my man...
PLANTER'S MOON
The moment
that the planter's moon
started down across your back
and promised me a harvest
great and good,
I knew that I had crossed
a different kind of field.
Greener than the ones
I'd trampled through before.
And if not safe
from all those hidden holes
and eyes lately
gatherd in a crowd,
curious and hoping for the accident,
I knew it would be different.
I've kept my distance,
trying hard to keep the rules
and never violate the boundaries.
There were fences that I leapt
and some that I slid under,
even when I knew I'd tear my pants.
Not equipped with hook and ladder
I scaled walls and crept through window
and burst through barricades
and ballustrades
as sure as any second-story man,
as certain as a centipede
all systems working.
I'd keep my arms spread wide.
I teetered on a tightrope,
stretched between
your sometimes need for me
and tied securely
by my always need for you.
Balancing,
always balancing,
One foot before the other
down the trails and roads.
BRAHMS
The clock was running down
and I had taken no precaution
for the coming night.
All the while
your arms were disengaging,
your smile receding
and your touch not tender and not there.
Then--
(please don't ask me
what the hour was)
It must have been within the Brahms
you went to sleep unsmiling.
If I knew
then I'd forgotten
that we were loving
at your option
entangling at your convenience
and elevating on the other
only just by your design.
Unprepared I was
and am
when any door
I thought I helped to open
closes while I look the other way.
CLOSER WATCH
1.
No speeches have been written for us
and so we never speak.
But still they move in front of me.
Unmet. Detached.
What common language
could we know
I wonder.
What words of sensibility are left.
Old hellos and salutations
now snap back through jaws
as easily as they once jumped out.
Conversation
if it lives somewhere,
must be bitten off in Braille
or spoken in a code
but never passed
from hand to hand.
Do I sound as though
I've been out seeking love again?
I have.
But more.
I've seen it everwhere
and I go on seeing it.
In unmarked cars
as well as underneath
a well-worn badge.
In faces not lit up by firelight
but glowing from the inside out.
I ache so much from love
I've seen but not yet shared
that I groan inside
not from periodic hunger
but from habit.
Breathing
other than my own
can now make any room
as painful as unanswered prayers much be
for those to whom religion is the cord of life.
Once or twice
a face comes near,
and I look up
and then look down.
2.
......
I know that there are kinds
of crooked looks and crow's-feet
that modern make-up cannot hide.
And no reflected sun
however meaningful or kind
can screen away indifference
and the mind's projection
past the now beloved's eyes
to phantom figures down the street.
These things are all so true
that lovers know them always
without the benefit
of any prophet's eye.
The sawdust made
by two lives rubbed together
is as useless in the cover up
of changing feelings
as the kind spread thinly
on the floors of butcher shops
to blot out blood
and drying entrails
from the housewives' view.
At sunset faces suffer jaundice
even if the eyes
take on a keener glow.
Losing love again
causes me to wonder
If this habit is just that,
a habit
not another stop
along this highway
where lately, only lately,
the end has been in sight.
Is it to be ever true
that all the lovers
meant to crowd one's lifetime
will on sunshine days
become excited by what might be
or what might have been
instead of what it was
the first time out
that made them notice us?
The moment
that the planter's moon
started down across your back
and promised me a harvest
great and good,
I knew that I had crossed
a different kind of field.
Greener than the ones
I'd trampled through before.
And if not safe
from all those hidden holes
and eyes lately
gatherd in a crowd,
curious and hoping for the accident,
I knew it would be different.
I've kept my distance,
trying hard to keep the rules
and never violate the boundaries.
There were fences that I leapt
and some that I slid under,
even when I knew I'd tear my pants.
Not equipped with hook and ladder
I scaled walls and crept through window
and burst through barricades
and ballustrades
as sure as any second-story man,
as certain as a centipede
all systems working.
I'd keep my arms spread wide.
I teetered on a tightrope,
stretched between
your sometimes need for me
and tied securely
by my always need for you.
Balancing,
always balancing,
One foot before the other
down the trails and roads.
BRAHMS
The clock was running down
and I had taken no precaution
for the coming night.
All the while
your arms were disengaging,
your smile receding
and your touch not tender and not there.
Then--
(please don't ask me
what the hour was)
It must have been within the Brahms
you went to sleep unsmiling.
If I knew
then I'd forgotten
that we were loving
at your option
entangling at your convenience
and elevating on the other
only just by your design.
Unprepared I was
and am
when any door
I thought I helped to open
closes while I look the other way.
CLOSER WATCH
1.
No speeches have been written for us
and so we never speak.
But still they move in front of me.
Unmet. Detached.
What common language
could we know
I wonder.
What words of sensibility are left.
Old hellos and salutations
now snap back through jaws
as easily as they once jumped out.
Conversation
if it lives somewhere,
must be bitten off in Braille
or spoken in a code
but never passed
from hand to hand.
Do I sound as though
I've been out seeking love again?
I have.
But more.
I've seen it everwhere
and I go on seeing it.
In unmarked cars
as well as underneath
a well-worn badge.
In faces not lit up by firelight
but glowing from the inside out.
I ache so much from love
I've seen but not yet shared
that I groan inside
not from periodic hunger
but from habit.
Breathing
other than my own
can now make any room
as painful as unanswered prayers much be
for those to whom religion is the cord of life.
Once or twice
a face comes near,
and I look up
and then look down.
2.
......
I know that there are kinds
of crooked looks and crow's-feet
that modern make-up cannot hide.
And no reflected sun
however meaningful or kind
can screen away indifference
and the mind's projection
past the now beloved's eyes
to phantom figures down the street.
These things are all so true
that lovers know them always
without the benefit
of any prophet's eye.
The sawdust made
by two lives rubbed together
is as useless in the cover up
of changing feelings
as the kind spread thinly
on the floors of butcher shops
to blot out blood
and drying entrails
from the housewives' view.
At sunset faces suffer jaundice
even if the eyes
take on a keener glow.
Losing love again
causes me to wonder
If this habit is just that,
a habit
not another stop
along this highway
where lately, only lately,
the end has been in sight.
Is it to be ever true
that all the lovers
meant to crowd one's lifetime
will on sunshine days
become excited by what might be
or what might have been
instead of what it was
the first time out
that made them notice us?