Excess Of It

What do I do with all my churning senses?

What is the point of feeling all these feels?

The problem with sensation so immense is

That from each feeling my perception reels.

I cannot disentangle my own being

From all that has impinged on me today;

The world that I'm forever hearing, seeing,

Touching, smelling, tasting has a way

Of overtaking, overwhelming me.

I never am myself alone; I'm more

But what I am's not what I want to be.

It's something bigger, and the stretch is sore.

What can I do? I cannot tell. I wear

And fear that as my senses melt, I'll tear.

Alack And Fie For Shame

A Valentine is just a piece of paper

But so are wills, and mortgages, and deeds.

We think of it as insubstantial vapor--

The kind of thing only a child needs--

But what we write, and who we write it to--

The purpose, execution, and design--

Are powerful, and Valentines are too

(At least if you're consenting to be mine).

Too true, there are conventions in the form

That shape the way we can communicate;

But every kind of writing has a norm

And what we choose within that norm has weight.

I choose to write to you; do you to me?

There's meaning in the reciprocity.

After Blazons

Sometimes my love is like a charged cell phone

That buzzes every time that I am needed; 

Sometimes my love is like a traffic cone: 

Giving direction but, alas, unheeded.

Sometimes my love is asphalt in the sun

Forever burning in the summer heat; 

Sometimes my love is like a Turkey Run:

Cold, up too early, and obsessed with meat. 

Sometimes my love is like a subway train

Running on rails deep in the city's heart;

Sometimes my love is like a coffee stain:

A dirty remnant of an early start.

But though my love may vary day by day

Across these changes, still my love will stay.

Chill

This is the perfect kind of day to sit

And watch the window as the rain drips down,

A cup of cocoa in one hand, a bit

Of yet-uneaten cookie, warm and brown,

Just-dunked above the surface in the other.

This is the kind of day for books and lamps,

The phone put down, the blankets piled to smother,

To warm away the winter's drafts and damps.

I wish I could. I really wish I could.

But no, I must go out into the storm 

And seek another's, rather than my, good:

My bones feel destined never to be warm.

The day's perfection only lives inside,

But I cannot, despite myself, abide.