I never knew what beauty life could grace
Me with when all I had was troubled thoughts
But now as my eyes rest upon your face
My suffering and haunting dreams are lost

Instead my mind is filled with rays of light
Of overflowing streams, the clearest blue
And flowers grow from here to out of sight
My darling, don’t you know it’s all ‘cause you?

Because your smile caught me from the start
Because your eyes plant love into my soul
Because your voice breathes hope into my heart
Because your touch can melt away the cold

I never want to leave your faithful side
I’ll lie with you until the end of time

The warm touch of an angel’s fingertip
The soft sensation when her long hair sways
Across my skin and glides over my lips
Embraced in tender arms time slips away

When my eyes meet her eyes I stop and stare
Two tiny worlds more wonderful than ours
The sun reflects off her skin when it’s bare
Glows with beauty more infinite than stars

The scent that follows when she passes by
A heavenly aroma, sweet and light
It steals my heart just like her gentle sigh
A lovely voice that sings to me at night

The moment my eyes shut I dream of you
My angel, calling from the darkened blue

Walking alone through the forest green
He spotted something in between
A kind of meeting among huddled trees
Whispering things across the breeze

A second look—it was there no longer
The mysterious figure left him to ponder:
What was that? What could it have been?
Human, beast, or just leaves in the wind?

He dashed to the spot where it was last seen
To catch it on film he was eager and keen
He spent his whole life waiting for the perfect picture
To awe all the world and become a little bit richer

But then when he got there, at the edge of a lake
He thought it must be a joke, some sort of mistake
For across the water the only thing he could see
Was the dream of his youth, shattered and broken

There will be regret, so much regret, I know this
          Yet
The alien thoughts of rebirth quickens in my gut, thickly moving with determined osmosis, to drive the very tides of my blood
To ultimately insinuate itself
Into the fibers of my nervous system.
Climbing up and into the pithy stem
To feel with my starry-ed synapses, to see with my own eyes
The parasite's willowy dendra
Protectively cupping the soft mass of my brain,
Tenderly releasing biochemical panaceas
   --The Mother of me--
I rise, a new creature,
Half of me mercifully dead,
Full of possibilities.

I disgust myself
This weakness I have for it all
For meaning, for connection,
For the Great Him
The need to constantly be keyed
Up and into words bigger than me
My hormones are more than happy to oblige
And the not so subtle subterfuge
Sucker that I am
Aware but still hopeless
But I eat every last morsel
Cut small to fit my childish mouth
A mouth that can do Very Mature Things
A mouth that can honestly lie to herself
*****, please.

search for

pale, warm colours adrift in white
butterfly flickers- so slight I miss them  
soft rise and fall of sound-asleep tide
silent maybe, sweet-sticky breath

hit the switch- search again quicker




expectant

i want to feel complete love
i want to feel complete
i want to feel
i want to
i want
i




empty

I should be
nervous or excited,
have butterflies
in my tummy.
I should be
beautiful and ripe-
I should be full.
I should get over it?
Carry on?
Try again?



wish

Your haunting me is beautiful:

How you stand just out of frame-
Though I sometimes think I see you sparkle
in their birthday-candle eyes.

I try to imagine you with a few more wrinkles.
More pucker lines around your mouth
and fatter
Liver spots indicative of aging,
a few of your teeth gone brown or missing,
and maybe some sort of growth upon your nose.
I wish your beauty bad

I imagine,
in your desperation for
a little bit of the attention
you once had,
you would come back for me.

You would leap out from behind a tree
like on our first date.
You would shout boo
and we would laugh
like the way I can’t forget.

I would take you in my arms
and kiss your crinkled lips.  
We would walk again on a city street
so that I can watch you digest
     the art of the sidewalk,
          the music of dive bars,
               the difference between two woven fabrics
that look quite the same to me.

And I would
help you back up to your pedestal.
I would stand close to keep you safe.

I would love you.
Forever.
No matter.

I wish you were ugly like me.


Michael L Sutter