October Souls

Dearest

I cannot write you into my life again

It seems two month’s passing does not erase

A year of your  hands

‘pon the hills & valleys,

The intimate creases of me

Yet I’ve faith in forgetfulness

That time creates

I have hope in the creation of new

Replacing old

With clarity for us both.

It won’t ever set straight

The doglegged path we shared

Nor lose (loose?) us ‘pon that way

You are a song below the waterfall of my being

Where branches & elbows of trees

Are washed clean, where wet leaves gather,

A snag & rustle of underbrush

Where I hoped to pass silently unobserved.

Where I cannot swim nor linger in sunlight.

=======

I miss you, LoveMan,

My body misses the bits of you I encompassed

My mind straddles you as my legs could not…

My heart encompasses what hands could not hold.

I opened to you in intimacy,

Gentle & giving

Until it turned opposite

To awakening & remembrance

I opted for the lessons of in-between

Where you are not:

The days when lonely is a four-letter word.

I finger these memories to frayed silk

Tying them with blessing

To toss upon the waters.

I walk once more bottled & contain’d

No longer the beauty of your addled regard

But the scour of my holy self,

The pale scourge of longing

In substitute for fulsome remedy,

That wholeness of your temporary regard

I wish you love

With all the power of a woman

I miss you like midnight with a moon upon its chest

As the wakefulness of longing closes my eyes

=====

Come love again!

Come fitting the seas of our bodies together

The mingling guilt

Glistening on beaches of touch

Come the opening of limbs!

Over lives & all betweens

Come that special smile of love’s regard

That faint warmth kindling to full-throat heat

That words burn into moan

The dragons of desire heavy-limbed on waking.

=====

You do not understand:

I cannot continue

Sex on Mondays only

Nary a hand-hold beyond

Not enough days of too many miles

Unable to speak, or gaze, or kiss,

An open blade I handled, careless

It might cut both ways.

=====

You are a desert I crossed in hope of moisture

An oasis turned mirage

Where only imagination grows.

We were lucky of our time together

But guilty of the clocks meting it

I stand over an open grave

Pondering resurrection.

=====

This was not my life: to

Have a faithful, capable love

Wherein I stood encircled, & safe

I fingered the horizon with car keys in hand

Not matched, not meshed

People like me cannot hold a static pattern.

=====

Unbalanced as I am in my headlong rush at life

Caught up in the love of many

Over intimacy of one

Were you to ask if I could have it any other way

I’d be forced to the honesty of looking away.

=====

An uncertain future must compensate

The flickering present

I am no gift to glory:

A rusty hinge on a gate to a weedy garden

Wherein one blossom of penetrating color –

A forget-me-not you will always twirl

In the hesitations of your mind.

I so miss being beautiful for you!

=====

And if I write enough of words

A landslide or an eruption of language

Will you (can you) forgive me?

I am the constancy of change

Of color, a fragrance caught downwind

A vibrance passing by

I am made for Make Believe as sure as

Any other theatre of life

Where fantastic is commonplace.

I play an endgame where laughter is the only closure.

A vast riparian slash

Where water runs swift & sure

Displacing earth to deepen itself.

=====

Almost afraid of love, now, though ginger with desire

I dare not live in the unreality that I am whole

Or human.

I have my little habits, my great disparity of beliefs

Around which gather & garner tiny stalks:

I believe I can be loved

The way I love the sky being blue

Remote & beautiful

Filling with blazing stars at dusk.

=====

I am an apprehension of the unreserved

In the realm of the unredeemed

Gatherer of words of smoke.

Didn’t I warn you enough, my love?

Didn’t I chafe your limbs to life

Filling your sight a spell?

Will you always see me in the

Gingham of old desire?

Could we best entwine

As man & woman?

Could I satisfy you to stay

And live with me

For a time when all is beautiful?

I am no slim willow bending in winds from your passage

I captured you for a bit, with only a wish in my hand.

=====

You fold your arms, holding yourself in

Keeping me out of your heart.

I understand protection – this you can believe!

I get it good.

I yearn to tap the power held in seal (in soul)

To have you open, enfolding me instead.

=====

Was I cruel to wish to see you?

Did I whet a dry drive

With conversation yet unsaid?

Have you any words for me at all?

You leave me to my imagination:

               That you feel…

I know you to be cautious of my exuberance

I like to think that had we met in moister times…

Just when I think I can do this –

Limit myself to love on Mondays

A nova lights within & I understand I am timeless,

A flicker of answer in a time of steady questions.

I cannot love you except in the surprise of your loving-back.

I am one to choose firelight over the sun.

Were we free to race the fields

And laugh out loud

To share the path, to dart among the trees

Seeking new realms to bed within

I might could love you more than mem’ry alone

I might could make a prayer

We say in churches, a name for the unborn,

I might could –

=====

I had to see you once more

To seek out common language

To hope for love in your regard.

I’m so weak when I’m not strong, it’s comical!

The house I built of straw in heavy winds…

A conscience free of sin

Has little left but itself..

That still, small voice

Hush, hush.

There, there.

When I cry for that open vista of passion

The taste of your breath

Your eyes closed in kiss

The tumble after the climb

And all the butterflies between.