so strange this feeling of separation
locked in a bottle gazing out
floating on a shelf where you placed me
fixed in time, preserved perfection
can’t grow, explore or breath
uncork me, pour me out
a river will flow around you
an ocean of endless love
where the surf rises high
on the evening tide
swim with me
home at last
L is a seat to rest upon
O is omega, origin, oh! so complete
V is valuable, verified, voluptuous
E is the gate we keep closed in protection
Love is the sum of all these things
No one letter completes it alone
Pardon me, dictate to me,
O Myfanwy
I submit to your tyranny,
for why did i neglect you?
Pale maiden of the wayside
Fie now, regard me as a fool
Pale man that I am, all remiss
Fie now, did you not see it all?
Parted, we knew then. O Myfanwy,
I had good need to be so hard.
I cherish all of it, O Myfanwy.
I thank you well you searched so far.
Why did I not avoid them
and keep you always near me?
I am chased by other laws, Myfanwy
To gallows, giddy, final, high
there is a poem on my wall
hand written thirty years ago
it isn’t faded, no not yet
everything you ever gave me
was more precious than you knew
I should have told you
but these words you wrote ring true
defining now the way we should have been
back then
perhaps the way we were
I was young
too insecure
it was all beyond me
the things we make
so often come too late
I regret
I stole your heart
As children steal a secret sweet
Or pluck an apple as they pass
It was not in my control
I regret
A look, a word
I saw you fall
I did nothing then to aid you
It was not in my control
I regret
I watched your sad attempts to woo
Accepted kisses
Never turned you quite away
It was not in my control
I regret
I let you think
That I might love you
In return for loving so
Now I regret
Freeing you from my control
(inspired by Le Liaisons Dangereuses)
look at the roses
there is the vase
a symbol of passion
expensive perfection
force-grown under glass
and this is your gesture
of undying love?
a weed from the ditches
plucked
as you thought of me
out on your walk
would show me far more
weeds persist
weeds push through
when the growing gets tough
your love without loyalty
isn’t
enough
words are not enough
i could draw a line of dots
expanding into O’s
each one larger, broader, wider than the last
until they spread and shifted shape
into one gigantic throbbing heart
to embrace us in its grasp
By the river the blossoms are falling,
Disarrayed by unseasonably storms,
And worn weathered gravestones outside the church
Are granite grey, cold, threatening forms
Sheltering ash of anonymous dead.
Under stained glass windows inside the church
The genius poet lays his sweet head.
Rosemary’s remembrance overcomes age.
Words unforgotten repeat his own tale.
Across the long years his thoughts pace the stage.
Ill fated fortunes are storms we must sail
and love can win through to make good amends.
Love overcomes all that savage time ends.
I slept nine hours last night, she says,
I dreamed of you.
I asked if that was why she slept so long.
Only joking.
She laughs and say for sure it was.
Warm weather here.
Cold there.
Spring, how lovely.
Flowers and butterflies.
Yes.
I smile.
She always thinks of something pretty.
The taxi driver had a Brooklyn accent.
Like all the films, I think,
and remember Sophie’s Choice
Timbered houses, gables.
Tragic story.
Quick slices of happiness.
Madness.
Thinking of that I miss her next two sentences.
I come back to her.
Heavy luggage.
Last night was full of sirens and voices.
The Broadway shows cost a lot.
Traffic.
We’re leaving here soon, she says,
and I can’t wait to see you.
Everything is going to be so good.
Every word she says, is interspersed,
with saying how she loves me
and how she’s longing to be near me.
If we could, if we did,
If the time was right
If I understood all you said
If you had loved me more
If I had loved myself
If I had listened to you
If you had trusted me
If it had all been different
If only
If only the fates hadn’t conspired
and left us no choice and no power
we’d be somewhere else
not ourselves at all
and would that be better for us?
who can tell?
when I think of all that
it like hell
and no heaven in reach
only circles
they go round and round on themselves
If only
If wishes were horses we’d ride them
across the far planes
out to the wide shore
the landscape of all that’s possible
with no hill too high
like free birds we would rise up and sore
If only we could decide what’s best
If only – a phrase I despise
I’d rather live in the moment
and make an attempt to be wise
and learn from where we have been
The Dreaming Path 