Tenuto

Hold this note long.  Play it loud
to sound out
reverberation of the past.
Win me over.
I have
                tripped over my own heart and now the knees of my desire, skinned and bleeding.
Your balm
just
                                     might do the trick.
                                         I have been a slave
to the faulty
           fatuous
mirror of love; returned vacant stare with vacant stare,
                     emptied of all I thought I knew,
fawned foolishly
                                    over a man that was not real.
Cheated myself out
                          of every hope.
                                                    Now,
like a
baby mouthing everything,
                    I want
                             to taste -
                             to
feel,
again.
You've proved persistent,
                 unremitting, held out, priming,
                                                    prodding, kept calm in the fever pitch peak of all my fear.
Still,
I want to
  test
your durability-
your lung capacity.
                 Can you survive the swell of my uncertainty; decode my
                 cryptic messages, balance the act between
                             my cleanest meanings and
                                      all attempts at
sabotage?
Will you break if I drop you?
Can you keep me coming back for more?  
Will you lunge
through my limits, veer past my inhibitions,
                                               plunge into waters
deep to save me from
grip of misandry's tentacles?
How long will your promises last?
                        Your garden grow?
                                   Are your vows perennial?

I am sectioned off.
Head,
                                                                                                               heart
and soul.
Can you piece my roving instincts back together?
Create
collage from the amalgam of my inclinations?
                                                     I want a
lot and I need still more.  I have
                                             hues you've never seen
but they
are fading
      fast, trapped
between the black and white drone of dying words.
                                                 Revive me.  Change my thinking.
Show me the strength of your hands.
                                                   Are they tender
                                                   and able?
Can they cradle my undertones, read me like braille?
I have mimed what I should have spoken,
                                   signed consent for you to see
but perhaps the least I could have done was whisper.
                  See, my veneer of
                                    nonchalance is chipping and
                                                         I have nothing
up my sleeve.  I've learned that I'm a novice
                                  and you, an avant garde paramour.
                                         You are ravishing in your
lavishing and I am empty handed, fad worn
  and tattered,
         trying not to
balk at new attire.
Be patient
  as I hone my skills
    so I can play along.  My tongue is dry from thrush
                             of falsehood
 but my fingers work just fine
and I think
                                  I'll find I'm capable of ceding.  I ache like any
                                                 mother and can listen
                                                                           like a friend, so creep like ivy up these bricks I've
                                                                                                                                          built to keep you out.
  Outsmart
           me, baby.  I am close to yielding but
                                                                need you to be nimble,
prompt,
because I am running out
   of time.  I am aging
                    and
so
somewhat haughty; huffy,
                 high and mighty but softening with each kindness shown.  Travail through
                                my raving, flailing protests and I'll
                                                           lay them down.
I want you
but I'm scared I'm broken.
I maintain
  my lack of need but maybe, I'm only talking
                                                trash.
I've fenced off sentiment but there are slots in every story told,
                        so spot
these inconsistencies and if you could, forgive.
         I'll confess to culpability but never grovel.
                 Notice my vices but praise my virtues
and if your
           light is bright enough,
I'll hover moth
           like in the night so you can catch
me.
I'm split right through
            the middle now,
                  move in.
Tread careful.  Kick up gravel
so I can hear you come.


The Sunday Whirl
                   
                                           

Stating Finally

How ought
  one to know when
         the
            end of love should be?

                              Some might say,
 love,
 if it
be true,
         ends not.

How then, ought
   one to know when
love is true? (If emblazoned flame dims to mere dulled glow can she then be reassigned? 
                                               Destroyed in 
                                                              imagination, existing only in the substance of
                                                                          the actual, whatever that is, does she die with death or answer Hamlet in elements
                           strong and stunning?)

                                  I know not.  I know only this:
                                                  that she whispers relent-
                                                                                lessly, (must we treat her as
                                                                                                              a 
virus, kill her with starvation,
cure ourselves with lust instead? Abuse her in her
    redemption, her assumption,
                         her persistence, harbor
malice toward her tender grace?  Deny pursuit for fear
            of sham? 
Gloss illusions, hoarding piteous imitation, bargain legalities of- 
                               disadvantaged humans that we are.  
     Social dances, we empty purse of sentiments pinched,
 garnering interest as we go, shush her when she comes to supper, call her bluff, her fluff. It makes us blush. 
                        She's blunt and eager, sighing
                                         and we have work to do. 
                                                                  Reduce her to a grudge, shelve her, 
               hold her
tongue,
we of sober mind find solace in naked,
                      natural
void.
She is for the young, the stupid, the uninformed.  What might she say
      if we should listen?)
                                                                                   seeks now to give, requiting less a need than once, twice,
thrice before.
She is truer than
bluer, baser pining, tall and ever guiding, honest in submission, if less so in admission. (She won't be rushed so we snub her 
                                                          healing, sooth marrow with alleviating whim) She speaks
                                                                in silence and in words
                                                                in souls, in hearts, creation.
                                                                         Loudest often in her absence
                                                                                                  and quiet when observed.
                                                                                                                             She's all
                                                                                                                                      and everywhere.
Seen not
when sought by self.
Perhaps, nature, her purer form
        and realized
                                                                 deeper there.
She weaves with
       wind,
sings with swallows, dares to dwell in dust
                   and in these places, I admit, I've often overlooked
             her air.
                   Alone, I hear her
say I'm not and
she whispers
secrets I can not
         tell
and though I'd like to pluck her from the heart (for
what can the 
                  heart know?) and place her somewhere nobler - the soul is safer, the spirit wiser-
                                                                                                          I fear she'd just return.

And so the question haunting; (the
             thorn offending,
scandalous revery, composed of perfect view) this I find, I can return,
            to where love was born or made, discovered or existent all along.

                     In drops, I understand her mystery, exchange musings for her maker.
     Make
     me, still.
     Made me
once
 to love, be loved, to wonder
and releasing, I will give
                                                     and receiving, I will
                                                                                live.
"Where there is love there is life."
                     She is true as beauty, beautiful
                                      as truth.
Love
     ends not
for she possesses no beginning.
     She circles life and subject, inviting, not expecting,
hand held out or
     down,
I've grabbed her,
                entered now her orbit, retraction
                 no more a choice than day and night, embodied within a spectrum,
light's glory shining bright
 and encompassed but extended, my own hand travels out; an invitation lacking only expectation,
stating finally,
                love never ends.

Carry On Tuesday
The Music In It