98. Chocolate

Deep and dark;
bitter sweetness on my
eager tongue.
Soft and sensual;
little florets
bloom within my
captivated
mouth.

When all the children are asleep
and the evening’s work is
done:
how nice it is to sit in the
silent darkness,
thinking of nothing
doing nothing
but enjoying this sinful
morsel

in a moment’s
single, solitary
bliss;
alone and awake
in the dark hours,
only with a box of chocolates
and nothing else.

97. L’Inconnue

Faithless one!

In her despair,
drowned herself,
drowned herself in
the faceless Seine.

After so many soft words,
covert glances, what was she,
but a simple country girl,
he sophisticated.

It was inevitable;
it was too predictable
that he would take a wealthy wife,
and never think of her.

So many wasted days,
knitting sweaters,
daydreaming, and
nights spent sleepless.

Well, they say, it was
not all in vain,
it was not all for
nothing

The post-Romantics in their
sombre blacks, dramatic
tendencies;
oh, they fancied a martyr
to epitomize their horrid plights;
Her replicated face hung in their
parlours, denigrated,
ashen.

Found in every incarnation,
CPR Annie, pale and plastic,
drowned again – does she need
help?

Pound the ground, assess the
situation, administer
aid;
such a face saved so many
others!

Paradoxically, the
spurned object of love
becomes the “most kissed face”
of all time…

Is this any consolation,
for a heart that breaks,
for a soul that languishes?

Abandoned and alone;
all sacrifices are in vain.
Posthumous fame,
mass-produced celebrity:

to a heart that lived and loved and
died;
to a heart which spent its final beats
beneath the shining depths,
it is nothing,
it is trivial.
All sacrifices are in
vain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Inconnue_de_la_Seine

96. Sketches of an Afternoon

It’s raining today;
it’s raining
quite a bit
today.

I get out my notebook;
I am lying on my bed,
and I scribble down his
name, millions of
times, millions.
The curlicues cross into one
another,
blurring into a haze of
black;
spider webs or
tangled
hair.

I become nearly
cross-eyed and I
have to pause for
breath

it’s hard to imagine that my
curly, swirly cursive
resembles
my love at all,
that this obscure,
dull word signifies his
being, his form at
all –

I take this criss-crossed page
onto the deck, into the yard.
I am soaked, bone-
deep, feet in the
unseemly
mud

and I tear the page to
shreds with the sharp end of my
black pen,
digging irregular
holes into its
dissolving
flesh,
watching as scraps
litter the eroding
earth

ink melts, draining like
waterproof mascara,
which, after too long,
runs too –

my own words
trail strange greenish
paths into the damned
soil
until I
can’t read anything,
I can’t even read
anything;

suddenly: it dawns on me that
I am wet and
cold, and that
the grass is getting long

but, no one cuts it:
and flowers lay, wilted and
forlorn;
trampled worms lay forgotten,
blood soaked into the
unforgiving patio
stones.

95. memento mori

Forgotten smiles float –
suspended in the ether of
cyberspace:

Messages lay unanswered,
comments rest unread;
unchecked remains the
latest “news”…

Mementos of a frozen life:
smiles collected from adventurous days,
when we were young and
boastful –

Farewell, adieu –
a virtual graveyard left
unattended;
vines grow unchecked,
obscuring what was,
and what remains,
eternally
immobile.

94. Playing Tricks

Upon a warm and breezy afternoon,
the maidens in their sylvan silks
exhibit yet a wilder shade of green:

The impish breezes, by their own accord
(or else commanded by some sprite)
play naughty games of chase amongst their skirts;

And nestled in such trim and tidy dress,
hide dainty, little twiggy legs,
unmasked unto the lurid light of day!

93. Eyes See Me

Eyes see me:
eyes see me walking
'cross the street;
eyes see me in my
dreams:
eyes see me
everywhere.

Eyes watch me
curiously, eyes watch
me, menacing…

Eyes see me as I
walk, I dance, I
slip, I fall:

Eyes are who I live for,
breathe for, die for;
eyes follow me everywhere,
eyes see me,
everywhere I
go.

92. Visiting Mr. Guggenheim

To look at a painting –
look, not touch –
behold beauty at
arm’s length.

Sitting
on a quiet weekday after
-noon,
looking at a
painting.

Alone in the silence of
imagination,
musing what was and
might have been.

I wish I could
look at you like a
painting,

walking back out into
the hum-drum day,
recalling the colours,
the proportions,
the brushwork

and simply forget,
lost in other images, other
realities, or
remember, from
time to time,
cold and
unassuming.

91. [Insert Text Here]

A teenager with a phone
is a horrid thing!
“Look at me!”
“Look at me!”
I want to yell.
I want to take you by the
shoulders, shake you.

Look at me!
But it's not the phone
you love; it is the
soul on the other end.
And I will always
be second
best.

90. Sagittarius

Gregarious Sagittarius:
so many friends;
this one, that one:
you have no time for me.

I was but another body in a
sea of other ones.
So I thought:
but you chased after me,
lit up the night, and I –
acquiesced –

Another night, when I was
slow and clumsy,
scrambling to get my things
together, I was afraid
you’d leave, find someone
else:

but you stayed.
You waited,
smiled,
and looked at me,
without question.

I,
speechless, slightly
bewildered,
looked up at you, and wondered
if I really meant anything
to you?
This is what friends do;
this is what friends are for,
they say:
but why me, and
why you!

89. “See you tomorrow”

Each time we part,
it is like an affirmation:
that we will see each other
again;
it is a hope, it is
a promise,

it is a guarantee.
Yet I must face the fact
that one day, it will
be a simple farewell,
because then –
our days together will have run
out.

On one hand waiting for the next
“tomorrow”;
on the other dreading the
finality of the past,
the austere future,
which instead tell me:
these little tomorrows
will one day be but
lost yesterdays.