There were days that even Judy had the Blues.
But there are days when all lost souls do...

Friday, October 23, 2009

THE FIRST AND LAST DESIRE

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

2 comments:

Nobius said...

I like it. Nice.

Ron Southern said...

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!

Judy Garland's Blues


Why was Judy Garland sad?
Did she have everything—but not love?
What drove Judy Garland mad,
Or do I give her too much credit?

Was she just privately unlucky, after all the public luck?
Did she have two armfuls of nothing in the worn valises
She dragged into another mansion of expenses, pills, and airs
Amid lost things never declared, forever beyond her reach?

Did she have everything—but not love?
Was she too often left behind as a child
Or was she poisoned in the vein
As by too many drinks or a rattlesnake...

Twisted by some familial demon spirit she became
That Voodoo spirit, the reel and spin, the deadly living blues,
Forever frightened—no matter her age or image or magic—
Of what to choose and what to lose, out of control to the end?

Did she, like you, like me, have everything—
But could not feel the love that others gave
Or stay as brave as needed every moment?

rcs.

Current draft: 4/12/2010
3rd draft: 04/26/05
©2004 Ronald C. Southern br/>
[This is a separate and different title from the blog title.]

Colorful Judy

The Creature


Ron Southern,
Chigger, Texas, USA

Personal Labels:

Clean and easy-going. Dirty-minded, paranoic, catatonic, droll, drastic, dramatic, savage, uptight, dribbling, abstruse, and timid.

Not to even mention artful, artistic, abusive, misleading, abrasive, manipulative, dodgy, sneaky, and totally unforgiving!

How about poetic, pansified, petty, pornographic, always preening, and a little peculiar about what feels good!

The Poem With The Similar Title

©Ronald C. Southern

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