August 28 (Ode To – -)

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                              I

‘Tick-tock’- the hands of the clock cruelly sound

Like a blade held against the whetting stone

Each second seems some new spark now rising,

Vaguely phosphorescent, disappearing

Like souls passing into infinity

Striking the hearthstone, then- into nothing

 

Streetside the scarlet-colored cyclamens

Sway with the weight of the wind’s warm whispers

While the slow fall of the night’s first fireflies

So strangely flickers in the vast expanse

Of the ever-darkening western sky,

Flitting like your recently struck match heads,

Blooming, instantaneously beyond

The pale recognition of their blossoms-

Those freshly plucked petals, faintly falling,

Lingering like fingers of heat lightning

Surrounding you in a velveteen gale

 

Darkness creeps in like a quiet lover

To brush away the pale blush of blue sky,

The delicate cobwebs of the last clouds-

White fluff, intricately woven with jewels,

Where each star hangs like a frail drop of dew

Encroaching night whispers a wine-dark flush

Along the expanse of the horizon,

Kisses the day into unconsciousness

(All is enveloped in this quietness

While we hold our breath for the moon to rise)

 

                              II

I get so god-damned depressed when I drink

That sometimes I could just drop dead, except

There is something hidden in your sly smile

And the way you dance makes me feel relieved

Just to know you are breathing I suppose

(Although a hundred pairs of hungry eyes-

Lights dimmed by the virtue of drunkenness-

Stare straight through me to steal a glimpse of you,

To somehow satiate their cold desires)

And there are of course your glimmering eyes,

Glinting with the mischievousness of drink

 

Your body sways like the hypnotists chain

So I stand transfixed, tapping out the beat

With my free hand as the band rambles on

(The other is still tight against your hip-

Two fingers through the belt loop of your jeans)

As I watch you sip your whiskey and coke

And smoke cigarette after cigarette,

The blue haze of your exhalations hangs

In relief against the late-summer sky,

Each breath falling like boats in a harbor

Rising again with each whim of the waves

Ebbing to and fro amidst the moonlight

Floating me headlong into elation

(My heart swells up like a birthday balloon)

 

(This somnambulist strains his tired eyes,

Opening them like a revelation:

I know that I shall spend my future days

Waiting to climb into bed beside you

Dreaming only of the way you would kiss)

‘My Sister’ (A Poem)

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(‘Play that old allegro in E-major’
‘The one rendered incomplete by his passing,
The passing of insouciant youthfulness
Into the embittered arms of old age?’
‘The one he was writing as he went insane’)

The valley echoes with lamentation
Daffodils sway with windswept heavy heads
In the dying light of this days decline
Swift hoofs strike the tired earth like anvils
The dust rises skywards in amber plumes
As the dolorous shades, the blues and greys,
Dissipate in the cold light of evening
So that the fog hanging amongst the reeds
Is reduced to a frail lingering dew
Retaining the prints, the ghosts of your tread
Held in such suspended animation
Pale memories to outlast the monarchs

My sister shot herself three years ago
But I still cannot begrudge her the act
For I know what it’s like to be alone
I guess I was just sad to let her go
To recognize all the joy we will miss
The summers at the lake house in Norway
Riding bicycles in the countryside
Cutting paths through the freshly fallen leaves
When the weather turns, bundling up inside
With our favorite books by firelight
Gazing out into the star-riddled sky
We whisper our plans for the future and
Each season go berry-picking in Maine
As the afternoon spreads out before us

From the volume ‘And Persephone Turned To Him Weeping’ 

‘The Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy Concert (The Buskirk Chumley Theater, Bloomington)’: A Poem

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Then as the lights dimmed in the theater

a hush began to fall like a first snow

and silence soft and cool like eiderdown

blanketed us all in every row

As we sat there waiting in the darkness

for the players to emerge from the glow

that lingers like fog when the curtains part

I could not help myself once from stealing

an intermittent glance of your profile

from the safety of my periphery

In all these interminable moments

my heart brimmed with adoration until

it overflowed and made my palms perspire

I longed to reach out for the tiny hand

that you had rested upon your left thigh

to enclose it and clasp it in my own

like a locket hides a wordless promise

but i burned with the question left behind

by every word we’d not yet spoken

or had thought of but swallowed hard to hide

thinking ‘we’ll get around to it…in time’

but we never did and then here am i

wondering to myself ‘have i the right

to even dream of all that skin of yours

i’m swimming in each time i close my eyes

and even when i open them to find

that now every moment of my life

only feels like i’m drowning in your wake

catching fragmented glimmers of your smiles

from below the waves while you pass me by?’

We sat there like tourists among natives

at times chattering away with the air

of insouciant explorers, but at times

eyeing each other through the silent haze

only staggering suspicion sustains

all the while harboring a winsome hope

that the words we were leaving unspoken

would not now and forever want meaning

We were stunned, somehow ashamed that our eyes,

two tiny lights misting like windowpanes,

served as our foremost means of expression

And so we hung our heads abashedly,

stunned schoolchildren flush with embarrassment

caught in the act of uncovering that

It’s for a rare breed to savor silence

So silently we let that remain that

Though this is all I’ve ever thought about

Poem: ‘The Shower (You Are Never Really Alone, Are You?)’

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She shall sing the song of my arrival

Like an old sea-shanty as she showers

And I am left alone to contemplate
The mysterious nature of her room:
The thread count of her blue cotton bedsheets
Why falling water, whether from faucets
Or the clouds on high, reminds me of rain
But I hear the handles begin to turn
I am stirred from my evening reverie
Listening for each stray drip as it drops
Drainwards from the top of the shower head

Your form is still faint and fragmentary
As you take two steps across the threshold
The steam rises, and billowing above
The vague outlines of your bare arms and face,
Follows in your wake like a graveyard ghost

Now you stand disconsolately before
The cold, dead stare of your own reflection
In the impartial glare of the looking glass
You gaze through the mirror towards your epitaph:
Perhaps ‘Here Stands the Fairest of Them All’
You turn around to ask my opinion
As if you did not possess the foresight
To finger my stops when I move to speak
To pull from me the words you long to hear
As if I would not say them anyway
But we both know before they leave my lips:
‘You look wonderful with your towel and robe
Your eyes are twinkling like two falling stars
But perhaps you would look better without’

Your hair hangs bright-brown like sycamore boughs
Concealing your chest like a waterfall
Behind whose curtain the buds of your breasts
Rooted beneath the damp soil of your skin
Have bloomed from the bulb of your beating heart

Rouged to red by the birthing doctor’s hand
Something of your skin relies on fever
A flush creeps across your cheeks when we touch
Lip-prints linger upon your still-wet skin
In all of the places I have kissed you

I cup your breasts from behind like a thief
Or a schoolboy afraid to meet your gaze
Still embarrassed by his own nudity
Blushing for the sake of both our bodies
(At least for now as the lights are left on)
In the dark I develop my senses
Letting the tips of my fingers tip-toe
Down each vertebrae of your naked back
Like each is a step on a walking path
I fit your body like a puzzle piece
Like a hand slides into its winter glove
Let our tongues twist like two sleeping serpents
Hidden away from the dry heat of day
Buried below the depths of desert sand

After the eagerness has abated
Sleep rolls over you like a gentle tide
As your breath begins to slow and settle
Into the tender cadence of a snore
You dream something deeper than my madness

I leave a note where you’re sure to find it
In the breast pocket of your suit jacket
So at least you know that I think of you
Each and every time you go away
Whether for the few moments when you bathe
Or for the eight hours of the working day
(‘You are never really alone, are you?’)

‘How Will The Poets Sing of Suicide? (Eulogy)’

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Gilman chose chloroform over cancer

She picked the etherized rag over all

Tumbling into darkness like a dancer

 

An old ranch hand missing youths mystery

Hemingway took Chekov’s gun from the wall

And blasted himself into history

 

Rothko answered the Primitivists call

Slashing up his wrists in a rush of red

Fagan could fly, but in Rome chose to fall

 

Woolf stuffed the pockets of her overcoat

Worn atop her favorite dressing gown

With stones and drowned, fearing she’d missed the boat

 

Plath put out breakfast in old London town

Then sealed herself off with the gas left on

Sexton chose her car with the garage door down

 

Gros sank in the Seine like a yearling fawn

In like a lion, fished out like a sheep

How does one mistake Baron’s ease for brawn?

 

Poor Jeanne, despondent enough for two

Dove three stories into Stygian sleep

Days from the date her second child was due

 

While watching industry and commerce creep

Christopher Wood chose rustic scenes to paint

By train he gave his passage to the deep

 

Tchaikovsky toasted with cholera-taint

Amidst a Petersburg epidemic

The spectre of the failed sixth, his name saint

 

A man may break his bones with stone or stick

But van Gogh revolved around the quick sigh

Of stars burning to singe the vigils wick

 

Like Mayakovsky he died by the gun

The modern end to the everlasting

When the sun reveals what the moon has done

The bane of the clipper ships half-masting

As the daylight plays out how the war was won

Quicker than the pole rigged up for casting

Removed of worm so nimbly there is naught

Left with mind enough or tongue to be taught

‘Sestina (Silence)’

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Here, while l lie still beside your body

Immersed in blankets to harbor this heat-

Rising, falling like beach wash in silence-
In the lane the breeze rustles the dead leaves
But the tip of your tongue makes bold of night
Flickering gently like candles whisper

Your voice delights my ear when you whisper
Arising, moonlight welcomes your body
Waltzing towards the window you greet the night
And in this moment I long for your heat
But what would happen if one of us leaves?
(The other would contemplate the silence)

It is hard to fall asleep in silence
It is more comforting when we whisper
Discussing the season, the scattered leaves
The secret pleasures of your lithe body
Its fragrant nudity, its wondrous heat
The light it emanates into the night

Often I think about some lonely night
When I lay here without you in silence
Bringing blankets from the basement for heat
Speaking your name in naught but a whisper
Wishing myself nearer to your body
Hoping for footfalls in the scattered leaves

(What will I do with myself when she leaves,
Throw on a coat and search throughout the night,
Seeking some evidence of her body?)
Why should I disturb this haunting silence?
Because it is magic when we whisper
Twisted together like snakes for some heat

(But, as for now, I am blessed with your heat
And pay no mind to the sere, rustling leaves)
Let me serenade you with a whisper
That escapes on the wind, pierces the night,
And permeates the dead winters silence,
Breathing chills down your naked body

Your body is not like the fallen leaves
With its heat it burns holes into the night
Inscrutably, like a whisper (silence)

‘Take Your Pants Off: or, A Positive Way of Looking at Things’

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Alexander Frost ‘Goodnight, Lover’ Promotional Photogaph

i almost forgot to share this rough diamond of precious advice with you before repose: do you find yourself unnecessarily stressed, worried, unnaturally sweaty, fearful, anxious and uncertain as to what to do when all you really want is to look cool? do you refrain from shaking other’s hands upon greeting, and once again upon saying adieu, due to those unbearably perspiring palms? i used to be a nervous wreck all the time. i was afraid of school, trains, sleep, sudden death, serial killers, lightning, trying to keep up with the cool kids whilst being still a little wussy dork who hadn’t a single shot to make it to the upper echelons of society, as well as myriad other things. but i’ll tell you what changed all that. it took me a very long time to ever hold hands or kiss at the pictures with a girl, and as time went by with no better end in sight, i felt doomed. ‘what in the world am i going to do? everyone’s laughing at me and i can’t stand myself!’ i’d say that over and over until a young woman came into my life with a very severe dependence upon alcohol and a gleam of attraction in her eye. she told me these words i shan’t forget: ‘so go ahead and take those pants off. i need to get laid.’ that piece of infinite wisdom allowed me to grow confidently into a man, a man with incessant ulterior motives, but a man none the less. and i stopped being afraid of life because i knew someone enjoyed sleeping with me. i used to get bullied and picked-on and insulted, so on the rare times it happens in adulthood i say ‘hey, dude. you need to get those damn pants off.’ it’s the greatest thing ever to say to the one bozo jock in the sports bar so much drunker than the rest that he’ll approach the one person who doesn’t look very nice at all to start something. people have absolutely no idea what to do with themselves when you can keep it so cool it’s creepy whilst turning the predator/prey model on it’s head. do you think his girlfriend is going to let him hit that in a stupor after she gets done vomiting in the alley with 4 of her friends to find he’s walked away from the creepy white dude? no. and i wouldn’t either. i’d make her clean it up. just take your pants off man.

-AF