Solve for X

Puddles meant it had rained recently. Not a lot, but enough to keep oases in otherwise dry parkinglots and driveways. She was glaring out, her expression paralleling the picaresque gloom of a midwinter scene: naked branches, browning snow, and a sky four shades lighter than the pavement in this town.
It wasn't necessarily that she was feeling down, but rather that she was profoundly confused. I'm not supposed to be staring out this window she thought. And it was the naturalism of her incredulity that eventually brought her blue.
Her husband appeared at the doorway heading towards the room in which she stood. His silence and distance explicitly expressed that today was not a new day. It was not a bright shiny morning. It would not be different. He reluctantly accepted the necessary paces (regretting his reluctance because they had only married months ago) to come within an adequate distance. An appropriate distance. An obligatory close. Close enough to put his hands on her shoulders. Close enough for her to ignore his false affection. And she felt his distance, his closeness, a breath away enough to transition from his bitten lip and triangled brow to a stoic calm and pout if she were to turn around.
"I saw what you tried to hide."
She whimpers in response.
"I--...I can't tell you how marvelously disappointed I am...but I can't tell you that anything's going to get better."
He squeezed her shoulders gently to try and instill what little comfort he had to offer. And though he was aware of her awareness of his falsity, it was an all too subtle attempt to save face for his sincerity.
"I'm not supposed to be staring out this window," no longer to herself, alone.
He took some time to understand how he wanted to say this, but did not think to say anything else.
"I know"
...
"but I do still love you. You must realize I--"

Mary considered herself a mathematician when she first realized her gift.
"I can't believe it. She's-- It's incredible."
"Mary: what is three hundred twenty four thousand two hundred and nineteen divided by four hundred fifty six point two?"
"Is this going to be on our test this week?"
"No, Mary; this one is just for you. I have a calculator here, so--"
"--seven hundred ten point six nine four eight seven oh six...seven. I think."
...
"Incredible."

*to be continued*

InsignifAmericana

I walk awake through waving fields of American
somnambulists
No matter how loud I yawp for them to wake up To Wake Up--
Nothing.

Arms at right angles clasping currencies, eyes and minds closed to cultures
and blessings,
thoughts and smiles upon and come from affluence and frivolities...
Sneerable.

And I wish so squintingly that I could stroll slumberly myself, not
having to pay--
Pay mind to the Them that I don't care for. Pay mind to the infinite
disagreements.

I call the Them 'Consumericana,' ignoring the every and any that elude being called
'things.'
I call the Them 'Insignificana,' growing our country spoiled
bastard,

while Daddy Sam walks out on us with pride and honor in his pockets instead
of on his chest.
I sing now of what he stole--hid--what we took away from our
elderselves:

of Voices
of Words
of Move....ment
of Wit
of Eloquence
of Antici-...pation
of Discovery
of Feeling
of Imagination
of Love
of Conflict
of Humanity...My Humanity--My distant and inspiring humanity.
__________My pride?
Of an improbable humanity? Of all and every and any
that is too pure and too beautiful

to be slurred as 'things.' But I reflect on me and--
I'm human too.
I'm no Dalai Lama, I'm not. I'm not perfect at all, but I'm
no Nosferatu either.

Senryu from Buffalo Show

I heard a girl say,
from two port-a-potties down,
"how do you flush it?"

Them Are The You That I Don't Care For

If I can't have her, then I must have sex.
Those makedup stilleto girls meaning one thing
from this ageless fairness loveliness girl
meaning all things.

My thoughts coursing the slim spectrum
of little more than their curves, colors, and moans,
____her singsong voicing eccentricities, epigrams,
and smiles.

And I remain in a velvet melancholy,
knowing I can't hold her but
can hold their one dimension,
the one dimension.

The one dimension we adore in one another;
sex: the cause of, and solution to, my insomnia.
Sex: the physical compensation I enjoy and
the soullessness I ignore.

And I stand a ruined man, dichotomy-incarnate,
both in love and in lust with the woman of my life,
the women of my life, respectively.
My James Dean* schism.

So long as she carries on quiet or ignorant,
I'll endure a silent and polite cold war and
I'll continue discovering new bodies to
please my body**

while my everythingelse remains
distant and neglected (not by choice,
but by my fate to remain faithful in
futility).

*James Dean was a young actor who starred in only three films, "Giant," "East of Eden," and "Rebel Without A Cause." After the 50's and his tragic death (tragic in its description and in his age), Americana has never been the same. He was both a Romantic and a Sex Icon, assuredly.

** This line was heavily influenced by E. E. Cummings's [i like my body when it is with your].

Only

A break from my studying,
my eyes move lightwards
to a soft and distant glow,
far by foot, farther by feet.

And squinting at this
feeble emulation of the sun,
I question why it is so high
that its light cannot touch our heads.

I think about all the lives
that anonymously pass under
its attempted shine at night,
and how lights like this were around.

They were around around the grounds
of my studies, a place which I am
thankful I am only studying.
"Only studying" I say and heave;

"Only studying" but not
"only a place" because
Auschwitz should never be
preceded by "only."

And the higher the light reaches,
the less we acknowledge the lives
underneath, the distant and anonymous,
the darkandpast hoarding stacking corpses.