Things That Tempt

I long for the shores of Europe,
So as to dive into its azure twilight night
And curse for the paragons of selflessness
There will be olive trees and the smell of beer
I dream of something more potent than alcohol
And more vast than your thoughts across the night
The hot bright fermentation of touch splitting the sky

I hope for dimly lit cafes,
Where I’ll meet the sinister stars
And we’ll dance into the soft air of May
I’ll tell you life is but a wink of stars, a wink of your eye
There will be a mutiny of words as our touch begets silence
Your lips will quiver as you feel a creature crawling upon them
It will be a spider traveling far and we’ll look for it as it travels far

I look to the Rocky Mountains
And get lost in cotton candy moonshine
Because I travel far, very far disheveled like a Beat
It’s here where I smell how the earth is nubile and full-blooded
I’ve found god, where her breast rises to meet the horizon of the sky
We count the ivory napes of peaks as the flora trembles beneath Pan’s feet
He goes back down to play his lyre in the saloon and the melody counts to always.

I Never Thought Procrastination Contained Romance

We drank coffee and talked for an hour

‘Il faut que la jeunesse se passé’
‘Guignol! mon semblable,—mon frère!'

Not everything was done with clean hands
But always with clean character

‘You gave me hyacinths last year to the day’
‘And you had wet hair and a promise’

Her hair glowed into words

‘Remember the warmth of winter?’
‘I’d rather not count eternity in seasons’

Dead trees give no relief, but for a shadow
They leave a heap of broken words exposed

At one point her shadow rose too high
Branches eventually die without roots

‘I know you’re forming smoke patterns with your eyes’
‘I really like that rug. It’s elegant – unintelligible.’

The wind crosses the Charles unheard in summer
Or maybe it’s the background to a song

It could be a song long forgotten, devoid of evening
It may have been danced through burgundy yesterdays

‘When we’re both old and gray, I’ll send you hyacinths’
‘It’ll be a dark wine hour, and my eyes will curse and storm’

It’s evening and the woman draws her black hair back
There was a moment of torturous surrender

‘If the sea was calm, my heart would have responded’
‘Storm is all I know, and the ruins lap against my walls.’

A Dirge for Destruction

How goes it in our fair land – our great America?
The slant of evening evoking a wistful sigh
A Zenobia-visage across the color speckled landscape
The powerful anodyne of romantic altruism planted

Somewhere worlds away taut horror spills its blood
And a pining for the sight of his Pennsylvania red barn
Crying hysterical weeping for eternity and her child ripped from life
Two strangers fighting each other for peace and blood soaked irony

Each side trembling before the machinery of confusion masking greed
The public gardens here are blooming with indifference
Craning our necks along the collar ridge to look away with constricted faces
An olive tree of hate growing, branches spreading with boldness out the shadows

One weeping for the romance of a warehouse in the sky and crates of theocracy
Another for Madison Avenue in a desert with a whiskey soaked Hungarian waltz
Differences lead to the same ballroom and the same slow dance
It’s playing the hymn of reality from Harvard to the daisychain grave

Do you remember November and Moscow?
(Without the apricot-tinged nostalgia?)