These are the facts, nothing here but the facts. I was on the road to Damascus via a street in the West Village in New York City, when, in an instant, barometric pressure had dropped 100 MB. Darkness enveloped an eleven-o’clock-morning sun. It may have been a trick of the mind, or some kind of serious panic disorder. Although I could no longer see, I pictured myself a child on a visit to my great grandmother's house in La Salle, Illinois. In my head I felt as though a tornado was approaching...
Believe in me, in the dwelling, here, for you, Not only in the physical space, Upon whose floor our hearts' drama plays, But in my soul where I built a mansion, Set a great kitchen to feed our spirit, And hung awesome crystal chandeliers, Light, so our feet not stumble When we awake before sunrise To start our appointed chores.
And were it not so, Were I to have had a change of heart, I would not have pledged my word.
I have been utterly honest.
My verse attests to sincerity, That I am ready to receive you unto myself; Happy domicile awaits your presence.
I continue to outfit our home, And the Lord abides, proclaiming For length of days, and long life, And peace shall fill the chests And the closets, and our rooms Shall know abundance undreamed. Where I am, I pray, There may you also be. And where ever I go, I know you will keep your promise, Prove yourself true, And you will follow me To that same place, too.
Piqued, the morning she moved out I gave her back the photographs. Let this thing of ours become distant memory.
A top-notch beauty, she's sensuous, Smart, thrifty, and disciplined in her work habits.
But she does not keep her word.
After our first year In a call to voice mail, She poured out her suffering heart, And confessed that her former boyfriend, He had physically abused her.
It was during the course of their longtime affair.
I remember Princess Diana explained A third had spoiled her chance for happy marriage, With us, his specter, a constant presence.
I will not forget she cowered, Readying to walk out the door, Childlike, fearful, shoulders slumped forward, Eyes to the ground, she replayed, I guess previous experience.
I did not raise my voice.
Were that not revelation enough, She admitted, shortly thereafter To eating disorder, 'a form of anorexia', She called it. So at root of our affair Lay poor self image, explaining both Her being with me, a man twice her age, And that other, five-year romance With a beast, a criminal whose coercive Words and deeds proved his love was true!
Later this week From a spot above the head of our bed, I'll take down her Grandfather's painting, (A birthday gift from her to me) Icon-like, it portrays the infant Jesus, Who is held in his Mother Mary's arms.
I’ll return it with the Lord's Prayer, A hand-colored, photocopy Translated into old Swedish, Gothic script.
We have it tacked on the wall, It occupies space directly next to the refrigerator.
Does she believe in God? I ask myself. It's early morning and I am tired. Yeah, but I still would like to know. She's sick; she doesn't know what she believes.
I have a big blank spot in my schedule. I feel bad all the time. I don't know what to do.
What am I without her? I wonder.
Can't I – I mean... Is there Any way I could make her better?
I feel like shit.
I want to get up from the keyboard And go into the kitchen and weep. I may never speak to her again.
I loved to sleep with her, Hoped she would stand next to me, Become loving companion, a wife.
Instead I got her boasts, Sadly Pyrrhic confidences about her imminent victory, She vanquishes the ghost of her former lover.
One day she came to me at work, Asked me to step outside, and whispered How at 4:00AM that same morning in our bed, In our home, she recognized her failure, The fact she could not give herself to sex, Would ultimately mean his deviltry triumphed.
In reality she had lost the fight. The beast was ascendant. He stood beside our bed.
But now a fool is talking. I am the one, screw loose, Who hoped we might write love songs, Which themselves become legend, Who wished the kind of love, no restrictions, Limbs askew, monkey love, she and I Bound up in a passion limitless, a universe, A thrilling heaven, like some Islamic vision Whose paradise has eternal, physical bliss.
By God! Given over to this physical ecstasy, That happiness and children be our bounty, That we might enjoy peace, And our love attains power of example, It brings cynosure, light for the ages.
No! Intimacy resisted, Yet in her history, she lives.
She lives in drama, Where terrible wound reopens, Fanelli's, Dojo's, And the Tavern on Eighteenth Street, Each a scene, time, time and time, again. She enjoys the nightmare theatrics, She eschews healthy flesh, The pain of the past captivates her soul.
I am afraid. The demon drives her. And now, when all is said and done, He alone is her dream lover.
You know it's all bullshit, honey, This talk of visionary moment and prophetic feat, No more than ploy, Another way me getting into your pants.
Yet loving you no quick turn of verse, It's serious task, requiring dedicated effort.
At prognostication I am gifted. I have always been able to see around corners. On our first night in bed I told you I saw our future, I knew what was going to happen.
And once you actually experience, Event which I prefigure, You recognize about it uncanny familiarity, Déjà vu, you feel the situation, As if it were previously known, Or may have been already played, A thing you witnessed ages before.
This power strikes deep. It causes tremble, And pleasant excitement. It makes life expectant. With me you will learn to swoon and shudder. You will know warm and be hot all over, Yet others freeze in mid winter.
I told you your grandfather speaks to me. His voice emerges from a dream, Though the setting's familiar, my own bedroom, The light comes from afar, Suffusing the space and me within Most delicious, excellent hues of red and green.
He tells me I am the man of the house, And gently brings to fore knowledge, Oh! He speaks with unmistakable clarity, Happiness the product of our life together.
I have another secret; I want to share with you. I prophesize major experience, Not unlike Leda's when she learned, It was a god who had entered her.
You should know from you will issue -- Yes, marvelous to relate! -- Being supreme, a mortal whose Life and renown, belongs to that golden, Regal realm, where Homer rules king.
I slip, revealing more than I intend.
I knew it. I knew it early on in life, Long years before your birth, Within truck farm fields, Along the rows of cabbage and corn, My love for you was growing strong, I had sight then, ears to catch the sounds, Nose to whiff out the dreams, Bestowed on me, oracular, from on high.
I stepped out from the Hitching Post Diner. I saw you! It was you. On the packed-mud bridal path, just ahead, By a yard or two, down the trail were you, Your form preceded me, walking apace.
This last August, eleventh, Before we had begun to date, Between bed sheets wet from too much sweat, Your heat wakened me. I knew the smell of you! They were your odors bursting up my nostrils From the threads of woven cotton, While I in my bed that lonely summer's night.
I had instantly recognized the fragrances, Once I slept with you, Once your presence entered my pores.
And now, again, the moment, it commands My fingers on the keyboard before me. Before I had met you, I realize I heard it, your name! I heard your name, Though it came to me from time Previous to your birth.
I assure you, when yet a child, preadolescent, No more than ten or eleven years old, I witnessed destiny from landscape in Illinois.
The refocusing veils of shimmer, aurora borealis, The phantasmagoric curtains of shifting color,
So utterly present, then, in a feint, As if by trick of hand, gone, Held me captive; I had fallen to trance, bewitched, And in the midst of this awesome, display, From the far North, your name, I heard it.
I heard! I heard your name; it was announced, While the green and red flames of light crackled Along the vault of the universe, I looked, glimpsed into future time.
And that very self-same night, I was no more than ten or eleven years old, From the backyard lawn of my childhood home, Facing north and up into nighttime colors,
I saw oak trees growing outside an iron fence, And above a low earthen mound, a cemetery marker, My name, it was struck upon a gravestone. I knew it. I knew the certainty; The ground I saw was in Sweden.
The green and red flames crackled your name Along the vault of the universe, I stood entranced, captive, Gazing into the aurora borealis, bewitched.
The pen rules me And often the hours fall to verse.
Tonight the subject is your hair. God Herself must envy it. You are one gorgeous brunet. Were you competing with immortal beauties For title to "women's richest ornament", It would perforce be yours.
Cliché fails. I require new vocabulary, Another way to describe your crowning glory.
Really! The words have been used Countless times before! Tell me, What hope have I to praise sufficient The tresses whose luster captivates my gaze?
What phrase convey the special Weight and texture of keratin length Presently known to my hand?
Is it enough? May I sum your majesty and simply say, I love to curl your hair Round my fingers when we sleep?
I know it's early on in the affair. Sorry my demand so ardent. Darling, don't you ever leave me, World too cruel a place for me to be bereft, I could neither face day nor night without you!
Yet understand I have no wish to suffocate. I picture no two-bit romance, Needy lovers joined at the hip. I want Your freedom and seek only to sleep, Whatever the time Destiny grants, Your body next to mine, My fingers wrapped in splendor of you, brunet.
I am sick with rheum and aches, And a congestion of the lungs. I cough constantly.
Insomnia stains my eye sockets, like charcoal, And for the first time in my life I actually look older than my real age.
Years ago, when I was a child I read auguries in the snarled pattern of clouds, And practiced divination in how snow Accumulated to subtle difference of height On the post rails surrounding the corral.
I watched the frozen breathe of horses, Looking for some hope of bliss but abstracted Solely gloom and heart brake.
Today, desperate and preoccupied, I try To pick out the future from the way Antennae wire twists against the white walls, And falls up and down Along the molding in my bedroom.
All omens promise bad luck.
My mind has fallen into moat And bad mood has dungeoned me.
I keep to the apartment all day, Flipping over playing cards, Looking for my destiny every time, A queen of hearts appears from the deck.
It's going okay tonight, not too bad.
"Stanley, you shouldn't be wearing that stickpin. Opals are always considered unlucky!"
My luck isn't very good as it is. I don't think me wearing an opal Changes the out come of life that much.
No eulogy for this affair of heart. No photographs left here for me to remember us.
I see no people down the street to witness Me drive off in the Ford alone.
Rain and cold, happy couples walk the avenues Huddling close, tight, on to another.
I guess these musings are the closest It may ever come to a biography of us.
I must wonder if this whole fantastic romance, I once imagined, amounts to no more, now, Than footnote in this big book of my own.
Your name has been deleted from the speed dial. It has vanished from my computer screen.
No children will be named for us, Not that you wanted it anyhow, The children being named after either you or me.
No admission will ever be charged For entrance to the home where we once lived, Spoke ardently of love one for the other, And I tempted verse to celebrate us for the ages.
And despite all the noise coming from the street, All the appointment I have to keep this evening, I can only lie on the floor and look to the ceiling.
I know what to do! I am not at a loss, despondent, nor down and out, Not at all!I've got plenty of options. I'll run an ad in Craig's List, Or a personal in one of those free Weeklies.
I’ll write, Single, White, Male, Looking for a muse, A girl to inflame my verse, Make my heart sing to wondrous refrain.
I'll say she must be educated and smart, Tall, slim, and good with money, A brunet, who has a pleasant smile, And whose buttocks own an exquisite form.
I'll require her voice to possess subtle timbre, Her smell to be sweet and, above all, I'll want her disciplined in work and habit, Someone to put me to bed early, And early to arise, a woman who might be Suitable mother for a child or two.
Oh!Did I forget to mention? I want large brown eyes and an olive complexion.
So don't think, don't believe for a moment, That you are elemental, like some sustenance crucial To happiness and breathe, for you are not. Ha! You see how easily you can be replaced!
Get it straight! I know what to do. Honest! It's not that big of a deal. I’ll run an ad in Craig’s List, Or a personal in one of those free Weeklies.
