the time to close
all my wounds.  I know
the pain all too well;
my pen always leads me there.