Verbalizing promise, hope like the
smell of an explosive about to blow
The scent aroused nostrils
Beasts on the savanna startled
Welcomed into weird little
worlds
Intoxicating, extrapolating
underlying meanings
The effect like sinking into a warm
bath
Reconciling the calming waters
With fear of intimacy
The liquid cannot get too
clear
The animals will spot each other
Better the algae and the lilies make
safety zones
She wants molasses speed and an
emotional veil like a bulwark
But is encouraging a poet to write
to her, for her,
To make palpable magic in the
night
Become theater on the page she and
he experienced without speaking
Poetry is like making love to the
enemy, indulging in the forbidden
Cryptic emotions and Kandinsky
contexts distorted to bend her regulations
That no intruders are allowed
through the gate, but these feel good
Ok only for a moment, then I’ll boot
the bard
The expectation in the hearth is not
that she is a wild owl
Swooping down on snakes and rats,
but that
She is afraid to even decide and ask
for what she wants
Getting that would be like flipping
a switch for a sunrise
At one a.m. glaring wide hooting
eyes jaundice and dilated
Having to immediately adjust from
the perch of telling others no
To facing the possibility of saying
yes to her self
On the level alone in a temple of
past, present, and future
Like a bauble she hangs around her
neck in a pendant
Personal and ephemeral, ungraspable
but in plain sight
Surprise, acknowledgement, and
warmth like blood to a nervous callus
Swelling, monitored and bursting in
acquiescence
To the weight hung round her nape
Knowing she is venturing into the
prohibited taboo of the emotional
Like she had her hand on the lever
the whole time, the stick-shift
She can’t let it go on anymore
Always in control knowing fire
burns
Redwood limbs in cinders fanned
under departing wings
Floating towards moonlight’s
cradle
Characterizing a quintessence into
an enigmatic selfish creature
Owl putting rules on tortoise as if
feathers were shells
One cannot fly and the other cannot
make him into this pre-patterned specter
It’s easier if he’s a ghost like all
the boys she’s sent away
To slip into a script she wrote
before he ever opened his mouth
That way when she tries to forget
about him he can be just like the rest
Morphed into a footnote to the pages
she speed-reads
A treble clef to the dance beat for
regulated choreography
Of who wants who and how much and
when
That this feeling is optional if she
chooses it to be
The book can be closed, the record
needle lifted
The power of a heart held in storage
shifted
She has fear she will hurt him worse
later as she has so many before
So she swipes her talons and he
folds-in his turtle-head
Not out of fear of shedding blood,
but out of respect for the space
She needs
He sees her just as well as who she
always was from inside his shell
As out in the open air, her breasts
beat anger facing his daring audacious vision
She sabotages the bridges and the
flightless will be left in Vietnam
The gasoline used up setting fires
to scare the cavalry
Scarlet Hamlets, banned Buddhist
flags, Hmong tribesman, phantom Tonkin torpedoes
All wars end
But not every soul comes back with
the soul they entered with
Tortoise just wanted to talk, not
negotiate a surrender or trying to win or capture
He just wanted take a slow moment by
the side of the road and trade war stories
Reptiles and birds both lay eggs,
bear a nest
Even if they’re in tree hollows and
logs
Just wanted to share, knowing she
knows so little about him
He knows so little about her
And he feels judged not for being a poor
fit to the locket hung from her head
But for being potentially a good
key, like they both knew it, and she spooked, flew off
The scent on that is like saccharine
caked icing spelling titles on confections
With block letter names come
definitions, the potential her mother taunts
The wry rebellion itching of ‘You
want me to be this
Well I will be that, why
because no one will ever choose for me again
I am getting out of this swamp to be
a great-horned bird of the desert.’
Happiness requires a mutuality of
election
By definition each party ultimately
chooses the same foundation
One saying I would like to proceed
in this direction
Is not disallowing the other’s
choices or future volition
There is more than one path to get
to the same destination
So in the turtle is placed upon the
altar of paradox
Sacrificed in the barter of love for
fear
As she tickles his ear for poetry
and beckons him into vestibules
To approach or to run, either way
the owl sustains her first lover
The darkness
In one swoop like an elixir to make
them both forget
As if the words were never read or
spoken only the flat blackness remains
Of strangers phasing back into
strangers
The marshmallow softness was always
her toying with her permissions
Dance, play, ‘I am no good at this
and I am an arsonist baby!
I’ll burn you down, pushing the
boundaries to remain untouchable
I’m feeling quiet and not sure I
want to be in a crowd
Of even one, anxiety has got me, the
darkness has me captive, and she always wins.’
The way he looked at her felt like
rape,
Violated for what was not his to
know
Costumed and tight-lipped with that
chin
That descends and eyes open silently
listening
No one is supposed to hear her in
that pose, but he does
The alarms and the firebombs, too
much, too soon
If not now when, when is her heart
supposed to blossom again
If that is not what she was looking
for why did she sign in to be matched?
He was enjoying ever so their time
together
He knows she was too; thinking she
is so afraid because all her cities lay in ruins
So she blows this one up so that she
is not standing in center square
If he ever bails first; sad cliché
as if when he asked her if she loved herself
He was asking, “Do you think you are
worthy of receiving love?”
From who, who has loved you if you
say you think you might have been in love once
But that’s it; the show was
cancelled, like affection or concern is some dirty jargon
For marmish soccer mom’s who give
blow jobs to their lawyer hubbies once a solstice
As if she has to lay down her
antlers or start sleeping in camisoles and Spanx
Slurping whole milk obeying Captain
Crunch driving car pool
And if she gets a speeding ticket
he’ll ask for another divorce
As if to share a home, to have a
home, she’d have to fit in some stereotype
In her head, not his and all he
wanted was a god damn woman he could talk to
Spend a little time with, maybe take
care of on occasion and play in bed
He wanted a lover to sit next to him
flying to Seattle not be a sleepless cookie-cutter
Whatever she thinks he expects, he
wishes she would have bothered to ask
Maybe she did and he said a life
partner and whatever that meant to her
In no way could be him,
Maybe in every way would not have
been her
But he wanted to try, he wanted to
play the game, not just show up to an empty field
And never know if things would have
worked out
He feels judged and used, taken
advantage of and jilted
Because he feels like she knows she
is cheating herself from finding out too
He feels like she is taking the easy
way out instead of taking a chance
Because happiness scares the hell
out of artists
How does one create from such a
bright place?
How does one supplant the darkness
an artist has spent his or her life alongside?
Baby, all I got is poetry and you
used me
You lit me on fire encouraging me to
write for you
It is like me asking you to
choreograph a dance just for me
In the quiet where only I could see
to look at your body
Vulnerable in true nudity and then
closing my eyes and walking out
Because I claimed it was too much,
too soon, saying,
“I was not ready to look at the sun,
I’m blinded by the light
I don’t know what to do, but you got
to go; it’s too intense”
You have no idea what it took for me
to hope
I may have hinted at it, but if my
hoping startled you
That’s a bitter irony
The rule says when the airplane
starts shaking uncontrollably
Put your breathing mask on first so
you can help others
And I was writing to try to sew us
parachutes, to leap together
Because even if you can fly, maybe I
can’t
Maybe when I said I needed to go
slow too
I meant it and if you ever asked me
why maybe you’d know
Maybe you wouldn’t be so damn
scared
Maybe you’d open up a little and the
world wouldn’t explode
Because I am not the one who said
there was a bomb on this plane
Maybe you wouldn’t have to fly away
when the airplane starts to shake
You are built to sail the skies
alone; I get it
The thing is I was built to walk
this Earth the same way
People are not meant to keep their
hearts in diaries and makeup cabinets
I would never try to convince you of
a damn thing
I certainly am not doing that
here,
But I don’t want to watch you walk
away from me without fighting for you
I was not done; there is too much
you shared of yourself with me
Whether you intended to or not that
tells me you are just running away afraid
Breathe
I am just a human being, a very kind
empathetic human being
Looking to share part of my life
with a woman who might actually get me
And I get her; what are you so
afraid of?
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