No Pablo Neruda
Essays on life, work and literatureArchive for December, 2009
Car Doors
You look at all the links
And you make the right connections
The dangers that you present
Are entwined with your affections
The passages you frequent
With historical report
Are in the hands of truth and shame
And love of every sort.
You see the words you asked of them
You see the quest you took
You see the wish beneath the blame
The tender heart that hurts
And within time you’ll learn a way
To defeat demons when they sleep
And their reprise won’t rearrange
The company you keep.
But connections have their place in time
And youth will learn from flaws.
It’s the heart that sings its subtle chain
That is all truth and thing adored
And beauty that can manifest
As wrong and ill at night
Is the love that showers down
To keep you safe in sight,
But leave the times once they are done
And bear your burden well
To understand the dearest man
You meet the one’s in hell.
Worry of my mistake
I have made my grave mistakes
But I make them all again
I rise to each occasion
With a will that will not bend,
And I bear them now without a thought
For what I know is true
I rise to each occasion
As I make mistakes anew.
The burden of my deep regret
Wears heavy on my heart
I keep the truth inside of me
And wish I could impart
The telling of it to my kind
But shame is too much to deny
I keep the truth inside of me
My silence is a lie.
I wish I had a kinder self
Who forgave her minor errors
I wish I had a joie de vie
That took all things less serious
Instead my model in my mind
Is peering imperiously
And I’m afraid mistakes I’ve made
I’ll make again, repeating history.
Where I want to be
She slipped into the bedroom
And she turned the aircon on
She slipped between the bed sheets
In a bra and in her thong
She listened to the traffic
In the street below her flat
She listened to the vacuum
Of her breathing in the black.
She memorised the weekend
And she looked toward the week
She felt her fingers trembling
She was too high now to speak
She planned the dark dominion
Of her days and of her nights
She slept with legs wide open
And her morals out of sight.
The distant roar of oceans
At the graveyard by her door
Implored her wet emotions
And left her wanting more.
The city that surrounded
Was slowly smoothing itself flat
And she was left a resident
Most wanted, in her flat.
The demise of those hundreds
Was a circumstance she rued
But the lust now unencumbered
Was almost too good to be true.
So she slept with proud abandon
And she looked toward the week
When her bed was also warmed
And the black nights offered sleep.
Devotion
My mother told me to refrain
My body didn’t listen
My heart insisted ‘there must be pain’
My lips and lips just glistened.
My head rephrased the book of love
My number pushed me on
My friends believed I did no wrong
My world was in division.
I sank into the primal urge
I drank the cup of wine
I made mistakes and soldiered on
I rushed then took my time
I slept with men and men with me
I promised with emotion
I took the path life dealt to me
And walked it with devotion.
Darkling Hours
Can you tell me what you’re thinking?
I’d like to curl up here and let you
Hold me for a while.
When the world will make me weary
Will you tell me how you’re feeling
So that troubles of my day are less a trial?
I like the syncopation of your thoughts
And my responses
And I like the gentle way you will roll out
A short verse.
I like the way you tumble
Over words and complex phrases
And I like the way you answer me
Without having it rehearsed.
I want to talk into the night
As wine and freedom hang a bower
I want to lay within the comfort
Of the happy darkling hours
And when you have to leave me
I’ll wait for open messages.
I’ll anticipate the smile that
Will pull wryly on my lips
And when you have to leave me
I’ll remember time we had together
And the taste of our confluence
Will be so very sorely missed.
