I fear I will not hear that voice again, even in harsh
refrain, a silence so astounding it deafens me, this plant I once saw as a rose
(with all this thorns), now seems a weed I dare not pluck, having no other to
take its place; even if its scent is sour rather than sweet, I know thee are
still fair, most of all in my thoughts, and so the fault need be with me, a
faulty gender who has turned perfection into something spoiled, how much
service I would render thee if I could, if then would let me, to rejoin what
once was, happiness, though I know this is not possible and so what joy I take
from thee is all in my mind and dreams, what satisfaction I must generation for
myself, even tough it is you that will always inspire it. I know a warm heart
beats within thee, inside thy breast, only it does not beat for me, and that
from thee I might generation a million unspoiled pleasures, should chance allows
it while in reality I am out in the more desolate, desperate and cold, as if in
a winter rain that withers all it touches rather than makes things grow.
The last leaves from the trees in the yard are gone from limbs,
strewn flat on the ground in need to be raked, when the forecast already
predicts a deep chill, though not yet below freezing, the cold seeping deep
into my bones, retained until spring thaw, mother nature’s holy ritual as the
calendar winds down to the official first day of winter, and then three bitter
months of bitter cold we must endure before we feel warmth again, before we see
the first buds promising the return of leaves to the trees, promising a sense of
hope, the way we hope love will embrace us, each day marked off as if a prison sentence,
locked in this frigid embrace until we are recalled to live, love resurrected as
with the leaves.
I like to think there is more to connect us than what lies
between those legs of yours, though in the dark of night, when I move, I often
think of you, I stroke up the fires that makes you come alive in my mind, and
imagine again how it feels to plunge in deeply and hear you moan, this fantasy
that arrives just before my eyes close and I descend deep into dream where it
all become that much more intense, and no number of strokes can contain it.
I like to think there is more to it than this,
and yet, this is what I miss, the game of tag, touching that button I know will
make you react, each time I get deep enough to push it, this thing we do (I
imagine) that connects us again and again.
Stranded again, with a car that won’t start when I most need
it, this dependance on people and machine, too acute, and I still linger on the
edge of dreams that always have the same landscape, which I can’t possibly
reach with or without machines, forcing myself back to each dream each night
when I closed my eyes, seeing faces I have not seen in reality for a decade,
yet still ache for. as I did when I did back then for real, sometimes, stranded
in that dream world as well, unable to start up or get there or hold on – once I’ve
managed to reach there, no dead battery keeping me from that place, but
something else, more acute, something that binds me and makes me ache to never
leave..
I see you even now as I saw you in the heat of summer, down
in the lobby below where I perched in my loft between the stairs, you with sun
dress and sunglasses glowing where the sunbeams poured down through the wide
windows of what once was a bank, you're 33 years sitting on you so lightly I
mistake you for a teen, virginal not a virgin, an attraction that still makes
me ache, now that cold has replaced heat, and you like summer and fall have
passed, into a much chillier season.
I did not see you
leave only heard rumor of it, yet feel your absence as if someone cut out my
heart and it still beats even in its absence. I pray to get it back when I know
I can't, no more than I can restore that summer when you looked so grand and
yet, even then remote and inaccessible. a virgin who is not a virgin, who even
then needed to leave to be with someone other than me, sun dress and sunglasses,
caught in sunbeams that remain always in me, lost about seeing you leave
three kittens in the yard; life used to be so hard, the old
song claims, this, the third batch of one cat has produced yet not without
flaws, the one week old from an earlier batch she abandoned, never meant to
live, even when we struggled to keep it alive. Now, another troubled kitten
with the latest batch, with non-functioning front legs, she kept rather than
abandoned, we determined to fix it and release (nobody would adopt it), but no
able to survive out of doors with our without us, the way his more sturdy
siblings can looking, up at me with utter sadness when I come near, as if it
knows fate is against it and yet tries to thrive, hobbling after the others,
trying to take part in a life that may end up too short, yet still struggling
Out there, where I stare, buried in the harbor of the city
that never sleeps, the street cars of my father's time reside, dumped there by
well meaning people, who assumed we might never need them again when a wiser
man knows we always do,
I feel like a
streetcar abandoned, no longer on any track to anywhere, lingering under the
waves of passing ships and unable to lift myself out of the muck to feel loved
again; this is nobody's fault, just the unfortunate circumstance and the
inability to live up to what is most needed, and she must seek that love where
elsewhere with someone else, the old play coming to mind about desire when the street
car can't take me there, and I do not have the Ferrari that will, this is not
to say I'm not good enough; I’m just out of touch, out of time, the way horse
and buggy became obsolete with the automobile came, the streetcar unable to
carry me to where I most ache to go, to arms who are open for anyone else but
me, and I feel each wave passing over me here in the river near the city never
sleeps
I still hide in my room sometimes, the way I did it 12,
scared to come out, to hear the bickering of the real world, to be face to face
with people who may not like me
At 12, girls still scared me, maybe because I did not want
to admit what I wanted from them, maybe just another lie like the one I told
earlier this year when I claimed I could take the High Road, when I knew from
the start I could not, and you all dressed up as if on a date, a vision I see
when I close my eyes, the devil in the black rather than red, as I ponder what
color lipstick you might wear on this day or that, and whether you chose to polish
your nails, and what exactly goes on behind those dark eyes of yours, what
exactly do you want from me, at this moment or that, though now after the wind
has cast you adrift like another fall leaf, none of that matters, and once
again I hide in my room, feeling as ready as I did at 12, yet without any way
to do anything about it, scared not of all girls these days, just scared of you
The pavement steams, blistering sun after a torrential downpour,
smoke rise and bright daylight I feel it all deep inside, at a loss for
something missing; I am steaming inside as much as the street is, from a deeper
heat and heavier drenching I have brought upon myself, unable to cure the ache
that inspires this fire in me, clutching the cause, keeping it from exploding
in my hands when my minds eyes sees something else; this spark that starts this
fire in this dark place, with no other way to keep it contained, steam rising
out of me first, then it bursts through, and having no one else to touch, I
must touch myself, slowly, winding it up until the downpour comes and the steam
dissipates
when I ease the head of it inside I lose my mind; I lack
control as to where it goes, that head taking deep dives that my logical head
tells me I ought to avoid, yet can not, don't want to, easing into all those
forbidden places until I am completely lost; there is no road map to wrap my
mind around, no landmarks to guide me through those dark spaces, no logic, only
the feel of it around me, sucking me deeper into the great divide until I can't
escape again, the in and out of it, the pull away only to get yanked back
inside, again lost abased by my own desire, unable to say no; once my head
eases in, I am again lost in space again, losing my mind
I do target practices in my mind, my dart aiming for the
center she exposes, a bullseye on this attempt or that, leaving a stain at the
end, white not red, not blood, but just as precious. I am more than half drunk
on wine when I do it, which always affects my aim, and so I have to clutch my
dart with both hands to assure that I hit what I aim for.
They claim practice makes perfect, though I still crave for
the real thing, doing it when it matters and not just in my mind.
Does it count if I only get a rim shot, or come close, but
not quite all the way the way they say with horseshoes?
To east it in and move it around so that my dart hits the
hot spot beyond the center circle, to that place deep inside, which I pound
out, practice I know will never be real.
In my twisted imagination, I think she’s slept with some
many lovers, I would need a calculator to keep track of them, while I – a jealous
twit – could fit all my on the inside of a matchbook cover.
I imagine her with everybody I see her with, lovers that are
friends, or colleagues or bosses, or maybe even underlings at random, strangers
in the night who she’d never see again at morning light, some more than once,
some times more than one, men or women, tied up, she, then, front door or back,
upstairs or down, right side up, upside down, inside or our, inspired by her
need to feel it all in every way possible, life being too short not to grab all
she can, in any manner, not always to trickle up, some times just to feel good
in that moment, knowing it won’t last forever, and true or not, I envy her.
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