EXPOSE I remember how it was snowing outside that night, An actual blizzard, streets impassible, My house almost warm As I held you by the waist And kissed you hard. How well you kissed me back. No children or jobs that night. Nothing but us. Tonight I drink the same beer as we did That night And I love you with the same passion Although you are not here with me And never will be. Me, alone in the snowless winter With nothing but hours And memories of us Kissing and listening to music As the snow fell and fell Under the attentive streetlamps Of Floral Park. I’m listening to music now, Different than the music we listened to That night But I know you would like it. Everyone likes Johnny Cash And I know you are no exception to that. I wish it was snowing And I wish you were lying beside me And I wish you were as drunk as me And I wish the morning light Would never break through In a few hours And expose. GOODBYE, LAUREN It was a year ago we first began to talk on the phone And made our plans to meet. She worked assisting surgeons in a hospital two hours away And she was a lot younger than me. So many women are now. It’s terrifying. She liked Dave Matthews but I didn’t hold that against her. We made our plans and our conversations got hotter leading up To the day. She was pretty, I liked her personality and she was going to drive two hours To come to me! All those hours on the phone, we knew each other a bit, Plus the messaging on social media. It was going to happen. It was going to happen! I was so nervous I could hardly sleep the night before. I woke up to find a text telling me, “Morning…I woke up feeling like shit. Fever, sore throat, can (sic) breathe.” The funny thing was a few hours later I had the same symptoms. Half the State had the flu. At first I thought she changed her mind about meeting me But I convinced myself that this time was different. We just talked so freely and easily. We matched. This time was no different. I texted her a few times that day and she never responded. I went to Facebook the next day and she had me blocked. So That was that. Again. I called her once and left a message saying that I was sorry she changed her mind, Then I deleted her phone number. I said, Goodbye, Lauren. Your name is now on a list that keeps growing And growing. I still think about her once in a while. What else do I have to do? I AM NOT A MESSENGER I am not a messenger And I am not a monster There are demons within me Squelched with but a look from you The sickness the sadness of me Shrivels and shudders smaller with each day you are with me I am not a question And I am certainly not an answer Walls rise between us Rivers pulse through us The walls cannot resist these rivers And they fall I am simply the father of my children I am nothing else but your lover I am quite content to be these two things These two things and nothing else As we contemplate side by side Smiling in the darkness and the silence, reveling in the beauty of each other ON HEARING SUZANNE VEGA’S GYPSY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TWENTY YEARS And there you are after almost twenty years, as beautiful and awkward still as that song that makes me think of you. My thoughts of you are only tender now. The complexity of your mind. The simplicity and depth of your compassion. Your eyes that revealed your kindness and your sadness as you forgave me unflinchingly my profundity and absorbed my callous selfishness with the downcast eyes of a drizzling day. You were a puzzle I couldn’t complete, staring dumbfounded, scratching my head like an ape. And there you are lying on your bed listening to my attempts at poetry, at philosophy, knowing more than you say but holding it in. You remain unrevealed. And there you are, reaching out to me with half a heart – as I remember why I loved you in the first place and why I left. YOUR GARLANDS OF HAIR Your garlands of hair
Deep dark damp upon my sight Pouncing vision you In this wake dream This drunk doze Day is gray meander Night is purple wander Bed made of tears Sheets of sorrow Connected to the sear of the rain Here I drown in the comfort Of blankets Your garnets of eyes Hot tempered flames Obsidian Blazing in my pockets I bring them out They glow on the sleepless ceiling They are tempered steel They are melted coins They are my closing eyes Still seeing Drat Incongruous lips Kissing me When black is blackest When shades shade in deadest night Kiss me in yellow of day The world will spin still Our scars as transcendent in sunlight As supple in moonlight Upon the moaning Hallelujah Sheets Your garlands of hair Devouring pillows My disappearing fingers In miraculousness The concomitant Of my paramour My other My better My equal My bowed apologist The sound of shovels Attempting to dig us out of our fairytale Finally Dormant To sanguine Newly ruddy Newfangled Finally realized Ears Let the songs play My mouth on your mouth Eyes in eyes Bodies melted Thus Together In flame
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