When in Venice, Remember to...

Click clack, click clack.
Remember to feel -- the cool metal of the rails as you cross over bridge after bridge, the soft crumble of the walls as you meander the ancient maze, the warm wet air seeping into your pours.
                           Click clack.
Remember to listen -- to your heels echo over cobblestone, to the deep laughter of humanity from all corners of the globe pouring out of tiny ristorantes into sidewalk tables as it lands gently upon the lapping waters of the canals.
                          Click clack.
Remember to breath deeply -- inhale the minerals, lingering espresso, rich history and the luscious soul of the place.
                           Click clack.
Remember to get lost -- take the wrong waterbus and let the Italian sun kiss your lips and the spray sprinkle your face.
Click clack, click clack.
Remember to look up -- at the rainbow of laundry, clothesline after clothesline spanning narrow calles from tiny shuttered window to tiny shuttered window; at the fantastically warm Venetian smiles, ready to help in as much English as they can muster; at the flowers, the tiles, the bricks, the stone, the ivy, the architecture, the style, the sky.

Remember to be.

If you want to love me, first know this...

...walking in gratitude, seeking only light, with an abundance of love pouring out of my pockets;

I find resonance in rock, water and roots and recognize myself in the reverberation of place.

Drawing images with words, I choose decoys over deflection, so, just in fair warning; I cannnot be trusted... yet.

You see, I've fooled even myself by keeping my hands so busy - shoved deeply in those bottomless pockets or extended, full of offering - never ready to receive.

Keeping my hands so busy - painting, building, sharing - to make you feel, without letting you feel me.

I've fooled even myself; into believing that giving love, sharing words, healing the world makes me open. But if my hands are always full when I extend them, then they are by definition not open and there is no room for you to put your hand in mine.

I do not yet know how to bare my palms.

So do not trust me yet; though I seem giving and whole, do not trust me until our shared laughter has bounced off of walls and back down our throats, into our hearts where I may let the idea of us rest for a moment.

This is the only circuitous route that I know of - and perhaps its from the inside-out, with inescapable laughter, that I may place my open hands upon my stomach and heart and let you love me.

Of Voice and Concoctions

...as I sat on the edge of that bed in that mostly gutted house, weed and trap-music wafting under the door, we looked in each other's eyes and saw eons and worlds. He was vacillating between wanting to deeply connect with a kindred soul, and wanting to impress the chick sitting inches from him on a bed.

He said,

"Please don't take offense to this, but there's something... you, you're like... an old... lady, I mean, uh, you have like this beautiful grandmother energy, but its like... you are her, or shes you... both, but different...I don't know."

As the weed settled into him it made its famous cocktail of lowered inhibitions mixed with heightened self-consciousness. But he needn't worry about offending; I knew exactly what he meant.

You see 'the women' have been talking to me, talking through me, my whole life. The grandmothers, the mothers, the matrons, matriarchs and mavens.

And here I seek to give them voice and in hope or vain, I find mine.