My avid gaze
spoke to the rosary
of your flesh

My heartsick tremors
marked me as a wanted man
and burned the villages
of my ancestors

I was a refugee
from time
a friend to no man

My tears washed the blood
from my hands
my eyes withered
the tender bud

So when did I read poetry
on your lips?

Did your mountains fracture
and disintegrate into
sparkling shards
as mine did?

Was the moon an egg
in your basket
as it was in mine?

Little do we know
of the other
when first we clasp hands
and agree

In time
and with luck
we learn.

There is peace at the end
but no joy
the abyss is only
silence

and a taut string
connecting us
to eternity.

Movement no.1
Andante con moto

Farewell.

I am leaving you
with the sweetness
and the sadness
of every creature on this earth
draped over my shoulders
as a shroud

We rest now
before the final struggle
looking down upon our lives
from a precipice

The wind calls up
a faint sound

a song
of healing
as resignation

So bring forth the dirge
let dogs and oboes
cue the horns
as we embark
upon a tender struggle

We are whipped back
and forth
between grief and glory
in this life

an indifferent life
lush with raw power

But thankfully
at the end of every day
there is sleep.

Movement no. 2
Im tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers. Etwas täppisch und sehr derb.

Dance returns
and goes mad

Who could lift a leg
that high?  

Not I.

The music careens
off the walls
in a dissonant minuet
of the hours

The clenched teeth
of each and every minute
grind here
as if time itself
took heel
and made a sparkling trace
across the pines
of this exalted floor of dance.

Movement no. 3
Rondo Burleske: allegro assai. Sehr trotzig.

A music major's delight.
Fugues against fugues.
Dense contrapuntal figures
and sarcastic counterpoint
shouting out
from the back of the class.

And then

just love

confused perhaps
but real love indeed.

Movement no. 4
Sehr langsam und noch zurüclhaltend

The violin
noblest of instruments
takes its place

In bitter sorrow
life soon lost
the fruit of the tree
is extinguished
the promise of green days
burned by drought

All is withheld.

There is peace at the end
but no joy
the abyss is only silence

and a taut string
connecting us
to eternity.

When I first met her
God put a speaking trumpet
straight up against my ear
and stated
very slowly
in that Godly voice
that is a mix of
the ocean's roar
and the singing of
Barry White

"This is the one
you've been looking for."

The stars were in on it
bubbling like champagne
in the night sky
singing a sweet accompaniment
a singular poem
of one word:
Yes.

What would you do?

I took the only possible path:
Surrender.

Gave up my wandering ways
quit my womanizing
got hitched straight away
tied the knot
didn't know a thing
about knot tying
but the **** thing held.

And here we are.
Poet number one
that would be her.

Poet number two-and-a-half
me

Marriage solved nothing
brought more questions
than answers
more unfinished business
than completed tasks

Yet at this late stage
a sense that against all odds
against the evidence
of my hands
against every argument
presented by the priest
who reluctantly married us

Something has gone
wonderfully right.

The stars,
dear friends,
truly know their business.

Life is loss
nothing more
nothing less

It strips you of
that phantom
the well-tended self

sells your memories
on the street
for pennies

leaves your old worn shoes
in the entryway
as a warning

as if to say
those sad shoes will go no further
than the funerary urn

So I choose to mock loss
to dance in damaged shoes
and with each extravagant gesture
to shout out

Let there be wine
food and song

Let there be no grief
upon my demise
only mirth

Only dancing
music and mirth.