Like the Rain

I can see the clouds change over me
And I await the rain. It will come soon,
But when it does, I know I will not be
Unhappy, although it is almost June
And I long for the sun. The rain will pass;
It has no power to hurt me at all,
For it is but an empty, formless mass
Of water, forced by gravity to fall,
And bears me no ill will. Oh, if it could,
I cannot think of how I would endure;
But without purpose there's no ill or good,
And rain is purposelessness, strong and pure.
So I will watch the clouds, and feel the rain,
But from it all I draw no doubt, no pain.

Jointure

I have not had an hour since you left
In which I did not think of you - my dreams
Have been reflections of you. From that cleft
Between us, I can see the feeble gleams
Of brighter days, high up and far away,
When you will be once more with me, and we
Will joy together and no longer stray
Into the doom of separability.
Of course I know that is a fantasy,
And there's no way that I can make you stay,
But there's a comfort in it, though I see
It is unstable in a shallow way,
For in the deeper heart of it, I know
That neither one will let the other go.

Mission

I miss the touch of you, the way you sway
Into my arms and will not let me go.
I miss the calming tones in which you say
You love me, and how you can let me know
Without your words. I miss how you will lie
Curled up with me in quiet on the bed,
And we can let the world just wander by;
No need for words: just breathing close instead,
Hearing no sound except each others hearts.
I miss how we can talk for hours too,
The joy each word I read of yours imparts,
And how you look at me: I just miss you.
But soon you'll be here, and I promise then
It will be just as good as it has been, again.

Community Day

I wonder what community can be
When what is uncommunal must intrude:
The constant inevitability
Of what cannot be shared can be imbued
With not too unsubstantial danger to
The central jointure. Are the bonds unshared
A further tether to keep shared ones true,
Or do they make the other ones impaired
By stealing their importance? Can we join
And stay still separate, and still survive?
Must a communion share a single coin,
Exchanging nothing else, to stay alive?
Or can it go beyond, in separate ways,
And yet endure within through common stays?

Coo

While some might say that it is too darn hot
I have no worries on that minor score
For I have seen this, seen it all before
And weather like this simply hits the spot.
Of course in heat what's dead begins to rot,
But we are living, and we should therefore
Celebrate the fact and let heat pour
Across our bodies gladly 'til we've got
All we can handle, and then float away
Upon a tide of warmth hidden within,
Such that we mold the heat from what it's been
Into a part of us, and so can say
The heat is not oppressive, but benign
Since I have sucked it in and made it mine.

Keepers

Had there been but an hour you were here
I would have felt the tremor in my heart
Alerting me of danger coming near
Until the time came for us two to part.
But you were absent, and I did not feel
That little warning flutter in my chest;
And so the night was somehow made less real,
So much that, really, I forget the rest.
I yearned to feel it, longed to be afraid,
But nothing came and, in a heavy haze,
I wandered lonelily and sadly made
My way back home. And yet I feel ablaze
Because when I unlocked my door, I found
You had snuck in without a single sound.

Freedom Heyday Freedom

It's best to catch your instinct ere it climbs
Beyond the bounds where you can call it back;
There it will find such freedom that, sometimes,
It will snap off its bonds and, when they're slack,
Sprint out into the world unmitigated
And do and do without more thought than so,
So that, even when tuckered out and sated,
It will not crawl back home and sleep, but go
Yet further out in search of more adventure
Freed from the rational and therefore wild;
It will enjoy the fruits of disindenture,
And will reject all hints of calm or mild.
But if you but restrain it at the start
It will curl up inside and warm your heart.

Mirage

The question in your mind is how sincere
My new contrition is of what I've done;
I think you cannot think that anyone
Could have remained in mind and conscience clear
Free from all doubt, and from its cousin fear,
Having at any point even begun
The things I did, and that such deeds must stun
Even the brave lest conscience disappear,
And so you think I must be honest. Yet,
A part of you would like to think regret
Would be more humble and less proud. In me,
Therefore, you see what you would most forget:
That true contrition need not always be
Attractive, or that consciences can flee.

Timewasting

I have not been the man I could have been;
The efforts I have poured into my soul
Have only let the putrefaction in
And stained my self as black as polished coal.
The very sins I would confess to you
My heart knows very well I will not end,
But rather in delight will continue
The reckless bankrupt way in which I spend
The hours that are left to me in thought
Not of the world and how to make it good,
Or of the blessings my life could have brought,
And if I had done wisely, which it would,
But of your welfare and my love alone
In selfish contemplation all my own.

Timewasting

I have not been the man I could have been;
The efforts I have poured into my soul
Have only let the putrefaction in
And stained my self as black as polished coal.
The very sins I would confess to you
My heart knows very well I will not end,
But rather in delight will continue
The reckless bankrupt way in which I spend
The hours that are left to me in thought
Not of the world and how to make it good,
Or of the blessings my life could have brought,
And if I had done wisely, which it would,
But of your welfare and my love alone
In selfish contemplation all my own.

Copyright

Don't disbelieve that I adore
Because my syllables are worn
With age, and from an ancient store
I pull the oaths that I have sworn.
Do not aver that I'm not true
Because my terms are not unique
Or that I do not feel for you
Because some musty and antique
Old scrolls declaim the same thing I
In my devotions tell you of,
Or that my tongue must simply lie
Since other poets spoke of love.
The terms are similar because
Others have known what true love was.

Absentias

Some part of me is not ecstatic
To have you part from me so soon.
That part thinks it is symptomatic
That I can never sing in tune.
It thinks the discords I provide
Are signs of how I yearn for you
And that if you were by my side
My harmonies would all be true.
The rest of me is well aware
I sing as poorly when you're here
And uses that to tell my care
That it must learn to persevere:
For though I wish you didn't leave
In your return I must believe.

So Simple

I am ashamed sometimes of what I am:
I know my follies better than you do,
And so I know my goodness is a sham,
As is whatever's left of my virtue.
Therefore I worry there are very few
Reasons why you ought to be with me;
Because I think that if you only knew
The truth behind it all, you'd simply flee.
I'm so aware of what I ought to be
And I how I deviate from that ideal;
There are so many blemishes I see
In my own soul, and I know that they're real.
But then I recollect you know my errors
And still love me, and that quenches my terrors.

When I'm Awfully Low

There are some days you don't get out of bed,
When it is better to just cuddle there,
A heap of bedclothes piled up to your head,
And to deny that there is anywhere
You ought to be besides curled in the covers,
Cozy and warm inside the fort of sheets.
The spectre of those days forever hovers
Over a day like this, when instinct bleats
That such retreat from life should be desired,
But duty calls. Oh, I am glad to say
That though I am regrettably required
To still get up and face the awful day,
I carry in my heart the memory
Of days spent in my bed more comfortably.

Days Can Be

The sun breaks through the overhanging clouds
To show itself more gloriously proud
Than it had been before, to say out loud
That it rejects the swaddlings and shrouds
Imposed on it, and that such treatment crowds
Its manifest and potent glory. Cowed,
The clouds retreat with wispy heads all bowed,
And as society demands of dowds,
Slink out of sight. The sun commands the sky,
And all is light, and iridescent blue.
Yet there are those of us who wonder too
Despite the sun's unblemished glory, why
We should not have both sun and clouds together
In a combined ideal of summer weather.

Codependence

Enough things failing can be critical
Even if no individual
Is crucial. Life is parasitical:
Each bit of it feeds on residual
Energy from other living creatures,
So that the whole must be whole, else it fails.
That's usually one of its better features,
That co-dependence, but what oft avails
Is not always ideal, and can become
A tragedy when circumstances take
Away all beneficial angles from
The situation, and instead awake
The feedback loop that makes it self-destruct:
Then everything is one, and it's all fucked.

Sunny Afternoon

It is a lazy eyes-closed restful day,
A day for lounging in your underwear;
The air is not quite warm, no longer grey:
So beautiful to look at, but take care
That you don't move into it. Let it be,
And watch the sunlight play upon the floor,
Or feel it wash across your face and see
Only the purple spots and nothing more
With eyes closed to the waiting world outside.
Put kettles on, and listen for their scream,
Prop up your feet and let the world slip by.
Let everything be hazy as a dream;
On days like this, you hardly have to try
To be content: it soaks into your skin
If you will let it. Rest, now, and begin.

Compare and Contrast Essay

My needs are very few: my wants are great.
I know my necessaries, and obtain
Them in abundance, but I hesitate
To say I get my wants, because I gain
In my desires every single day.
Unlike my needs, my wants increase forever:
I see a new thing and I want to play,
Which makes obtaining them a fool's endeavour,
Because they do not wane, but only wax.
Still I attempt it, but do not despair
When my achievement of it is but lax,
Since wants will never be my major care.
So long as I have you, and I can live,
I have all that I need the world to give.

Academic Rigor

I build conclusions slowly, with grave care,
After a series of more minor claims;
I cannot, with an incandescent air,
Toss off a simple proof of complex aims
And call it good without that stout foundation
On which my mind relies to make all good.
I thrive in simplifying complication
Using the only way I ever could:
A detailed close analysis of facts
Based in a microscopic understanding
Of words and their accompanying acts,
Of which my inquisition is demanding.
But jumping to conclusions? That's not me;
It isn't how I face reality.

Chaos Theory

What are the limits of the space I'm in?
Where can I go, and what can I achieve?
I have some thoughts of what I could begin,
But if I did, I don't know what I'd leave
When I was done. In what parameters
Does this world operate, and how do I
Relate to it? When something in me stirs,
Can I do anything but sit and sigh?
And if I sit and sigh, what would that do?
Is there a point only in uselessness?
Or is that uselessness just useless too,
So that in even that there's no success?
I cannot act unknowingly on things
For fear of flapping my butterfly wings.

Self-Fashioning

I try to keep emotions on a leash
And hold them when they want to run away;
I try to parcel out to each a niche,
And hope they know their place, and so will stay.
But when I touch the world outside my head,
And interact with it, my vain desire
To have control, and never to be led
By my emotions loses its empire
And I am overwhelmed by what I feel.
I cannot keep the fantasy alive that I
Have any power then: it's too unreal
To think I ever could make them comply
With my intent. Emotions rule me, then;
And always I'm aware they will again.

Unpoetic

I don't know how to say this anymore;
It doesn't want to be a poem yet,
But when my words aren't poems, I forget
How to construct a sentence, and therefore,
The thoughts thus bottled up desire to pour
Themselves obliquely into poems set
Slightly askew. Of course, I have to let
Them out that way: I can no longer store
This many thoughts inside. And so I try
In this half-off-hand manner to recite
The unpoetic thoughts I cannot quite
Make poetry themselves. I don't know why,
But poetry seems useless to me here:
What can I say except I love you, dear?

Mores

Sometimes I think there oughtta be a law
Against this sort of thing, a statute to
Impose a kind of deferential awe
In everyone. Yet what can statutes do
When manners cannot rightly regulate
The self-behavior of the multitude?
Is it truly a matter for the state
When people are made coarsely, rough and rude,
By their own hands, and those surrounding them?
Of course the breaches of the peace must be
Punished - and the laws indeed condemn
Such criminal deep uncivility,
But lesser actions though unpleasant should
Not be a legislature's livelihood.

Encyclopedic

There is not time, although there ought to be,
For all the things I have to say to you
Of trust, and comfort, and of loving too;
Of everything at once you mean to me.
The hours passing by so rapidly
Never inquire if I want them to;
No, no, they go, and far too soon are through,
Whirling me away from ecstacy.
I love to be with you; your very touch
Is comfort and delight distilled together,
And though it might be lighter than a feather,
You ought to know it stirs me very much.
Yet there is so much more, and still no time;
Read me and from that look expand this rhyme.

Rapture

No matter if the world should end tonight
And you be rapt away to heaven's gate,
While I remain here ever apostate
Indifferent to has proven right;
No matter if the sky should rain down blight,
And all the myriads who chose to wait
For God himself to raise them up in state
Should be born upward in my unblessed sight
And you among them, know that, anyway,
No mattwe what, I should remain in love
Though you had been translated far above,
And I left sighing for my yesterday,
Still I am yours, and I would think you mine
Despite man's intervention, and divine.

Two X

I have not the power to resist
The strange emotions pulsing through my soul;
They ambush me, and powerfully insist
On altering what used to be my goal.
No longer may I wish to be alone
And self-sufficient only on my terms.
Now something different inside me is grown
Of which before I had only the germs:
I love, and love will not permit me to
Desire otherwise than that I be
With and expecting to be still with you
Although I still wish to do right by me.
Now I have double wishes in my heart
Of which my selfishness is only part.

Horological

There aren't sufficient hours in the day
For anything I really want to do.
The hours that I hold will slip away;
The minutes that were mine will do so too.
Whatever time I thought I had to be
The man I wanted is not guaranteed;
Moments appointed for my ecstacy
May melt away despite my desperate need.
I do not spend this time: it merely goes
And leaves me void and utterly bereft;
I cannot calculate its sudden flows,
Nor understand the reason why it left
Save that, by nature, every hour leaves
And man, abandoned in those moments, grieves.

Vanilla Sky

The world is blank and white - is there a sky?
Or does the bound of vision end it all?
Could I pass out of here above, or try?
And if I bounced off of it, would I fall?
The day is sharp and clear if you look down,
Or even out, assuming you can't see
The far horizon. In this little town,
You'd think that that would almost be easy,
But here and there a channel opens out
And shows the edge where sky and earth should meet
And all is white. This kindles once more doubt
Of what exists beyond. Is there another street?
Or are we all alone, and bounded by
A false imagination of a sky?

Reminders

I have so many doubts about myself,
So many worries that I can't control.
I try to heave them up onto the shelf
And leave them there, but to my constant dole
They will return, and I cannot be rid
Of any of them by my own endeavor.
The secret of removing them is hid
From me, and might remain this way forever
But that I know that you will come again
And tell me fondly how I am a fool,
Reminding me that I, like other men,
Should not be subject to a perfect rule,
But judge myself by being what I can
And in that way, I may pass for a man.

Hang On

Why is it I can never quite relax
Entirely, and just let life flow by?
There is some part of me that always packs
A little worry in, I don't know why,
And never lets me be fully serene.
Instead I'm always analyzing things,
Pondering what little motions mean,
Considering the way eaxh moment brings
A slightly different reality.
I cannot shake this off - I wish I could -
To live within the moment and just be,
Although I swear, if possible, I would.
So please accept me as I am, and know
I'm not quite capable of letting go.

Overcast

The eye can lose itself in endless gaze
When all seems ordinary, yet halfway obscured
Trapped in a deep infinitude of haze,
Uncertain which belief should be preferred:
That something, of itself invisible,
Has hidden distant vistas from its view,
Or otherwise, although it might seem risible
(But might, for all of that, also be true),
That nothing else exists except what's near,
Immediate, and close enough to see;
That all that matters is what's present here,
And not what else might theoretically
Be somewhere else unseen. In this strange state,
Imagination comes to compensate.s

Lilacs

The smell of lilac brings me back to me,
Rejecting all the little aches and worries
That turn me from my own reality
Into a strange dystopic place that scurries
All happiness away; the lilac blooms
Restore that stolen joy and make the sky
Which threatened thunder and a thousand glooms
A masterpiece of white on blue. And I,
The passive actor in this alteration
Know only then the calm I wish I felt
In every problematic situation.
Oh, where are the lilacs that I smelt?
Where have they gone? The light is faltering
And needs once more the lilacs' altering.

Blanket Declaration

The grey day can infect things, deeply too.
Not that the days contorts itself to us,
But that that time spent in the constant view
Of weather blowing like a blunderbuss
Can of itself reduce our happy thoughts
Into a heap of misery and pain,
So that we see such black and tinctured spots
Within ourselves that we are blown insane.
The dull and dreary hemidark is such
That we, or I at least, can scarce resist
The dread desire to ponder too much
The frailties in me I know exist.
Such days were meant for cocoa and warm fires,
Not travel and the time that it requires.

Renaissance

There are some situations that are wearing
No matter what good otherwise goes on,
Those moments when you feel an inner tearing
That leaves you frayed, despondent, frail, and wan
Despite the positives that you recite
In endless litanies of "but remember..."
To get you through the dark part of the night
When happiness is a forgotten ember
Lost under the ash of burnt-out day,
And all that's left is that disquietude
Which leaves you feeling purposeless and gray;
The sort of time when all you do is brood.
But sometimes in those situations you
Find someone who can make things good as new.

Joint

I always seem to be a far outlier
Beyond the box and whiskers of the norm;
In personality, deeds, and desire,
I cannot help but leave the proper form
And drift into the world as freak or sport,
Not claiming to be better, no, nor worse,
But rather of a wholly different sort:
If of the same song, from another verse,
Set in an altered key and modded rhymes,
Recognized only in retrospect.
I am a relic from more antique times,
Or else a future vision in prospect.
In short I don't belong here. Yet I stay,
You know, 'cause all my stuff's here anyway.

Spirit of System

I start with certain axioms, and build
A world delightful in simplicity;
In this, I always was supremely skilled:
I shape my world toward what I want to be.
But when my rules prove false, and I find out
The system that I built was but a mock,
I am invaded by a great self-doubt,
Which passes through my system like a shock.
And yet it passes through, and once again
I am myself, constructing from new rules
Another world, peopled with different men
Since my old models were shown to be fools.
Yet still I make a system, and don't face
The real world and the strangeness of the place.

Backup Storage

I love the constant, slow accumulation
Of bits and bobs of bytes, building up friends;
The massive record of communication,
Of everything that one receives or sends,
The archive of a personal attachment,
Searchable, an aid to memory,
An open, all-inviting data hatch meant
To keep us certain of our history.
I can recall it on my own, of course,
And would not disrecall without all this,
But having such a record of discourse
Makes it much easier to never miss
Important things, which otherwise relied
On memories which could too often hide.

Curvature

It is amazing how you trust in me
Even after everything I've done;
Despite it all, somehow, we are still one,
And so I have to think we're like to be
After the next time. I can hardly see
A future without you that I won't shun,
Or any way your absence could be spun
Into a good - and you, impossibly,
Believe the same is true of me. I should
If I were really what you think I am
Expose this tawdry exploitative sham,
But I cannot. This life is just too good.
I love you, and the best part is, I've learned
By miracle, my love has been returned.

Asymptomatic

Sometimes these things just take a sudden break,
A thundershower ere the clouds can clear.
That's often just enough crisis to make
The problem and its symptoms disappear.
Of course, sometimes they do not go away,
But merely hide, digging beneath the skin.
Yet when they do, if contemplations stay,
Then self-awareness can itself begin
To root out issues otherwise ignored,
And that which was before a minor crisis
Can be reduced to something that's deplored,
But ultimately fades away. A vice is
A vice for all of that, but need not be
Permitted to remain perpetually.

Given Value

It's always hard to say these things just right;
They come out twisted, strange, and mostly wrong.
I think it may have been so on that night.
Without a miracle to help along
My otherwise too-faulty words, I fall
Into this patter that fails to attest
To what I really mean, so almost all
My words are less than I am at my best.
And when I am not at my best, I feel
Useless and pointless, more alone than ever,
As if the world around is not quite real
And there are no links left for me to sever.
I know this isn't true, but true expression
Is far beyond me - why else this confession?

Instantaneous

Just the momentary sight of your dear face
Tired and wrinkled by the day behind
Sends me to ecstacy, lets me embrace
The day instead of facing it resigned
And bitter. A short touch of your lips brings
A joy I would not have if we'd not met;
At such connections my whole body sings
With music I will never quite forget.
To hold your hand, cold with the breeze and chill,
Is sheer delight, unmitigated, sweet,
And in that instant I feel such a thrill
Run up my arm and down into my feet
That I cannot imagine anywhere
I would not joy to be if you were there.

Boiling

Have you ever felt minutes drag on
As if they were a taffy or a glue,
Unwilling to admit they must be gone,
Sticking to the moments they pass through?
Have you seen an hour turn to mush
Because it would not move the way you needed,
Or had a moment positively crush
Your soul when it would not pass by unheeded?
Have you been stranded when the time you spent
Refused to dissipate or go away?
Have you been turned to a destructive bent
Because you just could not get through a day?
If so, then feel my sympathy and know
You're nowhere near unique having done so.

Nighted Color

On rare occasions when some things go right
You have to marvel at the lucky chance.
But when they don't, it's easy to alight
On pure despair, and then to look askance
On that which earlier looked good and true.
Thus worse times often color better ones,
And tell us sneakily there was some screw,
Some sluice from which the deeper evil runs
To make what might seem fair anything but,
And truth and candor can only be found
In undigested rumblings of the gut
Or heart's unease when all must seem unsound.
It is a struggle, but remember then:
The better color will return again.

Zombie Fear

The problems that I have are not quite real
If they remain unwhispered in your ear;
That's not, alas, to say they disappear,
But rather that they linger on my reel
And cannot be pulled in, and so they feel
More desperately vicious, cause more fear,
And hurt me more, because they are more queer,
More out of joint, so that I cannot deal.
But when I speak to you, the cares all lift;
I know them and I feel them properly
So I can tell just how they threaten me,
And give them in the knowledge proper shrift.
So when untold my fears are but undead,
Which told to you can truly die instead.

Awkward Turtles

The rough departures are the hardest sort
When though you say goodbye you cannot leave
And not, this time, because you find good sport
In hesitation, nor because you weave
A conversation all around the act
Entangling it in words; I mean the time
When you have parted, and made it a fact,
But then you turn and find you both must climb
The selfsame staircase, and you cannot part,
Or, having left, you find your paths the same,
Even though one should have a head start,
And cannot greet, but meet again in shame.
These are the awkward places I live in
The games where play itself precludes a win.

42-53

Here come the forties and fifties again,
The dreary temperatures when nothing's right
And there's no sun or snowfall coming, when
Life is a holding pattern - or a blight.
Here come the days you don't get out of bed
If you can help it, when the pointless air
Seems half-apologetic, when we shed
The crisp and chilly winter, but don't dare
To hope for warmth and summer, the false spring
That should be green and growing, but is not,
The time when birds do not desire to sing,
And days seem nothing but an endless blot
Of mere existence. Why must we return?
Compared to this, I think I'd rather burn.

Tradeoffs

Sometimes things work out better than you planned;
More often, though, they're far from subtly worse.
And though protectively you may rehearse
The reasons why you think you understand
The problems and frustrations near at hand,
You can't anticipate the universe,
And something there will make you want to curse
When all that you had hoped for has been canned.
Yet we keep living and keep moving through
The pain and disappointment that we feel
Because those triumphs, though they're rare, are real,
And justify the rest of what we do.
A thousand failures are worth a success
If that is used for joy and happiness.

Found Art

I fear the Internet permits expression
Of much that should be hidden and repressed;
The web's almost insistent intercession
Allows confession of the unconfessed
Feelings that reside in every breast
And used to be, from shame or doubt, confined
To one's one bosom as their place of rest.
But now they flourish publicly and find
The Internet is perfectly designed
For their dissemination in the world.
The emanations of each inner mind
Are broadcast, and all freak flags are unfurled.
I wonder where I'd be if I had shame;
The Internet alone can't take the blame.

15 Jeffrey Local

There are three buses of the same kind sitting
Within a block. Why do they pile so?
Is there some enemy they are outwitting,
Or somewhere that all three don't want to go?
Do they imagine if one should arrive
And leave its fellows standing by the curb
It would be blamed for daring thus to drive
Alone? Or would movement disturb
Their common reverie and, with a shock,
Bring all of them to stall their engines out?
Or is it that they all have some wheel lock
Which forces them to thus linger about?
Whatever reason, it seems odd to see
Not one bus there, or two stopped, but all three.

In Some Nia

Some days are good days. Of course, some are not.
And it's the latter I object to most.
I try my best to think of what I've got,
Within the limits where I do not boast,
And by such recollection to retrieve
The good days, when I know that I've been blessed.
But bad conditions never seem to leave
When I would want them to. I am obsessed
Sometimes with what I want but do not think
I have, and it is worst when I have it already.
For then I shudder, shiver, moan, and sink
For no good reason, when I should be steady.
So recognize I an not always right
When I'm unhappy and stay up all night.

Beta

Too much analysis, too little data,
Turning on the angle of a smile.
I fear my brain is not released from beta,
And wonder if my thinking is worthwhile
Since I build castles in midair from dreams
And crush them just as easily with doubts;
My mind with constant overthinking teems,
Nor do I know the truth's real whereabouts.
So why, you wonder, do I wander so
With so much overanalyzed and bleak?
Because despite it all, I wish to know,
And otherwise can't find the goal I seek.
So I accept a semifalse account
In lieu of truth in any great amount.

Worries

If there were other worries in my head
Aside from you, I might not be insane.
But nothing else has crowded in my brain,
And so I said, alas, what I have said.
I should have found some other thing instead
To think about, that much is very plain,
But to do so involved too great a strain,
So I went there, because I was self-led
To such a place, which I must now regret.
At least forgive if you cannot forget
The fault that I committed lovingly
Out of too much deep concern for you
Turned inward, as it was my fault to do,
And made a vice in too much care from me.

Translatio

I cannot capture perfectly in words
The sense of calm that you imbue in me.
It's in the twittering of morning birds,
The lapping waves on edges of the sea,
Soft mutterings of trees in wafting breezes,
The tinkle of a fountain overflowing,
The merest crackle as an ice cube freezes,
The whisper of the plants forever growing,
In all the world around me I can hear
The sound of how you make me feel each day.
Yet I can never quite make wholly clear
In human language what those voices say.
So there is nothing I can do except repeat
I love you, though it doesn't sound complete.

Failures

Sometimes I feel I can do nothing right,
Like every step I take is off a cliff.
In those dark times I try to keep in sight
My sole remaining savior in an if:
If you are happy or content with me,
If what I do did not offend your soul;
If you're content with what I've tried to be,
If you and I still make one complete whole,
Then I have done as I have needed to,
Even if the other things went wrong;
I have not failed if I have not failed you,
And not alone, since you've still come along.
So give me, dear, a sign I am OK
By telling me you love me anyway.

Timing

I wonder as the hours trundle on
How much I pay attention to the time.
I notice it the most when it is gone,
Or when its costs begin to quickly climb,
But even on the lazy, unkempt days
I see it as it trickles past my head
And penetrates my calm, uncaring haze
To make me wonder what to do instead.
So is time something that I care about?
I cannot be too sure whether it is.
But in that climate of continual doubt,
I like to listen to the seconds fizz,
And find the clock a useful pastime too
In that it chimes the hours for review.

Driven

You know the time I spend with you's too short
And every second is a precious drop
Of pure ambrosia. When we must abort
My heart imagines that it's going to stop.
But that is merely crazy fantasy,
For dying out of lack of you would make
A simple, pure impossibility
Of future sweet embraces we might take
And, for a present small relief from pain,
Exchange all joys that might in time arrive.
I must, and therefore will, endure the strain,
And pass beyond my thanatosic drive.
I shall live on though you are far away
To see you once again some other day.

Homefront

I'd like to make it feel like you live here;
Not like you have no life outside these walls,
But rather that it won't feel odd or queer
To be with me here, and it never galls
To have to come back when the day is done.
I'd like you to be comforted and calm
Whenever you are here, and to have fun.
And most I want to make of it a balm
To spread upon your wounds when you're unwell,
So that whenever you stop by you feel
Better than before, and rest a spell
So that when leaving you can better deal.
That's what I mean; I want this to feel home-y
And not merely all Stockholm Syndrome-y.

Flowchart

I know you think my choices are confused
But I refuse to say that they are so.
I do not feel discomforted, abused
Or otherwise made sad by them, you know,
So tell me, why is it so bad that I
Alter my preferences to your whims?
It's not like you are going to make me die,
Or that I would - or even lop my limbs -
On your command. I simply much prefer
To have you happy, so it bears much weight
With me to know your preference. Be sure,
I do not do for you the things I hate,
But rather choose between two goods by seeing
Which of the two you will find more agreeing.

Shutdown Mode

Every time that I run into you
I start to stammer, and repeat my phrases.
I don't know what is it you always do,
But something in your presence somehow dazes
The part of me that regulates my speech,
And turns me from a human into one
Who finds full sentences beyond my reach.
To speak is but to stare into the sun:
The very effort dazzles, to the point
Where it makes all before it pointless. I
Am certain that my tongue falls out of joint
When you are near me, and that I know why:
I love you so much that my verbal center
Shuts down whenever you, beloved, enter.

Pretty Ring Time

The winter lifted quite a while ago
But there was nothing here to take its place.
The flowers were not ready yet to grow
Nor did the sun desire to show his face.
The only green was from the needle trees
Which always shine their best when other die;
They swayed quite gently in the winter breeze
But in this in-between time they just sigh
And wait for others to rejoin their state.
So all of nature wonders what to be
And how to be it; I, in meantime, wait
For you to look across and notice me,
And when you do, then spring has come at last
It flickers with your smile, just as fast.

Optimal

There are few things that have been quite as good
For me as finding you. I don't say none,
Though often I may feel none ever could
Because the history of what's been done
By you since then has rivaled it. And yet
No matter what you do, the simple fact
That we're together, and that you would let
Me be with you outshines whatever act
Might later come from it. I love to be
With you, and revel in the fact I can,
And I have met the happy side of me
Ever since this thing of ours began.
What would I do without you? Best not ask.
Discovering that terror's not my task.

Graffito

The white's still tacky on the bathroom stall
Where some poor janitor whitewashed graffiti.
Of course, he couldn't cover up them all;
As if by some invisible entreaty
Certain ones were spared the painter's brush
And still remain to dazzle with their wit
Which even at its fullest was not lush
So that we might well have dispensed with it.
But there they stand, the curses and the jokes,
Half-covered. I could add to them, I know,
And every instance of addition stokes
The likelihood that more of them will show.
But no. I'd rather read them silently
And not express myself in graffiti.

Reconstruction

It is still home to you, I know it is,
No matter how much I may wish it weren't.
It only hurts because it's also his,
But that is something I have slowly learnt:
That I cannot divorce the place and man,
And so each time you call it home to you
I try to hold it down, but doubt I can
Because it pains me as so few things do
To think you still live there within your soul
And all that is outside is but a dream.
I know that though it's truth, this isn't whole
But yet so often that is how things seem.
Cannot the past be past, and go away?
Not all forgotten - but not here today?

Reason Not The Need

It's nice to be relied on. Sometimes, though,
It seems absurd, and that in turn can breed
A wonder and a doubt it could be so,
Which can become, in turn, doubt of the need
That drives reliance on. When this occurs,
One can feel mocked, or incorrectly weighed,
A strange self-torture that obliquely spurs
A disassociation from what made
The subject feel uncomfortable - which may
Be quite unfortunate, if the relier
Doesn't know exactly how to say
What in the other person they require
And so cannot allay those fears. So hear:
I need you here because I love you, dear.

Tricks of the Trade

My mind is blank except for thoughts of you
And yet I find this state does not impede
The progress of my day. No, I don't need
To think of other things, for I can do
All of the tasks that I'm required to
By making them relate in thought or deed
To you. Some of my tasks directly lead
To such consideration, while a few
Require more an indirect approach,
Yet all of them are ultimately yours,
So that my concentration freely pours
Itself on them. For this is what I coach:
A finished task frees time for me to spend
With you - so you are every purposed end.

Irregular Shapes

Too often now I cannot find the words
To say what I desire in good terms.
The part of me that by pure instinct herds
Vocabulary into poems squirms
And wriggles out of doing what it ought
So that I am left consciously to jam
Unwilling bad expression onto thought
And be the hack I've always known I am.
Square pegs don't fit round holes, but I can't see
The shape of what I'm hammering right now,
And so it seems to be my destiny
To slam the peg the hole will not allow.
The thoughts are there - I love you still, you know -
But I can't find the words to make them so.

Cyclical

There are few things that bring me as much joy
As seeing you be happy. But you're not.
And your unhappiness becomes a blot
That makes all other pleasures seem to cloy.
I wish I could have waved a magic wand
And made you smile honestly and true
But rather, when I look across at you
I see your face is fallen, sunk, and wanned.
I fear this cycle and the way it seems
To make me sadder when I see you sad
Depriving me of how to make you glad
By my own happiness, ripped at the seams.
But let that go; I will be here, and stay
Until I make you happy in some way.

Chitown

Chicago's always gorgeous in the spring.
It hardly ever feels that way, of course;
No one turns off their heat or anything,
Because the wind still blows with near-gale force,
But looking at it sure is lovely then.
The sun is shining high through clear blue skies
And greenery has just regrown again
To catch and then delight our prying eyes.
The whole world seems in bloom and subtly right
Assuming you just look out from inside
Reveling in seeming warmth and light,
And not out there to see the sun has lied,
Hiding the chill in suits of bright array:
The winter hasn't wholly gone away.

More Bad Times

There are some times it's hard to write
When everything seems out of tune
And nothing can beat back the night
That threatens to unshine our noon.
It isn't easy to confront
The bad times and the pain head on
But if we chicken out and punt
We find our joy already gone.
So let me say before I go
There are some things I know are bad
But even in the darkest woe
I can recall what makes me glad:
That I have you, and you have me
And that together we're a we.

That Was The Week That Was

This week has had so many things go on
I cannot properly recall them all;
Before they have begun they are all gone,
And ere they rise in me they seem to fall.
I can't even express it properly
The emphases won't fall where I would wish
And all I do is useless. Don't you see
Me look for words and my mind say "Go Fish"?
I am too full of things to say to find
A single one to actually say
And in the recessed corners of my mind
I hear "you cannot even though you may."
So do not think because I do not speak
I have not thought of anything this week.

Relative Temperature

The weather is unseasonably cold,
So that the flowers brave enough to grow
Receive a punishment for being bold
And others, timider and so more slow,
Do not yet dare, although the month is May
And April's cruelty is long since past,
To peep above the ground, and by this they
Are saved. The cold seems settled in to last,
And those of us who dared, as flowers do,
To show our unprotected selves have found
In that a choice unfortunate to rue
And wish like them we could hide underground.
It was just like this when we met and walked
Yet I felt only heat when we two talked.

Glaciation

Our love is glacial, and slowly expands
In this new ice age to cover the lands
Which former thoughts had occupied. It sweeps
Down mountainsides with elegance to seize
The lowlands, and its ice-locked matrices
Hold yet uncounted gems within the deeps.
Our lives are shaped by what this love scoops out
Changing the landscape even as it grows,
And in its lovely, twisted, branching floes
I lose all sense of stress, despair, or doubt.
Fear not; though this ice age may wane away,
The glacier will remain with us to stay
For there are mountaintops on which it's based
Which will remain, though lowlands be erased.

Hermitage

Even when the world is going mad
And I would pull myself inside my shell
To hide from everything that's hard or bad
I want to pull you in with me as well.
When I imagine every human touch
Bears with it danger of trauma and pain,
I want to hold you close, then, just as much
As when I feel the panic in me wane.
Each time I wonder if it's worth the trouble
To stay in contact with the world outside
I know I still want you inside my bubble;
If it means you aren't with me, I won't hide.
I cannot deal with people, yet I hate
The thought that you and I might separate.

Remnants

I have no mind for what I am to do.
I lack the sense that ought to make me spend
My limited attention on those few
Points necessary to my purposed end
For that dull purpose is no goal for me;
It is a remnant of too long ago,
An undigested fragment that can be
Easily put by, and yet I know
In some way I should keep it. And yet why?
Why not abandon all to seek new ways,
Putting everything that's prior by,
Wearing new fashions fit for newer days?
Because the past is where the present feeds
And so past goals are part of present needs.

'Tis With Cares

Had I the hours and the time for this
I might care more; right now, my mind is done,
And I care very little what I miss.
Of course there are some things I have begun
Which I'd prefer to finish, but today
I will not do so. No, today I sit
And watch the world pass by while I must stay
Doing this work as if I wanted it.
I am not empty, no, I am filled up
With vacuous yet space-demanding cares;
And every time I empty out my cup
The spout of problems fills me unawares.
So do not think my present disregard
Is permanent; but times right now are hard.

Fools, Said I, You Do Not Know

I want to make you happy - oh, so much -
But never really know if I succeed.
Of course, you tell me that I do, and such
Good reinforcement is just what I need,
But in a deeper, calmer sense, I know,
I cannot hear the best part of your joy;
Since bliss for you in silence seems to grow
And even whispers serve but to annoy.
So I will be kept out when I do best,
Let in when that has overflowed and gone;
I can't be sad, though, when I feel the zest
With which you come and stay - and linger on.
I know I cannot know, but I don't care
So long as you still want to have me there.

Jointure

I do not doubt your constancy or faith
Nor think you like me less than you have done;
I simply think sometimes you are a wraith
Half-present in the world beneath the sun,
Wrapped up in other times, in other places
And I am worried that they take you far
From me. I know you see far other faces
In your mind's eye, and sometimes that you are
With them in spirit, which can trouble me
For I am with you wholly when with you.
I do not seek to blame you or to be
Unfair about it, but admit you do
Sometimes seem vacant. Let me know your trouble
Which being shared will become half, not double.

Vetoed

I sometimes fail to see just what's the point
Of us not doing what we want to do
Because somebody's nose is out of joint;
Shouldn't that become their problem too?
And since it doesn't hurt them anyway,
It's just a prejudice or two of theirs,
I don't know why I really have to say
That I believe that when somebody cares
About something that doesn't affect them
You ought to listen first to those it does
And if the latter choose not to condemn,
You should leave it exactly as it was.
What we do with each other is our own
And chosen by no one but us alone.

Partwise

So many things to do, so little that
I care about. I could be ready, now,
To put it all away, if it were pat
And tidy, but it's not, and won't allow
Such simple, blithe dismissal. If it could,
I would. But no, I must go on and on
Half-caring at the best about the good
And not at all about the bad. What's gone
Is not the world around me, but within;
I see a smaller universe, which I
Prefer. It's lighter, easier to spin
About its axis. No, that bit's a lie.
I just have help with it, which matters too;
That makes things so much easier to do.