Certitude:

By Andy Posner

























Nothing is Enough """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" #
Beginnings """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" $
The Youthful Lover """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" %
Praise """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" %
Clouds """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" &
Look at Me """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" '
The Religion that Bears Your Name """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" (
Dawn for Young Lovers """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" (
Gifts """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )
Be Still """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )
The Seamstress """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" )
Premonition """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *+
The Fire in the Fountain """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *+
The Mind & the Heart """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" **
The Ship """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *,
I Want Our Love To Save the World """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *,
I Want to be concise """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *#
The Two Seasons """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *#
My Life """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *$
Serenity in Chaos """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *%
EndingsAnd Beyond """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *'
Hope """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *'
Alone at Night """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *'
The Lover """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *(
Love Eternal """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *(
The Departed """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *)
Nothing is Ever Lost """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" *)
The Sanguine Sinews """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ,+
The Eternal Law """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ,*
Last Gasp """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ,*
The Poetry of Pain """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ,,
Resignation """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ,,
The Lovers Creed """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ,#
Certitude """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ,#










Nothing is Enough

I have. . .a terrible need. . .shall I say the word?.. .of religion. Then I go out at
night and paint the stars.--Vincent Van Gogh

A mystery consumes me. I pass the morning in ardent search of last night, and
furrow my brows as though dreams would return in the grooves of my
forehead. That is not enough. Nothing is enough, and yet I never can go faster
or slower than one second at a time. My enthusiasm teeters between the
unbearable and the blissful. At once I want to scale the heights of human
knowledge, to create art, kisses, love, peace...but then the next moment carries
the enormity of my desire and I fall upon the ground of my being, like an
electric charge in a puddle of amino acids. So I continue, neither collapsed nor
elevated; every sight I see, every thought, however subtle, every word I read or
write only adds to the fury. Nothing is enough.

A mystery consumes me. It is hard to tell whether it is best to touch the heart of
the unknown, or to kiss the cheek, the dimples, the eyelids: to press my mouth
against the furrows, the forehead of a muse, of a woman I love, of an
incarnation of the mystery, the dream and the knowledge. This poet, on this
evening, as a result of these emotions, turns all his interstellar passion towards
romance like a scientist imagines the possibility of life on other planets. I am not
alone. More opens up to me every day than does to a horizon at sunrise. Yet I
feel lonely. Nothing is enough.

Let it then be said that I am neither complacent nor decadent. Out of a deep
need for running my hand across the entire gradation of life and death, I can
never be satisfied with what has been done. There is a push and pull within me
that in geology moves the sea floor, creates earthquakes and makes the tide rush
suddenly over the feet of young lovers. It is obvious that my idealism must be
such that in order to lengthen my arm, I would, night after night, reach
unceasingly for a drop of moisture in the atmosphere. Life is an ever-increasing
approximation of our ideals. Nothing is enough. If ever we reached the point
where it was enough, then that would be heaven. But heaven is an ideal, and
our destiny is to forever approach itthe asymptote of our aspirations. Would
that there were no tension in the cosmos, all the arts and sciences, all the
physical, mental and spiritual phenomena would cease to exist. Eternity is
found in coming closer and closer to that state in which, unfettered by a
psychological, physical, and historical upbringing, we become parents of the
stars.

Beginnings

1
I've fallen for a woman I've never seen;
That is, if eyes are the only source
That vision gives,
And the heart the body does not outlive.

What does it matter that she is far?
What plant laments the cloudy heights
From which falls the fragrance of food?
Why clothe myself when I am nude

And the scented earth oils my skin?
But fragrance alone does not sustain.
A drop must fall, and a bouquet
Must rise to meet its prey.

2
O, woman of my dreams, attack me fiercely.
The dreamer loves his dream!
The heart desires its counterpart!
Wound my flesh with your sharpened lips
And reach my shore on the boat of your hips.

I smell your approach: the footsteps of waves. I tremble.
Like a necklace, I fling myself around
The neck of a distant star; you've crashed on this beach!
O, you bring to me the hopes
Of a lifetime. I embrace you, and cope.












The Youthful Lover

I am vain.
I want your skin, your dimples, your breasts.
I want to trace your eyebrows with my lips
And border with my hands your hips.

I am simple.
I want your words to fill my ears like cups.
I want to harvest you as grain, to grapple with
And bite into your mouth like an apple.

I am young.
I want your youth, your innocence, your wisdom.
I want to possess your body like a tempest
And fill the sail of your sex to its fullest.

Praise
Praise me with the love in your eyes,
Clear, like water in a beaker,
So that I may measure myself against you.
For sound only makes the water bubble,
And words are the worst praise Ive ever heard.
















Clouds

It is overcast today. I feel a calm
That makes me tremble with life.
Enjoy the sky, but know that
The heart is a molecule of water.
It wont stay put. It is still, like ice,
Or else frenetic, boiling, aching to disappear.
I am in love with you. I will dissolve these clouds.
Light will reveal you to yourself, from the crevice
Of your collarbone to the leeward
Side of your heart.

Where the rain falls, so does
The grass grow.
I have fallen for you to be resurrected.
My heart is a sky at once cloudy,
At once clear.
I am the earth. It does not concern me
That you, too, are the earth.
The clouds make for a murky firmament.
There is a vagary to heaven.

I am a sunken ship. My treasure
Is a kiss carried away by currents.
At first I stirred up dust: I was happily lost.
Now I see the beauty in your feet.
I am making love to you on a bed
Made of all that has settled.

It is like this: the clouds once obscured heaven
By touching it. When they collapsed in violent storm
I felt the rapture in pain. All that touches the beloved
Stirs a lover. Your hand has caressed the whole earth.
Every leaf, every seed, every pebble
Is in love with me. . .is like the ripeness of your body
Devouring the ripeness of my body.


Look at Me

Look at me,
This mess of flesh, of blue eyes,
Of tendons and nerve endings
(No, they are not endings).

My mouth has trembled with the
Thought of your lips
(My mind is wrapped in skin).

I would unwrap myself,
but I am human (all life needs a boundary);
My words bleed from my mouth to you.

In daytime, flowers hold the rays of sun;
At night they let go-- (flowers control
The movement of the heavens).

If am to convey anything to you
then I must hold you
(My synapses will pulse into your body).

But how can I approach you? I am told
(Even by a part of myself) that
I must keep a distance thicker than skin.

My youth makes me think
That I can influence the cosmos--
I hear your laughter from afar.










The Religion that Bears Your Name
While seated in meditation
You walked past my shut eyes,
My face in peaceful repose,
My still body, more still than a garden.
I must have seen you in the vivid
Colors that sanctify the dome
Of my eyelids: white banner, blue bicycle,
Red silkscreen.

Soon I arose and spotted you
As things appear underwater;
Hand in hand we walked,
My breath deepening to the depth
Of your origin, my hand touching
The coral of your hand.

Your presence fell
Around me like a geyser or a current;
All that I had inwardly seen with
Private purity now took shape in your body,
And blood singed my face
As though angry to have been converted
To the religion that bears your name.

Dawn for Young Lovers
As the first light stirs
Not a single word is spoken:
Your arms seek me beneath the covers.
My soul finds you beyond the clouds.

When we rise a wild rain falls on our feet.
Our minds blush burgundy; we bloom in footsteps.
We stroll like ponds or lilies would stroll,
Placid, reflective and fragrant.

Outside the air smells of water and sails.
Your hand, so small, carries me away.
A pigeon flies overhead. I wonder where to.
Then I break the silence, and whisper I love you.
Gifts
I can only give you
That which I cannot hand you.
Forever giving gifts
Unwrapped by your eager eyes--
There is hardly room nor need
For my hand in yours.

Be Still
Be still my dear.
Stop running away from me.
I merely wish to return the flower
That you dropped last fall.

I have followed you through meals,
Through seasons, through lifetimes.

Now it is spring and you pause a moment.
Where will I put all these flowers, my dear?

The Seamstress
I love you, though it pains,
And the pain to me shows
Exalted mountains, expansive plains
Where once I chose
To lie, somnambular and closed.

Love had led me to love;
Dreams had led me to dreams;
We arrived at a sheltered cove
Where supernal reams
Of strife stretched earthly seams.

O, how long the days do last
When a day a day can only be!
My love, I forsake a guided past!
It is your needle through me
That stitches the strands of eternity.

Premonition
The wind sweeps like a broom
Through my lungs;
Like a meek old lady, in a half- Lit store, closing shop.
And I dont know if it is the floor,
Or my feet, or the wind that is cold.
With each sweep the million-candeled
Day flickers, then dies---
There comes a point where only
Shadows cast shadows.

But because the wind is human
It, too, stops sweeping;
Dust never vanishes, only resettles.
And when all is spotless, when the air
Whispers in dying gasps, when I
Sleep in perfect silence and the
Flowers cease to tremble
Somewhere, somewhere,
A storm is brewing.

The Fire in the Fountain

I am a fire in the fountain, I am a lantern
Swaying in sunset, I am the Four Corners
Facing in and facing out, I am a wind
That soothes bleeding, autumnal leaves,
I am eternal, my soul repeats itself like
A pattern. At night I extinguish in dreams
And smolder like the marble smoke of a star:
I am a fire in the fountain.

The woods call me to their solitude and
The city to its anguish. Sometimes heaven
Wounds me with every shard of sky;
Sometimes heaven glows beneath a lampshade.
Love sends me fleeing the earths rotation
Or else has me melting at the center of it all.
My life is laid out like tile: a wild geometry
Crosses me from day to day and year to year.

I seek the mysticism of a narrow street,
Of applause, of thunderstorms, I seek
The melancholy that streaks like rain across
Dark crystal, I seek the peace that disappears
In the passion emblazoned on an apple skin,
That is a sand dune, half shadow half searing white,
I seek to possess the earth like a King and give it away
Like a Saint, I hunger for food and to feed the hungry:

I ache for the fire in the fountain.

The Mind & the Heart

My heart says,
Give her all that you are and you will become
More than you have ever been.

My mind says,
Learn from the past.

My heart says,
Disappear into her presence and you will glisten
From every pore of the future.

My mind says,
If you are more than a body, how will I rescue you?

My heart says,
Trust your love as though it were a lover,
Embrace your dreams: to do so is to hold her close.

My mind says,
I have no thoughts to heal the pain.

My heart replies,
If she hurts you, you are hurt. If she loves you,
You are loved. There is no cure: I am the pain.

The Ship
I like to reach a hand
into the unknown.

I like to rise early and predict
The patterns of the clouds.

I like to let the evening give
My skin a certain tenderness.

Sometimes a song I heard yesterday
Makes me dance, alone, on the grass.

Sometimes I fall in love
Because I want to cry.

Sometimes I cry because
I want to be loved.

I go around the world placing
beads of tears on the flowers.

I look towards you like an explorer
Towards the horizon.

Great lands breathe life as they
Step through a door of fog.

My soul is a ship breathing
Life on open waters.

I Want Our Love To Save the World
I want to spend my days with you,
purchase a lifetime's worth of kisses,
and invest my poetry
in your womb.

I want to make love to you,
delight in our chaotic artistry,
and breathe a call for rebirth
in your moans.

I want to run away with you,
dwell in the circumference of our love,
and incite an unflinching stillness
in your feet.

I want to hold your hand,
release love with every breath,
and cleanse the earth in the open palm
of our union.

I Want to be concise

I want to be brief. I want
To have the shape of a boomerang,
Go far off, return, spin wild,
Dangerous, beautiful shapes
In the air; I want to be powerfully small
Like a tendon, eloquently sudden
Like an adjective, expansively constrained
Like a paradox: I want to be as concise
As your body and as vast as your eyes.

The Two Seasons
In you I recall
the forgotten rays of summer.

Someone stole a strand of sun
And wove it in your hair.

I went looking for overflowing dreams
And lost them in shadowless days.

Someone let the children roam
And forgot to call you back.

I found a red leaf, red as sex and birth,
Only to lose it in my sex and my birth.

Someone loved you more than sleep
And couldnt love you in his dreams.

I tried for slumber and peace
But summer slipped from my eyes.

Now it is winter and I see withered leaves:
Brown leaves, half resting in shadows--

How can I ever tire of loving you?

My Life

My life is more than my life,
More than possession can define.

My life is your life:
Because of you I refer to things as ours.

No longer can I say
"My heart breaks free upon the open sky."

Lovers everywhere romance lovers anywhere--
One heart, one life swelling through the earth.

You have a wholeness that trembles,
For at times I am lost to you, at times I am yours.

You wander to the edge of wandering;
You break the bounds of lost and found.

A embrace would seem to contain you,
Yet you chastise my arms with your freedom.

Living is vague; my life takes shape when held
To the light of your life.



Serenity in Chaos
Cool breezes are pressing their feathery cheeks against the sail of my heart,
sending me floating towards a horizon that smells of dew infused with
flowers. Sunlight, as though poured from a faucet, moistens my skin with its
bronze tint. Seated with my legs propped up on a table, I am comfortable,
serene, as placid as a body of water seen from afar. Yet there is chaos within
me. I try to focus on my work and instead a flock of migratory birds streak
across my mental sky, reminding me that life is transitory, fleeting. I attempt
to read an article even as my eyes well with tears, affected by the pollen
emanating from some distant, beautiful source. The seasons are changing;
the world outside my window is in flux. My trembling hands reach for a
branch of sky, a vase filled with morning, only to find that the sky has fallen
and the vase has spilled.

How is it possible to feel so serene yet so chaotic? To be so keenly aware of
the impermanence of all things and yet so content with everything, as though
this moment could never change or disappear? The answer is that I am in
love with you, deeply in love with you--the way that wet paint is darker and
richer than when it dries, the love I feel for you saturates the pages of history
and colors them with human possibility. And because I am in love with you
I feel the unimaginable bliss of knowing that I am mortal, that my strength
will one day fadeand I am liberated by that fact. Because I am in love
with you my heart is like a lost kite, fluttering wildlyeyelids in deep sleep
along the undulating landscape of the breeze. Because I am in love with you
the limits of time, space, biology, religion and philosophy seem as fluid as
two bodies pressed together in the morning mist.

When our bodies touch it is as though two sheets of silk--wrapped around
our organs, our blood, our minds--were brushing past one another on the
way to heaven. I see in your gaze the mischief, innocence and boldness of a
mythological being. Your kisses lap against my lips like the ceaseless
yearnings of the waves, eating away at the hull of my heart until I begin to
sink, to fill with love and passion. And even as this transpires I make no
effort to jump to safety--I have succumbed to you, given myself to the whims
of your arms and the spirit that compels them to embrace me with the
finesse of calligraphy.

We are dancing on a planet that is twirling like a dervish, arm in arm, hand
in hand, staring up at a universe that envelops us in mystery. The dance,
erratic as it may appear, is leading us closer to Truth. I feel an overpowering
desire to contemplate the nature of the world and of existence with you. To
tell you that we are free and explore that freedom with you. To show the
world what kindness, passion and patience can accomplish, and accomplish
that with you. To tame history, rewrite rules, explore the unexplored with
you.

Darling, I am not an ordinary young man. I am a Poet. I belong to my art,
which consists of love. And because I love you, we belong to one another. I
feel things deeply. I am a meek rebel, a pacific warrior. What you are
unleashing within me can only be expressed in geological terms, on par with
volcanoes, hurricanes and other natural phenomena. For no matter how
many words I unfurl upon this page, no matter how many metaphors escape
the prison of my mind, the actual pounding of my heart is infinitely more
powerful. So I ask you to come to me. Place your cheek against my chest.
Kiss my neck, my arms, my back, my lips. Look at me with your pleading,
beautiful eyes. Tap the energy within me--the beauty, the passion, the love.
I cannot promise that it will be easy to feel as much as we are feeling, but I
can promise that the source of our love will always be goodness, openness
and passion.

Has time stopped, or has it simply ceased to matter? Has it ever? O,
together we are the greatest conquerors, greater than the men and women of
old that cut through deserts and forests, launched across oceans and space,
for we are venturing into the farthest flung realms of existence. We are
pursuing the Eternal, the One, the All-encompassing. And we are doing all
this together.

Whatever we do, my love, my heart, my soul, lets do it together, be it as
mundane as eating a meal or as sublime as making love--to each other and
the world.









EndingsAnd Beyond


Hope
The world is divided into flowers.
Some go to lovers, some to adorn death,
And still others go dropping petals
Like bombs because it is autumn
And there is no hope for life.

Alone at Night

The sheets do not talk. The warm breeze
does not know that autumn is near.
Yet the language of despair
Is buried like a fossil in my pillow.
Here lies all that once was
and no longer is; all that will be
But evades my pulsing heart.

Crickets echo in the dark like
Distant moans that belong elsewhere.
And just when moonlight
Grazes the earth, memory
Shines from some distant source,
Metallic, grey, mysterious:
Beyond the reach of mortal pain.

What am I to think, alone at night
In my room? That time is taut,
Brittle and easy to break?
That the distance between now and then
Is greater than that between here and there?
Or that my alarm, piercing the air,
Is like a sword dividing dreams from reality?

The Lover
Snow piled on the ground whilst I slept,
Pure white specks of water cascading
From the darkest corners of the sky,
And unbeknownst to me my heart lept
With the blind hunger of a reptilian tongue,
Snatching at air and not knowing why.

The morning usurped my hopes: its might
An empire with dominion over human longing;
And where the forces of wrong and right
Entwined in diurnal battle, I glimpsed
Doubt, hope, fear, bliss, and pain
Trampled by the footsteps of light.

With aching brain, locked inside my house,
Thoughts of time overcame timeless thoughts.
Yet even the winter months could not douse
The flame that compels the world to grow.
And so, asleep or awake, joyous or sad,
My heart begs the world to be its spouse.

Love Eternal
Love eternal cannot be had;
All things grasped will be unclasped
Like hands that lose their early might.
Love eternal cannot be seen;
All sunsets fade away
And even eyes, in death, decay.
Love eternal can only pass
Like a migrant bird: the trackless
Tracks upon the sky.




The Departed
My bed, that house within a house,
Built of timber from your inner copse, now
Splinters in the dawn, and I must douse
The kisses destined for your brow,
Lest the dreamer destroy the dream
And repose fall from its narrow beam.

O, but how the poet longs
To mingle with your lips,
To plunge into the throngs
Of mysteries between your hips!
For neither sorrow nor deceit outweigh
The truth those mysteries convey!

Time, that marauding force,
Has yet to plunder my home,
Though history ran its course
And added to its mighty, darkened tome;
Alas, a future groom
Soothes not my sorrows womb.

The edifice crumbles, but does not fall;
Empty space remains empty for you;
Together we sleep, curled into a ball
Of hope that bounces out of view.
Thus I ask: can I possibly be sane
So long as you, the departed, still remain?

Nothing is Ever Lost
Nothing is ever lost;
The rain that fell today
Becomes tomorrows frost:
Huddled in the grey
Shroud of a cloudy sky
Every droplet refuses to die.

Nothing is ever lost;
Love that filled my life,
Love whose gloss
Resembled a ring for my wife,
Now, seeking a hand and finding despair,
Makes poetry of this familiar pair.

But nothing is ever lost;
Even as a wave
Collapses and is tossed
Upon the shore, brave
Forces bring it back to sea
Where clouds and lovers forever be.

The Sanguine Sinews

The fallen flaming leaf
Waits for the snow in vain,
Hopes to cool the burning wreath
That leaves its heart in pain
Before the winds of decay
Silence passions ecstasy.

O leaf, whose drops of fire
Point their fingers at the sky,
Whose vibrant sinews seek the ire
Trapped in eyes that blink, but do not cry,
What passing cloud, what swirling star
Can return your lover from afar?

I am the leaf, I am the flame,
And I am the snow
That makes anonymous my name;
Yet only the true lover knows
That time heals not wounds
Else the sanguine sinews cease to swoon.







The Eternal Law
Despair stabbed me on the way to delight:
Its jagged blade, forged of hardened tears,
Shore off the jasmine fragrance of the night,
Postponed the puissant dawn for another year.

O watch that wont run, day that refuses to break!
What infernal flaw ground your gears to a halt?
How do I weather the sorrow foaming in your wake
Or, tired and alone, ward off your relentless assault?

Like a wayward meteor, I tumble through a sky
That resents me, subject to laws I never chose;
Yet that inner law of love belies
These sheets made empty by a lovers woes.

O Lady Justice, come see what has transpired!
Surely you will listen to my appeal
And restore to life a bliss that has expired
Else the eternal law of lovers be repealed.

Last Gasp
To you, the sudden hope outlined in lips,
I ask the question that fear had neer touched:
What myth does explain lifes dance upon a crypt,
The unreal made real, the lost firmly clutched?
Give me a vulgar sunset of pious
Red and blue. Free me of meter and rhyme,
The constraint of great laws, Himalayan
In their looming grace; great, if not sublime.
Yet if you must go, leave your charred embrace
To singe the sinews of my tortured soul
And paint the twilight on my sullen face;
I alone wear a ring of tears grown old.
O, but if you stay, warn the heavens Might:
A lovers heart cares not for heavens plight!



The Poetry of Pain
My heart demands that I be verbose.
Aesthetics ask for brevity.

What reconciliation is there in a poem?

Dawn bursts in an instant,
Sprawled against the sky
Like bleeding watercolor.

Resignation

Who would topple the pillars
Of his heart to be a lover
In the rubble?

Who would resign himself
To a fate of apple skins
And compost?

Who would risk death
To have one sip of waterfall
And clear motion?

Who would be amazed
By the physiognomy
Of a maple leaf?

Have you stared
At the chronology of love
Until digits disappear?

Have you known
The unknown
From a glance?

Have you been a pilgrim
Traveling backwards
Toward your sacred heart?

And have you kissed
The thought
Of a kiss?

If you want to fall in love,
All you have to do is lie down
And give up.

The Lovers Creed

Beneath an uncertain sky I stand,
Facing the direction from which
New seasons weave together strands
Of memories formed from the twitch
Of muscles: hearts that yearned and found,
Listless lips that fell in love and ran aground.

I hear in the rustling of trees the sound of a dress;
The morning air smells of water caressing skin;
O trickle of time! O moment just lost! Will you not bless
My heart and save me from that worst of sins:
To love so fully as not to see,
To see so clearly as not to love?

Evening dawns, and with it strange gusts
Of color fill the sky. Alone, I face
The sanguine cheeks of moments past, and lust
For the kiss that became an Eternal embrace;
And though the night be long and hard to read
No despair can break my allegiance to the lovers creed.

Certitude

Mystery eludes the firmament;
The unbeliever rejoices, yet certitude
Is but a pause, the prelude
To an inexplicable and joyous lament.

Trembling, your shadow drowns
In an explosion of desire,
A death whose funeral is fire
And in whose gravestone life abounds.

I reach for you across the years,
Across the smoke and haze
That obscures your gaze
From a constellation of tears.

Somewhere there is a clock
That ticks in silence, that measures
Neither time, nor death, nor the pleasures
Of life, but is as though a dock

Unto a body of wonder and of hope:
Shall we board the ship
That follows your hips
To the end of a lovers rope?

O, but where your breath rises
There I lie, a fallen oak
That doffs it cloak
Of beauty in disguise.

Naked, I am yours. Unafraid, unarmed,
I seek your arms beneath the sheets
That cover my hearts uncertain beats
And become indifferent both to comfort and to harm.