Category Archives: romance

Reduction

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He sees her wilting coriander
advancing ice and winter weather
casting eyes on cold and anger
like the wilted coriander.

He runs the lathe and turns the marrow
shaving, shaping without sorrow.
What is left but just tomorrow
piled in dust and bone and marrow.

Boiling down the balm and spirits.
Effortless in tone and lyric
words that weep and sounds elicit-
left with tinctured pome, the spirit.

And inside, while cold and bitter
sparks a flame, staves the shiver.
Waits for songs that he will give her
to warm the heart, and mull the bitter.

A question, in advance

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It sings itself, doesn’t it?
the song about love and hope-
the one about couples, and snowfall and candles
familiar lyrics and trope.

Each verse is a longing
request for addition
with vocalese twinges
that wear down, by detrition,
the crag and stone hindrances
built by decision.

Until, yes, the endgame –
the paramount question
asked with charm and sorcery
with little regard for others
just you and me –

Will you dance inside the phrases
and read my poetry?
Hold my hand firmly
as you focus and you breathe?

Can you imagine, here, set free?

*******
The song “What are you doing New Year’s Eve” was running through my mind this morning, and I wrote this as an accompaniment to the song. A tribute to the muse and love in general, I suppose. Wishing you all the best in 2017.

eau

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a fragrant voice,
a merging sound
to gather yellow, red and crowned

in a glottal stop
between the soundings
of the clock.

in a fashion, step
betwixt the puddle
stones and ripples, mixed.

lovers with their grasping hands-
arose, then reached at its command
and cleaved the blood-pricked
thorn, alone

in silence
and in clamored tones.

Concomitant

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There is a slight twinkle
near the sun, and it brings a magic notion
down to one. There is a water droplet
near the stream, and it doesn’t bother
or even seem to care if it’s apart-
the teeming, rushing flow reprieves.
A single green leaf among the red and golden sheaves
and fading starlight, tropes in morning dark.
Waving grasses, stand in endless fields
beneath the doleful skies of clouds with daylight, now concealed.
Wisps of raven hair that battle with the breeze,
as eyes (that smile) seek out the day’s reprise.
And this, a thought to consort with the one,
the charm that twinkled with the sun.

 

Is she

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It is hollow sounding
once struck-
then resonant, tones
that lean and carry
into the next.

Suppressed by pedal
at breathing points,
only to fly in phrasing
and surround-
taking us in.

Suppose we were
to stay, encompassed by
the echo, inside the billow
of the melody
improvised.

How would we know?
After the first note
we breathe its air-
sway in a joined jive
inside the song.

Even led among
the staves, turning
and taking our time
for crescendos
and kisses.

Passage

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October leaves me in thatches,
between the warm beaches
and pale wintered branches.

I remember the autumn,
the slow scale of mornings-
the decorative fallen.

I see her in color,
the amber-crisp sunlight
that touches to cover.

For moments, I tarry-
enveloped and yielding
to her fay and fairy.

I reach for her hand
and she vanishes,
my visions are damned

in the moment between
burgeoning summer
and winter’s pale serene.

the last

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As it happens, I get lost in the sky
where sunsets stroll away.

A peaking light around a corner
beyond the frontier of yesterday

I look to the last remains
even when the shadows begin
and wrapped from behind in covers
I gaze toward a fading din.

I dream of passion reds
that trail to orange, bleed to pink.
Turning around in silent awe
to indigo in a wink.

And there the fire ignites upon
this early autumn eve,
a lover of the colored sky
embraced without reprieve.

Notions

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In a gift for someone that I once knew-
A few moments wrapped
in crisp paper with string.
each one a mating of calm and called.

Intent on these penetrating emotions-
they are patterns of poetry from memories
underneath the neat taped corners.

They could be jumbled and incoherent,
but I prefer them pressed and bound
and self-contained.
Thumb-pressure creased,
Holding the pieces
firmly together.

Notions of affection
convened for her disposal
will be mailed
in the morning.

***********
A reworking of a poem that I first wrote in 2006.

awaken

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Sometimes,
I want to fall apart-

spontaneously disassemble
and disconnect into hundreds
of small fragments,
interlocking of course-
like puzzles of autumn afternoons
just out of the box.

The ones with rushing streams
that leave the edge of the frame
to some unseen bend.

The leaves are gilded and bronzed,
ready to separate
upon the first overnight rain.

And water droplets cling
to porch eaves, just at the crest
when tension breaks.

And we embrace
with a lingered kiss,
and we are knitted to keep from
unraveling.

Air

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Can you walk among the grasses, ornamental in your step?
Unseen, wavering in the flutter, moving with the ebb.

Do you glide among the flushing, hues of sanguine be your veil?
Camouflaging simper, as you sweep through with avail.

Will you pace ahead in rhythm, accents driving your advance?
Pausing, as an instrument, to cause my soul to dance.

Opening a gateway, hearing sounds of air
watching, waiting for a glimpse of allure unaware.

Can you wander through my field of view, as I write a verse?
Something about movement, and a guise you can’t rehearse.