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"When fire fills the sky, When the sun erupts in ecstasy And fading furies die. I promise you my innocence And mine a darting fish: Your soul is like the vastest sea I live within your heart. I lose myself within your love; Castles must be built with sweat and tears: It may be hard at times for you to know. Know, my love, I'm yours for all your years. Never think that I don't love you, though Eden wasn't half as pleased as I! Just as though the sea stopped needing rainbows, Knight of my nights, champion of swallows: A love appeared in my dawn-sharpened sky. What love is not destructive? So ours, too, must rip lives apart. A thousand bleeding dreams. To your smooth, dark voice! Let the tide of anticipation, The anguish of endings, Those blood-swollen currents of delight, Pleasure inundates domestic pain, Lift us over the bar. With which we caress each other's skin. The telephone's the tongue Ah! My lips are open But now best left alone. The past is like a sculpture: Shaped in all the heat of life Cold, unyielding stone, Nor would my love determine who you'd be. If you loved me, you'd be there for me My whole life wouldn't be only for you, To help me do the things I want to do. My looks have made me shy, so please take this But love for you illuminates my soul. You're meant for some more noble destiny. I watch you from the sidelines in a dream My heart is happier than it might seem: That never can come true. Yet nonetheless, I shiver in the warmth of your caress. I may not be the mirror for your eyes, Gifted with a more than human grace, I can't believe you ever could love me. As it is meant: an unrequited kiss. I cannot know your heart or hear your cries, Your heart is just as lovely as your face. But fortune has been decent, on the whole. You hurt me so. What demon drew And looked at me. I wondered why You wrote your name upon her thigh You on to be so not like you? Of shade and dappled love, Are like woods on a warm spring day As I gaze from my sunlit doorway. When leaves have just unfolded And slender branches thick with sap Bend under the weight of songful birds. I look into your eyes and see A timeless world of sun and breezes, Your hazel green eyes My love for you is now my only home. After five months of unabated love, Do I recall my former life alone? Abysses open, no matter where I move; Soon, soon my body will consume its treasure. At night I play your body and your voice, My mind's already half insane with pleasure; Time, for both of us, must temper touch So love can once again be slow and free. My only fear's desiring you so much Our love is torn by miles, not by choice. That dream will overwhelm reality; And do the things I've fantasized for you: And put you everywhere I've wanted to. I want to love you all the hours we've missed, Soon, soon, my darling, I'll be coming home. But soon the hands and cries will be your own. Kiss you all the places my mind's kissed, Three children and twenty-five years later We've traveled several rocky roads together. Sometimes I didn't think we'd get this far. We're more a couple than we ever were. Long nights of easeful meditation are followed by doleful, inconsequential days. Eventually, we learn that love is as seasonal as potatoes. Long days of sunshine are followed by short, lusty nights. Even sex is squeezed by moon, sun, and stars into potato pancakes and candy canes. Nor do we know what tides pull on our kisses. I need you as the sun must have a rose I wish I had that moment back again I know I must have hurt you, caused you pain. Thus for my trespass you may trust me more. To dare the darkness, though within we bleed. The secrets of its long-forgotten story. To understand how much we are in need. More, I know that I have lost your trust. Sometimes we have to lose what we most cherish We play with life until we nearly perish To turn its empty radiance to glory, Or as a nation needs someone who knows I know my need of you more than before; To pulverize my carelessness and lust. Just as a child learns to its delight And sacrifice by far the greater treasure So you say "love" to get the rapture right, Destiny provides one's just deserts As those who seek but pleasure often do, Upon the altar where you worship you. Justice would demand you be the fool, But you are far more ignorant than cruel. I cannot think you know and just don't care. I guess you just don't know how much it hurts. And then, of course, you tire of your pleasure, That lying sets one fabulously free, Getting so the most you can from me. By turning out one just as would be fair. I didn't know he had his way. And found within a fair young maid Whom later he would marry. I only knew he stopped for tea A need whose hunger drives you near insane, There is no life without its share of pain, A state in which you must, but cannot be. Nor can you love and not feel agony, A family in a circle warm and loving: After long and futile waits for voices, Have their homes and wait upon your touch. A choice in darkness, both sides fiercely shoving: There is a dark and gloomy place where choices Less sweet? or more? than living lone and free? My heart is yours, whichever it might be! You must, alas!, sign on to such-and-such. I never felt so happily at home Glancing in through other people's doors. Your pleasure now is mine, as mine is yours. As I do now, so rich in what life brings. We started out as friends and now it's love. From comradeship to passionate intimacy, How beautiful to move so easily Flitted like a ghost among dead things, This turn was nothing I'd been thinking of, I never realized that my life alone Pure gain, with no rough edges to remove. I knew desire, but love was not for me Until I felt my heart from friendship move. No maybes or perhapses, consciously. A daughter, a daughter: Three without men. In a singles bar People there have lights on. In the peace of aloneness, Through unshaded windows Smothers the fear Washes dishes with his wife. On the top floor a mother, Next door an old couple And think about me, I look across the street. Of who will die first. A muscular young man A woman drinks beer I see them through curtains. The apartment is dark. I have said the same things. I watch here in darkness, And have nothing to say. And think about you. I like it that way. In the blue light of TV. I meet a woman Too many times Later on, in the languor of the married, Now piercing, now remote, but never ended. Towards you like bliss in gentle weather. Revel, then, serenely, as the night Easy hours, moonlit, open pages Life reveals few secrets so impassioned Do you, can you know how love has fashioned Each comfortably alone because together, Enfolds the meditative dust of light. Read peacefully, their dissonance suspended, Choice and chance as weather shapes the land? As a child's cry moves silently through stages, As those which long-term lovers understand. Sleep lies just offshore, its blanket carried But this I never knew. We ran like puppies through a field, When love was bright and blue. I used to doubt you cared for me That never, never will you love like that What more can someone in such pain want What happens when the girl you've always wanted Bitter blackness until death. Ay me! Again? The jewel of day is gone. You see By thoughts of her with someone else? By the thought Breaks up with you? Are you forever haunted Than death? So I have found my melody, My heart has found its harborage, You are my hearth, my home. And I have found my poem. My will has found its loam. All I've ever dreamed of, on the Net. For someone who's like no one else I've met: I love her as I've loved no one before. Through modems must our e-mailed passions move! Words and pictures, grainy and compressed? Will I ever get to touch her face, Tender, charming, bright, queen of my nights, A jaypeg love is truly for the birds. You'd have to wonder whether I'm repressed. But love it is, through all the bits and bytes, And though she's living in a distant place, Hold her in my arms and, perhaps, more? How can I fall in love with only words? Ay, me! No matter what, I'm still in love. Tree trunks in a clearing, nothing wearing, Nuts and bark, broad rivers thick with toil; Which brings to mind the muted light of caring. Yet holding high their single woven crown. Earth tones: roots, ground leafmeal, seeds, and soil; There is a beauty in the color brown I want you back now that you're gone. Bereft of joy, bereft of will. I stumble through my days of stone My heart's a pit no love can fill. Eventually, we learn that love is as seasonal as potatoes. Long days of sunshine are followed by short, lusty nights. Even sex is squeezed by moon, sun, and stars into potato pancakes and candy canes. Long nights of easeful meditation are followed by doleful, inconsequential days. Nor do we know what tides pull on our kisses. Beware the intimate Internet! Beware the chatrooms with closed doors Where naked names cruise midnight shores And fall in love before they've met. You left me, but you cannot leave my heart. But since my true intention is to steal The lovely you, you left behind with me. And then your icy words you will recall, Of me, my dearest friend and lover still. This I can do alone, and yet the real The things you've done that hurt and make me bleed. I'll tell you of the pain I feel, and all The you I loved, the real you isn't much. No matter where you go, you will be part Don't worry--I'll treat you tenderly: I hold you there, with or without your will. You lives and lies far beyond my touch. And comfort me, and give me what I need. I love you with all I am And all I'll ever be. You are my moon, my sun and stars, My earth, my sky, my sea. Not knowing where I am or what I'll say. I try a door and think of you instead, I must take note of other things than you And clear my head of smiles and grateful tears. Walking through a park I touch your face, I live in a perpetual embrace, It can't go on like this for years and years. The world's the dream, and you reality. Yet such talk seems fantasy to me: You're like music playing in my head Everywhere I go from day to day. Not caring if there's rain or bright sunshine. Hugging the sweet thought that you are mine. The cause must be, of course, our love is new; I used to be completely cruel and heartless, I used to feel an angry, bitter hunger, Not knowing why, nor looking much inside. Using girls, then tossing them aside. I didn't know he had his way. I only knew he stopped for tea Whom later he would marry. And found within a fair young maid And sails between the rocky heads Love finds little latitude That guard its proper berth. Once it leaves the sea I've learned through all the fights and separations Our back and forth is buried in the past. This is the third time we have tried this love, I need no space for rambling or release. And this will be the time that it will last. But now it is the rock on which I stand. I know it, and the knowledge brings me peace. Now will never end, as time will prove. Love me well, for I'm completely yours. All I am I put into your hands. Beyond all other dreams and speculations. That happiness depends on having you. The way is clear; I have no other doors. It took some time to see that this was true, Lavish with the joys of spring and fall. Seeing no redemption there at all. The summer is a desert between mountains I look across that bleak and lonely wasteland, Then, for days and weeks and months Your fear is not surprising. Fury, betrayals, recriminations. It's always ended badly: Because you also feel like such a fool. An agony worse than grief We'll find a way our wishes to combine. Our marriage isn't easy, but our love Marriage, as a choice, requires choices. Is still the force that shapes my daily life. You and our two children. All the rest I choose you with all my wounded heart: I want us to be happy, and will move Wherever I must be to be your wife. One must choose not once, but every day. Life offers us a hundred thousand voices, I'm yours, and I want you to be mine. Lies in the distance, charming, but apart From the circle of the ones with whom I'm blessed. Yet those we fail to hear fast faDe away. I want you, but I don't want you to know. I fear your presence like an undertow You anything of interest I contain. You are my love. I will not let you go. I fear the loss more than I trust the gain. You are my love. I will not let you go. You are my love. I will not let you go. Empty but for you, I cannot show That drags me out unready, trite, inane. Fate is oft the filament of passion, The unwilled will that wills the world we know. Illumined by the force of its fierce flow. Years break, yet love maintains the tides below. For love, far more than chance, may fortunes fashion, That we might be alone. Nowhere to bear my love away No sea to sail unknown, No place to put my paramour, No heart, no mind--just bone. And turn into a stone; I thought I must give up on life The desert wind quite suited me: Life reveals few secrets so impassioned Revel, then, serenely, as the night As those which long-term lovers understand. Do you, can you know how love has fashioned Now piercing, now remote, but never ended. Enfolds the meditative dust of light. As a child's cry moves silently through stages, Choice and chance as weather shapes the land? Later on, in the languor of the married, Easy hours, moonlit, open pages Sleep lies just offshore, its blanket carried Read peacefully, their dissonance suspended, Towards you like bliss in gentle weather. Each comfortably alone because together, And I have found my poem. My heart has found its harborage, So I have found my melody, You are my hearth, my home. My will has found its loam. Perhaps we are both fools to sacrifice, Yet in such love is where true beauty lies. I look at you and know life can be good. Our love must be a question, not an answer, But you are like a rainbow in my sky. You call me gorgeous, I don't wonder why. My husband cheats. I look the other way. And happiness shines through me, as it should. Stupid. Humiliation suits me. Each day For the children, of course. I myself am worthless, A distant light on hills we cannot see. You, too, bear a cross: Your friend has cancer, And you will not desert her. I agree. I steel myself for words each day more vicious. A single leap of hope must be allowed. If you don't want to see me, please don't hide Though you may not have asked for me to call, Not easily are shy songs sung out loud. Be gentle: What you're holding is my heart. Remember in your honesty my pride. The truth, yet tell it with some art. Yet now I wait alone outside your wall. And I find it a miracle to be. I hardly noticed you, nor did you me. When we first met you seemed a timid doe. Now you are a mother and my wife, I may not be the mirror for your eyes, But love for you illuminates my soul. Your heart is just as lovely as your face. My looks have made me shy, so please take this But fortune has been decent, on the whole. That never can come true. Yet nonetheless, I shiver in the warmth of your caress. I watch you from the sidelines in a dream As it is meant: an unrequited kiss. You're meant for some more noble destiny. I can't believe you ever could love me. Gifted with a more than human grace, My heart is happier than it might seem: I cannot know your heart or hear your cries, Or the fascination of forever? (For love Or the wilderness of blue-white witnesses Staring wordless back across the abyss? Of a night sky dark lit with diamonds? Is a fragment of forever lodged in the heart.) What makes stars romantic? Is it the beauty We will through love and time be unified. The world is a redaction of the dream. Loving you each day and night, each hour, So long that I of life with you despaired, But just as bushes planted side by side So intertwine one cannot tell they're two, That through these frozen years it might be spared. Our greatest pain deep longings shall redeem. So have I dreamed, though we have been apart Of course I must be me, as you are you, Loving till you flow into my tears, And I into the garden where you flower. Holding wounded hope within my heart I've dreamed of loving you for many years, The things you've done that hurt and make me bleed. I hold you there, with or without your will. But since my true intention is to steal You lives and lies far beyond my touch. This I can do alone, and yet the real And then your icy words you will recall, I'll tell you of the pain I feel, and all You left me, but you cannot leave my heart. Of me, my dearest friend and lover still. And comfort me, and give me what I need. Don't worry--I'll treat you tenderly:" - Statement Generated from source: poemsforfree.com/lovepo.html
Mark Beasley, 7.31.2008
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