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...
Tonight the subject is your hair. God Herself must envy it. You are one gorgeous brunet!
Were you competing with immortal beauties In contest for "woman's richest ornament", World-Title 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 Tresses whose luster utterly captivates my gaze? What phrase may convey the special Weight and texture of keratin length, Which now known to my hand? Is it enough? May I sum your majesty, simply say? I love to curl your hair Round my fingers when we sleep!
I know it's early on in the affair. Sorry should desire seem ardent. Darling, were you to leave me, World too cruel a place for me to be bereft, Neither day nor night could I face 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 length of time Destiny grants, Your body next to mine, My fingers wrapped in splendor of you, brunet.
Petal, now that is a great name for a woman. It is not your name, nonetheless it is great.
Do you really believe you might travel about; Husband your every business deal, Allow me to be home alone for months on end, Happy to collect you at the airport, Joyous when you walk through the door, Or thrilled the times we go out to diner?
You very well might be sorely mistaken.
It appears you have love you cannot keep.
You have been utterly selfish in your pursuits. "How long, pray, Will you take advantage of my patience?"
You hardly wrote to me at all, and I gather Some of my letters to you have not been read, And many of the topics I raised, not addressed.
You have been warned, time and again. Our life together has been too tightly wound. Your busy schedule precludes common wisdom.
You have forgotten that in this world, In this world of ours life soon passes. We walk these streets a few times, Before too long we disappear and are gone. No second chance, we do not return again.
The fact remains I can not take your absence. I miss the warmth of your flesh next to mine. My heart breaks when I turn my head in bed, And see the pillow empty, without your face.
And now it becomes very early morning And, you know me, that I speak truth When I say, I have not slept for days.
Tomorrow I go to meet Pastor Borner. Then I have an appointment with my Doctor, And, although my face might not show How tired I actually am, I have no way to disguise my sadness.
I always smile but in my eyes my sorrow shows.
Maybe you will get one more chance, But, then again, you may not. The love affair seems over, Where once happiness had reigned, Woe takes its place.
This thing of ours seems a dim prospect. Not much chance it will, Ever again, be the same.
Hey guys! Do Stanley the favor, and tell her, Tell her, whether he is afoot upon Indian Ocean shores, And this time with his consort, Glory maiden, whose girdle exacts a proportion, And brings great joy to any man who accompanies it, His new love, a love as beautiful, and thunderous As waves which hammer across white beach, And her voice, it echoes the sound of the sea, And like the woman, herself, is magnificent, She, how else might he describe her, Another sensual gift born of the fruitful palms,
Or if he goes alone into the Ganges plain, and seeks To follow the time line of empire and civilization, Or turns to sign post pointing north To the glacier’s cave, the river’s mouth, Where sky animates the waters in spectrum of colors, Which, when uplifted in awesome spray Among the half-submerged rock and boulders, Causes pilgrims to rub their eyes and wonder, Assure themselves that they have not fallen to slumber, And are awake, close to heaven are the Himalayas,
Tell her he is gone, that he has discovered new love, Or he lives in a mountain cave, alone.
Or, should needs be, and Stanley must run even farther, As if, he must vanish So to escape her haunt, her awful memory, And he sets blanket on sand in old Siam, Where lovely Buddha women administer, His every physical need, and teach religious tenants That might bring soul to calm And show person path to new knowledge,
Tell her, he travels to the Far East.
And should you hear that she still follows him, You may note, but do not share with others, He escapes to Australia, First to the city, Perth, to acclimate himself to life Where astrology fixes life chart Under influence of the Southern Cross, And should he not find peace. On that island continent’s western shore, Know he treks the long, highway east, Traveling from mile post to mile post Out from Bunbury toward the Outback, Past roads with names like Starvation and Reptile, Through the Nullabor, and then along South Coast To Port Adelaide and across the eight hundred miles To the docks and wharfs of Melbourne, and once there, In Victoria, he turns to the North and East, Travels Highway1 past Eden and Milton, To find Gulburra, where he meets his Australia, A bathing beauty, a blond and tall, true love, A maid known for her moral character, It happens while he walks out upon the sand, Against the fair sky as the sea swells, And it makes its great roll onto shore of Surf Beach.
Oh my friends, my good buddies, Billy, Christopher! Ready, though you might wish to travel and visit, To join me in this remote geography, -- We all live according to Destiny’s will -- And you may believe me. Happiness comes to all good men as do the rays, The bright that comes to souls with summer’s sun,
Announce, would you please, would you let her know, Yet before I departed, I had left these words?
Comrades, no need blunt my assessment, Do not bother to ask that she forgive my unkindness.
Tell her, I tired of living beneath her continued deceit, Her stubborn refusal ever admit the truth, Her lie upon lie, until her and mine own head spin, No real memory, no living history, All concoction, each and every personal event, She not remembering a word she said.
And let her live and love, May she have three hundred lovers or more, And disappoint whomever her unhappiness encounters, That her self hatred destroys whatever hopes some Good and noble might have, Cursed are those who fail to discern her treachery!
Here I might cleave unto the words of Catullus, When, once upon a time, and so long ago, He realized the term, whore, A word he meant to stand for her insatiable lying.
As for me, the love, All that love which had been hers for the embracing, My deep regard is gone and in this, our pagan world, No forgiveness, no hope of the resurrection, Any more than the flower, Which farmer’s passing plow deracinates and cuts, It has no future and never blooms, again.
