let's write a song together, lyrics like, "you don't love me no more
see you walk out the door, wondering why it took you so long
your cuteass in tight jeans, a curse and a blessing to watch you leave"
got an upright piano in the corner that's sort of been neglected
and it plays every other C out of tune, but we can't afford a tuner
to come by and nor can we buy new strings for a guitar

we get up, we fall down, we find love, and we crash all the way
and heaven help us, now that we're separate and on our own
love the route it takes us to a melancholy mood that's so particular
and so comfortable to be wrapped up in an ocean of blankets
under a crepuscular night~ play that song all night and have it repeat
when you're at work and it'll burn itself in the background forever

I have another little house in back
A kinda smallish, white brick place
On a smallish flat hill with front facing
A small, greenish, kinda deep pond

Where I hang all the time in thought
Big piece of my kinda smallish heart
Built first for our loved sweet Mamau
Before us leaving her ashes in winds

In the small pasture, across the way
Surrounding, and beyond green pond
Bucks, does, mares, squirrels, foals
Scamper away, a big part of each day

None live there in long roots, you see
Coming, going, only by arrangement
I keep the place up, ***** and span
Decorating so as she would much like

Lots of lace in doilies, edges, or such
Victorian era mostly, in all very much
People, families, kids all come and go
But when none are staying night over

Then I'll often sit the porch awhile
Watching dragonflies fly and such
Then when the evening sun turns late
I'll stiffly rise to ring the front doorbell

Knowing she would, but can't answer
And I'll go on past threshold, till then
Hollering out, in loud, to ring the clear
"Ma, I'm home, again"

To eat some good gnocchi or such
And take a bit of rest, from the wife
Sorry, I meant of course, a rest
From this rough, tumbling, hard life

©  2017 Jim Davis

At first light
it comes unbidden

Mourning--
clenching deep
enough to sound your soul
Stone on a string
sent to tell the depth of drowning--
in the tears
without a cry
weary beyond the sigh
No act of will
This weight--
gives no resistance
to the gravity of ocean's metal-gray
They seep along a sloping cheek
in silence

“Only lovers ever go this deep
It's strange,” they say

Do not write to me
of the white blossom tree
when you never look up to see
the bright daylight
that reflects off
the bleached white petals.

Do not write to me
of the horrors of war.
Do not explore
the picture you
place before
the face you hate
much more,
when you have
never ever even
gone to war.

Do not write to me
of love and love lost
when you refuse
to yield to the blues
of loving someone
who will never love you
or that you will eventually lose.

Do not write to me
of humanity
when you seclude yourself
in a shaded corner,
sitting in cemeteries,
dreaming of heroes,
trolls, and beautiful fairies
while life goes on
without your participation.

Do not write to me.
Go out and live
to be free,
expressing only the things
that you live through and see
because every other poem
is just a fiction,
a projection
of the emotions
as you think they are
or believe they should be
not necessarily partially punctuated
stanzas of reality.

"where night is...the swallows return or a hut near a lake"

in the castle of our love,
windswept fortress of
ashen grey, where the
four poster bed rests
on wooden floorboards
and the windows have
no glass,
roses wind around our
bed and their petals
blush against the oak,
and our dreams press
to our lips,
i can believe that
romance and passion
will sweep us, breathless,
to paradise, that this
glowing happiness was
a promise we'd never
betray, as your arms
fold me in the morning
of the dusk, my limbs
stretched out and your
slinky legs wrapped
around mine. red rose
of me in the ashes, red
rose of you sinking
into the night.