THE DEPARTURE

Autumn.  The last sweet season before winter’s frost

Covers the earth and everything burrows inward.

A tender chill is in the air, and piled colors lost

From where they grew crunch underfoot upon the yard.

I am a visitor tonight, returning to the grounds

Where long ago I brought books and heart, as offerings to place

Onto discovery’s doorstep.  Now, hearing vibrant sounds

I follow a row of lampposts where athletes set to race.

I watch the gracefulness of youth, the passion which commands the field.

To spectators, age has gifted scarring for body and soul. 

And you, my cherished, peaceful warrior, whose intellect is battle’s shield

In this summering of life will sprint anew, leave our borders, leave us all.

Beloved voyager, I have no power to make clocks lose motion

And I know how futile the attempt to show my devotion.

11/08/2005

ON THE SUBJECT OF ANGELS

If I believed in angels,

I would wonder who

The angel would be

Assigned to look after me.

The love I called sweet angel

Is gone

And I let everything crumble into ruins since then

The threads holding me to life

Dissolved

And I am not a weaver to lace them back again

I ask for an ethereal angel,

Sexless, like I want to be.

Give me a celestial angel

To hover round me lovingly.

My sweet angel, a love I thought

Was true

Packed up, boarded a plane, and left me miserable and blue

Someone enticed him to a far-off shore

Gleefully now

Has him in tow, back turned to me, he has abandoned me

In myths, winged angels

Always accompany your soul,

And at life’s end they hold your hand

As heartbeat fades and body turns cold.

I love a man who is capricious,

To be disconsolate

Is my reward.  A piece of me broke off and died

When sweet capricious cast me aside.

Forsaken,

Not yet a cynic, I choose to yearn for his return

If I lacked passion

As do ethereals,

How fortunate would I be:

I’d live each day agony free.

I know angels do not exist,

Neither in love, nor in the heavens:

They live in dreams, they are a wish

And I know I’m a fallen human,

Coveting another’s happiness.   

My cup raised high, I toast to emptiness 

I’ll drink red wine till my bottle’s done.

Fly down archangel, share a glass

Then strike me lifeless,

Discard me where the dead amass.

                                              

  

MY LOVER IS A HUNTER

Oh, lover, you have aimed at my heart, left me

To howl like a beast caught in a hunter’s trap.

Crushed from the weight of hopelessness

I feel

Bones smashed, flesh torn, my body broken,

Broken by lovemaking that does not heal.

My arms are

Outstretched, empty, craving your embrace

Yet you’ll not come 

I cannot escape from abyss to find passage to your heart

My movements futile labor, all measures a step back

To the backwoods 

Backwoods sequester me, wild nature grows round me:

I see clouds rush, shadows appear, an umbra obstructs sunlight

Yes, home; and I hear the wind lash upon the weeds 

I speak to you

Of love

You, a phantom now.  Only my echo sounds your reply,

A whispering of my own words, filtered, distorted: 

Beast

Nest in your trap, gnaw raw your wounds, the hunter

The hunter left these woods.

MENDING

Sweet you are

And sweet music, sweet.

Easy wind, trill of birdsong,

Water drop from leaf to leaf,

Come to the wood

Hike off the trodden path

And you’ll hear

And you’ll dance,

The earth is slowly ripening

Crushed spirits crave enlivening  

A walking stick for wandering,

It’s morning spring, come see. 

(August 31, 2014)

FOR YOU

I have nothing left to give you but my words

But they can be powerful, words,

Fastened together or single stemmed

Sailing upon electric waves, pooling in

Synapses, innumerable words,

The genesis of my thoughts, words

Which overfill and flood my mind, words

For you.  Stretch out your palms:

I’ll kiss them ever softly and place upon

Their long lined gentle coating all my words.

You will have hands filled with eclectic language,

With words praising the essence of you,

And praising your kindness, amiable, your mischief, playful, 

Your curiosity, exploring and inexhaustible.

There’ll be words to love you with, and bed you with,

And feel and taste your skin with my lips with.

I will invent new words for all the secret, tender

Stanzas of your body, and give you luscious words,

Sweet-fruit, delight filled words, words

That tell how each detail of your manner and stately

Countenance is now imprinted within each cell of my body.

If there are melancholy words to give you

I will plait them with music

My effort to allay their sadness

In the embrace of a song.

Take my cocoon of music and of sorrow

Store it in the fertile soil of your soul,

Nourish it there and it will turn it to salve

Use it when the world leans heavy on your shoulders

And labours you to search for respite, 

Yearn for reflection, yearn for the aesthetic.

Perhaps it’s grandiose, this scheme of mine

To send you all these words. But I will send them,

Packed inside a florist’s box and mixed

With every redolent blossom I can find.

If you choose to open the box and touch

The blossoms, please also run your fingers

Through my words. They are only meant to comfort you.

And so, my love, since there is nothing else that

I can give you, I ask that you receive into your home,

Into your heart, out of their box, my greedy words.

February 2006