Black Squirrel

Black Squirrel

There was a large pine I would walk past

Everyday

Near City Hall.

A black squirrel lived on that tree.

Storing nuts all spring and summer.

Running across the lawn.

Sleeping in branches.

I found him one morning dead in the street.

Burst open.

No expression on his face.

I’m sure those nuts are still hidden away in that tree. 

DUST SETTLES AFTER THE SKIN HAS FALLEN AWAY

DUST SETTLES AFTER THE SKIN HAS FALLEN AWAY

The load bears witness to the growth.

Heavier now than before.

The weight more solid, too.

I guess that’s what it means

to mature

to love

to be hurt.

Age adds a lot to your face,

Except hair.

You hope one day

That everything you built

(Started to build)

That every piece comes together.

Time feels wasted looking back,

But you haven’t learned the lesson

Looking forward.

Sometimes there is no Lesson,

Just an exhaustion from experience

Repeating. 

Copyright Oren Peleg 2012

We're Getting Older

We're Getting Older 

A faded image: a couple falls onto the crisp white sheets of a bed in each others’ arms.

A morning shower.

The breakfast table. The morning paper. A piece of toast and black currant jam.

She enters. Late for work. A black pencil skirt and white blouse. Her leather satchel in one hand. She empties the coffee press into her thermos.

You get up to kiss her.

“Morning, babe.”

“Morning.”

She takes what remains of your toast off the plate.

“I’ve gotta run.”

“Bye.”

The door slams shut.

“It’s always me doing nothing. Staying home and pretending that’s all it takes to be a successful creative," you think.  

"I don’t work hard enough. I need more concrete goals to push me along,” you think.

You finish a bowl of cereal and the paper.

“More dead in Syria” crosses your mind.

Copyright Oren Peleg 2012 

This Is My Favorite Room

This Is My Favorite Room

She was right.

Maybe not about everything

But about this.

I thought you were a missing piece

But you’re disappointing like the rest.

Each with his own basket of flaws

To sort through.

W.A. said it best,

Everyone will disappoint.

The light changed with this,

Your reflection a bit bluer.

So now I’m down to the final piece:

Me.

I see me reflected in you.

I see me a bit clearer for it.

It was over a drink that I understood,

I only think about myself.

I wanted to ask you if it was true,

But you were talking,

and I laughed at the irony of it.

Copyright Oren Peleg 2012 

One. Then Stop.

ONE. THEN STOP. 

You changed lanes too many times.

Trivial to some,

Unbearable to me.

I kept shouting at you in my head,

But waited to release a feeble demand

Later.

We got home but I never relaxed.

You played music entirely too loud,

Annoyed by the sounds of others.

Like a child throwing a tantrum while drowning.

How I cannot wait to leave here.

Even if that means leaving alone. 

Copyright Oren Peleg 2012

The All-Consuming Love Affair

The All-Consuming Love Affair

The all-seeing

All-consuming

Love affair.

Step right up to see the wonder of the

Disappearing Man

He couldn’t leave his demons behind

He couldn’t leave Her

And so

They ate him

He tried to run

But they hung on,

Barnacles to a pier,

Taking bite after bite

And as he shrank

He realized that they weren’t eating him

But his demons.

So, he cut them off.

Knowing that he’d grow back

Stronger

Healthier

Without.

And he could finally stop running.

Copyright Oren Peleg 2012 

Piecemeal

PIECEMEAL

I wake but keep my eyes closed

struggling to find a comfortable position.

I give up, and rise to make the bed,

converting it back to a couch.

I resolve to eat the fruit left in the fridge for breakfast

but end up with a bowl of cereal, instead.

I wander the outskirts of the internet for awhile,

then decide to visit the library.

I shuffle through the graphic novels,

then down to the oversized books

where I browse full-color plates of

Van Gogh, Kandinsky, and Patrick Heron.

I find a beautiful whimsy and magic in the

Blues, Greens, and Yellows of Van Gogh’s palate.

I have some emails to attend to,

But rather sit in the sun and read a comic picked from the stacks.

Later, I spend some time writing,

then make dinner.

I look up recipes for peasant bread

but I am missing several ingredients.

The day ends with a documentary

about Man’s trip to the Moon,

after which, I listen to the pulsing of Coltrane.

Both offer a sense of awe and magic.

Copyright Oren Peleg 2012 

Our First Breakfast

Our First Breakfast

Our first breakfast together was at Choux Factory 

along 1st Avenue near 87th. 

You had a small coffee and decided against a brownie. 

I need my morning caffeine, first -- you said. 

I ordered a small green tea and a chocolate croissant. 

The morning felt cold and fresh, 

though I was still judging by LA standards. 

You mentioned that it was one of the 

last Beautiful Days of the season. 

We leaned across the table to kiss,

then you left for work, 

while I roamed the basement stacks at Strand. 

I picked up a book that said we over-estimate our talent 

and abilities 

because facing our flaws is too difficult. 

Only the Depressed are Realists. 

The place was crowded with hipsters from NYU 

who thought Sylvia Plath was the greatest thing. 

I got annoyed with them, and left 

to find leather boots for the encroaching winter. 

Nothing fit and everything was too expensive. 

Coming home, I got off the E line before my usual stop 

to pick up some Thai food. 

I spent the next few hours thinking about my eventual Death 

and what I should do beforehand. 

You text me to say that Bossa Nova wasn’t your thing, 

but that American Imperialism was, in fact, 

justified Exceptionalism. 

We made a few more jokes, then said goodnight.

Copyright Oren Peleg 2012

Ghost Town

GHOST TOWN

Sometimes I stop and the engine catches up

I remember the life I picked up too quick and fled

I left the cables, the nodes, hanging

Unhooked

Like those textbooks left strewn open

On the abandoned school desks of Chernobyl.

It is dead now.

The moments when I stop,

I feel myself begin to crumble,

And I hurry to hold it together,

But the pain lingers,

The mistakes still haunt.  

Copyright Oren Peleg 2012

Wyatt Esther And The Burning Christmas Tree

Wyatt And Esther And The Burning Christmas Tree

Manhattan in the East 90s

The palisades of the Park rising towards 110^th Street

Starbucks on 96^th and Madison

The Episcopal retreat’s library on 95^th

Names like Madison, Lexington….Mulholland

Brisk Fall air

The earthy color palate of the leaves in October and November

We’d walk across the park to the Upper West Side

Such a foreign land to us

We were foreign there too,

Strangers

Tourists

Exploring

The Whole Foods on 97^th and Columbus

It supplied us a Thanksgiving

You were right, we never did holidays Together (Beyachad)

We couldn’t hold it together long enough,

Not like those leaves who wait every year for

October

And November 

Copyright Oren Peleg 2012

Line And Dot

Line And Dot

The LINE is an infinite beam

Continuing without end in both directions

But, holy, the conundrum of the RAY

An infinite beam with a terminus

Both LINE and RAY are

Infinite in duration, but

The RAY begins

or ends

from a single point.

A single cause that perpetrates

unimpeded

a set of effects for eternity

AND

true too,

An infinite set of results

Drawn from a single input. 

The History of All Things

Begun with a single point. 

Copyright Oren Peleg 2012

The Distance of A to B

THE DISTANCE OF A FROM B

You can read this introduction quick or slow

The same way you can read life.

Quick,

like an empty highway,

just You trying to get from point A to point B,

task to task,

goal to goal,

book to book,

without stopping to take in

a beautiful field,

purple mountains lining the distance,

clouds as fluffed and perfectly formed

as a new pillow.

Without slowing to rest at a roadside café,

stretch your legs

and process the journey thus far.

Quick, just to finish the trip,

scale the height,

and move to the next

without enjoying the view

from its peak.

Slow,

if you take the jammed packed highway,

on purpose.

Packed with each vehicle picking up dust,

like a million individual thoughts racing

through synapses and axons – new connections forming

at every juncture.

Highways filled with thoughts heading from

their own A to their own B.

Roses smelled, and coffee savored.

Slow, if you want to enjoy the journey –

counting and analyzing each passing car,

each passing word --

unfazed by the ambiguous length,

and excited by the prospect of

a Point B to reveal itself

only further down the road.

Copyright Oren Peleg 2009