137. Icarus

 

Curious,
the brown and grey
fruit fly
slips quickly
into view;

perched briefly
on the
tumbler’s
edge –

Plip!
Hops, indiscreetly
upon the
untouched
water:

Terror at being
trapped;
or to human
eyes
trying to remember
the breastroke,
quasi-comically:
limbs flailing as
wings begin to
sink;
milliseconds
before the struggle

ends.

An imperceptible
hush
and there is
Ophelia,
laid calmly to rest
in the still
liquid

Thomas did not need
write a mad
scene;
Shakespeare, a
play,
nor Berlioz, an
art song
or
Delaroche,
a painting;

In grim
fascination
have I surveyed
this picturesque
suicide,
having the power to
inform, yet
powerless
to save;
a strange sadism and an
equal
guilt:

136. Erlkönig

Obsession, lust, desire –
these are things permissible
in moments such as this:

Quiet on a snowy night,
young man hunched over,
brow wrinkled in concentration!

In a moment of oblivion,
single-minded focus,
he is unaware of my predation;

In such a moment,
brief and fortunate,
all is possible –

Knowing there’s no second
chance; no harm in being
sinful for the present:

A glance or five is
nothing; a thought or two
is nothing,

For he is leaning here,
his coatless self
upon my car

and I, his captor
have no reason to
expect or wish –

but one may dream
in an instant,
only to laugh later,

in
smiling
irony!

135. Blackbirds at Noon

Blackbirds at noon,
feeding on the lawn
and in the fields.

Stragglers rest
upon the prickly, bare
branches, swaying
in the biting breeze:

As one by one,
they join the others,
there is always the
one
resting
solitary
in the
trees

Explain to me,
how even among these
mundane
creatures
there are
poets, staring at the
mid-day
sun,
pondering the
infiniteness of
the world

Else,
it is my
ridiculous
anthropomorphic
personification,
projected upon
unassuming
subjects

He is simply tired
from a day’s
flight;
full from the
last meal;
He joins them,
all the same,
in due time.

And I am left here,
watching,
until by some fluke,
they all steal away,
black ribbons on a
stony sky

and I remain,
wondering if it is
foolish to be
too
pensive

134. Cherub

Dearest one:
blankets spread,
scattered
on the bed,
legs splayed
at an unnaturally
natural
angle;

How many years
it has been
since we were
both young,
carefree –

could I wish
you would retain
the happinesses
only youth
affords
and that life
will be
kind
to
you

Cheeks flushed from
a day of
activity,
breathing slow and
deep, contented
oxygen filling each
breath –

Exuberance,
tempered by the quiet night;
plush dog
in tow,
I am at once
completely at
one
yet an
intruder all the
same

In such
imperfect repose
do we find the sweetest
joys –

133. Skins of our fathers

After the rain,
the frightened insects
emerge,
surveying the damage,
knowing this battered land
is what remains
and what must be
lived through.

How many tears have irrigated
this unruly soil in
vain?

Suns will one day emerge,
but how, but
when?

In such darkness and
uncertainty, how
strong must one be,
to trust,
to hope!

132. Caro nome

Dearest name,

repeated fervently,
bringing me such
sudden joy, a
smile each time,
like a stolen, secret
prayer;

waiting by the forgotten
lanes for a single
glimpse

drawn by an unexplained
foolishness –

how do we forget
such a name,
and the hopes
that rested so
tenderly upon it?

There was no high
drama
where I was called to sacrifice
myself to a callous,
immobile
lover
but how strange it is
to feel
that I still love you,
though you so coldly
abandoned
me

I must forget,
erasing all the imagined
moments of exuberance,
retiring to a quiet, backward
silence,
reflecting

131. Bite-Size

A moment of indulgence;
for I have spilled my soda,
and you are searching for
napkins:

right pocket, left
pocket, jacket –
meanwhile, I have
tissues, tucked precisely
in my own
backpack

watching you struggle is
adorable, perplexing, as if
slight suffering
justifies
affection

What does it mean
to not expect,
and be surprised?
To not desire,
but to exist in
simple
moments?

In such a fleeting
moment
of unadulterated
complicity –
is this what
friends do,
kindness in discrete,
foldable portions,
unexpected bliss
never beyond
these
confined
means?
Must we demand
more?

130. Kindness

In your eyes,
I see only coldness;
in your smile
I feel only hardness

In my mind, I
see only joy, I
feel only warmth

Only after have I been
informed
plainly,
nonchalantly

that you had not cared,
I realize how foolish I was,
how naïve I had been again,
fooled to believe in
a world of
false illusions,
forced again to return to
a bleak and
unchanging reality.

Could I have believed
a mere mortal
could transport me out of
this misery, this
eternal, natural world?

All we have are empty trees,
empty skies,
empty oxygen
filled with our misguided
dreams, lofty
expectations –

Stripped down to molecules,
what are we searching for:
meaning from our
atomic structures?
How could beauty assuage
fears, solve
insecurities?

Is it really only
escapist tendencies,
wishing to pretend there is
something more, there is
meaning?

In vain, searching
the same cold irises for
truth

Beauty is not truth;
beauty forces us to
examine, to
struggle from, to accept
our condition,
our destiny:
our frailty
and our
mortality.