Tarame (mere mortal)

Tarame (mere mortal)

Tarame was by all acounts a mere mortal

no faerie or shapeshifter or vampire or god

no urge to throw on a cape and cowl

and toss himself around like Batman

instead he carved beneath a magnifying glass

tiny sculptures of frail people from matchsticks

and set them afoot in gardens he tended himself

along the window sills of the house where he lived

so between him and the world (and possible Naraka)

grew garden parties where his creation watched the sea

and counted the days by sunrise sunset and the tide

because mere mortals need make believe to believe

the constant narration of things unsaid

the constant narration of things unsaid

(a)

her voice puts me out of my misery

not like a bullet

but like a kiss

slow and warm and offered

with hands on backs

to pull each other closer

(b)

i have stared at this poem title for days

having fallen in love with the words

and what it might be and then realized

that is us there in the loving and hoping

what it might be sprouting from what is

and then i am writing the poem that should be

the constant narration of things unsaid

is the title of my brain or the way it runs

incessantly and always always back to you

(c)

it is not the always talking

to myself in my own mind

but the always listening waiting

for that voice that is only you

i have polished bricks into stones

worn my heart like a silver amulet

teaching myself not to fear the bird

singing silently endlessly sweetly

so i can walk to the rhythm of the story

that moves me and makes me whole

(d)

most men live lives on legends

bacchanalian adventures of gods

imagined and rendered to weave truth

out of tales dancing on the head of a pen

but not me

i have my memories of you and us

things said and done and bound

to my mind like angel’s footprints

across the permanent beach of my heart

reading Foucault while making spaghetti

reading Foucault while making spaghetti

i stand beside the stove

reading from The Foucault Reader

and glance into the pot boiling

the spaghetti dancing tendrils

like some sea creature against the current

and i think of you

although that isn’t true

every time i say it

any time i say it

i think of how you have come to be

a mirror for me to see the me

who failed you like a historical marker

and i pull up recollections

recreations of me kissing you:

that’s true but with a revision

recreations of you kissing me

this story of my past unhinged

and clapping against the wall

Foucault’s bespectacled cover photograph

is not Foucault anymore than his words

as you in my memory are no longer you

and i am not the lines and stanzas here

or the person who failed in loving you

and is left only with the history of us

i am he trapped here in the octopus arms

of wishing you’d return to me in these ashes

blossoming like pinot noir grapes for wine

trap door (diamonds, fire, and honey)

trap door (diamonds, fire, and honey)

INEZ: Ah, that’s the way it works, is it? Torture by separation.

No Exit, Jean Paul Sartre

we found the trap door alluring

like rose-cut diamonds

the red glow of a stove’s eye

honey drizzled across your stomach

until we discovered no exit exists

from this world to sanctuary

there is no other side or escape

no woman sawed in half or disappeared

but i am resolute in my wish to conjure

something from the space

where you no longer stand

the silence in the place of your voice

so let’s slip out of these clothes

and run into the sunshine

no longer fools for doors

but punch drunk and aroused

by diamonds, fire, and honey

tethered (this inertia of love)

tethered (this inertia of love)

Centripetal force is the force by which bodies are drawn from all sides,

are impelled, or in any way tend, toward some point as to a center.

—Isaac Newton

I like the way your sparkling earrings lay,
Against your skin, it's so brown.
And I wanna sleep with you in the desert tonight
With a billion stars all around.

“Peaceful Easy Feeling,” Eagles, Eagles

when he fell in love

the last time

the only time

he wrote his novel

about lovers

meant for each other

a life of joy and peace

facetoface

handinhand

and nobody cared

no one read

or turned past page one

demanding pain and tragedy

lovers parted

torn apart by fate

•

and of course she left

him alone

with a boring novel

him tethered always

to the angle

of her ankle and foot

that came to him

in weighted dreams

spinning him nightly

like a moon full

his centripetal fate

an orbit decaying

from the pull of gravity

against centrifugal forces

this inertia of love

•

artists and scientists

bend against

the pull of love

like children lost

in rhyme

strings in their fingers

wishing to catch

and cradle

the one other

who lies beneath

starlit nights

only for this lover

novels and theories

pale against

skin drawn to skin