Winter light. Morning whispers.
Too often now. And again

the sky. The night. And again,
too soon. The stars and the moon

awakened. Too often I
have awoke the night, too soon.

Awakened. I have again
disturbed the constellation.

Once more, of what importance?
This passage, not quite enough

repeated. And so again
To ask why, the anxious night

The sky, again this passage
and this passage repeated.

The sullen sonata now
suddenly become a fugue.

The memory of carbon.
The spirit of water and

fire. And of course, this desire.
And you, after all these years,

Surrogate on a Sunday.

Again I have awakened
to find the night sky severed

and the light separated
of stars. The sky hollowed out

in the absence of such thoughts
of death and this seduction.

Too often I have echoed
the words. This phrasing, the same

macabre mantra leading to
the same darkened cul de sac.

Too often have I wished to
end it. To live. Terminate

what was forgone or ended.
I will have seen your beauty

then shortly thereafter, I
will have forgotten this pain.

I will have met you, of course,
eventually, in that field,

I will have crossed your strict but
still somnolent gaze through

the moiré of bending reeds.

Once again the tragic air,
the music muted. The same

passage stagnant. Too often
I embarked on the wrong path

not knowing what brought me here.

Roll such tautologies like
stale tobacco. This and that.

Maybe. Maybe not. Mark my
misfortune in the acid

remains of espresso cups.
No culture of cobble stone

walks or cathedral ruins.
And no new discoveries.

I shall thumb through the pages
of the broken book, recite

the passages, always known,
but only now understood.

I shall bore banalities
in legal absinthe. I shall

see my estranged fate in the
fleeting glances of women.

I will have talked and talked and
said nothing. My lips will have

moved without shaping a word.
I will have spent a life time

without speaking, without the
particular need of speech.

I will have given myself
to your splendor, in rapture,

of course, well intentioned but
stupidly, fallen in love

even, and lost you again
to that certain other world.

I will have deemed it worthwhile,
despite myself, in the glow.

Summer waking. Strange lover.
I shall forever deny

having written anything.
I shall deny all the words,

the poetry in this world,
And beauty. And art. And you.

This derangement of dimanche.
My impatience for morning,

with it, my impertinence.
This slow splendor. And this swoon.

 

–from Exoration