Saturday, October 22, 2011

When All Else Fails, Try Poetry

We’ve got nothing this week! Nada. Zip.
So Evans dug through the back of his hard drive and came up with some free verse he’s written. The first one was from Promise, the book we killed last week. The rest are from moments in time when it seemed like the best way to say something was a poem. We hope you like them.

A Warrior’s Request
Slip away from your patent leather existence,
with its neat bows and reserved affections,
and bathe with me in the ice blue silk of our pleasure.
Don’t be frightened.
When my ragged longing reaches to hold your naked hopes hard next to mine,
the demon’s desire won’t devour you.
It won’t.
It won’t.
I promise.
So slip away and take me into your clothless beauty
where two caring can quench their thirsts for each other.
Then show me how I might find a certain peace in your arms
without battle
and guileless dreams in your touch
without war.

An Impossible Notion
A thought.
A wondrous possibility,
too rare, too fine, and too unlikely to be true,
keeps tickling me.
I need to find out if you’re laughing too.
Playing Hooky
The sunlight found my window today when I was supposed to be working
and teased me until I left the data to analyze itself
while I walked among the roses.
It would have been smarter I know,
just to close the blinds and concentrate,
but it’s too late now.
The flowers held me captive
and the warmth drained away any hope of coherent thought.
So, since there was nothing for it,
I decided that I might as well think of you and wonder
if the sunlight found your window too.

Alternatives
Other hours call me
from beneath our public smiles
and hint of breathless possibilities
both naked and daring.

How
How can we still be connected? 
It’s not rational and I’m always rational now.
But from yesterday’s somewhere, a girl I loved found me
and we picked up the conversation as if we’d just got out of class
instead of letting more than a quarter century slip by.

How can I hear her laughing?
It’s not reasonable and I’m the king of reason now.
But her firelight pixie voice echoes in the soulless bits sent through a virtual desert
and her teasing smile is transmitted along with today’s mischief
into my inbox.

How can she still care (and why does it matter)?
It’s not something I should think about now.
But a woman, who was once a girl I loved, found me
and I can’t stop feeling that some of what we were then
is timeless.

Daydream
I catch my breath with the thought of you sometimes.
And in that reality suspended second,
released as I am from structured expectation,
your image will float before me smiling,
inviting my touch.
It’s ever only a moment.
The phantom suggestion dissolves with my stuttered exhale.
But it will make me wonder
if your breath is ever caught over me sometimes
and, if so,
does it leave your fingers tingling.

Indian Summer
Even now,
when black sky besieged by a tireless moon
blossoms in bare light dress,
I’m reminded of how the water reflected glow
danced in your eyes.
These are the nights,
warmed by hot cloudless days,
where I recall how your soft pink nipples pressed their anxious lead
and enticed me to bathe in the dark lake of your sweet summer smell.
In this luminous dark,
I hear again the strings of cherished fidelities as they fly from my lips
and feel again that desire for my hands to wander
over your tanned and laughing body.

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