Home

The days are long and void

Except when you appear

Hopefully not annoyed

But bright and full of cheer

For when you come back here

And couch yourself by me

You subtly re-steer

My soul to be happy

And since I like to be

As happy as I can

I miss you constantly.

And yet in every plan

There is a flaw or quirk -

In this one, it's your work.

Unglued

The discontented limbs refuse to move
Though they know how, they do not wish to know.
They will not fit the old familiar groove
Of muscle memory. They will not go.
For they have learned by pain to just say no,
To shiver and complain until they get
The wished surcease of effort, and so slow
The mind's insistence that they move it. Yet
Though they, themselves, desire to forget
Their wonted motion, yet the brain recalls
Despite the every effort of their let
What they could do when they would give their alls
And not ungently calls on them once more
To slowly do what has been fast before.

<

I cannot claim
I do not care
To place my aim
On being there
With you...but still
I cannot be
Despite my will
As frequently
As I'd prefer
And so I go
From where we were
To here. But know
Someday I'll come
Where I went from.

FLL

Traveling
But not to you
Is a strange thing
And nothing new
At once. But I
In doing so
Can see how by
This to and fro
In time I will
Most thankfully
Return and still
Have you with me
Which makes me glad
Who else was sad.

Far

It isn't easy to be far from her;
It always puts me in a certain funk
Because the part of me that I prefer
Is tied to her, and therefore I am sunk
Into a slightly different person when
For whatever reason, she is far;
And only when we meet am I again
Myself. She is, perhaps, my guiding star
From which I orient who I will be
And by directions that I take therefrom
I know how to mostly truly become me
And like the person that I have become.
So being far from her is wrenching, for
I'm not the same as I had been before.

Inner

I don't mean to belabor

All the points that I must make

But to soothe with lute and tabor

So the yawning beast will slake

Its own appetite, and slumber

So that I can be at rest

And the heads surpassing number

Will lay down at my request;

So my writing is required

By my own internal needs

Because love ever desired

To explore the place it feeds

And so I write love because

It's what this lover does.

Sonneting

Some places are more fertile for my mind
More tilled, and thus susceptible to weeds,
But also thus more likely to then find
Something to grow, whatever be the seeds.
In such a place, the words I think become
More orderly, and so express my thoughts
Coherently, reducing my mind's hum
To words, untying all my mental knots.
And so my love and adoration pour
In a coherent and expressive stream
Saying I love, and by that saying more
Than ever in another place I'd dream
That I could say. Chicago lets me tell
The one I love I love her very well.

Cities

I settle into usual routines
As if the city programmed who I am
The simple input of remembered scenes
Serving as a self-defined program
That alters what I think and what I do
Making old things normal once again
Not changing what is possible or true
But how I act upon that knowledge when
I come to realize it. So here I
Am subtly different, and so I will be
Whenever I next put this city by
And go another place; another me.
Yet even as I change, I am still one
The same me reads the program I've begun.

Hmmmph

There are too many places I could be

And only one of them is where I am.

That's obvious, at least it is to me,

But for the moment I don't give a damn,

Because it's also true. And being true

It's something I must cope with in some way

Mostly because I'm taken far from you

By things that were compelling in the day

But as the night comes on and makes me miss

The comfort of your being by my side,

The happiness that fills me when we kiss,

The joy your presence always has implied

I wonder if those reasons were enough

To make me miss you, just to do that stuff.

With

There is contentment sitting next to you
A sense the world is breathing easily
And nothing stressful could heave into view
And if it did, it would not trouble me.
Even when stress or sheer annoyance brings
A tremor to what's otherwise so calm
Your comfort can, with time, subdue such things
Spreading on hurts your most effective balm.
So there should be no wonder why I slide
Consistently into your arms to sleep
Or why I so insist you let me hide
Within your orbit, and that orbit keep
For every time I'm with you, all is better;
That sort of help can't come by phone or letter.