How can I play you
all the unsung melodies
when the lilt of your voice
is so gentle

and how can I tell you
what you don't want to hear
when those eyes
drench my soul
in careful pity

I see what your life became
next to mine,
and all there is to do
is say I'm sorry.

I want to teach you
to forgive the world
but that's
easier said than done,

I want to hear your laugh
and see the sparkle in your eyes
the red roses in your cheeks
the sweet shimmer of your smile,
and not just briefly.

I want to take my cup
and drain the happiness into yours
God can keep what overflows
onto the tablecloth –

I don't want it.

All I want is the feeling
of giving you what you never had

giving you what I didn't know I took

giving you my childhood.

Evenings mornings afternoons -

here.

Take them.

We can pass them
around the table,
like trading cards.
I'll give you a morning,
you give me an evening,
trade until the decks are switched.

You take those cards,
you take each one,
learn the colors and
Remember it
like it was yours to begin with.

Take a gulp from that cup
and let it drip down your chin,
I'll get you a napkin
while you live my moments,
drink them in.

If I could write them in a book
or paint them on the walls
I would, so you could see them.
It would be easier then,
for you to take my place.

You take my memories,
and all my moments,
I'll take your tears
your tremors
your night-mares
your fears -

I'll live them for you,

While you rewind
and laugh backwards
into my childhood

your childhood

A childhood with
tire swings
and Easter-egg hunts,
Christmas gifts
and pancakes in the morning.
It's all yours.

It doesn't feel real
to me anymore
anyway.

I. Anna Sophia, 1878

Her name unfolds like raw white hands
small zaffre eyes, hair gold against her neck,
while the autumn air wafts flaxen motes
the men return from the boats and fields.
She follows the soft ripple of black birds
taking flight from a great distance.

II.  Annie Axelina, 1901

Her ankles are angry chaffs of red rings
as she circles the harbor, Torhamn pressed
into a pale flower between winter’s pages.
She cuts across the black ice lea
with my stride. She boards a boat, daughter
wrapped in her arms, leaning into the gale.

III. Eleanor Maria, 1921

Her roses are blooming burgundy against
the blue of the house and the kitchen heat
curls wisps of blonde into gnarled vines
under her nursing cap. She sews neat rows
of nursery rhymes into a blanket, leafs through
a green scrapbook of poetry and recipes.

Her name echoes back wings and the yearning
lilt of a language not entirely lost to me.

IV. Elizabeth Marie, 1991

My dear, it rained last night
And I remember
The alleviated rise into
Lush sobs and lavish emotions
The way your dilatation relieves
Every worry and anxiety
But sometimes when we speak
A violent lie radiates
And last night you were naught
But an alienated virile sot
A view unholy I omit
I remember the tin roses on the tiles
Devastated, shattered.

Sometimes you hum
Your hands delicately miming secret memos
And I can see it in your eyes
Irises shining like teal devils
And the music carries you
White with adrenaline, pupils likes violists
Headwaiters lie, strumming tin violins
Their  alienated visions wilted with passion

I see the way she cleverly conceals
Lies as vows to you
A veil called "us" she puts on "me"
And I call for mutiny
But youth is vim, vim is now, and now is lies
Every hug from you is just a violet whim
In noisy rooms
My vision is misty
My aura dies little,

Oh if only you could realize your reign
You’re the master, the ringleader
But you’re lazy; you work without zeal, you’re idle and lazy
Eyes glazed, agile hands getting greedier

Have you ever seen
A dearer lion?
He roared, the lonesome rider
Alone, an alien.
Well sometimes you lie
And I dare to become
An oral denier
My radar detects one lie,
Then two...
You become red
Redder than a bloody lion's ear

Adieu, you say, with a gently undefined lilt
My tears speak more reality than your words

Let lore luster lax,
Lingered love leavens.
Let love loop lilac lei lavishly.

Listen lovelorn lilt, laconic liken
Lisping liturgy, limping litany.
Litmus-leaking longing, languor lengthened.

Ingénue, Ingénue
mellifluous intonation;
within my ear
intangible embrocation!

Emollient to my inure
lithe and lilt affections-
A panacea, a talisman
fetching provocation.

Ingénue, Ingénue
Why must you fall
into such fugacious
dalliances?

Becoming and comely
are you
The cynosure of men
dissembling by demure

Ingénue, Ingénue
how easily I imbue
sempiternal scintilla
into naive little you

Lo, during my brooding-
arrive in halcyon gambol,
Dulcet or Saccharine
Is it me or you?

Ingénue, oh Ingénue
an epiphany, so true
a furtive labyrinthine
past the offing of you

None so opulent
cast more than penumbra.
T'would simply be Pyrrhic
to go on, continue.

Each morning as the dew slowly builds up
And gently tumbles down my bedroom window pane,
I wake to find you slipping away. The summer
Shade has robbed your leaves of green,
And I can but watch you wilt and lilt into the grave.
These past two weeks have felt like dreams
That fade in and out of each other during the throes
Of my unending sleep, but I know that this desire
To paint your petals the dark red of your youth
Would only make me mad like the hatter.
Our queen, however, did change her surroundings
As she saw fit, and with, or without, a second thought
She shaped the whole of her kingdom into an arid oasis
Of thought and fancy; a land where lives the Jabberwocky.
So as I dive down this rabbit hole, I do not fear
What I might find below.
Instead I save my anxieties for what is known,
Like that one day you will no longer be my rose,
But a pile of memories about my bed.

She had a small flower
Attached to her hat
There was a lilt in his smile
It seemed to give much without
Having a need of return

She talked a lot
But she was easy to follow
And he listened
Patiently
Not because he wanted to change
Some word or two later
And sadly his attention was bent
Dulled and fogged at times
At best

Maybe she was afraid to hear
Afraid of following him
Maybe he was too quiet
She too was normally a quiet one she said
But he followed on
Taking one breathe at a time
Keeping his head clear of mist
Or persons else where else when
He would rather not remember

Years later he answered
When she asked him
Why did you follow so well
So easily and why oh why oh why
He took a small breath
Stopped her and smiled
It was a force of nature
That urged it on to happen
Just as the wind fills the sails
Your voice filled my ears
And though at times I did feel lost
It felt good

before it falls i dilate
with electric scent, spine-hairs
string her possibilities as kites
to tug my summon ground--
lilt, wave and spiral
distant mischief to a head.
i rumble on the vista, far, and,
on occasion of a social clearing hum,
chance aloneness on a hill
to watch the herald lake and trees, nets
secure themselves as emblems to my storied lust.
apsara, i
breathe you in in strokes
submit unconscious rhythm of imaginal delights
made real to last beyond experience of time
descended of the clouds
sea rich, heavy, sultry
you unroll an atmospheric fate:
my lust to span the sky, irrupt an earthen,
orgiastic zenith of all things--burst fantastic quell
in pale continuum your pedestal allays

floating hair as long as frantic overcast
horizon length
and indistinct of rain..
green, blue continents of eyes, mists
suspend ecstatic sway
in areolae breeze,
my hands the brimming cups
to gather, spill
bright nipple drops
into the signal essence rising,
center rhythm of a liquid bounce
that shines in belly-button crescent moon--
each gust a lapping of the sky-clad ache of moonlit summer leaves,
another sudden adolescence lost and gained--
falls on me, dripping
legs to wrap and draw in
every pubic blade of grass--
saturate the lingam i am living in--
enveloped in vaginal dance of pressure
pulling on the earth i am
an arching back
and skyward thrust

begun before a time historians belie
wind genie, yoni,
full of all i ever willed..
how rare appearance has to be,
knowing you unique
to whimsically revise
your lightning shape akin
exotic form to fit my changing own
and yet you don't exist, my eyebrow says
between horizon-cracks
and patter of the gale--
bolts to spread dark syrup
through my veins..
i am intent on having you
to let you have me as your first and last
--being young
i am intent on twining my virginity to you,
to pierce my own hymenal dome--
slick with yearning, thundering
in moan across the hills and puddled tennis courts
undulating to my concord whim
your rivuletted bosom of the gods, goddesses --gulped between inhaling--
eyes that roll pineal
genesis denuded of a crime, apparel
gone insane delight
of endless tempest cum--
the purge cascades a vacuum in each vessel..
limp on writhing grass
euphoric in a space of never having been

what soul i have
her visitation marked--
with gridless memories unfaded by the games a decade
striates on the mind. i made
her more than what my way would make of her
and less for what my symbols lose;
i call her muse,
and forfeit right to call her anything again.
i am the burning key and lock
our chastity attained and lost
in vaporous blurring of all stars
rewinking in the gossamer above






.

I long for the adventure
the taste of your lips
the venture of your skin
the abandonment of your ecstasy

I need for your touch
be it sensual or friendly
to be in your arms is the greatest pleasure
your eyes the most beautiful reward

I crave all that you are
each stolen glance brings me pain
a beautiful pain full of need
That of which I feel nothing else

I think on you often
The rough lilt of your  voice
The penetrating quality of your stare
I adore your idiosyncratic personality

I lust after your need
It is a beautiful thing
when you tell me you need me
I almost believe you

I wallow in the shame of a want so deep
I accept my desire
I tell you silently of it each day
I need you to hear me as I inwardly shout

I love you

And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could prick and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the dingle bay
I trailed the bear sniffing scat, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.