Optimal

What could be better than to have you near
Lying beside me, comfortably warm,
An arm draped over me to hold me here,
Us both compressed into a single form?
What more delightful than to talk with you
While both of us fall quietly to sleep,
And cuddle closer as we softly coo
Slipping into oblivion so deep
That when we wake, after the risen sun,
We feel renewed, refreshed, almost reborn
Not as a separate pair, but rather one
Joined at the mind too closely to be torn
Apart? Nothing, but to do it again
And be as close once more as we were then.

Wildly

No matter if my fingers can keep pace,
My mind is always gyrating of her,
Imagining reactions that take place
A thousand times without a sound or stir,
For they are tested only in my mind
Which whirls in wondering about her sphere
And seeks out practices wholly designed
To make her happy and to keep her here.
I cannot write them down; they are too quick,
Too insubstantial in my striving brain,
For them to often permanently stick.
Instead they rerecur in endless train
And I record those which my fingers seize
Leaving the others as a hopeless tease.

Definite

In every moment of the passing day
I am incessantly reminded of
What I would have, and how it is away:
This constant memory I have named love.
For when I wander, wheresoe'er I go
I find my mind forever turns about
All thoughts of her, and so I do not know
What it would be like to exist without
That ever-present thought, that endless yearning
To know of her, and think of how she's doing,
My brain forever wriggling and churning
About new ways of pleasing and of wooing.
It must be love, for nothing else erases
My other thoughts in quite so many places.

Inform

When all occasions do appear to aim
At my defeat, and every half-wrong chance
Falls on the bias, I refuse to blame
Myself, or the surrounding circumstance;
Instead I float on by, and let defeat
Become another name for victory,
Changing not purpose, but direction. Sweet
May be success, but equally
The redirection of a failure seems
The vindication of my human reason:
I think it is maturer when one deems
Success a state of mind the will may season
And not a state of fact. What is, is, yet
I need not take it as a bar or let.

Apparition

I do not think that beauty to be rare
That may be bought at stores, or in salons.
The sort that is not made for wind and wear,
Or for the moment when the morning dawns
And casts a sungleam on a sleeping face.
True loveliness is found in sidelong glances,
An eyebrow lifted with sarcastic grace,
And how each eye below divinely dances
With sheer amusement; in a playful smirk,
A laugh delivered with full heartiness,
And smiles that crease their corners. Where these lurk,
How can love than these aspects linger less?
It cannot be: the heart and eye must join
To love, and pay their tribute in that coin.

Beautified

There is a beauty everyone adores
That melts into itself like caramel cream;
The sort of face, possessing perfect pores,
That looks a superhuman lovely dream.
This sort of face so many fellows deem
To be the ultimate, the beau ideal,
And so indeed to them that face must seem
The maximal expression of appeal.
Yet I prefer to make a different deal
And gaze upon expression and intent
To see in beauty something far more real
Than simple surface, something heaven-sent:
A face that's decorated by a mind
Whose active thought is in expression signed.

Empty Air

These empty words are meaningless from me
When said alone. What purpose can there be
In saying solitarily the words
That only garner meaning when they're heard?
It hardly matters what gigantic herds
Of oath I speak, or by what sense they're spurred,
If I am all that hears them echo out.
Words have social meaning, and I doubt
That solitary utterances bear
The weight they would in public. They cannot;
For when the speaker's self is all that's there
They may be spoken and then left to rot
No one remembers them. Meaning accrues
Only to word we communally use.

Thanks

If there is anything that's good in me
I thank my parents, for they placed it there;
And if it has any utility,
I thank my teachers for their thoughtful care.
If there is any joy in how I act,
I thank my friends, for they have brought it in;
And if I have a modicum of tact,
I thank my enemies who taught me spin.
If I have virtues, then I thank the Lord
From whom, I'm taught, all blessings at last flow;
And if I live within what I afford,
I thank the world, which taught me not to owe.
But if all these - or any - are still true
For making it worthwhile, I must thank you.

Odd and Oddity

I cannot lie and say I am not strange
Nor would I do so, even if I could.
My thoughts lie far outside the normal range
Albeit I, for my part, think them good.
My heart is otherwise than other men's,
My inclinations differ from their ways.
They do not turn by instinct to their pens,
Nor only show their hearts in turns of phrase.
I am alone, or near alone, in this,
And cannot hope that you will understand,
But know against all hope I find my bliss
In you, expressed in this work of my hand.
So love me back - but know there is no need
To write to me the way that you now read.

Lights

The sun beats down so hard I cannot see
And yet what need have I of working eyes?
There can be no shock, awe, even surprise
For me that can arrive visually.
No, I dare even say there cannot be
A single doubt that ever could arise
A worry, fear, suspicion, or surmise
Within my mind, or anywhere in me
Out of my vision: for I understand
The world not through my eyes but through my heart
And what that sees is where I end and start;
From its impressions only I expand,
And it knows well the world in which I stray
Your love is light enough to show my way.

Comparative Advantage

My life is not a boring one at all
Nor do I lack for entertaining things
To do or hear. The evenings do not pall,
Nor middays drag; my world at all times brings
New joy and new excitement to my sight,
And every day is quickened with new glee.
I am in no way in some sort of plight;
There is no reason you should pity me
Except that when you're gone, despite this good
I still feel emptied of a greater bliss;
For in your presence I have been, and stood
Then in a glory that I now still miss.
My life is happy, but with you it's more
So when you leave, I still must miss you sore.

Speech Less

There's never quite enough for me to say
Because when words are so inadequate
What can be said? It's not quite that I stray
Into the places that words can acquit
But never do, where if you could just find
The right ones, then you could express so much.
Rather, I'm in the corners of my mind
Where words are meaningless, and cannot touch
The deeper presence lurking there, which means
That there is nothing left to say. What could
Be said, when words are gone? For speaking leans
On words, and when they're gone, what would
An empty speech accomplish? Love is far
Beyond my words' most high accomplished bar.

Frighted With False Fire

I hear the phantom ding of unsent texts
Break through the noiseless overquiet night.
My mind, in excess hopefulness, elects
To take the moment when I'm out of sight
Of any indication of your word
To prompt me with false indicators of
What, I must believe, I might have heard.
It is the siren call of distant love,
And though I stop my ears with wax, it chimes
For it is no vibration in the air,
Metered by earthly distances and times,
But mindful hearing, which, by dint of care,
Hears what has not yet happened, and ensures
The care by which it operates endures.

Epithet

To suffer is a virtue: to endure
What others without reason place on you.
And patience while you suffer is a cure
For all the pain adherent thereunto.
For suffering is what you have to do
When something undeserved is suddenly
Handed to you; it's how you muddle through
When everything is changed. Patience must be
The state of those who, unexpectedly,
Are faced with that which does not correspond
With what they earned, and in that moment see
An altered world on which their sun has dawned.
So I may say I suffer love indeed
For you love me, and I know not the seed.

Just Desserts

Grace cannot be earned, cannot be bought;
It falls on undeserving but blessed heads.
It lies beyond all close, rational thought,
And walks where haughty justice never treads.
To be uplifted by it is a gift,
Not to be counted on, yet much desired;
Its presence marks a definitive shift
Away from what deserving has acquired
Towards free and open dispensation of
The inner fountains of eternal bliss;
It is the marker of unearnéd love,
Whose object cannot say "I am owed this."
So by your grace I may be lifted high
And will not have the bad grace to ask why.

Changeling

Pretty much nothing that you say or do
Can change how I will feel about you now.
Of course in say that I must allow
For mighty alterations coming through,
But in the realm of everday, I see
No chance that you will change the way I think,
For I am nowhere even near the brink
Of alteration, or inconstancy.
A murder, or of course adultery,
Sins unimagined even in the stink
Of deep damnation, by those souls who sink
Into their own destruction willingly
Might change my mind: but otherwise, I'm set:
Your goodness is too mighty to forget.

Freefall

There is a gap sufficient to fall through
Between desire and desire done.
This should be no surprise to anyone,
Because so often what we want to do
Is quite impossible, or nearer to
That state than we would like to think. Begun,
Our dreams seem easy, but the setting sun
Of every uncompleted day's a clue
That they are not. Yet every time we fall,
We pick ourselves, still willing, from the floor,
And give another go, or try once more
Harkening still unto our dreams' faint call
From further on ahead. And this is why
I'll follow after you - or at least try.

Mist

The tingle of incipient almost-rain
Begins to prick my skin, and I awake
From dazy dreams of you into the plain
Flat dull reality in which I make
My way. The drips remind me where I am,
What I was doing ere this reverie
In which I found myself began. I damn
Themexist for it, but I cannot easily
Slip back again. I am too present now,
No longer thinking only of your face,
The way it lights up when you smile. I bow
To stern existence, time, and even place,
And make myself remember I'm alone
Watching a raindrop splatter on a stone.

Excess

With only so many hours in the day
How can I tell you just how much I love?
The light will wane before I can assay
Even but half the exposition of
The warmth and happiness you make me feel,
The joy (unparalleled) of your sweet kiss,
The thousand glances that I hope to steal,
The tenderness of you, and more than this,
The supererogation you return
For my too poor devotion, which is paid
Beyond the payment it could ever earn
With your reciprocation, of a grade
Past all my hopes. So I can't really tell
The love I feel; and yet you know it well.

Sank

When I
Can't think
I sigh
And sink
Into
A funk.
I do.
I'm sunk.
What might
Change this?
A night
A kiss
Most of
All, love.

Magnetism

You are the lodestone of my iron heart
Drawing over distance, though much stronger
The closer that you come. For when we part
I lose my north, and wander aimless; longer,
And I begin to think that west is north,
Flailing about at angles to my will,
And dare not for a moment sally forth
Without a guide; and make it longer still,
And catatonic I will barely move,
Robbed of my motion by your absent pull.
Therefore, if you too love, it may behoove
To stay close by, to make it possible
For me to come to you, and, pointing true,
Indicate how I incline to you.

TopoiTopoi

Only so many hours may be spent
In quiet contemplation of our love,
Even in my most self-focused bent.
Yet what, if anything, is there above
Those thoughts in my opinion? Nothing then?
Then why can I not spend all idle time
In thinking of it? Since I know that then
I would dissolve myself into pure rhyme
And who wants that? Neither of us, I'm sure,
So I must spend some times on other things
Though still aware that I might still prefer
To think of love and all the joy it brings.
But as I stand, as I must do, apart,
Remember how thus standing pains my heart.

Portents

The sky above is threatening and gray;
The air is half-chilled by the sunless clouds;
It feels like doom's already on its way;
The street is empty where it should have crowds.
All ominous and doubtful signs of fate
Conspire at once to make the scene unreal;
The hour is early, yet it seems so late;
Nothing will settle on an even keel.
Why are these signs and portents all around?
What is the meaning in their several tales?
I'm sure that explanations must abound,
And equally as sure that each one fails
Except for mine. You left today, and I
See all these things and do not wonder why.

Gutting it Out

I feel so weak sometimes when you're not here;
Like something in me drained and ran away.
It's just a little queasiness, a queer
Churning in the gut, as if to say
"Something is wrong. I will not tell you what,
But something that you ought to fix is wrong."
(This is the basic problem with my gut:
When telling me these things, it takes too long
To get down to the point, so that I miss
The chance to solve the problems it will mention).
And as I listen to it churn and hiss,
I turn my deeper and more full attention
To where you are, and wondering if you
Are having some internal problems too.

Silliness

I wince to think of all the follies we
In stupid but assured sincerity
Conceived and executed. Silly us
To have imagined there might be a way
That we could not have co-desired thus.
But then again, we are but mortal clay,
And folly is our element: to dream
That things could be exactly as they seem
To human, frail, self-interested eyes.
For our own worries blinded us from seeing
What took no other viewers by surprise,
Indeed, to them seemed central to our being.
So I must shrink from thinking of that past
And live in joy that folly did not last.

Joynt

The little smiles that I catch from you
Around your other business seem to me
A treasure of prodigiality
Beyond my wildest imagined view.
I could not rate them higher than I do,
And every moment that you smile I see
All I could want for all eternity
Contained within some muscle and tissue.
So smile again at me and make my heart
Contracted to your eyes contract again;
Twinkle those eyes, and you may notice then
My smile soften, and my heartbeat start.
I am your creature, and when you express
Your joy I share in all that happiness.

Brown Study

I slowly wander down my memories
Ignoring every door I could step through,
Examining the hallway as I please,
And wondering what else I ought to do.
I do not wish to leave this house of thought
But not because I fear to live - no, more
Because each inch of it was dearly bought,
And reminiscing settles up that score.
Yet even as I think about the past
I will not think about specific things
Because when used, my memories won't last,
And I've a mind that instinctively clings.
So I will keep them fresh by just recalling
A vague sense of the past. No, I'm not stalling.

Gyrate

The hours slowly trundle by my chair
As I, insensitive to their departure,
Breathe constant sighs into the pallid air.
Ah, Cupid is a most distracting archer!
I cannot concentrate, I cannot think
And every task left for me is undone
While into his dark torpor I still sink
And wonder if I am the only one.
My heart, which feels it cannot be alone,
Counsels my mind to stop its mad gyration,
But all my mind will do is sigh and groan
Unmoved by heart's empathic conversation.
So I am motionless, yet madly moved
By that in me which never can be soothed.

Half-Waking

An echo of a half-forgotten past
Screams out across the desert of my mind.
One cannot help but hope such things don't last,
But in this case that hope is just unkind.
For pasts consigned into the endless deep
Of dreams, part-memories, and vague distraction
Cannot go gentle into that long sleep
But are by nature forced into some action.
What would a past be now if it should slip
Willingly into that great abyss?
No, it must struggle hard against that trip,
Reminding us by force of what we miss
Ever forgetting, ever moving on
Only really feeling once it's gone.

Travel Times

It's 22 minutes to Austin
Another half hour on the bus
But only three hours to Boston
Plus a modicum of fuss.
So why is it called commuting
To get here from one of these places
While the other is full uprooting
With tears, farewells, and embraces?
Of course, one costs much more to do
The other's just a couple dollars,
But with so little to go through
Two more hours, a couple hollers,
I don't quite get the difference
Between them in real consequence.

Blind

The world around me is a fuzzy blur
A mockery of what it ought to be;
I can imagine what I think I see,
But even then I never can be sure.
I know, of course, quite well what I'd prefer
To look up and notice surrounding me:
That would be you. But practicality
Tells me you aren't; I'd wonder if you were.
Yet when I fill the blanks of my desire
I cannot help but conjure up your face
And pragmatism cannot quite erase
That hope. I know that hope can be a liar,
And yet it comforts me in blindness to
Imagine somewhere out there is a you.

Literality

I only have so many hours left
And I will spend them all repeating this:
You stole my heart, but it's a merry theft,
A grifter's bargain, sealed with every kiss.
So I cannot be angry with you now
Although the metaphor has since become
Too literal for me: I can't allow
This present, when I'm dying, worn, and numb
To overshadow all that came before.
I cannot live without a heart, you know,
And it is in your hands, soaked in my gore.
But this is such a lovely way to go,
For you are here, and looking down on me:
There is no better dying sight to see.

Floater

What if we were just to hit a wall
And stick there, nothing moving, all the same?
Not daring to look down lest we should fall,
With neither of us sure just who to blame?
Would you then cling to me, and I to you,
Staring in each others' frozen eyes
Looking for a sign the other knew
How to escape? Would we realize
There was a way, or would we hang forever?
And if we hung, together but still stuck,
Would we be happy? Would we want to sever
Our connection, trusting each to luck
Without the other? I believe we'd stay
And, with each other, find the other way.

Course Corrections

I spent my life convincing everyone
I didn't mean what I so clearly meant,
Even myself. And yet, when I was done,
My meaning took upon itself to vent
The very purpose I had disavowed
Into the air, and make it plain and clear,
Gratefully (at last!) spoken out loud
For everyone and anyone to hear.
How should I reconcile these two mes,
Who claim and counterclaim, alter and change
The very essence of my words, who seize
Each syllable I write and rearrange
Them all to suit their purpose? Simply so:
I sit back, write, and let the meanings flow.

Layover

I stand here waiting for the 55
To deign to let me ride it back again.
Of course, I'd very much prefer to drive,
But with what car? Where would I park it when
I got myself back home? And so I wait,
Watching the closed doors twenty feet away,
Glad to feel the warm breeze not abate
And know that I am still, will be, OK,
Even if it never pulls up to
My stop and lets me ride until I'm home.
Still, I'll be gladder when I've gotten through
This waiting, and no longer, in the gloam
Sit watching what I need refuse to be
The help I think it ought to be to me.

Valediction Forbidding Fear

Ah have no fears this plane will ever fall
And leave me unavailable to you,
For if it does, my love will heed your call
Settling upon you like the morning dew.
Though I be dead, from every blade of grass
My love will smile at you like the sun
And twinkle in your presence as you pass
Just to remind you you're my only one.
Each step you take will leave a trail behind
Of liquid adoration sprung from me,
Not to make you mourn, but to remind
You always of my love, so you can see
My love is greater than this body is:
Though Death claim one, the other is not his.

Orange Threat

Increased security is meaningless
When that which matters is already gone.
My ribcage can be reinforced for stress,
My sinews strengthened, an alert turned on
Inside my mind, my every moment ready
To serve, protect, defend my heart from theft,
But you already with a mix of heady
Strong emotions took it out and left.
I cannot bar the door - the horse is far
Afield, and any effort now will only
Remind me how no cross, shield, ward, or bar
From you can leave me anything but lonely.
So I build no defenses against you
Or anything that you might choose to do.

Long Lingering

As I sit here waiting to depart
I have the time to think of where you are.
My mind informs me that you wander far;
I know a deeper truth inside my heart.
It tells me that we two will never part
Even when the lands between us bar
A physical connection. None can mar
The tighter bond we share, by force or art,
And we are joined despite the distance felt
Between our bodies. What, to us, is flesh?
It cannot hold us distant where we mesh,
Nor sluice between the part of us that melt.
We are together even now. And yet
I long to feel your body, close and wet.

Worrying

I worry just a bit how much time drags
When you are not with me. What will we do
When we are left with but the shreds and rags
Of time together? For you know it's true
The time is coming when we will not be
Near to each other for a long, long time.
How then will every hour seem to me?
How often will I flee from them to rhyme?
I cannot answer these still-nagging doubts,
Nor do I think solutions will arrive
By magic: but I'm sure there must be outs,
And we will find some way to still survive
For you are worth the trouble, and I hope
You also think that I am, and will cope.

Appearances

Even when you aren't going to be here
I sometimes think you're standing next to me.
The feeling is unutterably queer;
It's all because that's where you ought to be,
But still it's odd to constantly be sure
You're close enough to touch, and then remember
That's only where I really wish you were
Not where you are. I deeply fear September,
For then the problem will not go away:
Right now I know it will be gone quite soon
And fade into a haze of yesterday
But that is now, and now it's only June:
The coming months will take us far apart
And give me over to this type of smart.

Sighted

What can there be but base uneasiness
When what should be's disrupted in its course?
The changed potential throbs like an abcess
Constantly insisting some vile force
Must have come over all the world to change
What ought to be into what really is,
To modify, reorganize, derange
The clear, pure truth, and froth it into fizz.
Yet those who live more comfortably for that
Are blind to how the change aches in the air
And like it so. For them, the world is pat
And clean the way it is; they like it there.
I find I often am the second kind,
But long to be the first, and not be blind.

Missing One

It's been too long since we have been together
And yet it has not really been that long.
I feel a constant tingle in the weather
That tells me everything's a little wrong,
And I know that it's you, calling me home,
Wondering why I am far from you;
I promise that I do not love to roam,
But sometimes it is something one must do.
So do not stop your call, nor make the air
Grow clearer and less charged because of this,
But know that I would much rather be there
Sitting by your side, sharing your kiss
Than here. Yet each of us is where we are
And though it has not been that long, it's far.

Face the Change

Only so many attitudes make sense
When you know all the data you can know.
Some change must therefore be the consequence
Of learning more, or, should it not be so,
One must be very careful to observe
Whether or not new data should impact
The prior thought that did not choose to swerve:
Was it correct to let it not react?
Such careful analytic questions must
Be thoughtfully considered if you wish
To think your actions are not too unjust,
Less random than a kid's game of Go Fish.
So when I learned you loved me, then I knew
I could not help but say I loved you too.

Griffith Observatory

Could I pretend I spent this day with you
I would imagine that I found you here
Orbiting some planetary sphere
And watering its plants with morning dew,
Bombarded by the comets shooting through
The night sky otherwise starless but clear,
A shining light above without a peer,
Forever kept within my field of view.
For you are like the new moon in my sky:
Invisible, but full of influence
So that no thought of any consequence
Can ever, unimpeded, pass it by.
And when in time you rotate into sight
My heart is all illumined by your light.

Saved as Draft

The hidden posts that slink away in draft,
What do they think of me, when, half-composed,
I let them waste while I prefer to craft
Their part-companions? When metamorphosed
Into their adult form, as posts themselves,
Do they forget the agony they felt?
I know that having been forgotten delves
Into the heart, and leaves a lasting welt.
Yet all these poems should be relics of
The better part of me, the part that hopes,
That knows the ways of mercy, and of love,
And, when in desperate straights, the part that copes.
So they may better me, and let it go
But there's no way for me to really know.

Broken Pencil

I know that this is good for me somehow:
Maturing, maybe, or developing.
But all that I can think about right now
Is how I ought to be enveloping
Your body with my arms. Why are we not
Cuddled together by a fireplace,
Concentrating only on that spot,
Each other, and the warmth of our embrace?
Why are you gone so far away from me,
And why have I, in imitation, left?
I cannot help but think that we should be
Together now; instead, we are bereft.
So though I know it's good to be here, I
Must spend a certain time wondering why.

Unfreedom

Every time I think that I am free,
No cares, no obligations on my soul
I'm recalled to responsibility
Remembering that I am not quite whole
Without your presence lurking in my mind.
And so I am not carefree, but I care:
Freedom is petty, when it is defined
By voiding bonds pleasurable to share,
Or cutting ties desired by the tied.
I do not wish to become free of you:
The contrary, I want you by my side
In anything you can be coaxed to do.
So no, I am not free: and I prefer
To be in bondage. I don't wish I were.

Bye

To leave you, even when I have to go
And we both know it, is an awful wrench.
We have to take it carefully and slow,
But even so, my fists and muscles clench.
I have to wring myself by slow degrees
Out of my own desires to what's best,
Which never means it ever seems to ease,
Or that it's pleasant in this way to wrest
Myself from you, or you away from me:
It is a pain without a pleasant succour.
And all that I can think is how happy
We are together, and how I'm a sucker.
But leaving so has one small consolation:
The sweet reunion after a vacation.

View

I look you too often - always did.
I cannot tear my eyes off of your face
Except when other impulses have slid
Them downward, into far from empty space.
I stare at everything that I see there
And impolitely, too, I am afraid.
I'm sometimes quite surprised the way I dare
To let my eyes your privacy invade.
Yet I have no regrets about it, no,
I do not wish that I was not this way:
They are such pleasant sights to see, and so
I look at them as often as I may
If not more often. As I catch your eye
I see amusement there: and I know why.

Imagine

Imagine there's no future up ahead:
That sometime everything just stops and ends.
Imagine everyone you know is dead,
Indifferently, enemies and friends.
In such a world, if world it can be called,
What would you do? What would your purpose be?
Would every action be forever stalled
By knowledge of a blank eternity,
Or would you wander grimly through the night
Determined to make now, today, and here
As valuable as they ever might
Have been if they had futures? Would you fear
Or would you brave it? Can you really tell?
I'd curl up in a ball and cry a spell.

Corrective

I know exactly just how bright you shine
And no, you're not the sun, the stars, the moon;
But I am happy I can call you mine.
Although you think you cannot make me swoon,
And handily reject my compliments
You ought to know the truth. Perfection? No,
I don't even expect much common sense,
Just being that same person that I know:
The funny, pretty, well-matched half my pair,
The one who smiles when I look at her,
The person I would follow anywhere
Because if I were not, I'd wish I were.
Just be that person: just be you, and I
Promise not to place you in the sky.

Fortitude

To look upon the future and not blink,
To recollect the past without regret,
To know the present on its own harsh terms
Are harder than I ever like to think.
There are some things one wishes to forget,
Some futures which have present-planted germs
Which might feel best ignored; the heart may sink
When contemplating present's future debt,
Or seeing pasts devoured by new worms.
And even in the drying of the ink
One may flinch back from what has just been set
Recoiling even as the pen affirms.
Yet one must make the effort; else all fails
When hearts and minds refuse and turn their tails.

Culpable

I am to blame. Of course I always am.
I know the score; I do what I should not,
And take that fault on me. Who gives a damn?
I do not feel it leaves a single spot
Upon my soul, so blame me and have done.
Enjoy passing the buck right on to me,
But don't think I could be the only one:
The only one who's honest, though, maybe.
Leave me alone, once blame has been assigned;
Forget contrition: that is not on offer.
Be happy that I'm glad to be maligned,
But that is all that I will ever proffer.
Blame me, but do not think me worse than you:
I'm just the one who's clear just what I do.

Vows Made in Wine

Of all the poems I have ever written
But few have been transparent works of art;
I guess I wrote of fields passing through Britain,
And Britain's fields indeed gave that a start.
But most of what I write is pure invention
Inspired by, but yet no slave to truth;
Poetical-theatrical convention
Is strongest in producing borrowed youth.
To play with words and make a self anew
Is pleasure in and of itself enough
To take a half-truth and present it true
Or even something made of plastic stuff.
I mold the words and figures in my fingers
To shape away the truth - and yet it lingers.

A Priori

I wrote for you before I quite knew why;
Of course you read before you could respond.
I tried to speak and found I could not try:
You thought of other lovers; I was fond.
I breathed your name within my secret heart
But wrote without it, for it was not mine;
You chose to read them in another part
And in that choice, permitted me to pine.
I waited for you to acknowledge me;
You wondered if I'd ever speak at all.
I called to you, but only wordlessly;
You were not ready to receive my call.
Yet after all that wonder and confusion
We found our way beyond our self-delusion.

When First

When first I looked at you, you were a vision
Of sweetness and ability as well;
When first we met, I came to a decision
Which my dark doubts discouraged me to tell.
When first we really talked, I felt the spark
And groped for words to make you feel it too;
When first I walked you homeward through the dark,
My heart expanded, but my doubts still grew.
When first I wrote for you, I could not say
What I was doing, or admit a why;
When first you read, you did not know the way
To read it rightly, and I thought I'd die.
But now we look, meet, read and write as one
I can't regret the way these were begun.

I'm Making a Note Here

I often overstate my case:
How dire things are, and have been
So that I can in time efface
The ease with which we seem to win.
If paths are hard that victors tread
Respect comes easily to them;
When all their foes just fall down dead
The multitude will oft condemn
That way as far too easy, and
Not really worth the end result:
There is a challenge they demand
Before a victor can exult.
And so I claim the way was hard
When it was not, as a canard.

Disapproved

I do not think it probable
That this will not end well for us;
Sure, there are insults lobbable
At us, and skin is quite porous,
So they may wound. Yet we are strong
And who cares what the others think?
We two alone can get along
If we don't let them make us sink
Down to their level. We must be
As high as we have ever been
So that no word of injury
Can ever make us think we sin.
We must be powerful, and brave
Or else our love may be our grave.

Causa Que

Clearly I am too forward with my tongue
Which pushes where it is not meant to go;
I cannot claim it is because I'm young,
That all my wisdom still is left to grow.
Instead the babbling my mouth exhales
Is my own fault, in calm, mature decision,
And so its overeagerness, which always pales
Before more sober judgment, its misprision,
Are all my fault and so must be admitted.
And I will do so freely: I'm a fool.
But though I am, I am not so dimwitted
As not to practice folly by the rule:
I am a fool for you, no other causes
This bubbly babbling and awkward pauses.

Rewrites

Some months or years ago - I can't remember -
I wrote a poem that I can't recall.
It spoke of love from June until September
And how a summer fling could feel so small,
But I forget the words. And they don't matter:
The sentiment is really all it takes:
The rest is filler: pointless, idle chatter,
And in the scheme of it, is no great shakes.
Yet it should be important, for I know
Much more now than I'd admit to then,
Including how a new romance should go
And so I'd like to write that one again
Replacing June with quite another date
And poor September with an endless wait.

Sub Verba

What does it mean to say that I love you?
It means whenever you are far away
A part of me imagines that you stay
And holds you ever in its line of view;
It means whatever you may choose to do,
I will support it, each and every way
I can; it means my thoughts of everyday
Recall you, and that I am happy to
Do what you wish; it means that I feel bliss
When I am with you, that your touch is fire
It means the center of my whole desire
Is focused on the product of our kiss:
It means that I am happy, too, and that
Without you life would be stale, dull, and flat.

Dubitably

Some things come easily,
As if already known,
Planted inside of me,
The seeds already sown
Before I knew the need,
So that when it was outed
I noticed that the seed
Had at that moment sprouted.
Some things however take
More effort than they should:
The things that though I make
Them, I still doubt I could.
Your happiness is one
Even when it's done.

Whitehot

I feel the heat wash over me and break
Across my face: not broken now for good,
But smashing into me, making me take
The full impact of it. I wish I could
By some endeavour find a way to cool
The constant pressure of the heat on me,
But in this weather heat will always rule
And maybe it is best to let it be.
I have no promise this will ever change
Although I do not doubt winter will come
Too quickly, and enforce an odd exchange
Of overwhelming heat for weary, glum
And frigid ice. Chicago's a strange place
With heat and cold in this continual chase.

Telos

The purpose and the goal of all my love
Is happiness - both yours and mine, my dear -
And I would make our lives the image of
That joy that Plato heard sing from the sphere.
I would, if it were possible, ensure
No cloud of sorrow every crossed your face,
And if it did, I'd wish to be its cure
So that my presence could its fault erase.
I want, my darling, to be good to you:
To do whatever it may be you need.
And if there's something that I cannot do
By some strange evil fate somehow decreed,
I'd like to make you happy anyway
By doing all the other things I may.

Commerce

The weight upon my back is not my soul,
Nor does my self crush down on me at all;
On me my disposition takes no toll,
Nor onto me do my misfortunes fall.
On you, my dear, however, I must fear
That all I do is weight and painful woe;
I cannot doubt but, when I wish you here
You have no wants except that you should go.
Why is it that I feel this way, and yet
Despite my certainty that I cause pain
I cannot will that I should ever let
You go? Would I so willingly cause strain?
No: for when you take this pain from me
I know I take on yours reciprocally.

Gilded

A poet takes what's ugly, makes it shine
As if it were the first eternal light,
And thereby turns its self into a sign
Of something different, in self-despite,
For it is not the thing itself he'll write,
But something better feeding on the first:
A poem is a pretty parasite
Making the best out of what was the worst.
So everything that poets have enversed
Is polished, cleaned, made otherwise, improved:
And though it were inflamed and fit to burst
With pus, the inflammation is removed
By poetry. But then, what can I do
Whose topic's the already-perfect you?

Harsh and Rude

The brown-green beauty of a flowing river
Above which we, electrified, are stopped
Seems artificially and strangely cropped
In ways that make my instincts shiver.
For what should be a lovely, wholesome sight,
A sweet relief from manufactured living
Is overshadowed by the bridges giving
A sense of red decay, orange rust, and blight.
The river sets them off and makes them clear,
For otherwise they would be ordinary.
It takes the river there to make them scary
Distressing, weird, pathetic, broken, sere.
I cannot wish the river gone, and yet
Without it, these are things I could forget.

Spectacle

I plan too far ahead. Of all life's curses
This seems the most benign: I always know
Just who I am and where I want to go.
But I am so exposed to life's reverses,
The changes from her betters to her worses,
Because I have planned out so far, that woe
Still finds me through my planning even so:
Thus fate by irony my fault amerces.
Thinking so far, I also can see threats
Arise before they're real, and, haunted thus,
Can make from nothing such an awful fuss,
That my foresight unwittingly abets
The danger's coming. Yet for all of this
I'd rather see than live in blinded bliss.

Digesting

There are some things I'll never understand
Some whys and wherefores, most of all some hows
That always will slip through my fingers. And
I think that that's OK. This world allows
A near infinity of space to think,
Wonders to ponder, strange sights to review,
And marvels into which a man can sink
His teeth. Why care that, of all those, a few
Slip past an individual? I'm glad
There are so many that have not rushed by,
So that, in my short time, I know I've had
Such satisfaction to my asking why
And how that anything beyond should be
And is just icing on the cake to me.

Thesis

People have this odd idea of heaven:
That everyone they love will be there too.
And if God's mercy's dialed to eleven,
That is the sort of thing that He would do.
But something in me doubts that that is true:
The laws prescribed are so often transgressed
That heaven seems assigned to but a few
In whom God's grace is perfectly witnessed.
Yet who could, if our sins were all confessed,
Claim justly to be saved? Could anyone?
And so those few or many who are blessed
Must be so by a grace that must be spun
Not from their deeds, but from God's mercy, pure.
So heaven might be universal, sure.

Fallacious

I see a sky of gray and drops of rain,
And yet there is still sunlight in my heart.
There is no sadness there, no thought of pain,
And clouds and raindrops both will soon depart.
So why should I be blue when skies are grey?
(Or grey when skies are blue?) The weather is
No potentate that rules me, or can say
How I should feel. My feelings are not his,
Nor yet inverse, for what I feel I feel
Regardless of the wind or rain or sun.
These externalities aren't really real
Nor can they dictate to me. I can shun
The sympathetic fallacy reversed:
The thunderstorm cannot make me feel cursed.

Quant

I cannot quantify the way I love
A thousand moments seems at once too few
And far too many to give record of
The quality with which I feel for you.
A million sighs or kisses could not give
The sense of how you make me feel at night,
Yet every single moment that I live
Itself contains that feeling as a right.
So how can I express that in a number?
It makes no sense, and so I'll leave it be.
But while that instinct may be said to slumber
And I'll leave love devoid of quantity,
I will say any number could have done:
My love compresses all of them to one.

True Dear

When walking home to not see you be there
I sing a melody to reassure
My tired soul that, though life is unfair,
There someday, at last, will be a cure,
For one day, though not now I must admit,
You will be there to greet my coming home,
And all the lights that ever have been lit
Will still be darker, when I cease to roam
Than that adoring smile which will spread
Across my face at seeing you and knowing
Wherever I may go, what I may do
You are with me and you will not be going
Unless of course I go along with you.
So darling know although you are away
I'm comforted by hopes of you someday.

Catchetism

Where are the words I need?
Where is the eloquence?
My thoughts have gone to seed
My spirit flies from hence.
Why is my thought so dull?
Why have I naught to say?
I am but husk and hull
I am but grass and hay.
How can I seek for grace?
How can I be redeemed?
What will my pain erase?
What was it that I dreamed?
The sight of you will cure
The terrors I endure.

Fortune Cookie

There is a piece of paper which I do not wish to read;
It tells me of my fate in ways I think are best not known.
I fear that even reading it, my eyes might tear and bleed,
And even if they did not my mind would be overthrown.
The secrets it contains are not the ordinary ones
Of who ate what for breakfast or what goods there are to sell,
But rather larger, in my mind, so much that my heart shuns
The danger of embracing it, and flees to its own hell
Of doubt and desperation rather than investigate
The writing on the paper. Oh, I hardly dare to mention
The contents - even though you know I do not know their state -
For fear that speaking of them will negate a good intention
For on that paper, written large, I asked a while ago
If you thought you could love me: and it said check yes or no.

Zombies

Watch the people entering the train:
Do they clump up, or string themselves apart?
Their faces: do they show the numbing strain
Of hours spent discouraging your heart
From wanting more? And when they stand, do they
Almost despite themselves, slump down
Their shoulders rounded forward as they fray
Invisibly before you? Does a frown,
Nearly suppressed, but just there, at the corners,
Pass slowly through their mouths? Or do they smile
The half-grin grimace of exhausted mourners
Who know they'll still be grieving for a while?
Watch sympathetically, and watch with care:
There's always something human left in there.

Ghost Town

So many empty stations on the El
Forgotten and grown over by the years,
Imbued with a distinctive musty smell,
Of ancient blood and oil, sweat and tears
Spent to establish what is now a waste,
A monument to days no longer known,
To times whose memory has been erased,
And hopes now like the stations overgrown.
They crumble statelily and wash away
Until their concrete melts into the dust,
A dying emblem of a yesterday
Borne out of sight by every little gust
Of famous wind. Each day we pass them by
And do not watch them wither, crack, and die.

At Sea

And if you were not here, where would I be?
A floating wreck upon an endless sea
Without a mast, a rudder, or a spar
To hang a sail from, with no destination,
Simply enduring for unknown duration
The world around me, with no guiding star
To show me north left in the empty sky,
Unmoved by trade winds as they shuttle by,
Becalmed and desperate. You guide my wheel,
Your presence is the wind that fills my sails,
Your love the sails themselves, which no great gales
Will ever tear, your kiss the unsplit keel
Which cuts the water and allows me to
Sail past my fears and anchor close by you.

Late As In?

If, once again, I am a little late
What does it matter? Whose priorities
Am I to follow? Must I never wait
For what I want, myself, and always seize
The undesired opportunities
That others send me? Is my will my own?
Or does it bend to others by degrees
Insensible to how my wants have grown,
So I may never reap the seeds I've sown,
But only harvest others' fruit? Am I
Myself? Or are these worries overblown,
A pointless and infuriating cry
Of privilege? For after all, who cares
But me how fast I hurry down the stairs?

On Stretching Meanings

Poetry has some flexibility with the language, naturally, in the service of art. Just how much can be a question though, obviously. For example, if you look one post before this, the sonnet there rhymes "ruth" with "truth." This in itself is not objectionable: they rhyme. But is "ruth" really the emotion demanded by, or even an emotion permitted by, the rest of the poem? Ruth means pity, compassion, sorrow, grief, the emotions felt by Ruth the Moabite towards her mother-in-law Naomi in the Biblical Book of Ruth after their mutual widowhood. The poem is about romantic love. How far can one stretch "ruth," with all its sorrowful, pitying connotations (and even direct definitions!) to fit that mold?

The first cast in that direction is grammatical: "ruth" is joined with "And tenderness" in the following line, which means that we must take a form of ruth that can join with tenderness. But all of the definitions I've placed above can do so: grief and tenderness may be the furthest apart, but they are by no means absurd when joined. Rather, the absurdity in all these cases arises from the sense that the poem wants "ruth" to mean something like a synonym for tenderness, not just a complement. So this move does not help, although in other contexts it might.

Building on that, though, we can ask if there is a fringe definition - archaic, obsolete, historical-linguistic - that is allowable but unintuitive and might make sense of "ruth." This is for instance how one most often deals with John Milton's excessive Latinism: go back to his Latin roots and define the parts until you see how it works beyond ordinary English usage. Here we are on firmer ground: if we take "ruth" in its formative sense as related to the sympathetic and self-effacing love Ruth felt for Naomi, we could make that work.

This, however, brings us close to the borderline of complete redefinition: taking the word Humpty-Dumpty-style and making it mean what you say it means. This should generally be avoided except when coining the word for the first time, and even then it ought to be a meaning suggested by the sound or component parts of the word. It is a real stretch, which can easily break a poem, to go too far out on the redefinition limb.

As for "ruth," you tell me: did it go too far? I am personally just barely satisfied with it: the difficulty of that rhyme compensates somewhat for the effort needed to define it (if the rhyme were something ending in an -ee sound, there would be no excuse since there are so many rhymes), and the root meaning is there, if somewhat faintly. Ruth's love for Naomi is the central motivator of the word, and it is that sort of overwhelming, non-self-oriented love - which sometimes seems like pity and can in fact be called compassion in one sense of that word - that the poem wanted and needed from the word. But I am not the arbiter of my own poetry: the reader is. So what do you think?

Lifevest

I think I bother you a bit with how I say
Incessantly, and each and every day,
I love you. But I mean it every time,
And it's so overwhelming in its truth
I cannot help express it. Waves of ruth
And tenderness wash over me, and climb
Above my head, and as I surface, I
By instinct, sans interrogation why,
Blurt out the fact I love you, as if that
Alone could save me: and I think it can,
For since our now requited love began,
I've surfaced, when before I floated flat
Facedown. So love, I pray you now forgive
My repetitions - for they let me live.

The Symptoms

It seems it must be anticlimax now
To see you when we've been so long apart.
I cannot fantasize the fates allow
Such happiness to one still-human heart
As I anticipate when seeing you:
And so it must be somehow disappointing
If just because my hopefulness outgrew
All possibility of fate anointing
My wishes with fulfillment. How could it?
Such joy and wonder, such unbroken peace
As I expect to have could never sit
Within one heart while it was in one piece.
Yet we are two, and have two hearts to bear
This happiness: perhaps, then, we can share.