Underneath the leaves of life,
Green on the prodigious tree,
In a trance of grief
Stand the fallen man and wife:
Far away the single stag
Banished to a lonely crag
Gazes placid out to sea,
And from thickets round about
Breeding animals look in
On Duality,
And the birds fly in and out
Of the world of man.

Down in order from the ridge,
Bayonets glittering in the sun,
Soldiers who will judge
Wind towards the little bridge:
Even politicians speak
Truths of value to the weak,
Necessary acts are done
By the ill and the unjust;
But the Judgment and the Smile,
Though these two-in-one
See creation as they must,
None shall reconcile.

Bordering our middle earth
Kingdoms of the Short and Tall,
Rivals for our faith,
Stir up envy from our birth:
So the giant who storms the sky
In an angry wish to die
Wakes the hero in us all,
While the tiny with their power
To divide and hide and flee,
When our fortunes fall
Tempt to a belief in our
Immortality.

Lovers running each to each
Feel such timid dreams catch fire
Blazing as they touch,
Learn what love alone can teach:
Happy on a tousled bed
Praise Blake's acumen who said:
"One thing only we require
Of each other; we must see
In another's lineaments
Gratified desire";
This is our humanity;
Nothing else contents.

Nowhere else could I have known
Than, beloved, in your eyes
What we have to learn,
That we love ourselves alone:
All our terrors burned away
We can learn at last to say:
"All our knowledge comes to this,
That existence is enough,
That in savage solitude
Or the play of love
Every living creature is
Woman, Man, and Child."

Lizbeth *****
her finger
imagines

it belongs
to the boy
Benedict

with eyes closed
savouring
each flavour

part salty
vinegar
(having ate

fish and chips
earlier)
tomato

of ketchup
the red thrills
***** deeper

whole mouthfuls
of finger
thinking on

that church pew
old dark wood
where they could

but didn't
have made love
she ***** slow

finger length
the painted
finger nail

salty still
each flavour
so distinct

even in
her chosen
warm darkness

of closed eyes
she passes
over both

her knuckles
warm wet skin
imagines

so hotly
between thighs
him within.

I like to imagine
Wordsworth or
Keats as a
twenty-five year
old disheveled
drunk with a
beach town
degree,
struggling against
struggling, hiding
away from life
in the confines of
a classroom

"I've given it up."
"Given what up?
"***, love, the works."
"What, like you're not going to try anymore?"
"Yeah, no more.  I'm done, I've had it!"
"Wow, done.  How long has it been?"
"Two weeks."
"And you feel better?"
"I feel like ****.  Every day I think about it, all the time." "It's all I can think about!"
"Then why don't you try again?"
"No, I can't, I'm done, it's just another thing that handicaps me."
"Yeah, but it's great."
"Yeah, well I'm done.  I'd rather be miserable than walk with a limp, no more."
"You'll be back one day.  You'll break down."
"Yeah maybe…but for now, I'm done."
"What does Kathrine think about all this?"
"She doesn't know yet."

I flew to see her in Chicago, went out for dinner and hopped a train to South Bend the next evening. We brought ***** and whiskey to keep us company on the short ride along the lake. That night we made love, I mean really made love; both reaching ****** simultaneously. My prowess was there, in spades, but we slept instead. The morning greeted me with a ******* and she another ******. My prowess turned to hubris but I said nothing aside from, “Wow.”
The day, a Saturday, was spent touring the campus; a beautiful one at that, my favorite. I acted as tour guide while she abided courteously; I had the day, the girl, the nostalgia. There was a football game and we decided to go; the home team versus their oldest and most hated rivals, a must see. We yelled and screamed at the away team until they lost; beating themselves really. In the ecstasy of victory we promptly returned to the house and to bed. Again we made love, again simultaneous ******. I felt a deep, heavy connection, a longing. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep but the night was cold and long and my breathing too slow to match hers. For hours I sat and let my arm go numb until I could stand it no longer and went for a glass of water.
In the morning we made love again, she reaching ******, me with a feigned smile. The day was spent with my father’s family, an unexpected detour. She was affable, me benign, and the day went on until we boarded the train once more, this time sober. We discussed my next visit, or rather attempted to as the conversation turned to politics, welfare, humanity. As I left for the plane I told her that I loved her and she said, “Goodbye.”

how?
how do you ****?
how, when the blade
or gun or blunt object
is fresh in your hand
gripping and perspiring angst
through palms and fingertips,
how do you come down
on flesh and muscle and tendons
blood breath and pulse
hopes loves and dreams
hates dispositions and fear,
crippling fear,
minuscule frets and
fleeting concerns?
how?
how do you end a life?
how, in you darkest hour
of pain and anger and hopeless suffering
of debilitating sorrow and absolute hate
how do you destroy
what was
what is
what could have been
what you did not create
what is not yours to disassemble?
god is not a person or a presence
but a sense of knowing
that you will never know
how

there have
always been
conservative extremists,
except now
they have
the means
to destroy
the entire world,
and ruin all
that they
have worked
so hard
to preserve --
yesterday
I saw a
child pick  
a flower
and eat it.

the heart knows
to pump blood
to the extremities,
but sometimes
the heart
sees itself
in another ribcage
and forgets to beat

the female is confined;
a fly in a moving car
and rain falls
and snow falls
and one by one
the female dies
as she is released
into earth and into
rivers and onto creek beds
and one by one
tadpoles become frogs and eat flies
before they become stuck
in moving cars

I awoke with cold toes.
The starch white cotten against my skin, as my leg lay stretched out to the side. Its so cold early in the morning but i always beg you to leave the window open .... The sound of you making love with me mixes perfectly with the songs the crickets hum for us.