A man who cannot dream
is a man without a woman,
like someone thinking of a tractor,
the loss of a limb, the bequest
of a brass bed, a rundown plantation,
a large white house with a black
dinner bell but no supper,
a wayfarer going nowhere,
a vanished explorer
sometimes lost in his own room.

I'm sick to death of me
living vicariously
through meaning-
less words like
a mocking bird
mocking a gull
on a wave-less shore
or a man without oars
(f)or a life (raft) on a lost
ship adrift in an angry sea
and no anchor or eyes
on the horizon somewhere
west of anywhere but here.

Silence is the Captain
of my nights

His ship slips quietly
like words made of smoke

By the low light of the moon
he guides me

Both lost in this deep ocean
of love and loneliness.

From time to time
I sit outside
and watch the night sky
deep in its shadow
and dreaming
of a dusky woman
with black hair
and a sequined dress
riding high on her thighs
until my eyelids
grow dark
from the starlight.

Far into the night
I spied a long dead star
like that dark light
I saw through the pane
of your window,
like a signal for me
that it was all clear now
to move on to another exile,
another woman, another
island to banish myself,
another liaison with dawn.

You were no Eve of Russian literature
like Pushkin’s precious Tatyana.
You were no young, innocent, provincial girl
seduced by cynical Onegin, that bon vivant
corrupted by modern European values.
You were no mysterious Russian soul
brimful of essential purity and self-sacrifice -
with a love of pain and pure disdain of happiness.

Tatyana resisted all temptation, refusing
to take flight, rejecting the man she loved.
She was too good to be true; but you, Anna
what a pickle you got yourself in, choosing ****** sin.
You could share an affair with dashing Vronsky
elope with him and leave behind your husband
abandon your beloved son, Alexei.

But these were not the dreadful choices
sealing your tragic fate, my dear Anna.
It was those ****** feelings you chased
all based on the sin of selfishness.
You fed on romance, passion and desire.
Your hot-hunger was insatiable, a fire
rip-roaring through restraint and all decorum
You sweated and panted wild for ******.

They say you’re a ‘drama queen’; heartless and mean
a woman undone by excess, always longing to undress
nakedly making grand errors of judgement.
By ignoring Tatyana’s fine example, you certainly forgot
there will always be those who tot up the ledger.
Your blood debt was owing, it had to be paid.

You saw the light at the end of the tunnel -
cool down, Anna, let the raw feelings subside
be watchful, wary and ever-ready to step aside
let the moments of  menace and gloom drain –
it might just be an oncoming train is due.

© M.L.Emmett 2016