With ease, with grace you slithered
into my air.
You breathed your chloroform,
noxious and stale
through the uneasy silence of this tiresome song.
The very word of your presence
chill and forgotten.
Quomodo Ego diligo vos.
The sheets are so cold,
I reach to feel you there.
Books and papers,
a cigarette case,
some silly stuffed **** thing,
left over one night.
Pulling pieces from a mason jar,
words and phrases.
The missive unclear.
Stashed away, here it can harm no one.
The letters familiar in hand.
Irgendwie Ich Liebe Sie , einmal nun jetzt
Oh that elegant flow.
The loops of a madman,
crazed and alone.
You taught him so many heartbeats.
Your long prattling song.
The painting rests by the end.
Short fevered work,
on one of the seldom afternoons alone.
I recall white walls,
toast with strawberry jam.
Loud, obnoxious music.
Brushes in water sticking out of an old can.
Who but I would remember?
Quomodo Ego diligo vos.
Now, perhaps more than ever.
Irgendwie Ich Liebe Sie , einmal nun jetzt
I feel you, wrapped in my skin.
A guest in my most earthly of homes.
Do you know how you intrude?
Even now, as the din has died down,
The curtains have closed.
A pen and the car keys,
insignificant things with no night table on which to rest.
Here, next to me have found a home.
Once there was you,
vile and lovely
warm on that side,
now abandoned.
Forgotten and cold.
Aborted as always.
Irgendwie Ich Liebe Sie , einmal nun jetzt