An aberration in my eyeglasses
gives me a tiny bright star next to Venus,
down and to her right, as if
her hand is curled in a fist,
slightly raised.
I like to think of Venus
with a fist—a soft
Tai Chi fist with all the strength
of exquisite balance behind it.
Love-and-Beauty smiling a lazy smile,
knowing that hate-and-ugliness
is nothing but a nattering nuisance,
a foolish foe with no notion at all
of her power.
Fifty years have passed since I learned
it is possible to hear snow fall,
it is possible to choose and stay.
And though times and places flicker
on the periphery and people come and go,
always you remain in focus at the center,
standing in the forest in your thin black boots
listening to the falling snow.
Breaking out of deep sea fog
in moist full moonlight
buoys rocking bells
We’re all coming ashore.
Who of all these passengers
gets to make love tonight?
Lean brown lovers kiss on the deck
their smooth hair blows together.
A fat grey man and his shabby wife
eat potato chips in the snack bar,
their feet touch under the table.
When he brings her coffee she smiles,
with one rough finger strokes his hand.
I stopped asking.
Things happen anyway,
we stay or go:
never what I think.
And yet,
there is a kind of love,
a river slow as Everglades
moving through sawgrass,
flood sometimes,
sometimes dry.
Not deep, but wide,
and most days enough
to float the canoe.
A winding road through the bright-leaved maples,
a hillside orchard where a girl sells apples,
a brown cow pond with wind stirring ripples.
A narrow path to the river shallows,
a strip of pebbles under the willows,
a muddy bank where the otter wallows.
The old stone bridge across the water
beside the oak where thrushes flutter o’er
ghost-white flowers where moths sip nectar.
The village street, dark, with circles of lamplight,
a call and a laugh, the squeak of a lychgate,
a soft step, a sigh, a quickening heartbeat.
Hmmm...
Maybe I've lost my touch
I'm not as happy as I used to be
Not as funny Not as nice
Not as kind
It's overbearing, believe me
This past year
Has really murdered my senses
I used to be so loving
Not that you care
Teach me how to feel again
It seems to me that I am now broken
A poorly wired circuit I have now become
See life has a funny way
Of coughing on your face
And it makes you sick
I think it rains,
to show an emotion
that is otherwise unspoken.
Little is said,
yet, with every drop,
the connection between
us grows stronger.
The wall that we both
built to guard our hearts
has fallen.
We are naked,
Our vulnerabilities on full display.
We are no longer suffocating.
We are able to
take a deep breath.
Our love is set free from the clouds,
That night was not meant to be special.
Yet, it turned out to be,
for it was the first time
that we had met.
Your eyes locked with mine,
and I knew right then and there
that I was done for.
Little did I know that you were
an expert at playing with one's heart.
You were kind to me when you wanted to be.
But when you were silent,
I knew that I was the last thing on your mind.
Yet, you were always the first person to receive my heart.
Your entire being consumed me.
But to you, I was nothing more than
a silly girl.
Oh, I love the pain.
Was that really a wise
thing for me to say?
Or do my feathers
not really drown
when he covers them
with ink?
My finger tips glide
gently across his skin.
My eyes see red,
but my heart sees dandelions.
I gather up the courage
to tell him that I am done.
But what is the use?
He will just tell me
whatever I wish to hear,
The night we met you sang you loved me
yet you magpied the brightest parts of my smile and the twinkle in my eye
left locked out tapping on windows and
cramming love letters carved from chunks of me through your letter box
hoping you might take them , accept them
hoping you might unlock the door
hoping you might unlock the window
hoping you might unlock the cat flap ,
That's warped from the countless times I've had to suck and squeeze my way through
just to get to you , for you to label me a bitch
when I try leave you command my return ,
tossing cat treats of affections ,
staved ribs showing , i turn again and return as before
licking , love ? of the floor ,
swallowing all the dirt that comes with it
I don't know how I wound up in your arms
My prince of broken, discarded glass,
I know your mirror broke but in your cold beating heart,
Warmth finally reaches you.
At first glance you were brutal,
Stubborn even.
But to an trained eye the way you moved had the power of a lion,
And the delicacy of an angel.
I believe that under your shirt is a pair of wings.
I don't know how I wound up in your arms,
My prince of burning, scolding fire.
I know you were torn but my love,
Green envy can kill you with a blow.
At first glance you were cruel,
Somber and glowering even.
but to a trained eye a rainbow was the one thing you truly loved.
Could you please be a bit more mature,
For an adult, about who you are you're quite unsure.
I need you to be my rock,
Because adulthood is right around the block.
I wish I could depend on you,
I wish you could come through.
Yet I'm the one who gives you all the comfort I'm the one who has to calm you down at night,
Your every fear and insecurity I have to fight.
You tell everyone about the tragedy of your daughter for what sympathy?
And then I have to deal with your neverending toxicity.
I'm never enough always doing something wrong,
Your list of complaints about me goes on and on.
Shouldn't you love me the way I am,
Shouldn't you be the one keeping me calm?