Poems XII

Reveries


White kettled rose hips
and tea's insipid sips --
vapor dispels my halcyon skin,
effulgent.

I sit in the center of the sun,
still and thoughtful,
and drawn upon
like weighted curtains,
but I am too warm and bright
to be oblivious bleak.

I am, in fact, a sultry furnace,
my carapace sears -- even you;
you are too close by yards
to my conspicuous
licking flames.

I engulf you and you know it;
it's why you impugn me
over and over,
and over again;
loneliness reigns
in this place where you hate,
because you don't fathom
fully me.

Forget you ever knew me,
forget that I am yours,
and continue to pretend
for your mindless hours' end
that your axiom is real --
an axis blinded out.

Intrinsic beams, now absolved,
coruscate, then steep
this vestige left of truth --

a limpid candle snuffed
whispers up,
like the steam coming off a teacup
at the kitchen table,
in the middle of a wintry afternoon.






The Kiss


Isn't it true that you love me like
Ahab loved Moby?  You want to destroy me but
you can't get enough of me.  You aim your harpoons and arrows
in my direction, you want to hook me and reel me and call me your own.
You will never.
I am the universe's now and forever.  I always have been.
You are big and tough and, you know, man.
But I am of nature and you can never touch me.
Just kill me, OK?  I'm yours, already.
But don't even think that once I'm dead you'll omit me.
And if you ever do finally stop my heart (which you won't), you will regret it.
You will realize your hatred was, really, obsession's lusty verdict: love.
Sink your thirsty Pequod, but don't ever call me sunk.

We throw our bodies on top of one another
and breathe through our communal gills.
Kiss me, you fucking hungry trapper.
Deliver me your prey.