Oh God
this burning in the quick:
the cold heat of passion
too logically displayed:
the sullen issue: these clouds
about to burst with storm
from a heaven in the void:
this distant voice: my only child: heedlessly
weeps in long discursive rhyme: stamping its feet in fits
and starts: rending the tissue of time.
The mother whose artless tongue
our speech together made inarticulate
as a song unsung: or peal
of splendid grief that's rung
as clearly as a bell: but
does not translate: does not tell.
Bright sunlight shining on distasteful sheets: the
stain of something torn from us in seminal, sleepless
searching: the soft worn pillows of careless embrace:
in pain the open palm extended:
timid voices swollen with the seed and scent
of futurity and yearning and all our brave intent:
this rush of blood in the braincells of guilt and shame:
ennui and fear born in the innocence of tears: the
sharp wet spear of resplendent hope: buried to the hilt.
Damp eyes more lovely than the
treasure of our most ardent dreams:
where flesh and flesh dispel the dream:
weeping, sad and loving, through our panic:
for we do not Know: and in the endless
sea our eyes desire, but not to only see.
Our clumsy swimming in this wet
eternal tide: groping slowly through
the distance: across this mire of pride:
and so as such our fingers touch and limbs entwine
as one: blonde on blonde beset by, spun by,
entangled in: this always-done, this tireless locked desire.
Oh God
this loss and gain: our lives at best
or worst remain disordered or immersed
in this expiring fire:
the white flesh of our fractious hope:
(Dark hearts forever lost and found at last!):
the endless ardor of this pain:
but all our knowledge of the whining in
the science of the blood is measured in
the silence of the soft dying fall.
This: only this then, after all: this cool
burning fire in the flow of time: the stubborn
yearning of the child: the father's foreign grasp:
this world we bear in pain, born too early
in some other mind: these sad children whom we
clasp: the dim despair unwinding as we wane.
and in the heart of circumstance an eye that
can but see: the whirl of evidence that fails to
mesh: as dream conspires with dream against our flesh.
the sight, the plight, the pout: these pallid
arms glide in and out of wrinkled purple sheets:
in our climactic and unmeaning search for—cigarettes!
all in all, a scene too mild to lift
this pall or break it's grip on
these persistent motions that we make:
the look of horror on this face that licks my
flesh: these hands that seek to form my features
to receive: so serious, yet so fatuous, a kiss!
the calm abstraction of a whore who
knows who came to whom: but with such
an unknowing eye: like my own stupid pride.
And yes: oh yes: this loss laid out upon the bier of touch:
these are my coins upon the bed: my thrill upon my lips:
here my brazen tongue lies: there my sheathless sword:
the coitus of knowing's first and last desire: with
such great heart we leap into the fire, but clutch
these dreams we hoard so hard we come together untoward.
rcs.
4th draft: 10/23/09
©1985 Ronald C. Southern
this burning in the quick:
the cold heat of passion
too logically displayed:
the sullen issue: these clouds
about to burst with storm
from a heaven in the void:
this distant voice: my only child: heedlessly
weeps in long discursive rhyme: stamping its feet in fits
and starts: rending the tissue of time.
The mother whose artless tongue
our speech together made inarticulate
as a song unsung: or peal
of splendid grief that's rung
as clearly as a bell: but
does not translate: does not tell.
Bright sunlight shining on distasteful sheets: the
stain of something torn from us in seminal, sleepless
searching: the soft worn pillows of careless embrace:
in pain the open palm extended:
timid voices swollen with the seed and scent
of futurity and yearning and all our brave intent:
this rush of blood in the braincells of guilt and shame:
ennui and fear born in the innocence of tears: the
sharp wet spear of resplendent hope: buried to the hilt.
Damp eyes more lovely than the
treasure of our most ardent dreams:
where flesh and flesh dispel the dream:
weeping, sad and loving, through our panic:
for we do not Know: and in the endless
sea our eyes desire, but not to only see.
Our clumsy swimming in this wet
eternal tide: groping slowly through
the distance: across this mire of pride:
and so as such our fingers touch and limbs entwine
as one: blonde on blonde beset by, spun by,
entangled in: this always-done, this tireless locked desire.
Oh God
this loss and gain: our lives at best
or worst remain disordered or immersed
in this expiring fire:
the white flesh of our fractious hope:
(Dark hearts forever lost and found at last!):
the endless ardor of this pain:
but all our knowledge of the whining in
the science of the blood is measured in
the silence of the soft dying fall.
This: only this then, after all: this cool
burning fire in the flow of time: the stubborn
yearning of the child: the father's foreign grasp:
this world we bear in pain, born too early
in some other mind: these sad children whom we
clasp: the dim despair unwinding as we wane.
and in the heart of circumstance an eye that
can but see: the whirl of evidence that fails to
mesh: as dream conspires with dream against our flesh.
the sight, the plight, the pout: these pallid
arms glide in and out of wrinkled purple sheets:
in our climactic and unmeaning search for—cigarettes!
all in all, a scene too mild to lift
this pall or break it's grip on
these persistent motions that we make:
the look of horror on this face that licks my
flesh: these hands that seek to form my features
to receive: so serious, yet so fatuous, a kiss!
the calm abstraction of a whore who
knows who came to whom: but with such
an unknowing eye: like my own stupid pride.
And yes: oh yes: this loss laid out upon the bier of touch:
these are my coins upon the bed: my thrill upon my lips:
here my brazen tongue lies: there my sheathless sword:
the coitus of knowing's first and last desire: with
such great heart we leap into the fire, but clutch
these dreams we hoard so hard we come together untoward.
rcs.
4th draft: 10/23/09
©1985 Ronald C. Southern
2 comments:
I like it. Nice.
I could understand how the poem may seem too complicated and unclear to many readers. I hate that, but I've done all I can to improve it and make it less impenetrable, I swear!
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