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)

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)

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)