The distance ever so touchable
Yet you're still far afield

The glimmering glitter in your blissful
Translucent almond irises
Waiting to deviate from them
Yet they have imprinted themselves
Now affiliated with my heart

Seeing your lips brimming brightly
Rejuvenating your flawless visage
Embodying my love
Not even half your beauty

Inwardly made you mine
Realistically destined for another

Drastic jaundiced waves
Crashing the shores of heartbreak
Sentiments

Thus the eminent work of
Patience
Silence
Benevolence
Enshrouds my blooming admiration
For you
Unfastening my feigned ethos
For you

I comprehend the significance of dignity and family

But my love
Ceaseless and eternal

But my love
Yours only

I carefully stitched your name
embroidered each memory,
each beautiful piece of art
into the delicate walls
of my beating heart.
I put aside the threat of pain,
the tearing apart,
the risk of scars that would remain,
in the hope that I would never
have to
unpick, unfasten,
you, again.

How I was wrong.
And the unstitching never gets easier
and the short sharp scratch
Each time, you work your way back
Hurts just as much as the last.

Seasoned Love's silent discourse,
Dusk of the long distance,
Beneath the mantle of lament
The peak bloom, gnawing decay,
Obscure
The weight of favor;
Annealing fire, moulded by
Winds of duration
Unfastening the raw surf of sorrow.

Incipient caprice, theft of occlusion
Colored by common defiance,
Vile tremors of privation-
Native enclave,
The province of
Vacant, age-eaten elucidation.

The tangled weave, pathos and ethos
Vested
Interior acquisition,
Furrowed paths of countenance
Evincive and drawn,
Affinity found, inhabiting the palisades
Of Immersion.

A furtive glance harbors
The trained gaze whose
Immanent flame-
Emergent
Serous source,
Imbued piercing latency;
A taste of
The fountainhead.

Unprobed theater of the absolute.

Thin supple pith
Identity sealed in skin
Perambulator of meaning and
Lineaments of cure.
Bearing the image of ubiquity
Perceives in the other,
Immortality.
Sacramental Eros,
Subsumes the
Capacity to treasure.

©2013 W.S. Warner

When my grandfather passed away, my brothers and I held my dad with slanted eyebrows and stiff, silent upper lips. Because we are young and foolish and still learning. Because we’d never really had to do the holding before and, as far as we knew, this is how men mourn.

We dusted antique left-behinds with delicate, moth-wing hands that fluttered here and there and never stopped trembling -- dead giveaways that within the corridors of our arms our heartbeats went stampeding, arrhythmic. We couldn’t quite bend them into the proper shape for prayer, so instead we ran them, with touch somewhere between float and feel, along every ashtray and age-stained picture album. In that moment I think we each wished that memory read like braille, but no one ever said as much. Because this is how men mourn.

We honored our patriarch with whiskey, hidden away for what must have been twice my age, between the carved out pages of old stacked books.
We drank like secrets. His portrait played witness.

We promised between our teeth with tinged lips tight, keeping words in that might otherwise crumble us like great ancient empires.

We singed and smoldered in a burn that coated our throats, quelling a choke that kept climbing its way up from a chest that never quite stayed sunk. Boys grow up loving the clinking twist of unlocking deadbolts but men peek through keyholes. Because this is how men mourn. Silent and straight with head only slightly slanted.

But when my father betrayed his rigidity with words that clicked clean like unfastening locks, we traded this stale air in for wind laced with the electric taste of thunderstorms. We forgot how men mourn.

When my grandfather passed away, my brothers and I held my dad with lightning behind bleared eyes. Because we are young and foolish and still learning. Because we have umpteen days left to dress in bittersweet vestiges and, as far as we know, this is how men live on.

walks on tiptoes; an arachnid of sorts
with ballet legs and great white jaws sinks its
teeth beside the collar of your jacket,
unfastening the buttons to expose
a healthy beat beat beat but the shame creeps
in, carressing a bare torso, looking;
searching for the fat in which to feast.

My muse, my muse,
She’s here right now
She just took a shower and her hair is still wet.
She's wearing a bathrobe, she walks up to the bed and sits
When she crosses one leg over the other I catch a flash of her thighs
Inviting thighs, long legs
She has pretty feet
And pretty ankles,
I always look at feet.
She has delicate wrists
She has long thumbs, here she is
Now leafing through a magazine
With those long thumbs,
Long fingernails.
Her shoes are on the floor, shoes that she wore last night
They've fallen over on the carpet,
My eyes find my way back to her
She seems to have found something interesting in the magazine
Here she is, concentrated on it, her back is straight
In this light, this natural light,
Without make up,
She looks impossibly lovely,
Renoir would paint her.

I get out of bed and walk into the shower.

There’s something strangely intimate
About taking a shower in a girl’s bathroom,
Shampoo bottles and hair conditioners all around me
Water cascading down my bare chest
Recollecting and replaying scenes from the night before:
Unbuttoning her jeans, pulling them off
Seeing her Hello Kitty underwear
And laughing, and thinking it was cute
And saying, umm… so how old are you again?
Humour always works, yes, humour always works.

I love ******* this girl.
It seems as though I'm always ******* her.
At night in the living room, on the sofa
Unfastening her stockings and slowly rolling them off,
Next her skirt, then her underwear…
Sweet parting flesh
I begin thinking of how it’ll be, how it’ll go down

She's always in something classy,
But man, it seems as though I'm always ******* her.
Sometimes I strip everything off her body,
But I ask her to leave her earrings and heels on; they confirm her nakedness
Hoop earrings
Red lipstick
Red heels
I lie in the middle of the bed, lights are dim, she climbs onto the bed
Curls up between my legs, begins by kissing on my stomach...
Great lovers lie in hell, the poet says.
Great lovers lie in hell.

I'm falling asleep afterwards, but not her
*** invigorates me, she says, tying her hair in a ponytail
This girl, she has the effect of lighting a matchstick in the dark.
She lays beside me and begins to read Jeanette Winterson
And just before I succumb to a deep slumber I remember something and tell her,
*Baby, baby, baby, your Morse code interferes with my heartbeat.

he leaned over, breath hot against cool skin

and it didn't feel like fire, but it felt like a burn. and i closed my eyes, rapid moving things

nudging for an escape,

and thought i could hear heartbeats flooding my lungs

but from where wept, it sounded like anger.

and from where i heaved, it sounded like ripping flesh, like the slow drag of a zipper and the whip of an unfastening belt.

i could draw out the shape of him

without staring, without studying. he wanted me to remember.

& i remembered

It felt like fire then, and it burned like a flame and i opened my eyes, and kept them steady.

while, the train shook the house.

while these bones were cement things, laid out beside me.

don't cry, don't cry, my, darling, don't cry.

and for the most fragile moment,

swore his hands wound around my flesh, were there to mend me, not break me.

and for the briefest moment, i swore this was more than just

a broken body tapered to the mattress like a stain.

it wasnt raining, but it felt like it.

wait wait

the train is too loud and i feel like im being ****** right underneath

Wait

Like all flesh rubbed raw,

Everything stays a shade of pink

The Glass Menagerie

*She was ethereal in her beauty.
I always loved her of course.
But only from a respectful distance.
She collected glass animal's.
I always gave her one for birthdays.
She would kiss my cheek in thanks.
Not the kiss I craved but a kiss.
Her perfect French braids
Framing her lovely face.
I fantasized unfastening them
Slowly so her hair flowed
Like the soft spring rain
washing my bare skin.
She would show me the
intricate color mix
in her glass menagerie.
But I only saw the colors
of her hair her eyes her lips.
When the sickness came.
Her skin became
taught and translucent like glass.
The weight loss showing her frame
She looked more and more
Like one of her beloved
glass collection.
Then when we lost her
She left her collection to me.
But the one
I wanted and treasured
Was on a high shelf
Beyond the clouds
Far beyond my reach.

I never claimed night fathered me.
that was my dead brother talking in his sleep.
I keep him under my pillow, a dear wish
that colors my laughing and crying.

I never said the wind, remembering nothing,
leaves so many rooms unaccounted for,
continual farewell must ransom
the unmistakable fragrance
our human days afford.

It was my brother, little candle in the pulpit,
reading out loud to all of earth
from the book of night.

He died too young to learn his name.
Now he answers to Vacant Boat,
Burning Wing, My Black Petal.

Ask him who his mother is. He'll declare the birds
have eaten the path home, but each of us
joins night's ongoing story
wherever night overtakes him,
the heart astonished to find belonging
and thanks answering thanks.

Ask if he's hungry or thirsty,
he'll say he's the bread come to pass
and draw you a map
to the twelve secret hips of honey.

Does someone want to know the way to spring?
He'll remind you
the flower was never meant to survive
the fruit's triumph.

He says an apple's most secret cargo
is the enduring odor of a human childhood,
our mother's linen pressed and stored, our father's voice
walking through the rooms.

He says he's forgiven our sister
for playing dead and making him cry
those afternoons we were left alone in the house.

And when clocks frighten me with their long hair,
and when I spy the wind's numerous hands
in the orchard unfastening
first the petals from the buds,
then the perfume from the flesh,

my dead brother ministers to me. His voice
weighs nothing
but the far years between
stars in their massive dying,

and I grow quiet hearing
how many of both of our tomorrows
lie waiting inside it to be born.

The makings of slave
The makings of a slave
He treated me like a farmer tending land
He praised me nourished me
gently raked his fingers
through my soft brown soil
Poured forth affirming words like oil
SIGH
Spoiled

Then suddenly those kinds words stopped
  Everything besides the unfastening of his zipper
  from the bottom to the top

Without warning  he'd
****** me up into his arms
till and toil my heartbroken soil around the clock
CELEBRATION
APPRECIATION NO WHERE TO BE found
SILENCE
NO SOUND
just that zipper from bottom to top

Thought it was me
So my heart I did unlock
In vain
steadily tick-tock tick -tock

We were
Distant planets drifting farther apart
I tell you the truth
It's the start of:
THE MAKINGS OF A SLAVE

darling i have meat stuck in my teeth
             i have not a wreathe on my dome
             i have a long measure of water
             rammed in my throat, hemmed in like
             your body’s canopy in the stream of me
             i chase the silence like a tractable beast
             in this hollow den of nothing
                                                         darling
i have not hands but chains
      i have volcanoes and not moons
         i see past the banners,   an army of   light
       unfastening itself  from  the poles of foreverness
     I have in my eyes   again the frail azure
            and the gyration of clouds mangling themselves
         to    figures,   assumptions,    colloid
          endless   snow,     frayed beings moseying towards
                     rows     of   lengths and   the autumnal abode  of  hills
   turning     green,    brimming with    the ***   of pastures,

      feasting in this fill of such   heaviness,   a name    of what I cannot   recall
         darling   the yellowbell       darling   the lignified    amaranth
               darling      here   at   such   meeting    I    am  starved
         with    little    movements     of   flesh

i was thinking of a love divined—

or an amaranth held close to the Earth.
i tossed it into the graveyard of names
and when i start to cut
a dozen more of flesh,
it will then begin to rise
yet i bequeath it no unction.

it is never a clock nor a pendulum-sea,
spindrift sloshing forth creases
of fabric, spinning a cataclysm
leaving all solemn in a torpor like a
tractable animal wounded behind
   the bush.

i was thinking of eyes unfastening
the lovelorn, arriving with an image
i have long feared—

i walk with no clothes seething
with a bulge of life.
it's a cold room, this peregrine of silence.
i see mouths reduced to creases
on the wall. hands unscrewed to
loose hinges drifting apart.
teeth biting the lip of days in disquiet
as surf takes on multipliedly by the shore,
a hoard of wave-rustle.

i was thinking of something pure
when all yesterday's tumultuous memory
tumbled down like a reared on avalanche,
tossed to a basket, folded,

poised to be sullied once more.

This dinner party is formal
like all the ladies
I am wearing my gown
my invite was  for me
and plus  one.
but its just me here.
all the gentlemen
are in tuxedos.
the man seated to my right
is deliciously, attractive.
I nightdream of him
unfastening my gown
and drowning me
in his  wickedness.
The heady fragrance  
of his  cologne, adds
to the dream.
I wonder over the hum
of voices in the room.
is he the one I have
searched for for so long
the one I know is out there
in the big somewhere.
Our glasses clink in toast.
he bites sensuously into a
fresh summer strawberry.
its heavenly juices
leaving thier sweetest fragrane
onto his tongue.
He smiles at me
his eyes glancing
at my cleavage.
I feel like a spider
tempting him into my web.
The bait has been swallowed.
I smile back at him.
I wonder if he will taste
of strawberries later
when I loosen my hair
from its tight french roll.

Into wonderment
Pondering permanence
Whether to weather
The cycle of storms
Am I even getting better?

Decreased desire to detach
But still unfastening the hatch
Going somewhere stationary
While still wishing I was withering
Where will I be buried?

And when?

I feel constantly torn between laying in a grassy field,
surrounded by the morning dew,
in my best sundress,
and holding my breath until I pass out six feet under water.

I feel constantly torn between kissing his lips,
fingers entwined with the perfect fit,
bodies pressed together,
and unfastening my seatbelt as I drive into a tree.

I feel constantly torn between all of the beauty I want to indulge in,
and all the hatred I have for being alive.

This dinner party is formal
like all the ladies
I am wearing my gown
my invite was  for me
and plus  one.
but its just me here.
all the gentlemen
are in tuxedos.
the man seated to my right
is deliciously, attractive.
I nightdream of him
unfastening my gown
and drowning me
in his  wickedness.
The heady fragrance  
of his  cologne, adds
to the dream.
I wonder over the hum
of voices in the room.
is he the one I have
searched for for so long
the one I know is out there
in the big somewhere.
Our glasses clink in toast.
he bites sensuously into a
fresh summer strawberry.
its heavenly juices
leaving thier sweetest fragrane
onto his tongue.
He smiles at me
his eyes glancing
at my cleavage.
I feel like a spider
tempting him into my web.
The bait has been swallowed.
I smile back at him.
I wonder if he will taste
of strawberries later
when I loosen my hair
from its tight french roll.

She was ethereal in her beauty.
I always loved her of course.
But only from a respectful distance.
She collected glass animal's.
I always gave her one for birthdays.
She would kiss my cheek in thanks.
Not the kiss I craved but a kiss.
Her perfect French braids
framing her lovely face.
I fantasized unfastening them
Slowly so her hair flowed
Like the soft spring rain
washing my bare skin.
She would show me the
Intricate color mix
in her glass menagerie.
But I only saw the colors
of her hair her eyes her lips.
When the sickness came
Her skin became
taught and translucent like glass.
The weight loss
showing her frame
She looked more and more
like one of her
beloved glass collection.
Then when we lost her
She left her collection to me.
But the one I wanted
Was on a high shelf
Beyond the clouds
Far beyond my reach.

Jude's version of the
Glass menagerie*


She was ethereal in her beauty.
I always loved her of course.
But only from a respectful distance.
She collected glass animal's.
I always gave her one for birthdays.
She would kiss my cheek in thanks.
Not the kiss I craved but a kiss.
Her perfect French braids
Framing her lovely face.
I fantasized unfastening them
Slowly so her hair flowed
Like the soft spring rain
washing my bare skin.
She would show me the
intricate color mix
in her glass menagerie.
But I only saw the colors
of her hair her eyes her lips.
When the sickness came.
Her skin became
taught and translucent like glass.
The weight loss showing her frame
She looked more and more
Like one of her beloved
glass collection.
Then when we lost her
She left her collection to me.
But the one
I wanted and treasured
Was on a high shelf
Beyond the clouds
Far beyond my reach.

James Sebastian Middlemarch was a prodigy.
No other way to say it in truth,
And those who knew him and his gift
Were in agreement that he was destined to reach
The apogee of the musical world,
Though he, even at a very young age, discouraged such talk,
Sometimes offhandedly, but at other times
Quite insistently indeed, for, even then,
He had the constant, gnawing suspicion
That there was a disconnect between the harmonies
(Mad, excruciating, yet unspeakably lovely)
Which scampered unfettered around his head
And those he could bring forth on the piano or viola.  
Nonetheless, his aptitude pulled him along
Through longitude and latitude,
To Julliard, then Paris and Vienn, maixing with others
Marked by their provincial peers as The Next One.  

Through all this time,
The sonatas, concertos, and full-blown symphonies
Danced on in his mind without restraint or retreat
Yet, when he tried to corral them onto paper,
They kicked and bucked and spit out the bit
In spurious sixteenths and turgid quarters
Which cantered along in pedestrian time signatures.  
These pieces (the “sad imitations”, as he called them)
Were performed on more than the odd occasion,
But on smaller stages by undistinguished orchestras,
And those freelancers dispatched by features editors
In the Rochesters and Pensacolas of the world
(Small-timers themselves, yet wholly without sympathy)
Would cluck and sigh dismissively in their reviews
That the works were derivative,
With easily discernible bits of Strauss and Schumann
(Clara Schumann, according to one acerbic small-town wit)
Scattered here and there,
And they were unanimous in their belief and opinion
As to the minor nature of his presence on the musical landscape.

After some years, he stopped publishing his works
Which made him even less of an afterthought
Than he had been at his low-slung zenith.  
He continued to play with some regional symphonies,
Where he was deeply loved by his colleagues,
As he was modest in the face of praise,
But never sparing in dispensing kindness in return,
And to all appearances the frenzied siren airs
Which had ridden roughshod over his psyche for so many decades
Had ceased at last, but after his death, one of his sons discovered,
Squatting surreptitiously under a mound of ancient antimacassars,
Several trunks containing untold scores of sheet music,
(Updated versions of earlier work,
New pieces abandoned in exasperation)
Which sat in mute testament to the difficult labor
Of unfastening onself from the yoke of being ordinary.

My lips tremble in anticipation
as I eagerly press them to your skin.
I kiss your throat softly,
lips lingering as I lead a trail up your neck,
seeking your lips.

Your skin is salty beneath my hungry mouth,
I can feel sparks fly as I sigh into your breath.
Every inch of you I just want to devour,
I imagine your lips pressing against mine softly.
The pressure increasing as my heart beats wildly.

Your tongue slips enticingly into my mouth,
Intimately I taste you and savor the taste.
You kiss me harder, taking over all my senses,
delving into my very being.
Our tongues caress, circling and stroking,

I can't get enough, my body is about to explode.
I'm drowning in desire, my knees are weak,
as my hands roam over your body.
Hands cupping your *** and seeking your *******
leaving a path of fire scorching your skin.

Your fingertips gently tracing and touching my face,
Your heart is pounding so hard in your chest.
You lean into me trying to get closer,
feeling my hardness pressed against my hip.

You smile at the way my body is responding
to yours in need and wanting.
You can't seem to get close enough to me,
my hands roam from your neck to your chest.
I rub your ******* teasingly, longing to kiss them,
as my thigh parts your legs, making your skirt rise.
Rubbing my leg against your burning flesh slowly,

I inhale deeply, making no sound,
as your hands slide down to my waist.
Unfastening my pants eagerly,
You find me hard beneath your touch.
You enclose my engorged manhood gently,
Your mouth caressing, ******* and tasting.
I want you so bad

Yet, I'm not through, ...nor ready,
to give you, the sweet release you crave.
You feel my fingers seeking your inner flesh,
bringing waves of excitement, pleasure.

My finger invades your now wet, innermost turmoil,
You feel a wicked rage of internal passion.
Assaulting your senses, spreading like wildfire,
You beg me to quench your desires.

You look at me, my eyes, smoldering arrest me,
your cheeks growing hot under my gaze.
A  gratifying groan sounds deep in your throat,
Bending my head toward you,
My mouth capturing yours.
Seducing you entirely, endlessly,
your mind, your body, and your soul.
Clothes fall away silently to the floor,
You... now want me... as bad as I want you.

once it was the bouquets
the dark red velvet roses
the white ghosted Arums
then the chocolates in elaborate
be-ribboned boxes
the creme centres, sugared almonds
the ginger tasting on eager tongue
aah. but those never lasted long
then came the jewellery
necklaces, bracelets, rings,
and those other not so mentionable things
and him, his lips upon hers
his fingers fastening, unfastening
buttons, then stroking, skin to skin
but she was aging
voice and looks no longer appealing
rouge, mascara, henna, greasepaint
non of her imperfections now concealing
neck, shoulders, back, aching
those once nimble fingers
fast becoming thumbs
and all was vanishing
that illusion of perfection
that enviable slice of all that was good
fast becoming
simply
crumbs

I have come to sympathize with the at home workout enthusiast and the tv show aficionado

my sweater of preference is a black zip up hoody whose two front pockets carry my hands when I get too tired of hanging them at my sides
                              ...
I lounge like a lizard. When sun is at its peak, I walk into the yard and lay on the warm cement walkway that leads to the backyard. Toasty. An Argentinian tegu in another lifetime.
                             ...
I’m the only lizard who regulates it body temperature. Toasty when I want to be.
                             ...
I rappelled back down to the group. I was unfastening my harness when my instructor turned to me and said “ you must have  been a lizard in your past life.”

romantic
turns to panic
as nails break skin
blood fills in
each shallow wound
what did i do
it's going too fast
unfastening clasps
push down and away
you think it's a game
it all feels so loud
i need to calm down
can't breathe when you're this close
feel a buzzing in my bones
that is so **** ecstatic
wanting it doesn't mean i should have it