Small Room (A Song in Chains)

In that small room, deep in you,

Is where I sing my song in chains,

A song of Love, once pure and new

Then, suddenly, forever changed.

This closet in your soul,

Through which moved I once so deftly,

Seems, of late, darker and cold,

But I stay because it is all you have left me.

For me Love was ever Energy,

Kinetic or potential, slowed or hastened,

But as you turned away from me,

It became Energy quickly wasted.

So I sing my song in chains

Everlonging, everthinking

Of a Love once true then forcefully changed,

And my place in your heart ever shrinking.

One Million Miles (Divergence)

(You are there and I am here a million miles away)

I tell my ears to ache

Not for your voice or the sound of your coming,

But they do not heed.

I tell my eyes to languish

Neither for your smile nor the sight of your passage,

But they give no regard.

I tell my heart to yearn

Never more for you or for your resonance,

But it does not take note.

I tell my lips to cherish

Not our Love or your endless beauty,

But they do not notice.

I tell my soul not to cry,

I tell these hot tears not to fall,

Knowing that it will, hating that they must,

As we go our separate ways.

Maybe We’ll Be Sky There

It’s easy to remember our days together

(Beautiful like rain)

And hard to forget the nights in each others arms;

(Beautiful like moonlight)

Now that I spend watchful, wakeful nights

(Beautiful like my Muse)

Walking alone under the stars.

(Beautiful, just right)

I feel your smile in the clouds at sunset,

(Beautiful like the lakeshore)

Searching for a hint of your perfume in the breeze

(Where we so beautifully loved)

Longing for some sign from Heaven

(Beautiful like you and me)

To soothe our careless Love.

(Beautiful like blue lights at Christmas)

I’d give all my tomorrows

(On a beautiful winter’s night)

For just one tonight together;

(Beautiful like your sweet arms around me)

Remembering what we were,

(Beautiful like you my Heart)

Dreaming of what we could have been

(Beautiful like me my Love)

And hoping to be together in Heaven.

(Beautiful like you and me)

Maybe we’ll be sky there

And the Love we had and lost

Will just be a memory.

(Beautiful like a touch that’s beautifully brief)

Maybe we’ll be sky there

(Beautiful like you and me)

And this life will be a memory.

Bending

“Hearts are tough, Pete.  Most times they don’t break.

  Most times they only bend.”

-Hearts in Atlantis

 Stephen King

Meeting you was like so slowly

Drowning in honey,

Loving the sensation,

My thoughts, my being, saturated by

Sweetness, the growing knowledge of you.

But now, oh now, there is a

Shadow in your voice, an iciness

In your words, pushing away the light

We shared so briefly.

This sudden reticence wears on me,

Haunting my sleep,

Making me hear the headsman’s axe in

Every word you speak, knowing it

Must drop, shattering my desires, yet

Not knowing why;

I reconcile myself to loving what we have left,

And watching it trickle away,                                       

Frozen by this new chill that you

Blow through my soul.

We were made to Love each other in

A time between storms,

And it seems that time is going,

My clouds rising again.

Malediction

Here’s to the past,

Glass lifted to the forgotten moments,

All the few, precious mornings

Spent loved and loving,

Nourished by passion, fed by desire

And always soulhungry

For the repast promised in your eyes . . .

Here’s to the past,

Quaffing the waters of Lethe now

Instead of the ambrosia of you,

All the sweet, fleeting ‘noons

Spent loved and loving,

Learning the equations of taste and touch

While I studied the lessons of your heart

For the key to my own

And drank deep

Of the nectar of your smile . . .

Here’s to the past,

My toast in memory of summer breezes

Wafting on the far end of the corridors of time,

Still carrying your perfume,

All the deep purple eves

Spent loved and loving,

Smelling the jasmine in your hair,

Inhaling the mathematics of your femininity,

The scent, the halo, the sunset, the shadows

Filling my lungs, filling my lungs

With the incense of your being . . .

Here’s to the past,

Inebriated, seeking solace in the lavender wine

Of memory, respite in the bottom of the bottle,

From these dream-ghosts that haunt my soul,

All the dark midnight hours

Spent loved and loving,

Knowing the sweet taste of your embrace

And loving the knowledge,

Every thought your touch,

Every touch a dream,

Every dream a fantasy, fleeting and soulful

As my mind dripped with liquid revelries of you . . .

Here’s to the past;

The mornings before this forced fast,

My heart rumbling with pangs for you;

The noontimes before this drought

That dried all of my equations;

The evenings not polluted,

Not covered in the dust of distance;

The nights, oh the long, long nights                                             

Before all knowledge of you was taken,

Before all my soul was shaken,

Before I learned how dark my world is

 Without you in it.

Lamentations

It has always been easy for me to write.  It is part of what I am, who I am.  So as I stare out this window, across a moon filled night that I’ll never again share with you, I write.  Pen and paper, the only two constants in my life.  All that I had when I had nothing, and all that I have again.

I find myself writing anything these empty days.  Phrases from old songs, random thoughts, hell even grocery lists.  Anything and everything. I even copied, word for word, that Bugs Bunny cartoon that you used to laugh at.  It’s almost funny when you think about it, I’ve been writing since I was 10 years old and never have the words been so available, so prolific or so meaningless.  Hey, if it was somebody else’s life, I’d laugh myself.

At least I can still call myself a writer.  I mean I still put pen to paper, or fingers to keys if you want to be all technical about it. And that’s what writers do, right?  Even if all I manage to do is rehash bullshit.  The only original thought that I’ve had these last months is that when you left, all the color, all the magic in my world went out that door with you.  I see your face every time I breathe.

I am a man of words caught in a place where all my words are no more than pale memories.  If I write “eyes,” my hand does not drown the way my soul did in yours.  No matter how many times I whisper the word “kiss” it is not the excitement of your lips, not the racing of my heart.  I can say the word “touch” until it echos off these empty walls, but it will never be the hand that placed my hand on the pulse of the world.

All in all, I have learned two things since I’ve had all this time to reflect.  The first is that writing is all bullshit.  It’s worthless.  I can, and do, write the word “stop” until the cramps make my whole arm tremble.  But not once has it kept us from arguing that day or you from driving away. I can and do, scream the word “no” until my head pounds and the tears start again in these eyes that I know should be dried out by now, and it doesn’t keep you from walking out that door or that car from hitting you head-on and taking away my love, my life, my Art and my future.

The second thing I’ve learned?  Well, I’ve learned that the saddest thing in Life is that Life continues, even when our hearts tell us that it should not, that it must stop; that living just goes on and on whether we want it to or not.