Glaucus' Net: Second Haul

THE EMPTY NET

June 7

I chased love into the
swelling chasms of the sea,
hurling my emptiness
like a net which fell and fell.
Those hundred waves she
bid boom in me now tided
darkly down hard billows,
harrowing her womb’s farewell.
Embrace thus drowned into
its deepest coil of loins,
desire ramped to abyssal ends,
pure bottom at its worst,
the whiskey heaven just offshore
the last shot glass to fill me
with that ferallest thirst of all,
my mouth a quenchless sate
on dead-end nights.
My losing her began a quest
alchemical in its tort of
noctal blue, killing and
washing my heart in brine,
where she-seeming shadows weaved
mid fleeting flickers of her hue,
like the viscous dance of
sunbeams at the bottom
of the pool. In that blue chapel
all drifts heavy, wounded,
surfeited in a thrall which
proved greater than any woman’s
welcome, greater even
than those world-wide doors
she walked out with my heart
in hand. Oh, love is always
so specific in its mortal greed --
no other woman’s ass will do,
receiving like a shore the
thousand waves which choir
her name in heaving wet
smashed of wild sound:
And yet in losing her
I gained her immortallest sense,
where every swell and wash
will do, she having ebbed so far
as to queen my every
longing breath, and make
each song a bliss of
eternally sweet airs
no words may fully kiss
though each connives the choir
of high love’s diving noir.
Oh she is gone and I remain
to walk this endless shore,
altaring in my head heart cock
that truest nature of that door
which hinges I and Thou,
the full receipt of the empty net
I cast here every day.




ASS MAN

2000

A man is
geared by the
triangulation
of his history
with and desire
for a woman’s
body: Focus
tightens on
a locus of
such keen interest
you’d think the
throne &
altar of our
world was there:
(It is:) There
are smut mags
and Web sites
zoned to the
empires of
our bottomless
need: Boobs:
Teens: Redheads:
Hardcore: Facials:
Oral: Anal: Mature:
HeShes: Lactating:
Bondage: Water
Sports: Gay: Some
guys thrill at
the sight of
a woman’s breasts
above all: Some
come at the
sight of a
gartered legs:
Others
keel the depths
with blonde
or red hair
especially down
below: While
all these parts
can poof my
prong, (hammer
my hoses, wake
the hearsed dolphin,
scream my guitar
boat to every
aerie of naught)
I’d have to say
above all
I’m an Ass Man:
Love — I mean
LOVE — the
sight of a
woman walking
away: Those
sweet full curves
house the motions
of departure
and call: I love
it when one
of those jockettes
at the gym
bends over
to retrieve a
towel or to
tie her shoes
and up and
out goes her
tight sweet
ass: It would
be so easy
to just mosey
over behind
her behind
& corral myself
there: Yeee
Haw: I love to
get back in bed
in the morning
after these
perusals in old
panties & lay
naked next to
my wife with
her back to me:
Feel my cock
nestle against
the sleepy warmth
of her ass
and then thrust
my hips against
her slowly, not
hardening but
savoring each
inch of contact
& the sweet glow
of my loins
there: When I
leaf through
one of those
onehanded mags
admiring &
lusting for
a woman’s
full naked clench
there is one
shot which nails
me clean through:
She’s kneeling
at a bed or
couch facing
way from the
camera &
her butthole
& cunt tucked
in the split
moon of her
ass facing
directly at me
like a face from
down under:
Perhaps just a
hint of
her face or
breasts showing
waiting silently
expectantly for
my approach
& ravage:
Oh man: I
want to just
nestle my face
there & go
booogabooga
booga, lick
& kiss & bathe
& dream in all
that sweet
exude, that
musky dusky
oily roily
fishwater: Or
grab her hips
in my hands
& plung my
cock into
her cunt &
ass up and in
& in and out
& up and
up and up
and awayyyy
we go: I don’t
find any ass
memories down
there where I
fucked a true
love from behind:
At least the
love-memory
isn’t connected
there: Rather
those glosses
are all looking
into her face
at the moment
of arrival my
cock hard as
granite & my
nuts spasming
in a total loss
of control & she
smiling deeply
with her eyes
closed & whispering
come baby come
home to me:
Ocean beaches
& crashing surf
& all of
my wildly
emptying into
her: Yes those
are potent
memories but
the ass dreams
are more so:
Perhaps they’re
inflected
or infected with
nether truths
of evacuation,
departure, loss:
Desire defines
along an edge
of refusal: Little
Kim on the
playground when
I was 9 walking
away after
refusing my
bouquet of
dandelions — ooh
see that sweet
& pert little
butt dancing
away into the
hazy oblivion —
I store that
image in a
vault of sights:
Big and little
crossed O’s:
The Bigger
O focuses that
forever between
longing’s fingertips
& Eurydice’s
disappearing
shade: (Nice
butt, eh?)
But who really
leaves who
I wonder? Isn’t
the chase after
human moons
defined by sheer
fabrics & a line
of panty a call
for self-departure,
a leave of
my own sense?
I swore I would
never marry again
but when I
first saw my
future second
wife at the Sapphire
Supper Club in
October ‘96
she was leaning
over the bar
to order a
drink: She
wore a white
pants suit that
perfectly cupped
her ass as she
leaned over
& that was it:
I do & I
Will & I Must
& I Shall: “The
one thing we
seek with
insatiable
desire is
to forget ourselves,
to be surprised
out of our
propriety, to
lose our
sepiternal memory
and to do
something without
knowing how or why;
in short, to
draw a new
circle,” Emerson
writes in his
heavenly
sphere of an
essay “Circles”:
Certainly my
future wife and
partner’s bottom
raising
just an inch
as she strained
to hear the
bartender drew
me into a
new circle: It
was an
invitation,
wholly unconscious
and accidental,
forming a new
circle which
cycles me here:
Yet Butt is also
But, the
exception, the
prohibited No
my mother so
tartly scolded
me for: There’s
a naughtiness
which draws me
darkly toward
a woman’s ass
in ways I’ll
never be able
to frontally
confess to ‘em:
I would love
to fuck my wife
up the ass but
she would never
allow such
pilllage of control:
No woman would,
I think, not
willingly, though
the notion that
every one secretly
would love me
up there is
eternally arousing:
Not that I
relish dipping
my dick into
a woman’s
stinky sludge:
Rather it’s
the notion of
trespass &
the lotion of
taboo: Crossing
border heedless
of what others
dare not attempt:
“Nothing great
is ever achieved
without enthusiasm,”
Emerson again,
end of “Circles”:
“The way of
life is wonderful;
it is by
abandonment:”
And ooh how
sweet those cheeks
of departure,
cleft for meeee:
Nothing like
a naughty girl
who savors
dirty games:
Like the bad
girl who took
me into the
woods at 6
& used me every
way: There’s
a smell close
to shit in
molestation,
disturbing,
uncontrollable,
wholly addictive:
I can smell
it in a bad
girl’s husky
voice: It’s part
terror, part
invitation: Oh
the Queen of
Love and the
Evil Princess
Whore are split
evenly in my
desires just
like every other
guy: Love and
its desecration
are like 2
fillies ill-
harnessed to the
same flying chair:
Love builds
strong walls &
save houses in
which passion
falls asleep but
the love works
on forever: Desire
lurks the boundaries
of late afternoon
shadows that
play across a
strange woman’s
ass seeking &
fearing & edging
up to edge &
retreating in
fear: It’s fire,
bubblebutted
fire: Across all
Florida wildfires
now burst into
multiacre blossoms
of bad drought:
A state of
danger close
to the high
noon of summer:
Even the storms
which we pray
for bear dangerous
tongues of sudden
fire: Ooh I
can look but not
touch the next
pale curve on
a strong of moon
beads walking
by busily
ignorant of me:
Revel here if
you must: Grab
her here &
yank down her
shorts & panties
& lean her
against a chair
with her ass
& pussy looking
at you like
a face of wonder
in perfect
alignment with
the stars which
have fated me
here & ask,
what now,
dolphin plow:
Can a midlife
crisis truly
burn out of
control &
then out
completely here?
Can I forget
one note of
that passionate
music by
singing so
helplessly
about it?


***


And a trio of poems from “A Breviary of Guitars,” in sucession from that series which tried to source the big music there in my history of bitterweet mysteries:





WINDSWEPT

from “A Breviary
of Guitars,” 2000

The present/
Autumn 1985

Finally we get
those storms
this summer
so desperately
needs: A dark
weave of turgid
cloud clotting
up by 5 p.m.
to loosen all
the skirts in
a hard bolt-
jazzed outpour
that washed me
from the Publix
in College
Park all the
way to Apopka:
A teeth-grinding
passage though
I could feel
grateful for
the splashes
of blissful
blessed relief
over the land:
Such salves don’t
wash down into
our lives,
necessarily —
fevers of my
workday finding
no resolution
as usual: All
Central Florida
waits as Courthouse
Killer Thomas
Provenzano gets
a day’s reprieve
from lethal
injection while
his lawyers
argue that you
can’t so punish
someone who’s
convinced he’s
Jesus Christ —
I’m ragged from
waking at 2:30
a.m. every day
this week to
jolt and bolt
my fat fountain
pen in the
milky furrow
of Historic
Delights —
And yet despite
all this my wife
called me to
say how much
she wanted to
thank me for
the happiest
time of her
life (that
was yesterday,
Wednesday,
when she had
all day to
focus on her
business &
go thrifting
with Roseanne):
And I felt some
similar quiet smile
that I have this
work to do
and it’s like
two lovers who
have little problem
bringing the
other off right
when they
themselves are
coming — Whatever
my daily irks
& fevers, the
work’s a potent
motion in
time’s murk:
In Autumn
1985 I found
myself astounded
& unmoored
in a bed wed
to impossibility:
None of it
adding up
for Donna and
I but for
the outrageous
sums our bodies
multiplied: I
was a different
lover when I
plunged in
Donna, hard and
harder & patient
too, riding the
rise & collapse
of her storms
til she was
floating & then
I too collapsed
taking down
every house on
the block in this
tall blue green
tidal wave:
Coming home
from her house
after a night
together was
like coming to a
beach on some
terribly distant
island alone &
haunted &
desperate for
just one more
night, regardless
of the cost to
wallet sanity
& life: Two
songs of that
day chorused
the swoon in
which I
wandered: the
first was Bryan
Ferry’s “Windswept”
off his “Boys &
Girls Album”:
Faint synth washes
and slow pulsing
rhythm & Ferry
lost in the
washes of the
song singing
“Oh baby -- / Do
it again and again - /
I can hear
nothing / windswept
is the sand /
Oh baby / Oh
show me more / I
can see nothing -- /
Windswept is
the shore -- / Heat
wave to night
shade -- / Oh I’m
feeling swept away --”
Oh huge cerulean
waves grey blue
green rocking and
rising to a height
of foam like a
sob breaking from
she or me or
both of us,
everything else
erased — Donna’s
gray blue green eyes
taking me in
after sex luminous
as the moon
in our dark
troubled by all
she knows but
won’t say but
for that night
defying fate &
welcoming my
raging bull of
a dolphin song:
The other song
of that season
was Mr. Mister’s
“Run To Her,”
again set in
some moody
wash of sound
as if in fog
on a beach
with eternity
sucking and
drawing at
me like an
angel who wants
to wrestle to
a fall, battling
necessity’s gray
waking day
ahead with
love’s fierce
welcoming shout
of “not by
providence
but victory,”
The singer’s voice
taking wing
over dark deep
tidal rhymes:
“I see myself
locked in her
arms / She looks
inside my soul /
She is much too
beautiful / To
ever let go /
Time ----/ It
passes much
to fast / And time --- /
I want to make
it last / Oooooo - ooh /
I’ll run to her /
I’ll run --- run
to her” : Both
songs pearls of
that ocean drowse
that fucked me
silly & sent
me rolling on
doomed to
forever sing of
the waters I
was exiled from:
That music
shattered in
me but like
the brilliant
broken shells
that glitter on
the beach at
dawn, the tunes
are strewn
through my
day in Orphic
tatters: Violet’s
aqua eyes staring
full at me
& the smooth
curve of my wife’s
side sleeping next
to me & halcyon
choirs of rain
falling all night
& the curl suck
& draw of these
words flowing
down the page:
In the years of
“recovery” I
built moats &
walls around that
cathedral
embrace, searching
the books for
an adequate &
liberating
explanation:
Debunkings
of romantic
myth by M.
Scott Peck &
AA’s rescue
from La La Land
and therapeutic
spelunking in
my so called
intimacy complex:
Sought the
many doors marked
“Lecture on
Eros” and taken
notes so copious
I got buried in
‘em: And while
I’ve plenty of
maps & a
fairly sure compass
& a certain
wizened post
Christian not
New Age sensibility
about those
shipwrecked days
and nights, I’ve
gotten closer
to the Door Marked
Eros behind
which swells
that dread delightful
wave: The best
place of encounter
outside events
now wholly subsumed
in time I found
in Maude Nicoll’s
“Celtic Legends”
(1902) in this
story titled “The
Children of
the Water”: In
it Lir the god
of wind & wave
hears a man
& a woman
converse on
a shore: The
woman was of
the sea &
beautiful in
a terrifying way:
“Tall and white,
and her skin
had a pale
light on it
like green sea
water in deep
places”: The man
is tall and
handsome, “his
skin had a warm
glow on it
like golden
bracken at sunrise”:
The man knows
it is perilous
to love a sea
woman, for it
was “to love
three years in the
dream of a
day and then
die in body and
go away in soul,
driven on the
wind like the
spume of the sea:”
But she was
just too beautiful
for him not
to love: Do you
hear that distant
music, distant
lover: “The fevered
blood in his veins
sang a song of
strange love, of
white hands about
his heart, of the
twin kiss of life
and death”: He begs
the woman to
come home with
him, to “lie down
in my arms at
night, safe against
the storm without,
and we will rear
our children
under summer
skies and by
the winter hearth” :
But the woman
laughs and whispers,
“Come with me ...
and I will give you
the homelessness
of the sea, the
peace of the
restless waves, and
love like the
wandering wind...” And
so weaves her dream
in his ears “like
the waves on the
shore ... ‘I will
sing you all songs
... the song of
the rippling,
running water:
The song of the
waves for the
shining sand: The
song of the shell
— mournful with
ancient
mournfulness:
The sorrow song
of age upon age
(the sound of it
is in the ears of
the dead): And the
siren song of Maer,
the woman of
the whirlpool: I
will sing you the
magic song of
the deep: The hymn
of the great god
Lir: Of the
sorrow of the
night wind
for lost Deidre”:
The song of the
”moon children
weaving their sea
spells out of
mist and spray:
The moaning fury
of the gale: The
thin song of the
wind in the
rigging, and the
swelling song of
the sails ... Come!’”
And she lay
down with him
“pressing his
breast like the
running sea water
and her kiss stung
upon his mouth
like salt spray”:
But as greatly
as the man
of the land loved
that woman of
the sea, he
also greatly
feared her, telling
her she “could be
no woman if she
spoke so ... (But)
the woman laughed
and slid from his
arms into the
green water,
beckoning, calling,
‘Come away, come
away, the sea
wails and yearns
as a woman
for her lover. Come!’”
Lir then takes
the shape of a
young man &
appears to the
man where he
stands on the
beach, asking,
“‘Why do you go
giving a warm
heart to a cold
sea one?’ The man
said he knew
not, but that
he had no
pleasure in
looking at women
who were all
the same:” Lir
laughed & told
him to seek
out a maiden
singing in the
heath and to
marry her, for
she would bear
him many children:
“‘That is happiness’,
the man said
doggedly, and
the god answered:
‘You forget, you
have known the
seawoman’s kiss,
you have had
her gift.’”: The
man marries
the woman &
sure enough sires
many children,
but the seawoman’s
curse or blessing
prevails, for
“he and all
the children
he had and all
the numbered ones
that come after
them knew by
night and by
day a love that
was tameless and
changeable as
the wandering
wind, and a
longing that
was as unquiet
as the restless
waves, and the
loneliness &
homelessness of
the sea ... Always,
always, they hear
her voice in the
waves calling,
‘Come away, come
away; the sea waits;
follow me:’ And their
songs are wild
songs: That is
why they are known
as the ‘Sliochdna-
Mara,’ the clan
or tribe of the
sea wave: They are
fated to love
and long for the
sea as the man
yearned for the
lost, the
beautiful, the
ever-unpossessed
woman of the
sea: If you doubt
this, ask any one
of them: He will
tell you it’s true:
‘They have a wave
in their hearts,’—
How then are they
ever to be satisfied,
these children of
the water?”

wave rave

from “A Breviary of
Guitars,” 2000

The present/
Autumn 1985

How indeed? For
the wave the sea
woman dashed
on me in the
welcome of
a few melusines
has baptized me
into a curve
and curl, an
arch foam
ache and break:
I accept today
that such loves
may have only
been moonbeams,
faulty ego
boundaries &
juvenile whim:
But the wave
itself is
one of the greater
angels, a titanic
motion swelling
up to kiss the
moon: One night
many years later
I walked Cocoa
Beach with a
woman Donna’s
age long after
Donna swam away:
A full moon
high above a
surf impossibly
stirred by a
hurricane
200 miles
out to sea; Waves
like we had
never seen at
that timid beach
scrolling in
huge dark swells
& the smash
& hiss of surf
a dull pounding
blissful roar:
Silver milk
in those waves
poured from
a crazy moon
& a stiff warm
breeze blowing
through the desire
we felt for each
other but could
not, would not
touch for the ties
she kept with
another: A
dazzling night
in which we
were gifted
with a sea so
few would ever
see: Some time
after midnight
on that silvered
beach where
angels sang
brokenly & eternally
of desire and its
terrible torn
beauty we stopped
talking & listened
& looked
& touched each
other’s hand, just
once, hugged,
just once, kissed
for a second then
turned to go:
I wrote a poem
on it and later
set the night
to music on
a keyboard
synthesizer (no
guitar could
suffice, I’ve learned)
tolling these
slow sure chords,
Emaj7 - Cmin7
F#min7 - Amaj7,
composing wave
after wave
of basso bellows
& swelling strings
& dazed dreamy
overtones caught
in the suck and
the roar of
a remembered night:
O I’m still
desperate to
describe the wave
of the sea woman
rising in me
in you impossibly
high fraught
with the ache
and plunge of
perfect union,
sure in its
rhythm & pulse
& chording &
broken utterly
when cusp trembles
foams & turns
down at the
moment of coming
falling weightless
for aeons in a
sheer glass curve
collapsing in a
smash and a
roar into oblivion:
I’m 43 now
and doubt
any such wave
does more than
shipwreck &
estrange us from
all we build and
strive for in
such difficulty:
No marriage
abides by such
a wave, no
poems or songs
ever summon
it truly back &
it’s an utterly
selfish amoral
unworthy
unwholesome
surrender no
one else in the
world gives
one tiny turd for:
Yet I desired
her & she kissed
me with that wave
& I can’t stop
this furious scrawl
down the page
mounting this
babel of joy:
Yesterday in
the spinning class
the instructor
was both lovely
& cruel, asking
us to pedal
harder faster up
an impossible
slope: It was
then that I truly
saw the wave I here
praise, this fearsome
nor’easter of a
swell curving
up high high
and higher,
mountainous to
moon: Oh
the teacher was
almost beyond
my heart & I
almost gave out
toward the end,
staying in gear
12 while she called
out 13, 14, 15:
She finally let
us go to
downshift &
pedal mad down
the hill & then
slow & slow
& slow till we
pedalled air
in sleepy arcs:
Of course she’s
this muse that
sirens me out
of too little
sleep & then swims
out just beyond
the tip of this
pen singing, “Come—”:
She was in the
3 or 4 women
who for whatever
reasons undressed
me in her waters
& then drowned me:
She stands beside
the real women
I have actually
loved judging their
passions which
always melt
into a deeper
surer love &
flashes her
booty whispering
“you could have
chosen this, you
know”: I cannot
surrender to
her but I will
not let her go:
Blue green monster
rising sinister
& ecstatic toward
a shore of loins
my balls throb
and pulse for
desperate for just
one smooch of
that hopeless
homeless hocus
hooch of
coochie coo
invoked in this
Breviary, this
blue green wave
reaching for
a fruit I can
never reach,
never burst, till
death do I
truly die: Such
is the passionate
singing I can
no more forget
than the sea
can reclaim it’s
orphaned moon:
Ah desperate
I am this morning
stung and dazed
by the foam of
one wave so
fucking long ago
rising anew here:
And I’m judged
as unworthy now
as I was then:
My hands weary
& aching & tingling
& the loam of
pages fattening
into a mound,
a mountain,
a sea, a cosmos
in the hollows
of a conch, a
pale flickering
dream at the
end of a farewell
& still I can’t
name it or
claim it
nor most of
all let it go:
The woman
of the sea has
exactly what
she wished: And
I her wandering
wounded dolphin
surfer watch the
horizon and wait
for the waters to
heave the next
slow swelling chord:

daughter of neptune

from “A Breviary of Guitars,” 2000

Fall 1985:
In such billows
and draws of
brine-stung bliss
I fathered my
second child: No
surprise there:
biology
dickinherology
moonsea ontology
all dance ovum
to seed: Passionate
coils rage hot
and moist to
cradle new life:
But Donna rid
herself of that
child before
I knew she
even bore it—
O perhaps I did:
One night she
was too moody
for sex: I thought
she was simply
feeling guilty
about the lover
who called for
her from far
away: As we
slept I thought
I heard her
crying much
of that night:
The next weekend
she begged off
a date saying
she had the
flu & needed
to paint her
bedroom: I
wanted to take
her to diner
at my mother’s,
go see a movie,
check into
a hotel for
some high-rent
fornication,
treat her to
a champagne
brunch the next
day: But instead
I found myself
alone for the
weekend, O
what to do when
nothing but
being in her
has any value
any more: I
practice the same
old routines of
workout &
singing & guitar
practice feeling
sterile & empty
in those motions:
Go out with
Norman to see
Jason & the
Scorchers at
some bowling alley:
hot hot cowpunk
band, a mix
of prairie yodel
with Rebel Yell,
Sex Pistols
meets George
Strait meets
Van Halen:
They’re hungry
& smart &
pumping rock
fire in its
purest opiate
yowl: Hearing
them was like
being young again
in song, 14
and sitting on
a motorbike in
someone's driveway
lifting Sue’s shirt
to rummage among
the breathless
fishes there & feeling
the night heave
up under me
in a wave: Norman
and I strut
the night afterward
like the rock
princes we once
were, drinking
Buds & shots of
Old Bushmills
& snooting lines
of coke out in
his car: that was
the night Donna
lay abed after
parting her thighs
to the vacuum
which tore our
family out by
the roots: Somewhere
on a night like
that the ocean
I called love
began its
inexorable ebb:
I began the curl
which forms when
something can
rise no further
and hangs for
a moment unaware
of the long
steady fall which
birthed no
daughter but
my last band:
The next day
I’m hungover &
wild for Donna
& can’t get her
on the phone,
her mother telling
me the 3 or
4 times I call
that she’s out
for medicine or
working in the
yard or sleeping:
And in that
itchy achy anxious
solitude the horse
loose from their
stalls, cold
and lunar and
whispering knives
with the wild
dark eyes: Next
day she calls
me at work but
isn’t very talkative,
not much to
say about the
weekend, just
sick, saying
nothing about
the work day
& vague about
plans for the
next weekend:
I feel like
I’m talking to
a stranger many
many thousands
of miles away &
ring off
wondering just
who my passion
truly loves: A
woman? A wave?
An aborted
song that of
that season
that goes
“Love is a
stranger / Who’s
taking you away, /
Love is the
danger / You risk
it all to play /
Love is sometimes
just like this /
Darkness just
beyond a kiss /
Love is the
stranger / Who takes
it all away”:
I didn’t find
out about Donna’s
abortion till
the night she
said goodbye:
Those days
early in our
fall it was
just one absence
inside a more
general ebb as
she broke off
dates & was
never home
when I called:
When we did
talk she complained
of life’s shit: Her
son’s father
wanting custody
& her mother
in the midst
of a breast
cancer scare:
So many reasons
to pull back, wall
off the waters
that still swelled
in me: O then
for me desperate
nights out
lights out
drinking to quell
the bitter mares
of loss galloping
through me with
their promise of
winter: One
night resolute to
celebrate that loss
with some betrayal
I met up with
Kim (The Penthouse
Fantasy Girl) at
Fern Park Station
& followed
her home &
helped her wreck
an 8-ball of coke
as cold rains
pelted the late
late night &
finally bedding
her after dawn
but I’m too
coked on helpless
love to stay
hard: Pass out
for an hour
or so erased
& empty but
then come to
hard as a full
moon lion called
Fuck It or
Fuck Her &
turning Kim over
on her knees
& grabbing that
sweet big ass
& pounding the
winter seas like
a royal roger
rumpus rake:
O ripened gorgeous
guilt the next
day & raging
that Donna’s not
even there to
care: Days spill
into weeks of
this with unreturned
calls & listless
talk & broken
dates & nights
nowhere hoping
the hopelessness
will go away
as winter settles
on the land
with crisp breezy
days & hard
drinking nights:
Yet in that time
there were still
glints when Donna’s
resolve to dissolve
our bond would
falter: Relenting
for a date, talk
of things we could
do, her eyes
betraying waves
for me she
once welcomed
through now they
just make her
look ill — “Broken
Wings” by Mr.
Mister the theme
song for these days
as I prayed love
would somehow
wake from this
slow ruin, rise again
in the fearless
hurl we once made
together high
over our impossible
lives: “O take /
These broken wings /
And learn to
fly again” somehow
somewhere: Up
to her house
one day to take
her to dinner
but family
has gathered round
her in a phalanx,
kids screaming,
relatives chattering
& drinking wine
& eyeing me
blankly, not as
any pause for
inclusion: Donna
on the phone in
the other room
with “an old friend”
who’s probably
the absent love
her family’s
rooting for: Donna
emerges smiling
to say he’ll be
down next week
& nixes our plans
for that weekend
together we had
always planned
but could never
pull off: And I
slide down a
hopeless oubilette
which requires
no energy, just
fold the shattered
wings & let go:
We bed late
& I bring her
off with my
mouth, licking
sucking circling
lingering on
her pussylips
til she bucks &
arches & sighs
but it seems
premature, maybe
false: And when
I mount her
I come way to
soon, no timing,
no common ground,
My orgasm a
feint at heights
tumbling like
a buffoon into
despair: She’s
asleep soon after
or pretends to
while I lay there
in agony, the
inches that
separate us
a desert of
bare rock dryer
than bone &
the moon high
above steely
& sterile, a
morgue lamp,
a headstone
bearing our
encircled names:
O wings of
sweet passion
how fragile &
inept you truly
are: If history
teaches anything
about our falls,
it is that
inhuman &
inhumane passions
pull us up
to them: Glimpsing
heaven we discover
hell: You’d think
we would learn
our lesson after
the third or fourth
crack on hard
concrete but
each day we
wake ready to
let ‘er rip, feel
the wind inside
the god of love
which our falcon
hearts love
to soar up to
then plummet with
wings folded
back to shore:
Love is a
tide eternally
washing the
world with delight
and woe, carrying
us fools like
driftwood to
the next never
dry enough
never sated
enough land: Ah
fellow children
of the wave, will
you join me in
singing of that
welcome which
truly exiles: