XIII
My jealousy has faded as I feared
It would the moment we first drifted near
And inadvertently your eyes endeared
Your sins to me, ensnared by your sincere
Demeanor. Even as we tenderly
Affirmed our insecurities,
I knew your promises would render me
Incapable to sense impurities
Behind your constant, darting, cath’lic eyes.
Since then at least I had a vague impression
Those I thought I always would despise
Would gain with you so long in my possession,
Under your eternal eyelids spread,
Ablution as my jealousy lie dead.


XIV

How can you withhold your love for me?
I ask not from shock, I ask not from pain
But a stance of genuine inquiry.
What's missing from me? I'll admit it's vain
To ask--was my physique so sickening?
If not emotions, did your intellect
At least experience some quickening?
In some detail, can you tell the defect
That cost me your affection and intrigue;
And certainty in you r success elsewhere?
The answer lies in your unseen, beleaguered
Face–You own alone or else we share
Severe impairments that prevent discov’ry
Of qualities we could say we love.


XV

It's hard to know what's more superfluous:
Ignited pale fireworks that warily
Expand suggesting witty, curious
Designs enduring momentarily,
Relenting in withering descent, staining
Sand and water with ashy diaspora
Or the fits of briefly frozen rain
The disintegrates, absorbed into pores
When suddenly assertively emerging
From the invisible, consumptive sky.
So let the ashes cover me. Let surging
Rain then wash me. I won’t try to lie:
To think our overtures any less fleeting
Is the epitome of conceit.


XVI

I’ve tried to keep you dutifully exempt
From thought and as expected celebrate.
Instead, unwilling, I approximate
Insistent stills. Despite my best attempts,
I can’t stop picturing your face surrounded
By intensifying effulgent
Mist, illuminating your indulgent
Smile, and though pleasing on its own, unfounded
Thoughts, more vivid still, spoil and maculate
The vision: propositions numerous
And bold, some threatening, some humorous.
I can’t predict if you’ll accommodate
The fawning requests your face engenders,
Or turn deaf to coinage of your splendor.


XVII

Considering the likeliness we’ll never
Speak again, I solidly conclude
Our truest dialogue was when fever
Fed, our likenesses in lyrical
Positions, we uttered appreciation
In the dark between hysterical,
Seemingly anthropomorphic replies.
Claimed in each other’s arms, collateral
Satisfied, we abandoned platitudes
And metaphors dismissed as caterwaul.
More genuine than any syllable,
Than any amorous exaggeration,
Our outbursts drawn from muscles pliable.
All else amounted to no more than lies!

XVIII

Watching your brow, so near once to see beads
Of spray collect, now endlessly receding
To microscopic protuberance
Upon the waves, accepted by the rifts
And gentle troughs with due exuberance,
I wondered whether it was you adrift
Or me, dock-bound with tether still in blistered
Hand hanging loose, that was diminishing.
I, squinting to make you out and list’ning
Wondered further to my astonishment
If I hadn’t been hallucinating
You from extended bouts of seclusion.
These questions linger without conclusions
Too elusive to elucidate.

XIX

My love, I need to share with you another
Thought, although it isn't necessary.
It's inside my and like a moth
It's floating, flitting, banging and impairing
My ability to clearly think.
Don't be alarmed; it's nothing--just a mere
Confession. See, I laugh at ev'rything
So when the one who made me laugh can't hear
Me, I continue laughing. In this way,
I can convince myself it's genuine.
Accuse me if you must of brash displays
Of braying, I would say I'm sanguine.
I'll admit to whimsy in theory, yes,
Except concerning you, I'm serious.

XX

If the lapping, lagging sea led to Lethe
Or else into an elongated tract
Of lazy lowing waves wherein I could
Allow my memoires to leave my blood,
If in the gaps ‘tween shores were trapped an ether
Of enough potency to distract
Me from this querulous splenic agenda,
I’d undress and laughingly surrender--
I’d leap, rather, with intent intrepid
Into the lather of deceptive calm.
The goal behind that tack, though, lacks prescience,
For when relieved anew in the absence
Of lashing preoccupations, the tepid
Ego’s set for unrelenting qualms.


XXI

Of course, of course, I knew I’d be alone
Tonight, beneath a starless sky from which
No solitary grazing gull has flown,
Above a static sea without a pitch
To offer and no surface to reflect.
Perhaps the stars and birds while testing buoyance
Were pulled down too deeply to detect,
But I digress… I claim no strong clairvoyant
Gift nor shall I say how long I’ve known
(Although gradual, not immediate).
True, I can ponder letting myself drown
Or enjoy spending the penultimate
Dull minutes of the year alone tonight
Because it mostly means that I was right.

XXII

In light of your oft anticipated
Departure, your face in obscurity
Already, historic histrionics
And aggravated plots aggregated,
Pets nicknamed pathological problems,
Subsided, sonorously laconic,
Became precious embarrassing emblems.
Don’t ascribe to me new maturity.
I wouldn’t say at all I ascended;
I wouldn’t be so kind. I depended
On the palpitating panic now mute.
Though my external senses stand astute,
Oceanic onomatopoeia
Overwhelms every idea.


XXIII

Romantics aren’t meant to understand
What’s in their blood that makes it swiftly cycle
Sweeping fantasies out of their glands
Or what’s released when they expel a sigh
While pining over distant loves unnamed.
For all their passionate preoccupation--
Doting on heroic deeds, inflamed
With plaintive, cosmic inspiration--
There’s no genius in their swapping facts
For quaint nostalgia of analogies
Or hoping to eventually contract
Imagined hyperbolic maladies.
There’s science in our bodies and the land
Romantics couldn’t ever understand.

XXIV

I don’t know if I loved you well. Complain
If erringly I gleaned what you desired.
I acted as I assumed was required
This is no despondent call to campaign.
I operated mostly on instinct.
Please don’t confuse my stance as cynical.
I don’t believe in such mechanical
Detachment, so I’ll try to be succinct:
I beg, don’t ask me to adjudicate.
Our interactions, though I’m not opposed
To an assessment. I hope a composed
Mind like your own can now appreciate
There’s no way my affections can be proven
But I’m sure I’ve told you nothing new.