Alone

(I wrote a poem today
that was so bad
that I had to laugh.

I began to get sad
and just wished
that I could
vomit up
the words belonging to
the feelings
which held me hostage,
but all I got
was an
insuppressible
chuckle.)

Alone.

Corinthian.

Black Widow.

Brick window ledge
against
my inner
thigh in the morning and
at night.

Coffee, black.

Cogitate on
copper
crowns.

Silver swan
surreptitiously
sighing.

Purple piccolo
piping a pastoral
promenade.

Lonely?

No,
just…

Alone.

(There, that’s better.)

Small Worlds Proliferate

Such a small world
it seems to me–
Spring
lies warm and
evenly
upon my cheek
even as,
a world away,
your hair
is soft-lifted
by
the winnowing wind.

Such a large world
it also is–
infinite
in reminisceries
and in
eternal
potentialities.

The world is small
according to
our paradigm,
but mine is
ever-widening
since
I see you
perennially
on the outer edges
of my vision.

The world is large–
impossibly large–,
but mine is
made small
since
I see you
everywhere
and in
everything.

All the Seasons bide with thee as Winter hides in me

(B)right
vermillion blossoms
bubble upward
to branch tips,
thirsting
like old ships,
and
are coaxed forward to
bursting
rush
by
newly-awakened
Aphrodite
until they gush
like
cold lips
near melodious thrush
in white
effervescent
blush.

(S)oftly
down they glide and float,
sighing
their delicate
surprise,
as begins
this serenade
in
erstwhilely bare
surmise;

&

(G)rains
which propose
golden seascapes’ flow
do gestate
as they glow,
and sudden from the earth
they spring
that vibrate
as they grow;

(A)s,
new-anchored in her
lotus bloom,
Persephone
doth sleep,
the arbor aisle
lies verdant while
Adonis
gently
weeps.

I scribbled love in the margins

I am afraid
to profane
the pages
of my immortal
library
with my thoughts
“of
and about”
because
I am scared
to muddy the water
for those who come
after me;
Yet, in so doing,
I
violate
their
own decrees
and forfeit
their
secret chapters.

What man
is not ashamed of
his current thoughts
a mere hour hence,
much less those
of the lesser man–
himself
from days
fled
thence?

I admit
I am
now possessed
of a hoard
of which
I thought
to have
possession
first–
the basin which has
no inkling
in or of
man’s
thirst.

Yet love for me
was finding she
to whom
I
might willingly
surrender these.

The paradox of
love:

In sharing
our joy with
others
whose sorrow
will not
seem to abate,
we divide
it and find
that this
is the way
that joy
proliferates.

“Touch has a memory”

Remembering, I think at times
And other times I don’t.
But when I think, I think in rhymes,
Since that’s what people want.

If what the poet said is true,
“Touch has a memory,”
Then I’m ashamed to say to you
Amnesia’s taken me.

I wish I’d memorized your hips
From days that rush away,
Or that where you once placed your lips
Had lingered or had stayed.

The things you say, the things you know,
The things you never show.