These words keep arriving by post,
By phone and through the air:
They say, “I love you the most!”
And he’s always unprepared.

I dismissed them until I knew
What they could mean,
What they could do.

They let a young boy believe
In a dangerous fantasy
Of the young or naïve,
And give himself to ecstasy.

He’d already given himself away
To a girl who “merely loved” him;
He was swayed.
He was wounded by a whim.

How could his young heart
Know the anguish of love spurned?
Of changing minds and false starts?
That passion fades as quickly as it burns?

He was “crushed” when it ended;
His response, pure and true.
Still that phrase he insanely defended!
“I love you, I love you, and I love you”!

How hollow to me it still rings!
My beloved son in pain.
What makes a girl do these selfish things?
What is it that they gain?

Young hearts now seem to lack wisdom;
They’re so eager to believe.
Yet they haven’t the caution
It takes to give love and receive.

Summer, 2006

nothing flights these skies tonite
nothing burns above our heads
or crackles in the air
or glows in the houses about us
as we pace the cool and empty
the alleys and the meatless streets
and the clean scaleless cobbles
carry our patternless birch-bare feet
a sail less nite
but a kite to the imagination
a bringer of new
lighter beings
osmosis
through our faultless immigration




Previously published [Show Thieves 2010 : An Anthology Of Contemporary Montreal Poetry - 8TH HOUSE PUBLISHING]

If I were Newland Archer
What would I now do with my love?
Would I torment  her, ask impossible things,
Surrender to her irrational command
And let the others make my future plans?

Oh no! My beloved Ellen was wrong!
To think that I could stay the course,
That marriage could end like a closing door,
And leave the future in May’s serpentine hands.

This time, if such a chance were given me,
What would I do to make safe our love?
I would give up all I had thought so dear,
My frivolous books, effete pursuits, so she could be near.

I was unworthy, the first time, I know.
I consented to her feeling that I must go.
But now I would re-arrange my life, dare any disdain
Just to kiss her wrist in unfounded faith.

Would I again leave my Love if told to choose?
No! I was weak before, thinking that I had no chance.
Yes, oh, yes! How could I ever bear to lose
My Ellen and our enchanted dance?

I know I have wronged those who trusted me,
But don’t blame the unwitting authoress of my woe!
For it was my own frailty that blinded me,
My disregard for those things that
Any man with a heart should know.

I see now that if to May’s wish I did not bend,
She would see my surrender was great to me but small to her,
She would find another, as resolute women do under duress.
And instead of a false life, Ellen, I could be alive with you!

                                    -----------------------­--

Written if Newland Archer (of the novel "Age of Innocence") had listened to no one and abandoned not only the wife who shanghaied him into domestic servitude, but his own priggish insistence on doing the “right” thing for the wrong reasons.

Semi-finished, June 19, 2011

Sharon Talbot

The first one happened in the dark,
On an awkward bed in too much haste;
It was not really what I wanted,
Not a meal but just a taste.
The second and third were foggy at best,
A handsome face or long, blond hair,
The connections, sweat and smooth chest,
But the memories are still fair.
The fourth one kept hailing me
And I almost saw him there,
But his pursuit was like a drug
Too flattering sweet to miss;
Unknowing pain dispelled with a winter kiss.

Other trysts would follow:
In an empty room, on a stripped-down bed,
In a forest that covered a hill,
Inside a corner room,
With nights in white
Cotton and you missing still,
While floating snow fell.
I saw your face out in the storm.
No one there to keep you warm.

A summer lad was tall and fair,
His arrogance disguised as a dare,
Flaunting traits you wish weren’t there,
But a bacchanal makes up for OCD.
Until his obsession is directed at me.
Imagine Apollo in a haze of J.D.!

He took me home (unsuspecting) in his car,
Across the Valley, but it wasn’t far
Enough for me to endure his howls
About my lack of even temper
When he inspected other girls.
I stopped his rant and smashed a car door.
Yet he called the next morning,
Insanely wanting more.
And I told him that:
If a ten ton truck had crashed
Into his tin VW and we were mashed,
I couldn’t think of a worse way to die,
Than to be pinned there by his side!

So to you and all the others I bemoan:
Don’t take me back to your home.
I have no use for your romance,
I don’t need your wants,
And you don’t want what I need.
There’s a bed of my own where I prefer to sleep
And in the sunrise I will keep
A sweet liaison with coffee and birdsong,
Of synthesized music all morning long.
With a new gold dream beside me.
And summertime inside me.
There is a light and it never goes out;
Those who don’t see it have been shown out.