Tuesday, October 09, 2018

Words

I wrote this over a year ago, and have decided to go ahead and post it now because I was going through old stuff I had written and I really thought this was about the best poetry I have written.

I don't know how to use my words
They don't seem to work like they used to.
Proud confident and sure of the message they had to share
I don't know how to use my words
Muddled, questioning, so in need of nuance now.


I feel sometimes like I have become too shattered to ever be put back together
I feel sometimes like all these pieces
is the only Me which has ever been the real me


I saw you there,
Seated at a table of peers
You poised and beautiful
I wanted to know who you were.
I listened, me Sipping that beer
but drinking deeply of your prescence
Your words like music and lyrics flowing through
I wanted to get to know you.
I felt you there, every idea, joke, and word
your soul being shared, you filling ours.
And I wanted to kiss you.


Renée Descartes said I think therefore I am.
I was academically birthed into the world of postmodernity,
suckled from the mounds of trust no one and question everything,
And cut my teeth on deconstruction
Now I am left to say "I am thinking therefore I am not being."


I wanted to slide my hand into the small of your back,
guide our bodies together no distance between us our lips warm softly touching
The space surrounding melted away into the peculiar particularity of that moment together.

I wonder if the other me was entirely another me.
I wonder when in that 16 years did he pass and if anyone shed a tear for his loss?
I wonder if I could summon him from his mausoleum
invite possession by that other me.


I wanted to learn your story, 
to share your journey, 
to know the whole of how you think; 
to stay up all night talking 
so the sunrise makes us laugh 
at our enraptured attention to each other.


I wonder if enchanted by the other me 
this me could have charmed you. 
The one with poise whose melody 
was philosophy, dramaturgy, and story.


The universe she made us in her image.
from singularity we shatter scattered out into a billion billion pieces

Mass - pressure - ignition -fusion
Stars born and burn hot and bright
Stars energize fostering life around them
Stars supernova, destroying everything in the exploding path
Stars expended die out to cold and emptiness
Our atoms forged in the heart of stars


I want to take these two fingers 
unzipping the dress down the length of your back.
To take these hands 
slide them inside the slit of the dress. 
First pressing them firmly against your back  
savoring for a moment 
this first time their skin has touched this surface of you.
I want to rest a kiss at the base of your neck 
as I drop your dress to the ground.
Then piece by piece 
we together remove the fabric layers which separate our bodies 
from being fully touching enmeshed with each other.

Shards formerly propelled apart by the force of their own trajectory 
now coalesce into orbits round each other.
Orbits are added to orbits
Shards larger and more significant join, pass, yaw, and pivot in.
Planets and planetary Systems
bigger than the pieces
scraps spinning together
absorbing the energy of their shared fire.
Our lives dependent on the fire of a single star.

I want to taste the fullness of your soul.
Use these two listening ears; unzipping the barriers of your mind.
I want to scuttle inside your deepest self
Hear your passions, your pain, your strengths, weaknesses, dreams, fears. Savoring for just a moment touching the casing of your soul for the very first time.
I place just a peck at the base of your mind, dropping our masks and defenses to the floor.
Then story by story we tell each other
together we remove the layers which separate our souls from being fully touching enmeshed with each other.

Maybe you and me would have been a galaxy.
Maybe you and me would have been a supernova.
Maybe we could have found an orbit
Maybe we would have just passed by
The universe she made us in her image.
from singularity we shatter
scattered out into a billion billion might have beens.

Time expired
Leaving I only asked your name,
I stood there looking in those eyes
Windows in to the soul as they say
I wanted every bit more of you.
A morsel of your being
A spoonful of you mind
A tincture of your soul
But I said not a charming word more.

See, I don't know how to use my words anymore.
They just don't seem to work like they used to.