Tangled Rope

Why We Must Now Love

Push your mind back, past the sticky days and weeks;
and with the great scales of life you carry, weigh
any measured moments of pleasure which you still grope and savor
against the endless empty mass of minutes
not worth remembering;
though dense as lead and gray as fog
lost time amounts to nothing now.

You sat down uninvited, just back from the gym
you excused yourself, and
cinched fast my attention to your shapeliness,
your black skirt and leotard, your loosened hair,
your cheeks brimming with apples.

Lapsing in talk we walk into the night;
together we stamp the crowding shadows
cast by the moon.
You stop, watching me, and I bend in.
Our mouths mark a soft spot, discovering, too,
a tough and tangled knot obliging to untie.

Know my hands are strong but tamed;
feel this palm polite upon the small of your back.
The other shall awaken every cell
kissing skin with skin.
Your smooth, warming skirt wills
a presentation of the thighs within.
These you’ve saved for me, and I’ve my arms for you

I know that now your sharpest mind considers
every facet of the world,
critical in each debate does rightly hesitate,
for tomorrow is a creeping ninja
spying and reporting on our every move.
But his master is a ghost, a myth of many centuries.
And he an automaton, a shade, a vampire,
a devil, wishing all who live to fall as he.
But not us.
For we flush these sheets and flaunt this bed till morning. He
in awe, unmovable, must shrink to fill
the gaps between the floorboards,
and his only power, fear, will disintegrate
until Tomorrow floats up, finally dust, guileless
in our windowed sun.

So come, the drive will be sweet, the car warm,
the music painting just another aspect of this memory.
Lead me up the stairs and to your door,
cull me to your lips, and then into your perfect room;
my fingers tracing to your hips
your eyelashes tickling at my cheek.
Drag me down in maddening passion,
or sit me cool and sure beside you;
at any pace we will embrace, and enforce together face
off against the cruel accountings of eternity.

For lost time amounts to nothing now
though dense as lead and gray as fog
not worth remembering
against these precious, massive minutes–
all the measured moments of pleasure which we will grope and savor,
and with the great scales of life we carry, weigh
our minds, back-to-back, past the stillborn days and weeks.

Some Things Organic, Some Mechanic

Autumn leaves in Springtime, mashed or matted,
dried and pallid through the frozen months
remind me of my son:

Five-years-old in October and falling
into lumpy leaf piles, reaching at the aura of magic they still retain,
the budded green from which they grew,
the way they whisked about in the winds of summer,
shaded his eyes in hot july, and tangled with a flying toy.

Wars in space come easy, as future racing cars, and dragon fantasies.
but he would not guess why the plane his great-uncle flew crashed,
assumed it was shot down, or sabatoged,
mixed up my description of a DC-2
with a photo of a lithe little Curtis Hawk,
who’s wings he imitated in a dive.
He popped his cheeks, a parachute blooming orange in the sunset
before shuddering to a safe, if sudden, landing behind enemy lines
He expected the brave pilot, in black and white, buried his silky friend
before making a quick escape beneath the same starry black sheet
that now and then peeks in from his bedroom window.

Like leaves that fall in the night, unseen, he could not yet know
sixty years ago in Sainte-Mère-Église
hundreds of the same tiny parachutes cascaded down
and if the anchors that weighed evaded the flames of foreign buildings
burnt to light the night,
if alive upon landing fell victim to NAZI machine guns.

For him it is all soft pillow,
a story good or bad, to ease the anxious stillness between lights off
and pushing away thick blankets to feel freely a radiant morning
until, for the first time, morning pushes back
and cotton to time is spun.

Found this short poem attached to the end of an unfinished draft of a short story from who knows how long ago. Not sure if it was meant to be part of the story, or perhaps a poem inspired by the girl that also inspired a character in the short story…

Pan? or Pandora?

The glances you return to me
Strike the locks of my confession.
Guilt! They whisper, and thus guilty
I break that old box open

Wherein I'll be shown black, but coy,
With few delights to spare;
So hate me not for hoarding joy
Distilled from our broken stare.

Here's my first attempt at translating Serge Gainsbourg's classic L'Anamour ([ ] indicate alternatives). Frankly, though, this is nothing but weak compared to the original. One can not translate even the title without feeling inadequate.

NonLove

There's no Boeing for my transit
There's no ship for my transatlantic
I search in vain for the right door
I search in vain for an "EXIT"

I sing for the radio
Telling the strange story
Of your nonLoves–transitory–
The Sleeping Beauty who still sleeps

You know those photos of Asia
That I took at 200 ASA?
Now that you are away
Their brilliant colors have turned pale

I love you and I fear
My self I mislay
Sowing poppy seeds
On the stone-paved road of nonLove

I thought I heard the propellers
Of a four-engine plane, but alas
It's just the fan-blades that pass
Overhead at police HQ

I love you and I fear
My self I mislay
Sowing poppy seeds
On the stone-paved road of nonLove

Recognition goes to Mick Harvey, who did a lovely transposition/translation of this song on his album Pink Elephants.
My translation is not poetically an improvement over Harvey's, but I do
feel this hits the mark a better on some of the more subtle meaning.