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Assignations
we met nightly
in that church red with need
to free our hands of death
building only to go bust
holding on
blessed as a swan in the palace
our last words washed out
with the rain
Poems on the topic: lover
Poems on the topic “lover” on Poets.by.
TRIPTYCH IN NOIR
her jailed lover’s image in the mirror
slowly loses color
like tea poured again & again
from the same leaves
or a cloud of cigarette smoke mixing with the air
beneath the mirror’s mercury lies
the captain lost at sea in some
interminable corrido
his waterproof watch still ticks inside his slicker
it’s past 3:00
light from the street lamp
filters through the slats of the blind
outshines the moon:
two sets of stripes that cross at
an oblique angle on the walls & the bed
where she lies staring into the one dark corner
Lovers’ quarrel
sore lovers play at harm
a horse of no stomach
cold as rain talking all afternoon
they try a poor thin supper
Lifestyles of the rich and famous
the fortunate lovers lay as empty
as a castle in a box
who he was she was
a pretty snare and hum
which wonder at nothing
Ocean view
To paint the sea is to see
the mad lover,
not the house where we
at last bid good night.
My Origami Lover
i folded him into so many different shapes
a tiger, a pig, a heart, a swan
his broken bones turned paper thin with no time to recover
a star, a frog, a cow, a sword
until one day the creases became too worn to go back over
and i ripped him apart in random, mindless chaos
trash
* * *
Discrete,
Are those two innocent souls.
Innocent,
Are those two fading lovers.
Lovers,
Are those two teens, just discrete.
Yeast in Cloud Dust
bare back. Thighs cool and soft between
the chair in the livingroom, the cup
from the kitchen, and the unforgettable tv.
to meet you after work, and you were late.
Couches surrounded the Old Capitol Building
like a haze with cushions. I sat down.
To You as Balboa, Let Us Say...
Only the missing you
pivots me.
After the words. After
you have gone naked to discover the Pacific
and I have repaired my lips
from their blood. Wishing you courage,
congratulating you on it all
bon voyage
on your trip past Molokai
It is your bone sockets how they
rocked you over me
Memory of the sea
or Rilke's 'without a tongue,
can conjure you at will'
After the words
after your offer to share the bed or
Big Dog
I bring you
this head,
full of breathtakingly
beautiful
images of yourself
and put it in
your lap.
Now I breathe
more quietly.
Now you pat me.
Now I sign.
In a moment or two
I'll get up and
be a man again.
* * *
attending to certain
forms of insistence
lovers become those forms
& enter the core time
in which the tribe is permitted
to muddle on
The Bloodletting
So I go to
the kitchen
sink.
Perform the ritual
of washing.
I come to you
as you lie on the bed
the wet hands of a lover
used to failure
like crystal
slipping
from his grasp.
The effort
to bring together
bits of
flesh
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
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