A Critical Reading of “Bold Patience”

I wrote a poem, it developed feelings, and then it forced me to interpret them.


Bold Patience is not a poem about loss. It is a poem about arrival. A record of the instant when a simple moment becomes irreversible, when innocence folds into experience, and when a touch becomes a permanent inhabitant of the mind. The poem is divided in two, but it does not present a before-and-after of having and losing. Instead, it charts the passage from not knowing what something means to finally understanding it—a shift far more seismic than absence could ever be.

The first stanza lives in the soft immediacy of unexamined experience. A hand touches a hand, breath catches, eyelids fall, and the speaker dissolves into a glow that feels infinite. The emotions here are pure, unselfconscious, suspended. Even the fragmented declaration—
I 

    am 

            happy

—lands like an unfiltered truth spoken before the mind knows it should be careful with such truths.

Then the poem fractures itself. (He says he’s happy, Jackie.) This is not a lover interrupting the moment; it is the speaker’s own metacognition stepping onto the stage. It is the voice that breaks the fourth wall of feeling—the awareness that turns experience into something observed, examined, and therefore changed. This is the hinge upon which the poem pivots. The moment of interruption marks the precise point where the speaker’s emotional innocence ends.

The second stanza is not a lament for someone who is gone. It is the body and mind recalibrating in the aftermath of meaning. The touch is now “phantom,” not because it has been taken away, but because it has been internalized. Breath no longer catches in pleasure; it stalls in recognition. The eyes no longer close in surrender; they glaze in contemplation. The mind no longer glows—it burns, restless, alive with an understanding it can’t return from. The descending final lines—
I 

    miss  

            her
—do not mourn a vanished presence but acknowledge that the speaker’s emotional landscape has been permanently altered. The “her” is no longer just the person; it is the version of himself that existed before he knew what this connection meant.

In this way, Bold Patience becomes a quiet diagram of transformation. It is the poetic record of the instant a person becomes real to the self—when touch becomes imprint, imprint becomes memory, and memory becomes responsibility. The patience invoked by the title is not the passive waiting after someone leaves; it is the bold, active endurance required once something meaningful has entered the psyche and refuses to be unknowable.

The poem ends not in absence, but in aftermath. Not in longing for what was, but in living with what now is. It is a hymn to the small, devastating moments when emotional clarity arrives uninvited and stays forever—
a shift of light into ember,
of innocence into experience,
of presence into permanence.

Bold Patience

For all her flaws perceived. 

When she places her hand on mine— 

my breath catches before it slows, 

my eyelids grow heavy, then gently close, 

my mind glows with infinite light, 

I 

    am

          happy. 

(He says he’s happy, Jackie.) 

For all my flaws perceived. 

A phantom hand, softly placed on mine— 

my breath stalls between weary thoughts, 

my eyes glaze, then fix to the distance, 

my mind burns with restless embers. 

I 

    miss 

           her.

modern dancer

dreams of dancers last night.


i was working at a coffeehouse again and
we were auditioning dancers to work at the coffeehouse.
i'm not sure why, but we were. and i was there to... judge?
i'm not sure of that either, but i was there, sitting at the
head of the table. i had the knowledge and confidence of a
knowledgeable and confident judge of dancers.


the best part. her.


the. best. part. her. she.


she was the in-between auditioners entertainment.
she slowly walked to the middle of the floor and performed
the most graceful and elegant dance i'd ever seen. her expression
was serious and full of emotion. you could feel the warm energy.
like waves or pulses of warm, buzzy, goodness.
before you know it, she was done and
the next auditioner was up.
i only saw her dance once,
i knew she'd dance again.
and again. and again.


dreams are dreams are dreams.

then, the ocean

the ocean beckoned and i came a-coming.


i skipped yoga, because i felt it was okay.
i wouldn't feel guilty about missing one day of practice--
seeing as how i've been going twice a day lately. so, instead
of grabbing my mat and yogitoes, i grabbed a couple of cameras,
a bottle of water and i was out the door. i briskly walked toward
the train station, but i was 20-blocks away and only had 10-minutes
to catch the next train. missed the first one. i stopped and bought
a coffee, sat down and chilled for a bit in the morning sunlight.
i checked my email and checked my voicemail.


unbeknownst to me, she called my three times
and texted another three times. my phone had been turned off,
because i hate when phones go off in the middle of yoga practice.
i listened to her messages several times, as i was not quite awake.
i tried to make sense of the timeline in which she sent them. apparently,
it was throughout the latter half of the day. realizing this, i suddenly felt
sorry that i wasn't able to reply sooner. i sat in my thoughts for a moment,
but couldn't stay put for long, the next train was due to leave in
30-minutes. barely made it aboard. i had to run for it.
literally. it's actually one of my simple pleasures.
it's how one should board a train; running after it
and hopping aboard just as the train begins
to pull away from the platborm.


i called her a couple of times
on my run to catch the train. no answer. voicemail.
i can't remember what i said. my mind was a whirlwind.
i worried that my legs weren't long enough to get to the train on time.
i walked light and quickly.


all i could think about was her. i felt uncomfortable.
a day earlier, i felt comfortable. i thought we were in a good place.
but somehow, i had burdened her with something heavy enough to
cause a need for her to contact me throughout the day.
a 2.5-hour road track trip with her.


i found myself walking through golden gate park,
trying to be lost. lose my mind in the trees. it worked.
something about the smell of wilderness. makes me think of childhood.
good times. carefree. now, as adults, life weighs down on us,
until we need to escape back to the good times.
good memories.


i exited the park on the west end.
never thought i'd find it. a few times i thought maybe
i was being tracked by a mountain lion. absurd right, a mountain lion
in golden gate park. maybe. maybe not.
homeless people sound like
mountain lions inside
urban parks.


the beach.



then, the ocean.



all was right.

so... i'm waiting

I went to the Apple Store today
with the intention of purchasing one of them there
shiny, new iPhone 4s, but I knew, in the back of my head,
that there was no way in hell there'd be any left.

As I approached the store, in the middle of the f#cking mall,
I could first sense, then see that it was pretty much
packed in there. Like sardines.

So, I am without an iPhone 4. I am without any phone,
for that matter. My one-year old Blackberry is
on it's last legs. Or so I assume, cause it
won't turn on! Well, it did,
then it didn't again.
I'm done with it.

I put my name on the waiting list at the Apple Store.
The dude with the iPad, taking names and emails,
told me they'll be receiving "shipments of
one-hundred, every few days". I asked
him how many people are waiting.
He said "several hundred".
So... I'm waiting.

• • •

running thoughts (or get your act together man, pt. ix)

it was my birthday on sunday.
ah, yes, yet another year has passed.
happy birthday to me! happy birthday to me!


i organized a birthday bowling party with all of my workmates.
white russians were imbibed with irony.
balls were bowled with inaccuracy.
and tons o'fun was had.


and for this,
it was quite a good weekend.
one for the history books.
aka, the blog.


how was your weekend? 

hm?

she and him, in the sun

hooo boy! what a fantastic spring day!
wait, is it spring yet? what'd that gopher tell us?
groundhog, whatever. did he see his shadow? is it still winter?
actually, it really doesn't matter what season it is, it's sunny outside!
and the air is brisk. my favorite, non-wintery kind of weather.
i love it, dammit! if it could stay like this all summer,
i'd... i'd kiss a horse's ass. yeah. literally, kiss it!
no, figuratively! but i'd totally do it!


these blossoms are killing my sinuses,
but they ain't dampened my spirit!


are ya enjoying this weather?