/\

Missa

"Here's to pretty girls with filthy thighs!"
So the time-honored toast goes; another festering monument
to the God of Ignorance upon his writhing throne.

I smile and drink and try to lie
attempt to pretend that I can simply laugh instead of cry,
but behind that smile there's no misunderstanding
of the results that mind-set implies.

And then there are eyes shouting blue nuances from a corner,
deep wells of liquid Band-Aid summoning me
to worship yet again at the altar of Hedone.

The usual small talk, no realization as yet
of who it really is speaking about flowers
and reaching casually for my ******, stricken hand.

She has no name, but she has a face
like carven ivory, she has no past but a tiny diary
which peaks out of her leather purse like a toddler.

She is in my closet of a room now, no pretenses
and all passion, arms around me as if there really
is no tomorrow, and I am all she has left to love.

Out of nowhere, holding my face in both hands and leaning close,
staring me down she whispers "Follow the music."

Symbolum

I found him in a bar I'd never been to,
and I wasn't looking for him, or anybody else that night.

Something about the way he grimaced
when his friend shouted a bunch of crap,
endeared me to him then and there I think.

I've met and slept with so many that I
can tell about things, I can read people too easily,
and he was haunted, like me.

I don't think he knew for sure exactly what I was,
but I have no doubt he guessed,
as he easily stated no other women were
as bold as I am.

When you caught me compulsively washing dishes at 3am

When we agreed to tell each other if there was anyone else

When you cried in your sleep and all I could do was hold you tight

When you were still there for me after flashbacks even though you didn’t know what was happening to me

When we were so shitglued that our accents came out and our friends had no idea what the hell we were saying

When you shattered your Chanel bottle all over your bathroom and I smelled like you for days after

When I tried to cook eggs drunk and you didn’t have butter or milk and had to save them from me

When a tiny version of you found my pirate wig from Halloween

When I moved heaven and earth for you at work

When you took me to the fanciest Italian place I’ve ever eaten at

When we entered a room together people stopped and noticed

When I caught you compulsively washing dishes at 3am

When you orchestrated Thanksgiving and taught me about family

When I bought you boot socks and moleskin to heal your outrageous blisters

When you took me along with you and your daughter to look at Christmas lights, and you didn’t know what I was fleeing from

When I found you folding my laundry at midnight, and I left my heart on the couch next to you

I am cold and aloof
crawling through empty castles
with my solid eyes and ethereal body

A body you still hunger for

Or is it my soul you send your tendrils after
crooning songs of happiness and children
probing crevices made known to you in my weakness

Ah, and when that fails to move
my heart encased in the shards of empty loves
you send a hand searching for mine

I am not those witless dogs you take to bed
to prove your own power over the gender
that you blame for what you are

And whine all you want about how we're perfect
that we deserve each other
that I can use you as I like

I shall not be moved

You're happy to **** my ****
but you daren't listen to what I speak
Use me as you have been used
and deny it even to yourself

Don't forget that I was birthed in this
a child of the lies we tell ourselves
Son of passions whose sources
shuffle like unwanted abortions into the corner

You will never again win my hopes
while wishing for me to help you ****** your brother
You will never turn again your own hate
into your conception of what my love is

I am consciously willing into existence the day,
when it won't be so hard for us to love each other.

I was told about Hemingway and writing one true thing. Here's today's.

Change is inevitable. Forgive me for not doing it fast enough.

How many?
How many dreams have died?
How many hopes have withered?
How many loves have faded?

How many futures have been shortened?
How many voices have been silenced?
How many friends have been lost?

How many shall have left us wanting?
How many shall have left us needing?
How many shall have left us empty?

Too many.

Farewell my Love
you have gone to a place where my soul can't follow;
perhaps there peace may wrap you in her arms
and fill you with a warmth
that I never could.

These reflections of a future that will never be
a mirror into the great perhaps,
such as what you always wanted to find in the end.

I would have followed if you had let me,
would have poured myself into all the fissures in your
beautiful beating heart;
would have burned my own as an offering to you.

I see that I have not the power to take a heart
and by the power of my love
make it whole.

I thank you all the same for allowing me to see
that all we have are memories and choices.
It is the choices that give shape to our souls,
that make meaning of memories.

Such courage for you to have to make a choice
to spare me a greater pain
and for you to suffer alone.

I stand now weeping and empty
alone in the house of roses
and where now I go that your spirit is gone
only the wind knows.

When first we go to bed together
careful I will have to be
in my passion
not to tear your dress
for I sew terribly.

Haunted I am
by images of you
wondering how you might
feel against me
as I labour on
through the night.

A question I have
that stands wonderfully
naked to me
how many ways
shall we find
to love each other?

I accumulate ghosts the way other men collect trophies

Early Autumn

Broken brooch pins, fallen cotton

Charcoal thumbprints on sunburnt shoulders

Your locket forgotten in the grass

I loved you then

With wheat chaff and wind blown hair

Ancient memories