More Poetry: An Evening of Tender Concern

An Evening of Tender Concern

Her flesh kept dancing
after oceans of light were waved away...

These circumstances are perfectly suited
for an evening of tender concern.
In whispers of shade
at the place where wisps of truth become a lie,
they create a suspension of time,
silvered and rippled in borrowed beats.
Given away to the lowest hours
of a stolen night,
the unleashed sensation paints
a sleepy stupor upon their bodies.
Always clumsy at giving things,
never resilient to her mistakes,
sometimes possessed with a despicable joy,
he departs with the morning.

Her flesh kept dancing,
after oceans of light were waved away...

Well-Traveled Feet

Sit and rest well-traveled feet
feet which counted years in steps, not days
days heavy with the burden of holding up these bones.
These bones now light and hollow,
light and hollow like a bird.
Like a bird on a bench,
on a bench watching people.
Watching people watching him and knowing.
Knowing that as air fills his aging lungs,
lungs longing for a smoke,
smoke of memories fill his bones.

Guilty Thoughts

Guilt demands its due.

Contemplating this, I say,
"Perhaps I'll pay..."
Anything it wants, I might give--
all my haunted, familiar places.
Rent in form of rents on me.
My body, twisted inside out might die.
And with face to foot,
elbow to knee,
scalding regret and caustic remorse
will mark my melting flesh,
my rippled, riddled
rotting corpse.

Untitled

Once brilliant and irresistible, he attracted
me like a summer front-porch moth.
He fed my desire with his natural radiance
and I felt protected from my fears
born of innocence and immaturity.

He played so well at love, I felt it in my bones.
I believed in forever, I believed in him.
I loved wholly until those disembodied voices captured
his attention and drowned me in confusion.
I prayed until his hijacked fists
broke my bones and made me bleed.
I held on until my body and my love
became coffin-ripe and empty.

Evaporating into escape,
I held a wake for this
broken, yet beautiful thing
so I would never remember and never forget.

Adagio

Samuel knows grief intimately.

He understands its qualities--a thickness that smothers
like molasses, like amber
that embalms and ache
with clarity and precision.

Cello chords resonate with tears.
Violins trap devastation and sing
of disillusion while violas
whisper broken promises 
and weep into my ears.

This Barber cuts and trims
a sorrow to perfection.
Molding despair to fit
Adagio,  he crafts
such beauty from exhausted hope.