Though I am bold and young at heart,
Tempered by the varied winds,
I must not forget
What I gleaned from your eyes
As you peered into mine

I saw you.
The taste of lime and dim light
Fetter as I took you away from the crowd
From strangers to lovers,
We came and went,
Our fondness disheveled covers

Subtext, riddles through course encounters
I lay alone those nights and reminisced
The touch I sought was yours

Periodic formal dinners
Gave way to more late nights as
Friends followed the informal
And soon, no secret

I see our friends come and go,
But we, we never leave.
On crowded sunlit beaches
With the rest
We step on rocky sand

I take you for granted
Juggling careers,
Dreams we dreamt since we were kids
It all falls short of machinations
But that which stays had no division

Rarely speaking
Those words which grow ill with repetition
As we grow together in flore

Now dim lights keep the flowers by your bedside table
Subtle patter of branches against a doctor’s window
Is all I hear against the swell of loss

I see me old, but still young at heart,
Weakened by the varied winds,
And I never forgot
What I gleaned from your eyes
As you peered into mine

What I know is I’d love you
Worthily through life
And, as life leaves, preserve it
I see it in your eyes

Can you capture me, body?
Because you know how a candle burns,
but not how one burns within me
Thought is not by you,
but above you

Body, can you see what I see?
You see yourself in pictures,
but life is a movie
The body feels the moment,
but the mind is the movement

Do you rule me, body?
I am mine 'till I die,
but if my mind asphyxiates
Who am I?
The soul is the centrifuge of
Mind and body

Are we profligate,
Disillusioned by fearlessness?
Running unkempt
Cut loose from Nature’s design,
We rest, only to rise
And seek restlessly
Fruits of a victory ripped from obscurity.
Past the grip of physicality, we speak
Sermons of profundity:
Inclined to faction,
Built upon acuity
of inclination.

An autumn glow
As I run my hand through sun-kissed hair,
Coursing though stalwart gazes,
She tells me I am he.

We kiss.
I shutter,
For I feel unfulfilled.
A causality of
The perceived:
Salience of difference no one sees

Stolen by wonder,
Palpitations of her heart
Slight the silence of her lips as we kissed
And I realized that there’s nothing more
Than to indemnify true sublimation,
Where hearts truly rest,
And rest together.

I wanted to stay,
But I wouldn’t let me
With dawning on the dark,
It lay there fully heaving
With searing conic splinters
Of headlight in its back,
We left it on the road

Tossed in epinephrine,
Guilty of some throttle-rush
We had macerated in the night
Some brood of Nature’s brush
So, I sped to Edgerton
As fast as our time was

You'll say, “He never cared.”
I’m sad I’ve lost your name
No phonebook would amend
I should have just slowed down

Harrowed by this most singular form, we are a
Coalescence of two

Pedals in cathedral stained glass windows
In glorious form
And resting on tables
Placed seemingly, unassumingly
Placed in insurmountable space
Seen by seers and filled by philosophers,
Nonetheless echoing through cavernous halls

Patterned textures of a Parisian tablecloth in my hand
While my other holds yours in its softness
Recusing sonneteers’ burdens,
Varied recollections of a ringing sound
Excusing intelligent ponderings,
Echoes of faltering and exaltation

With a kiss, we speak soundly
Amplifying what we’ve heard all our lives,
But its crimson is of our origination
To be heard once by us and hence,
Echoed to be heard throughout

There's wind blowing in my ears
You stay your steely gaze on me
I see the truth in your eyes
Oh, and I'm bleeding

You speak, and all I am is listening
A candied resonance endowed
Your words, they're living in the light,
But they're not casting a shadow

It's not pity, pain, not jealousy
There's not a wrinkle on your face
But I'm not close enough to see
Why you sit in empty space

Run down, run down
I'm run down, run down
I'm trapt just above the surface
Looking miles underground

Asunder, tiredly I sit and think
Why all we do is run and drink
Away
Plans and dreams and hopes aloft
While conscience suffers
As bombs go off

Run down, run down
I'm run down, run down
I'm trapt just above the surface
Looking miles underground

Stale greens served again
At the same tables
Echoed conversations amidst the
Glow of brilliant faces
In a room, a windowless
Place of task and
Of mere knowing

We traded desire for
Errant follow-though
Like chapped lips locked
Where we might have gone
- A mouth of salty water -
If we had not stayed
- A chassis’ curdled rust -

We dream of tired eyes
Sleepless till the dawn
Sore hamstrings while running
Chasing the stuff unknown
A lemon meringue
First ****, then toothsome
So inspired by where we reach

There was a stain on that one table
You were gently in view
I fiddled with it instead of smiling at you
The crowd was loud, but I spoke louder
Briefly fastened by a gaze, then freed
A chance soon wasn't one
At the table, silent
Left to remain
Where I stayed
Searching
Safe

I am within
and with doubt
Corners merely cornered
Meters running out
Here, at last a moment,
a moment's last-
ing (re)doubt

Hinted on skin,
Winter wind,
Chills beget our watching
Of the time we passed through
Not assuming, simply tasting
The salty savory tense that was,
and felt,
and left for now
Where we dreamed the stuff of man
Kindly holding us in time's embrace

Though behind as we bear on,
An orgastic collision, a circumstance,
It is so undeniable and warm,
The time we passed through

Cantations whispered to me here
She smiles gently overhead
With a summer's orangey glow
And a warmth from ear to ear

I need not make a wish,
For I'll wait not for it here

I'm glad she doesn't see. She doesn't see the messages, shared emotion between two people where she could have been one of them. She's safe there, outside the headspace of these people. She doesn't feel the absence of an afterthought; there should have been. But she probably wouldn't take exception.

She's been here and there, providing in space oscillating between awareness and obscurity, never coaxing such an intention to express gratitude. She has been given little of what is hers, and so remains steadfastly defunct of knowing any misdirection. Painfully, or perhaps peacefully, symbolic love isn't hers.

And so it slips and slides between others less modest, ultimately touching via codependence and gravitation, an exertion of a weak nuclear force in relative vacancy.

Hopefully, though she can't see, she isn't wanting. Hopefully, she doesn't know that while she has given her love and life, others derive the result.

Speak to me,
And the oceans will cease to
Wax and wane, the
Wind will settle to a whisper
Glance at me with a smile, and
You'll fill every compartment of my heart
With song, plunge me
Into a spring of melody

There's no way to climb,
to see the pinnacle,
No way to traverse in full
the ivy gardens of your eyes

A mirror's truth isn't divulged in the image that was, but in the image that remains.

But I'll stay hidden for now, while I'm musing on something better.