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Jeff Barbanell Aug 2013
All about you
It’s your turn
You get to be someone in control
Of the circumstances
That led to this place
Pie all over your face
Can’t help but tell you
Could smell you coming fifty yards out
Didn’t need to shout
Get across the wares you were bearing
Got it clear sincere day one
On the spot we got
Adhering to the goal we set out
Come together right now over me
In a place that gets to be all about you
I was starting to fall for you
You didn’t want me to
Told me there’s things I shouldn’t say
Do all the stuff you want
Hung out at the places you haunt
Just a ghost of a chance
You’re gonna stay
Jeff Barbanell Aug 2013
Just a simple fact that kissing you
Feels like opening a threshold
Rubicon that cannot be surpassed
Ultimately next day we’re together
Not changing that reality
Ad infinitum
Reductio ad absurdum
Qu'est-ce que c'est ?!?
Painted, do I have to draw you a picture?
Written, do I have to spell it out for you?
We lifted each other, literally.
Humbled by your grace
The way you spin away when no one’s watching
The brass you play when showing joy
The faces you go through to let me know you mean the words you say
We click
Despite what civil justice must prevail as we work out our revenge
Upon our other avatars
Can’t get it out of our DNA born that way
Pretend I’m too weird you don’t know me shunned
Turn your back a pariah harbinger of eternity easy lover
Hard fact that we were meant for each other.
Jeff Barbanell Aug 2013
You were mine
You owned me but I thought I bought you
To the right, straight on ‘til morning, priceless
Tundra frontier vast expanse of possibility final
Let’s settle down
Our place very fine
Satan’s little acre
Where work got done you oversaw
To the left, we kissed deep, drunk each other
Families commingled extended
Biblically umbilical making babies
Behind the audacious bleachers
Our promise broken unfulfilled
Until our hot integrity solders this metallurgy
Together again like joint work power coupled
With terpsichorean abandon unleashed
I’ll stop the world
Board the white van
Emerge my own man
And you are his
Jeff Barbanell Jul 2013
Perish the thought that coats
Our tongues with hard harsh words
Inchoate reaching beyond grasp
Scantly strum our plush stairs
Scaling arpeggios
To soft crescendo as hands clasp
Gently brush angel hairs
Like magnet and shavings
Draw forged iron from gorgeous shrouds
Cherish the touch that floats
Like snowflakes whispering
In hushed descent from secret clouds

I will hold you in my mind
I will hold you in my arms
I will hold you in my time
You will hold me with your charms
I will take care of your memory
You will take care of my heart
I will keep you in my thoughts
Whether together or apart

Saintly calm amid storms
Whose roil-released crystals
On sprinkled tongues and cheeks alight
Enlace the fringe that frilled
Our sheer contours' luster
Emerging from dark thunder bright
Embrace the mists that build
Like cotton enfolding
Cumulative nimble and fond
Faintly kiss dermal forms
Like ghost lovers made flesh
Coaxed tumescent from far beyond

I will hold you in my mind
I will hold you in my arms
I will hold you in my time
You will hold me with your charms
I will take care of your memory
You will take care of my heart
I will keep you in my thoughts
Whether together or apart
Jeff Barbanell Jul 2013
Each of you.
My individual singularities, Dad’s One Thing.
Conceived 1955.
Driven home, progeny, made man, unequivocal, indisputable.
Post-war night spirits undaunted ~ stop ******* me.
*** for you, stopped me.
Can’t make it the way you want. Please stop.
Backing off, I respect real you.
Don’t push me Me.
Don’t dream.
Will dream us.
Short sentence for guilt whisked way beyond what crime could be.
We combine beans and seeds and gourds.
That’s science! Culinary!
Botany, true, but I’m enaturated.
Human pod progressed.
If that’s a word, don’t dream it’s not.
Forget every word.
But make each and every word count.
Then add stash, socked away.
I concede.
Mi casa su casa.
Paint it.
Together.
Made mistake then fixed it.
Copasetic dovetails, my lady and me (not I).
We walk talk island jib.
I like the cut of your yar across the moonlit pool.
Go around with me to all haunts, snow globetrotting shaken not stirred
My déjà vu in futurum videre, I can’t believe.
Asunder goddesses should be together,
While Isis and Osiris boogie like Beatrice and Dante encircled,
Their own private imbroglio invaded
By Goth end time alchemists conjuring copyrights for gelt.
You tell me this short story.
I cringe.
My mind clouds men’s, and then conjures Morpheus.
My shadow child joins me in Paradise,
Deliria dancing in concert with Shakespearean intent.
My daughter’s got more guts in one pinky
Than all that fallen pilot on our island bargained for
In the games that decided who’s hungrier.
You could have been that gal.
Jeff Barbanell Jul 2013
If I could fix the world,
Setting straight the crooked man’s twisted words with my iron crow,
I’d wrap my brain around what’s wrong, run him out of town on a rail,
Make it safe for women and children first again,
While he hangs together with his corkscrewed cronies or separately,
A lone gunman, fulfilling his own prophecy, his days numbered,
And I belly up to the bar to hoist a few and toast his good riddance.
Why would I tell you my anger and grief, love, knowing it will only raise red flags?
Worrying for my sound mind and body stooped to his level,
Your chemistry simultaneously repelled and attracted to our strange elixir,
The cure worse than the disease, my fists clenched, bruised haymakers
Flailing to defend the ghost in you, a wispy cloud of smoke my arms can’t wrap around.
You should see the other guy, never walking away from a fight, never talking out of school
About the last man standing, railing at raindrops, my reach outstretched beyond grasp,
Out of insight, out of my element, out of my head, out of words,
Left with only futile grunts, moans, and sighs, drained of charm,
My primal gut gnawing at this empty longing, disarmed by your absent embrace,
My zombie arms search the streets howling for their runaway bride.
Jeff Barbanell Jul 2013
Bear with a sore head
Takes coyote on post haste
Bore v. Trickster tried
Hung court just verdict
Bought ideologically
Branded! Brig banished
Like Guantanamo
Force fed on stale chalk
Red glib ref to beasts
Totalists with clubs
Tabulate ***** ad hoc
Bring shame to beating
When stops suicide?
Noble savage survives best
Practice leads young straight
Where head caravans?
Lossless nomads swim through sand
To moor oases
Connect with bazaars
Extra-exponential rock
Scissors paper cuts
Exacto-knifed sharp
Cards tabled until sure things
Made deals pay upfront
Cold hard confidence
Wannabe men drive sweet game
Put all together
Touch trumps tears takes no prison
Uncaged roam space free
Our place ancients planned
Body mind spirit heart team
Here earth *** soils worms
Compost ground debris
Bred sustenance seeds rich peat
Brings about the end
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