My poem “reverie” is the featured “Poem of the Issue” in this week’s edition of The Austin Chronicle. This one is just about a month old, although I actually started it in January 2010. Started it, got stuck, forgot about it, and then picked it back up and finished it about 18 months later. Very unusual for me to do that. Usually, if I don’t wrap ‘em up within a day or two, the moment passes and that’s the end of it.

I’m always looking for her. Always. I seem them everywhere, but not her. Did she already pass through my life and I missed her somehow? From a purely statistical standpoint, I know that if I counted up all the relationships, love affairs, dates, crushes, friendships, random encounters, near misses, and failed attempts, those numbers alone would lead me to the conclusion that I should have found her by now.

The numbers, oh the numbers. Much of the time now I feel like there isn’t room for even one more woman in my head, much less my heart. Where do I put them all? Every woman I’ve ever wanted, touched, felt, loved is still with me, even the ones I think I’ve forgotten. I add to the list every time I’m in the grocery store. “I want her and her and her …” But I don’t really want her and her and her. I never did. I want the only one I’ve ever wanted. I want her.

A week or so ago, during one of my drawing sessions, I found myself drawing one page after another of old girlfriends. Some of them anyway. It would’ve taken a lot more time than I had that morning to draw a page for all of them.

I suppose it would actually be more accurate to characterize the subject of this drawing as a near-girlfriend than as a girlfriend. That “girlfriend or not” line was more than a little fuzzy more than a few times with more than a few women. In this particular case, the fuse was lit and all engines were firing but the rocket never left the launch pad. The mission was aborted (not by me) before takeoff due to extra-relational complications (not mine).

Every time I hear the old Cars tune “Drive” (which was big at the time as well as apropos to the situation) I think of her. Kinda wish I didn’t. Not a great outcome for me. Most of ‘em weren’t. The next one was a helluva lot worse.

Once again, there were several other things I was planning to post first, but this one has been nagging me for days and is speaking the loudest right now. Lots of color and motion in play here. I get a little lost trying to follow the different colored lines around.

That old Roxy Music song was playing in my head as I was completing it, hence the title.

Today’s poem on video, “wild cactus dancer”, is from part three (“intimacy and illusion”) of my upcoming book Scapegoat’s Cross: Poems about Finding and Reclaiming the Lost Man Within.

It didn’t take me a long time to write this one, but it took me about fifteen years to get ready to write it.

For more poetry on video, visit my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/rickbeldenpoet.

knock me out
I mean you
knock me out
I mean you
crank me up
I mean you
scare me baby but
I’m alive and I can
take it.

(PDF version)

silver blue moon

alone …
together …
alone …
together …

waves lap the shores of a silver blue moon
too soon to tell if I will love you

but time knows the answer.

(PDF version)

a single thought

a newspaper rustles
a ball bounces
and I think of you
because that’s all I have now
well
have ever had of you
a thought on my brain
you gave me no more
so I left
and here I lay
with another man
in his bed

and it was only a few months ago
you were inside of me
and we talked about having babies

Trisha Freeman

Did you feel it? Bam! A little shot of reality, personal and true. Very tight, not a wasted word, and so real it hurts. This is the kind of poetry I like the best.

stubborn and impatient
breasts like perfect teardrops
voracious wounded heart
swinging from man to man.

my love for you was animal fierce
and gravity absolute
heart love
brain love
beast love
soul love
you had me all the way
my life was bound to yours
every cell in my body
ate and drank and wept and slept with you
you swept through me like a blizzard
I wanted no one else.

I knew you before I knew you
we gave birth to one another
we howled together on hillsides in the dark
we flowed out of volcanoes hand in hand
burning everything in our path
merging and cooling
into lakes of glassy black diamonds.

I would’ve stood in the sun for you
until I burst into flames
I would’ve stood in the wind for you
until I was blown to pieces
but it wasn’t enough.

someone put a little black hole in your heart
I thought I could fill it up
I tried but I couldn’t
you needed more than I could give you
you could never believe that I loved you
no matter what I said
no matter what I did
you never knew
how completely
I adored you.

(PDF version | Video version)

As a man in his early 50s who’s been single for a long time, I’ve encountered an enormous number of women who are frustrated by their lack of success in finding a “good man.” I’ve also found that many of these women (and I’m talking about women who are independent, intelligent, and capable) have ridiculous expectations that many men simply cannot satisfy.

Women who are 5’2″ are “looking for a good man” who’s at least 5’10″. Women who make 50K a year are “looking for a good man” who makes at least 75K. Women who make 75K a year are “looking for a good man” who makes at least 100K. And so on.

Many of the single women I’ve met who are “looking for a good man” have also demonstrated an almost pathological degree of self-centered behavior. I recently had a 45 minute phone conversation with a woman I met through a dating website. It was our very first call. She talked about herself the entire time and never asked even a single question about me. When I ended the conversation, she wanted to know if I was going to call her again. When I said no, she sounded disappointed and confused.

I wish I could say that the experience was unusual, but it wasn’t. I’ve literally lost count of the number of times in the last ten years that I’ve had a prolonged “conversation” with a single woman who talked non-stop about herself the entire time, without missing a beat and without showing even a flicker of interest in me beyond my role as a receiver for her egocentric broadcast.

I’ve also noticed that many of the women I’ve met who just can’t find a “good man” are quite comfortable going on about what rotten, useless idiots men are. One single woman I know would positively light up with enthusiasm, bordering on joy, when telling me about getting together with her female friends (married and single) to laugh about the moronic antics of their clownish, clueless husbands and boyfriends. I cannot recall, nor can I imagine, ever getting together with any of my male friends to laugh it up about how stupid and deficient the women in our lives are. Nor would I want to.

This same woman plowed through bodice-ripper romance novels as fast as she could turn the pages and once asked me if I thought she should get back together with an ex who’d previously cheated on her twice. She considered me boring and once told me I was “abnormally sensitive” (not a compliment). She also told me I was obviously unable to commit to a relationship because I didn’t have any plants or pets in my home at the time, one of many “facts” about men that she frequently cited from the “Venus and Mars” school of self-help books she regularly read along with the romance novels.

I agree, and always have agreed, with what Kellen said in her post:

A good man needs a good woman to stand beside and work with him to build their life together.

What I want, what I’ve always wanted, is a partner and a peer. Two equals who work together, as individuals and as a couple, for the betterment of both. And I’ve always assumed that women wanted the same thing. However, I’ve come to the unfortunate conclusion, based on my inherently limited experience as one person, that there are an awful lot of women out there who believe a man’s function in a relationship is to take care of and entertain them.

The profiles I see on dating websites consistently emphasize three qualities that women in their 40s and early 50s are seeking in men: security, excitement, and fun. You must be successful. You must love your job. You must be financially secure. You must be in great shape and a good dancer. You must wine and dine. You must be well-traveled and available for frequent vacation trips to multiple destinations, domestic and international. You must be sensitive when she needs you to be and “manly” the rest of the time. You must defer when she feels like making decisions and “take charge” when she doesn’t. And of course, you must be at least 5’10″ to satisfy the requirements of even the most diminutive heightists. (The average height for an adult male in the United States is 5’9″. I’m 5’8″.)

In the real world, many good men are not 5’10″. In the real world, many good men demonstrate their capacity for commitment every day by doing jobs they don’t like because they don’t have, or don’t know, another way to make a living. They’re not in great shape and they’re trying to do something about it, but it’s not as easy as it used to be. They live quiet lives and they can’t dance worth a lick. They’d love to enjoy expensive meals, expensive clothes, expensive concerts, and expensive trips here and there, but they’re trying to live within their means and save some money for a retirement that may never come.

In the real world, good men have financial issues, health issues, family issues, emotional issues, you name it … just like women do. They’re pressed for time. They’re stressed at work. They’re doing their best just to hang in there sometimes. They want to do better, to be better, and they’re trying. They’re works in progress … just like women are.

For those of us who are unable to make ourselves taller, richer, more “successful” or more “interesting/exciting” the prospects can appear rather dim. I can’t know for sure, but I suspect that a lot of “good men” are simply taking themselves out of the game these days for that very reason. I know I have. I’ve been trying to get back in there again, but it sure hasn’t been going very well so far.

Do I sound frustrated? I am. I know there must be single, attractive, available, self-aware, self-possessed women out there, maybe lots of them, who don’t fit the profile I’ve been describing in this post, but for whatever reason, I’m not meeting them. I’m still hoping to find one, but optimism is wearing thin as the years (and the one-sided conversations) wear on.

Addendum: Shortly after I wrote this post, a trusted female friend advised me that I should list my height as at least 5’9″ on dating websites because all of the single women she knows assume that men are lying about their heights in their profiles. Therefore, listing my true height (5’8″) would lead these women to believe that I’m actually shorter than I am.

So in order to appear attractive, I have to lie, because the women looking at my profile will assume I’m lying. I wonder if women assume men are lying about their incomes as well. And who knows what else.

This is insane. Is this really how men and women want to interact with one another?

Thanks to my friend Jack Kammer for encouraging me to publish this post.

I’ve posted some preview material on my web site at rickbelden.com/new_book, including an excerpt from the introduction and some of the poems that appear in the book.

I’m also making preview copies of the complete manuscript available to those who’d like an early look. Please see rickbelden.com/new_book for information about getting a preview copy.

but our little house of lies isn’t big enough to hold us now
she won’t stand up for herself + I can’t stand up
for both of us at the same time anymore
so we ride the broken lover’s seesaw of staying + leaving
one foot in + one foot out
we dance in the kitchen like unloved children + wait
for fulfillment of old pain’s expectations.

so anxious to leave
so anxious to be left
so anxious to be right
so anxious to be hurt
so anxious to be disappointed
so anxious to be alone again.

when this whole thing started
I wanted us to be immersed in each other
I wanted us to fix each other
I thought that was what people were supposed to do
I don’t want that anymore
I don’t need that anymore
but I still don’t know
how to love someone I don’t want to fix.

(PDF version | Video version)

she’s
tokin’ up his affection.

she’s
taken up his affection.

she’s
taken up his affliction.

she’s
tokin’ up his affliction.

she’s a
token of his affliction.

(PDF version)

no second thoughts
he takes her straight in
straight into his veins
straight into his bones
a double shot of morphine
right between the eyes
the visions come
fairy tale poison
she can save me.

no more pain
he lives again
no more doubt
he is strong again
no more fear
he is free again.

for now.

(PDF version)

plastic shoe bag
pup tent luv hump
monkey wiggle freeze-out
smoking hat funk.

animal hammer dance
virgin forest loner
happy insect yearbook
angry bow tie boner.

(PDF version)

he went to work every day in the new moon werewolf factory
which specialized in producing mechanical men
prone to blown gasket meltdowns.

living with dynamite dick was like
eating a barbed wire sandwich
while soaking in an acid bath hot tub
during a thunderbolt crossfire.

his mouth was a non-stop blasphemy festival.

he was a walking argument with god
and his obstinance was rewarded
with numerous lightning rod enemas.

dynamite dick fell in love with a french kiss steamroller
and used his powers of hostility to turn her into an angry farm girl.

he ordered a standup fistfight
but found himself in a tunnel vision break dance
and wound up in the wish list penalty box
with a bad case of
overload hammerlocks.

dynamite dick was raised by a family of feuding tomahawks
and grew up to be an angry ax.

his childhood was a frozen tar pit full of bellowing dinosaurs
who wanted out and ate anyone who tried to lend a hand.

now dynamite dick works on his prostate scrapbook
and seeks safety in numbness.

his life was a raw deal
and he knew it
and he passed that raw deal on
to everyone he could
every chance he got.

(PDF version)

what if I took your hand in mine
and unfolded myself for you
what if I dropped my cover for you
and showed you what’s inside.

would you run
would you flinch
would you laugh.

would you give me one of those
long dry silent stares
that freezes time
makes me wither
and sets me back on my heels.

what if I showed you how to love me
then found you didn’t care
what if I thought you understood me
then found out I was wrong
what if I thought I knew you
then found you with someone else.

you move me
I want you
I want to open to you
I want us to open to each other.

you make me strong
you make me weak
you make me hard
you make me nervous
you draw me in
you push me back.

you try to hide your fire
but I see it.

you seem to want something from me
but I feel like if I tried to give it to you
you wouldn’t take it.

you’re a soft sexy beautiful blue-eyed dare
a smokin’ hot gamble lookin’ to pay off
a tropical pool at the foot of a cliff.

ten years ago
I would’ve taken that dare
I would’ve gone all in
I would’ve jumped in feet first
but today

you’re a risk

I can’t

afford

to take.

(PDF version)

tonight he dreamed of a reunion
with all of his high school peers
no one had changed too much
then he woke up
and realized
everything had changed.

while he’d been struggling with how it was
and dreaming about how it oughta be
everyone else had been getting on with it
getting married
having kids
building careers
making money
growing up.

now the arrogant aging wonder boy
looks in that yearbook in his head and sees
doctors lawyers businesspeople
bosses owners academics
masters of government and commerce
kings and queens of the corporate world
wily investors
and more millionaires than he probably realizes.

he jolts awake at four in the morning
sweating
heart pounding
no wife
no kids
rented apartment
lousy job
a few thousand in the bank
wondering if there’s still time to turn it all around
scared to death there isn’t
worried it’s already too late
worried that the same reverse jedi mind tricks that got him here
will keep him here.

so here I am at four AM
in the dead quiet of the dark
the only sound I can hear
is the ringing in my own ears
peter pan at midlife
plus a few years
wondering what the hell happened
where it all went
the former smartest guy in the room
mister know-it-all
a victim of my own inner hype
narcissistic
grandiose
egotistic
idealistic
moralistic
unrealistic
overcompensating underperforming
king of the world
(population: one)
slapped down by time
and my own inflated pretensions.

even my dreams lie to me now
no one got older
nothing has changed
plenty of time left …

wake up sleepy man
time is ticking
am I gonna get real
or
am I just gonna get old
or
is it too damn late now anyway
no matter what I do.

(PDF version)

sadness about
rejections and betrayals of trust
sadness about
starving through the days
without passion or sweetness
sadness about
forgetting what it’s like
to love and be loved.

I keep trying to avoid it
but I can feel it in my body
if I pay attention.

it feels like
a big bulge growing in my chest
a throbbing pocket of grief
that’s swelling and getting close
to breaking through
like a boil under the skin
before it breaks the surface.

when I touch it I see
a boy standing all alone in winter
on the surface of a frozen lake
while below the ice
a dark mass rises from the depths
not menacing
not malevolent
but very primitive
with the consciousness of
one of those strange sea creatures that lives
in the coldest blackest deepest water
massive blind and silent
it moves up toward the surface
and the ice is getting thin.

nothing frightens me more
than feeling my own grief
falling through the ice
into the deep unknown
I always feel like
it’s gonna kill me
I always feel like
it’s gonna swallow me whole.

(PDF version | Video version)

flirted with a trip to the yellow rose after work last night
but once again the energy to do it wasn’t there in me
too many negatives from prior experience
I thought about
the awful smell
the bad music
the nasty vibe
the cost
etc
and furthermore
I couldn’t bear the thought of even one more vacant conversation
that starts with
so are you from austin
and ends with me hearing about
someone’s kid
or her dog
or her hair
or her boyfriend
or any other number of moribund topics
that I could really give a damn about
while I look into her empty eyes
and watch the gum bounce around in her open mouth
like a load of wet clothes tumbling around in a dryer.

I looked for some other local skin clubs on the web
but was uninspired
that one’s too far to drive
that one’s too skanky
it all seems so fake and empty and stupid now
I just couldn’t do it
which is good
but I still felt bored and anxious
and wanting …

… something …

was it
connection
touch
companionship
a sense of purpose
to hold and be held
to cherish and be cherished
to be moved by something
to be inspired to passionate action
who knows
whatever it was
I sure didn’t get it.

(PDF version)