Sunday

Do you understand if you’re beautiful
To me, then you within me grows? – This, you,
Know when my mind cedes to some comely pull
An overpowering poignancy yields true.
What more to say of what this is to me:
A wounding lance, laced thorns upon my heart
That yields sharp light, true light to this degree
That all you were is live in every part?
So I transform you into truest bliss:
Remaking me, you smile and laugh, then go,
To sew upon my mind a seedling kiss
That even as you go this stays, you grow.
So leave if you must for this stays behind
Within this flower spread within my mind.

In Waiting

While waiting for your ghost to reappear,
I hold your promises insanely high,
And mope within your scriptured snare –
The overwhelming question remains, why:
Why did you go? And why will you return?
Why should I wait for you? Why not let go?
Your echoed words remain my fixed concern –
Why do I still recite them? Till I know:
You god, king, hero on your flying horse,
Armed with your sword or wand or thunderbolt,
Appear in sky to me with light in course,
And claim the heart of this your patient dolt.
This quatrain’s words do make my body tremble –
Cut up, I die for you to reassemble.

A Moment, Please

Within their temple’s grounds, they work and play:
One drums on sheepskin while one seams a shroud;
One dances stately while one sorts array;
While most are pregnant, two are very proud.
He takes his place upon the altar’s cap –
Then while one lifts a knife and it comes down,
And one holds up the shroud, prepares to wrap,
Their second man’s arrayed with his old crown.
Outside the temple from which they are banned,
The other men lament their absence from
The stately ceremonies of their land,
But hear the far-off sounding of the drum.
They wait to see their king just now made known,
And wait his year of glory on his throne.

First Avatar, Four

Elaine Bench,
Bad Timing

She laughed when I told her that I loved her:
It started late at night, and we were nude
Inside a sleeping bag; we’d heard a stir
Outside – a bear perhaps, in search of food.
It pressed against a side – we rolled into
The middle of the tent, where, she on top,
We caught each other’s eyes and slowly grew
Aroused by fright – such that we couldn’t stop.
We woke at dawn to see our camp a mess
Of scattered, overturned and spilt stuff;
We viewed it all without the least distress,
And she said, “Girl, I’d say we liked it rough.”
It’s then I told her of my lofty love;
At that she laughed and fluttered like a dove.

Split Screen

The party breaks upon the quiet night
Two happy couples gladly folding arms
And laughing drunkly with a child's delight
In their sweet energies and youthful charms.
She knows she’s pretty, and he knows that too
Now as his muscles flex into the dark;
He knows he’s handsome, and she knows that’s true
Now as her breasts press upward in an arc.
And from behind a curtain, two forms move
To witness this display of disregard
Of which with mumbled words they disapprove,
Especially when one vomits in their yard.
One wants to grab a broom, go on attack;
The other is a voyeur and holds back.

A Master's Hand

In dancing or converging galaxies
Or nebulae’s kaleidoscopic forms –
In light and dust and gas in ecstasies,
The universe is caught within its storms.
It all seems still upon a painter’s board,
Although its palette far surpasses all –
With chiaroscuro and impasto shored
Upon a light no painter can enthral.
A life within that luminosity
Is plainly felt and in an instant known;
It’s there alight, for those with eyes to see –
A master’s hand at work overtly shown.
It’s now the thinker gives a knowing nod,
Sagaciously ascribing good to God.

Something New

Was it upon his touch that she so turned
Into that hard and breaking angry thing?
Did he make that? Make her? And is he spurned
Because he said some words that blindly sting?
And she transformed before his startled eyes –
A thing he loved – someone he loved – and now
A viper, tiger, brooding beast that flies
Upon his heart and through his bone and brow.
Yes, fool, you did – you made the thing that haunts
Your active nights and lazy, sleepful days;
I am a voice – only a voice – that vaunts
Above all else, and taunts your thoughtless ways.
Can we make peace? Can ever there be peace?
Yes, sure, my fool, death brings that glad release.

Neoromantics

Two walk to their old bench within the park
To take the pleasure of its Sunday view
And hear the children playing with the lark
Ascending high within a fan of blue.
These sounds delight them and awake their hearts,
Reopens them to life anew again,
And ecstasies, piped in such varied parts,
Pull, rip, exalt, replenish and sustain.
The people strolling by this private dawn
Do not reflect upon their presence there;
They’ve been to church; they look, and then they yawn –
As they move on, their minds don’t linger here.
But if they think, they think the two are quaint,
And not romantics fully sans restraint.