You may remember
A night of mist and cool sheets
By a river

His voice waiting,
holding both our hearts in your hand
as we would.

We traded my past for your wish
And no, it won’t fade in the wash;
Just as well.

There’s no one I’d rather owe:
You made it worth the while.
No La Joconda…

You are indelible, a tattoo in my soul
It won’t come off, and from you finally
I became whole.

He moved on like wind to my leaf
Gently carried wide to new horizons
I remain here.

The fire burns our tears in eyes of joy
We turn ever away from us that was
For cooler thoughts.

What remains, sought, plenished
Quiet heroes like angels graced us
In our discretion.

Perhaps our smiles will fill
A day in some summer to be,
In green grass.

Winchester Ave
11/26/16

I wish I’d asked you
All these years ago
What a useless sentiment
How can we know it
Avoiding all that blunder

And the last time
I saw her as she drifted into sleep
My mind filled with longing
My heart filled with dust.  
All our dreams torn asunder

I couldn’t leave again
So she said, “I’ll go.”
Her heart reaching
Took a piece of me along
Borne in her stark wonder.

Into the face of nature
Faith like wishes missing God
She watches over the child
Knowing all right from wrong
Ready her box of thunder

Now I wait patiently
The woman she’ll never find
Years sift like leaves in memory
Raindrops glisten listening tilted
With the answers we left behind

May, December 2019

And she rode the heavy seas
Her land and home gone, gone
****** beneath the froth as by
some great icthyotic wrong.
Sails unfurled to take the wind
she flies before a storm spurned
from psychic halcyon, but
Who knows her goal, the home
of her heart as the future pulls her on.
She vainly peers along the 'rizon
foam beading on her furrowed brow
and in her heart she hears the voice
that calls clear and warm to stay
and eschew the charms of life
in nether-weir this day.
But, nay, she gathers and bursts forth
fleet and sure, to ride the peaks
the more to find her way and
not to rest in watery pasture more.
You're on a journey, that is all
you'll heal hurt heart, a world
as round you go to find; the ****
and rime that gathers now
to hew and leave behind.

Oct. ‘13
Done! Feb 18, 2019

As i open to You
for the first time:
  Yours: feeling my way
  as never before
It’s so exciting to feel
i’m actually touching you
  And when you tell me something
  I feel your giving and want to respond
only for you-
all for you

Tentative, reaching
trembling, knowing nothing
finally, because you’ll tell me
  i needn’t question, fascinated
  devoted to your mind
You can see and feel
all i need to find
all i will find is You

We make love
by remembering
promises missed
hope set aside
by youth driven
down so many
wayward paths

We will always
touch one another
as we always have
no matter the roads
we tread so lonely
or whom we love
so completely.

Consolation (I changed the name)
Jan ‘19

TWO WOMEN

What joy
finding you in the world
light outside a dark tent
warmer than a blanket.
Sparkling water in a green wood.
Aeschylus to the teenaged boy;
would I return so
your dazzling art
or the wisdom in your green green eyes
as you smile at some shared and private joy.
The work you devote to love
so easy the success!
I hold you as life and breath,
treat you as free and hot
to make these moments float
these hours of your toil.
Can we laugh, call it all we want
and cry when sadness over takes
always arm in arm, gently
giving ****** to living:
gust to loving:
What joy!

Early 2018
Salvation

So much has changed
I am a woman now:
Your old friend has disappeared.
See him in the asylum where
     he hid from us all:
    The old school.
Meet me as the sun moves
     Behind the trees
     There are the rushes
    -where the dog-fox played-
     Moving into shadow
You were there, knitting us
    Leggings and I had none.
Of that, there is more to say.

You drifted out of sight
Not lost, unfound
Why not, she said, why?
I’ll look for you, she said.

My womanhood precludes you
Not excludes, yet there
You go, winding a way
Through the trees, lost
To my vision – Lo! The figure
Sitting at the table smiles
Only my imagination fired.

Jan ‘17
BOTY

I was so in love with her
-there was never a close second
Nor my wife did as well
Who abandoned me at my lowest.

Deserved as the iron in heat.

Never she that always holds
My heart, fools enterprise it is.        
She, that is stronger, gentle as wind.

Every day from blink to blank
Perfect light every decision right
And the moments with her
Near or far devoted every hour
Make her laugh bring romance
Never satisfy the beast so at ease.

November ‘16

After the war
we kept finding bodies
beneath the glass
and the bricks
collected for the rebuilding.
It became so painful
to look forward
when that was all we had.
But once again the dead went
unrecognizable, surprised
we could look forward at all.

1.
Don't let memory run away with you
and make moments of loss not true
dreams of joy may turn to ash
and the mistakes you've made to few

It's not lies that protect, but joy:
no need to run away, but employ
your six senses to know the woman
you're becoming from the boy.


2.
I was all hung up before
all hidden in fakery and gore;
now so unsure I'll not pretend
I'm new to being girl-friend.

I'm new to being a woman
and I'm trying to find
all the reaches of my heart so human
how I make up my mind

Testosterone and lies an evil mix
Years of misery with only one fix
Let me join with you girls
Dance arms linked in great whirls

I'm so knew in this lovely air
let me be your newest friend
Heart to heart so we might share
We've good messages to send


3.
My path is all that's certain:
Only truth will I be blurtin'
And with you I would be flirtin'
flinging aside so every curtain

Steady hand and brightest eyes
The time is short ere spirit flies
I've gathered my pains like raspberry pies
And keep them without compromise.

It was the last time
I was in love
the moment wantonly wasted-
out west they move so slow-
It’s wise you say to me
Our want will be for ever
And won’t happen again.

So much earlier…
You don’t remember, do you?
You have my virginity
And no, darling, I’m afraid
It won’t come off.
Just as well I’ve met
There’s no one I’d rather owe;
You made it all worthwhile-
A tidy gift I’ll never give back:
You are indelible,
A tattoo in my soul
And from you I finally
Became whole.

November 2015
BOTY

And if I am not awake
or creative for you
Anyone concerned need not be
You may go on without me.
Look for that brighter light
May you find joy in the sight
May it take you from the fight
I will remain for my own salve
And return to you as I may.