I am a lonesome soul,
Who’s lost his partner,
muse, and wife.
I am a loathsome soul,
For it was no mistake;
I chose to leave her in the bed,
Secure and safe—
Alone.
I chose to burn the oil past dawn,
Engrossed in books by long-dead men,
Who’s words seduced me into questioning:
What good are years of growing
Old in unison?
Spent watching her perfection sag,
Then dwindle and decay
And finally die…
What point is there?
Is this the goal?
And so I turned away:
My soul to be surrendered,
In preparation for eternity.
And in so doing,
I extinguished what were once
Erotic fires,
Letting lusts for knowledge
Overcome me,
Consumed by esoteric texts
That only hermits read.
And in return
the glorious rewards of
snuffing out the sparks
Of love and life,
Along with loss of confidence
And hope.
I come to
Languish in the pit
Of my own making,
Purgatory,
Dry and desolate,
Parched with scarce a pulse or flow.
The emptiness bears down
Upon my soul
With crushing weight,
And I am sapped of energies,
My liveliness,
My femininity,
My manliness,
As I corrode
To vertigo.
My soul has led me here,
To disembark,
To meet my end.
I am at odds within myself,
I want this not.
But gloaming light portends
A reawakening as out of reach.
And so is she,
For I have forfeited connection;
She is a phantom now,
A haunting wraith upon my mind,
A pure idea,
A memory,
But nothing more.
For love of isolation is
No love at all,
It leads to self-delusion,
Self-destruction,
Final devastation.
Now I am aware.
The realm of speculation
I have occupied,
Belongs not to a life
That is alive.
I need to love,
I need to understand
Erotically.
I must explore, experience, investigate
And share, not merely think;
To learn, at times to ache,
At times to smile.
I stand and take first steps
Toward light:
My heart must lead
Beside my mind,
And through their unity,
May my beloved arise,
For me to ever love.
Now full,
As flesh and blood
With soul,
In self-perpetuating
Onward motion.
Sometimes through a sorrow
Nigh unspeakable,
In spite of which I blend
Its gravity with play;
And come to hold
At once the ruinous affairs
Of life within
But not be overcome.
Through pain we gain in strength
And through our sufferings we grow.
I am alive;
A silhouette appears.
Suspire.
I flash a smile
Because I feel and I embrace it all.
I listen to a solid piece
Of wit that pulls me in;
In turn, I craft my own—
A line or two to touch her soul,
Invite her close.
(My god, my god, it’s clear…)
Then boldly do I stand before her and
Extend my hand
To tenderly clasp hers.
I swell, for she accepts.
We dance to a bolero,
Sensuous and slow,
The motion, closeness, scents and pheromones and heat
Proceeds to sweep her off her feet!
A swoon
A sigh
The sudden high
The overwhelming rush
The tumble
The embrace
The wave of love.
Basking in the bliss of afterwards;
Aglow and radiating,
Gliding,
Slowly,
Floating,
Back to ground.
Once we have settled down,
The promise we exchange
To see each other soon.
We’ve found each other,
Right as time
Did deem me ripe
to taste her wondrousness,
While she perceives in me a fine—
Imperfect—healthy, playful, earnest man.
What culminated in a wave,
Was just the first,
And now we carry on;
A different pace,
A different dance,
The flow of energies entwined;
Electric touch,
A secret
Intimated to the auricle,
A meal prepared, ensemble,
Plaiting of the souls,
Entwined together, skin on skin,
In bed or garden,
Chaise longue or on the town.
Our bond holds true
No matter the disruptions, doubts
Or even strife that might arise,
We summon strength to carry on,
To be our better halves.
A madness in a way, this is, devotion—
Always for each other,
And providing for each other. Love
Is lusting, needing, yes, desiring,
But through our journey love is really constancy:
We’re for each other,
neither far ahead nor far behind,
nor high above, nor underneath
But through and through,
As one.
A life of solitude will never reach
Complete or total happiness.
We need each other for this end;
I share myself with her,
And in that sharing, we transcend.
The happiness I have to offer her:
Entice her to the very edge
of satiation—
Yet still to love her constantly,
To love surprisingly,
A kind of poetry,
Unknown, mysterious, intoxicating;
This is a never-ending dance of sweet
Seductions that will give her much
And promise even more.
Because in all I’ll do
And all I am, one act upon the next,
I’ll show as hers
With overwhelming joy.