She had typed each letter
carefully
with thumbs that already knew the way.
That was at least a half-hour ago,
electronically,
via direct-message, which was
a slightly incomplete method
of describing one-way messages
traveling the speed of light
towards their destinations;
A miracle of technology
that may as well had been substituted
by carrier pigeon
or message in a bottle,
for all the good it did her tonight,
or any other night she found herself
waiting.
She stares at her phone
for a notification that won’t come
quickly enough,
or perhaps ever.
Who can say with that boy?
God damn him.
God damn that lovely,
delicious boy.
God damn his dreamy eyes
and his earthy scent.
He is taken with another.
She knows this
and tries to shrug this truth away,
knowing he knows the way back to her,
knowing she will open to receive
his sweetness
despite all common sense;
he doesn’t deserve her grace, but
she’ll extend it for as long as it takes
as long as it extends their private duets.
She needs to know she still matters to him,
even knowing that all that knowing does
is make her bite her lip,
chewing on his absence.
She waits,
ingesting delicious potions,
hash-laced chocolates,
and green smoke; she’s faded,
divided against herself;
her mind craves comforts
her body finds increasingly toxic,
pooling upon her needy tongue,
seeping into her spleen and spine.
His saccharine non-declarations,
when whispered softly into her
arched spine under cover of night,
warm her bones against her
malnourished brain’s better judgment;
when etched electronically,
they relieve her scanning eyes
while stinging her perceptive heart.
And when there is nothing but his silence,
that leaves only text that never refreshes.
Two hours fall away into nothing,
and there is nothing from that foolish,
delicious, selfish boy.
She logs off social media
a rather incomplete method of
describing some rather
anti-social behavior
closing apps, tabs, and legs
for another lonely evening
of binge-watching stories
of lonely characters behaving foolishly,
October breeze brings arctic bite to air
Leaves leave their moorings upon knotted crust
Shadows stretch further north with greater depth
Autumn sound-tracks in jazz with folksy depth
I steep our tea; honey-kissed, clears the air
She preps the pastry; flaky, buttered crust
Her hand brushes mine, piercing well-worn crust
We speak-easily; a bottomless depth
She smiles, I forfeit breath, gulping our air
We fall for our mid-fall, air, crust, and depth.
***
Written for imaginary garden with real toads Fussy Little Forms: Tritina, Imagined By Marian. This is a tricky little form, but it was also fun. I may try a few more like this.
My name is Barry Dawson Jr. IV. Barry either means fair-headed, or sharp and spear-like, depending on which Gaelic historian you ask. Dawson means “son of Dawe”, which is shortened from David, which is Hebrew for “beloved of Jehovah”.
Guided by an autumn chance near-exchange
They both felt compelled to crane their necks back.
Backtracking, their gaze raised swift interchange.
Faster than light flew unspoken feedback.
Wordless vibe flowed as they knew they should know.
Even so, their paths diverged from sidetrack.
Though they lacked the knack to drink in the flow
She craved his sunrise, he thirsts for her past;
Their passing repast teased as afterglow.
The smile they shared, brief, yet spirits were vast;
Lifetimes compressed to one heartbeat phase-change.
They blushed with the fall, two leaves falling fast.
Their outlier fancy the mean dubbed strange
Guided by an autumn chance near-exchange.
***
Surely you felt the same
rolling over and seeing
my displeasure at a
brand new day, didn’t you?
Do you have any idea
how many poems
I’ve written about you
only to have to file them away,
snuffing-out their wicked truths
like so many birthed stars
that ate through their fair
share of hydrogen
long before Ra set
the table for you and me
to ignore our own nature?
Can you fathom how every kiss shared
will be compared to the caramel of your lips
nibbling mine in our candlelit shame
of being exactly who we are
exactly where we wanted to be,
exactly beneath the weight of
who we wanted pressed into our flesh
exactly the way we needed?
Do you also wish to shake
the morning gate of heaven
to its foundation for fating us
a taste of what could be,
only to allow our respective free will
to choose to loosen our firm midnight grip
on respective flesh before the black sky
blushed soft purple with promise of new day
separating me from you
as earth from firmament,
forming boundaries everywhere
instead of simply being
happily entangled in
undefined twilight?
On some level, I know
you were just as selfish,
just as grateful for those broad,
quiet charcoal strokes
shared in faint starlight,
silently sucking our
pigment from sundown,
but no matter our
moon-soaked efforts,
morning always comes,
doesn’t it?
***
Hephaestus’ Waste & Cosmic Rubble 