MOOD SUBJUNCTIVE, Edited

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MOOD SUBJUNCTIVE,
Edited




Don't get me wrong.

Should I appear distracted,
Look knocked out by the light.
You make a very strong performance,
A singularity round whose axis my mind spins.



I remember once, years ago,
When I landed in New York,
After living a year and half in Europe,
How the neon of America
Seemed so awesomely garish, and bright.
Yet, when I close my eyes and picture it,

All seems pale before the radiance of your face.

Two people may meet for morning breakfast,
Look out the café's window at the steady rain,
Walk here and there along avenues of
Inviting store fronts, and before the day is over
Fall into hopeless passion one for the other,
As though there be something in the air,
Perhaps some electromagnetic charge.
So the occasional electricity might overwhelm us.

Or cupid steals behind fixtures of thoroughfares.
(That day I spied him crouched near a mailbox,
When we began to walk main street in Point Pleasant!)


The winged child pulls from his quiver arrows.
They drip wet with potion. Once he aims
And shots them, grievously they tear mortal flesh
Making for a ruckus extraordinaire
And expectations suddenly become great.

This romance now so hard upon me,
This love I must ardently profess is, if you please,
Couched, subjunctive, a mood,
A posture of grammar I assume so to temper
My over-wrought affection and quiet
The immodest verse and elevated parlance,

It provides relief for my assuming prophetic mantle,
The all too far-out attitude, the conceit
Whose command animates this verse,
And were I not to employ this principle of language,
One might believe that I be shameless.

Understand. I solely express my own wish and desire,
All I say remains contingent,
Of a mind still hypothetical and dependent.

I do not use the imperative, I make no demand.
I have no special outcome in mind.

I live in the fortress called Zion,
And come from it in the Pilgrims' coat and hat.
I look in the mirror and see their collar and tie.
And, like those passengers on board the Mayflower,
I know the Lord to be my helper. I fear not.

Who among your former friends has ever said it better?

And were you to live long and hearty life,
As all actuaries predict,
What future friend might ever say it better?

And should you for a moment consider,

This lyric arrive, transcending everyday concerns,
That it join, Sentiment Supreme, Him, the real pilot,

When we drove in the white, Ford van and crossed
Jersey's North shore highways, while the brown,

Oh that magic, gentle, dream-like, living, pale, ethereal,

And somewhat golden light accented the downpours,
Whose constant unleashed falling, seemed more
Like the storm the Lord had promised Noah,
Than any explicable, temporary weather.

Wie es eigentlich gewesen war.
'The carriage held but just us -- and immortality.'

And since we first drove around together,
Though it is months ago,
It feels shorter than the day,
I first surmised the engine's mounts
Were tied to point, and we, too, were belted,
Hurled straight ahead in covenant with eternity.