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In that Autumn, days veering from rich to stark, dark to light,
long-flat desire bent to an arc, unveiling my golden thing.
I fell in love; she was a radiant being.
I opened my door, my blinds, my mind, my heart,
inviting her piercing light to shine on my golden thing.
She drew me to her; I loved her for the intensity of her being.
Her wanting was extravagantly sincere, then austere, then uncertain.
I didn’t know to fear she’d want my heart and my golden thing!
For the woman I loved, I was a consumable being.
Candles lit, she undressed me, she blessed our beginning.
I believed in her certainty, so I let her possess my golden thing.
But no blessing could hold, for we were both injured beings.
A love letter, poems, a line from a song, strung with such brilliance,
from this beginning, what could go wrong with our golden thing?
Only this — her loving came from a desperate, tenuous state of being.
She said, “Your passion, your mind, combined with your words,
oh you are brilliant, we are intertwined, you are my golden thing.”
I forgot she’d introduced herself as a fucked-up human being.
She took me, shook me; wanting her stirred cold ashes to flames,
in whose fire I forged word and after word into golden things.
In loving her I became a ridiculous, courageous being.
Her longing for my mind clearly binds me and bends me to her,
and so I continue fanning the flames, designing for her golden things,
endlessly hoping to please her. And hope is a ravenous being.
What shall I do now that the cup is broken
From which I drank the mead of sweet remorse
After all other solace had been taken?
I bide my weary time in nightly waking
For just a glimpse, not even a reply
From whom my hope of lasting life is taken.
It doesn't matter that the verse I make
Rises from some headwater of a soul
Made pure by love, though all the rest is taken.
I know my suffering will never waken
Pity in your heart, where loud bells echo
Your pleasure in the thought that you are taken.
Conrad must rise, another day is breaking,
And go his way, intensely understanding
That what you would not give, I still have taken.
All the calendars measure the months of the seasons;
None of them painting the same scenario for all.
Still all know the reasons for the different seasons.
The sea goes its own way being a world all its own.
The climatic law of the land is washed away.
Those that sail the oceans learn of different seasons.
Then there’s the world of fine food not without its seasons.
Every chef knows how to season the food he cooks
Whether it be for health or even the taste of the season.
Age is not content to contemplate just four seasons.
With love there are many seasons of the heart to explore.
I for one know some but by far not all its seasons.
We are not beyond the influence of outer space.
Not only the oceans are subject to the moon’s pull.
It would do us well to understand the moon’s seasons.
Sharing is a must to accompany our reasons
If we truly intend to know all of heart’s seasons.
No one, even I, knows all of heart’s many seasons.
The mother nurses in her favorite chair,
shifts the baby to her shoulder and pats
his back, soft skin and cotton, as she rocks the chair.
The father balances the child on his shoulders
and helps her somersault down his pillow-belly
as he sits in his high-winged club chair.
The mother’s ample lap expands for two
plus a story book as she reads to them —
all gathered in the rose chintz-covered chair.
The grandmother gathers wool and knits
blankets for the up-coming newcomer
as she reclines in her afghan-blanketed chair.
Why did they give me crayons, these funny shades of blue?
The sky hangs limp as Spanish moss, the clouds run rough,
the sea is grey. I won’t be needing shades of blue.
Let’s pull down a world map. We’ll skip the red, the green
and stay open to suggestion. The new guy stands up —
using a pen, he traces different shades of blue.
The streets are impassable — closed for hours by storms
that broke when the children began to march —
but now the General’s soldiers are making a hullabaloo.
Don’t forget, we’re courageous, too. We found that out
last year: you were rode hard and took a long time dying.
Our turn now to face the night. It’s not easy being blue.
Porcelain, stoneware, crystal. Scissors, paper, stone.
She dusts her ephemera and puts them back on the shelf
while two tight-lipped clarinets trade off their shades of blue.
I’m too square to hear the music of the spheres,
But me and Memphis Minnie, we rock on the front porch and laugh.
In the trees cockatoos sing rhapsodies in shades of blue.
A flaccid arm under the palm of desire
makes game of hiding in itself
and becomes the bitter wealth of desire
Marriages renew on working promises
held up to cardboard and concrete,
they shine still in the wedding-glass of desire
She kisses an unspent cheek, he touches
her one good breast with his mind
after their long walk in the ruins of desire
The sweetness of all that didn't happen
on their wedding night melts
when at last they try to snatch at desire
You're on the threshold of the flash
that inflames old wives, but they won't
trade in their little secrets of desire
A funnel of smoke, a nib of cocoa
on her lip, spent spirits inside his breath
concoct a likely story of desire
You remember the stones, Adrian, the shell
inside your pocket, the storm that threw
sands against the cottage window of desire