Read In a Spill of Sighs Page 2


  I understand your discomfiture;

  you have seen into my soul

  as is fitting, as is right,

  and exposed its bright diamond

  The gleam has caught your eye

  and the scent of sad caution

  struck you silly,

  just like a virgin on holiday

  or a rosebud in the rain

  Freedom is calling us...

  I know when I reach for your hand

  that true love has awakened

  and will not find rest

  The djinn that is our joining

  will move the earth underfoot...

  so speak not of the sweet grip of illusions.

  Into the breach we are taken

  and even our fondest wishes lead us astray.

  Bird of Paradise

  Yellow feathers for the sweet of sun,

  green feathers for the curl of leaf,

  blue feathers, dark and light,

  red feathers in anger at scorn,

  purple feathers for royalty born,

  and orange feathers in a mix of passions.

  Love is a bird of paradise,

  love is a coat never worn.

  I carry this feather for you to see...

  will it be one you will value?

  Can you see the softness of its fiber,

  the color of its uniqueness and beauty?

  I am a man who wants to give love,

  I am a man who wants love in return...

  am I to royalty, a beggar and thief?

  Or beggars and thieves, royalty all?

  I am the man who stole from the heart,

  I am the beggar who walked that mile.

  Estate (w. Sophi Zimmerman)

  Walking back along the beach,

  a shell I had overlooked...

  I picked it up and felt it in my hand.

  It was nearly perfect,

  just one small chip

  where the mouth and the end met

  Pearly blacks and grays nested

  in the bowl, little mirrors of ocean

  and time

  Quiet pictures, smooth and slippery

  like sea water

  She would like this one,

  this forgotten home

  with its small story

  like a Grecian urn

  or a sculpture...

  she had always said

  shells are like little sculptures

  She wove stories about them

  Tales of life washed ashore

  Sometimes a song would find its

  way into her mouth

  People would buy them

  the shells with the stories

  The songs were for free, she'd say

  Songs of the sea and stories of the sand

  while the wizard of the salt wind

  watched and clucked

  as I wrapped the shell

  so it would not break,

  stealing one of his few possessions

  This small piece of marine

  real estate was her house

  I knew that somehow.

  She lived here

  Her wild song flowed in my thoughts

  over thousands of grains of silica

  drifted in memory and music

  On the Wildness of Love

  Once that furious storm, unleashed

  has sent you scampering to shelter

  and your mousy prudence

  has made a home in dry straw...

  once that lion has been released

  and will not go back in his cage...

  once mother nature has undressed

  and whispered her secret lust...

  then you will know your small protests

  were but raindrops in the tempest.

  You who would understand love

  understands it not in the slightest.

  The fire burns you through to your soul

  and your cries are answered in the night

  by one shy pussycat, no brave fireman

  as the flames are fanned by the howling winds...

  One Morning

  Elegant lace birds

  drawing sun-up's sweetness

  from the morning air...

  the moon is down, you see,

  they joke.

  The dawn is studying

  a passage from their melody

  and grows glad

  as their words grow lighter

  and float upward,

  you know.

  A blue more buoyant

  with each passing moment

  I see

  fills the deep sky,

  or so we should presume.

  Dark green leafy dew

  joining tips of grass

  spills the secrets of the equinox

  into the quiet drink

  of sparrows

  The Ferment

  We had dined with the blue jays

  on a handful of scattered corn

  thrown out by the farmer's wife

  who had known our morning cries

  She with her rays of sunlight

  and me with my stories of rain,

  we had struck the forest floor

  with the dappled pattern of nascency

  Our mingling a bold conspiracy

  of roots and deep passions

  that seep into the earth,

  persuading us of leafing

  You who know the quiet mystery!

  Come bear witness to cool autumn

  where greens transpose to golden

  and surrender finds its nesting

  Enchanted sprite of spring,

  return to your hollow

  Leave your wand by the creek bed

  from which I draw my water

  With that warm, white magic

  we may spin a cloth of rainbows

  and as winter bites her lip,

  stitch a scarf of bright dreams

  A Mouse's Love

  How I remember that small, tender kiss

  she gave me, as I was her furry sweet.

  I wish I could be there, again at her whisker,

  for the sharing of gnawed delights.

  In our hole in dry wall, enfolded,

  I whispered a padding for sweet love...

  scraps of pillow laid out warm and soft

  against the draft of cracked shingles.

  My, oh, pie crumbs kept off the table

  by children eager to squeak as her,

  and her bright eyed sniffling to the light

  as, leading, I snuck from the baseboard.

  Trick me not, memories of her kisses,

  nose to nose, in that matter of timely musk.

  As we dither to the music of snoring

  and shake quick abandon to scavenging...

  ...a simple warm and pink feeling

  lifts our ears, sweetly and keen,

  to many a friend, still caught in whimpers

  of our own darting to and fro the quiet.

  In a Spirit, Twice

  When you catch fire,

  and the song burns in your breast,

  and the pull of spring's call

  takes you so close to the shine of dawning

  that hot sparks jump from your fingertips;

  you will pulse with the rhythms so sweet

  that your heart will leap into flames...

  When your heart is burning white and high,

  when kisses have become as doves in flight,

  when you are hopelessly tangled up in love...

  the golden of the amber will capture the fly,

  and that drink of water that you have become

  will feel to the thirst of someone you know,

  as the finest of the sweetest of wines...

  you will swoon, next to a moment of sun,

  and your face alit with buttery light.

  When kindnesses stir and flutter in your breast,

  and surely as wind, you take that one step.
..

  when your eyes glow bright with dreams untold,

  and a love unfolds in the tawny musk of ecstasy,

  you will feel, in a dusk, a budding day;

  you will know, right then, a magic twice,

  and your embrace to him as his to yours.

  The Pull of the Equinox

  This fire that burns in my breast

  will not quiet with your gentle touch,

  but will only grow brighter

  as your caresses wine my senses.

  I am stripped naked by your smiles...

  and I stand, lit with your lovely sun,

  to your eyes, a spark of hot flame,

  linked with your soul behind the fond gazes.

  I find with my sweetest kisses

  a soft and sensitive, fleecy moment

  where a pretty lust sings her song

  lifting my heart, expressing my need...

  and though a rabbit, love has been,

  fast away on a forest path,

  it is now a gentle fawning deer

  drinking water from the bubbling brook.

  Know me inside, feel my honesty,

  touch where I see and admire you,

  and where I wish so fondly for your touch.

  It is true, it is all true, see me there.

  You, my deepest well, you my warm lamp...

  I see by your light, draw water from your pail.

  You, who knows how my dreams sparkle

  with the warmth and the wetness of your spring.

  Without

  Did you wait?

  For you one and only?

  For a heart that was so true?

  For a waiting man?

  Is too much compromise

  something you know about?

  Did you believe?

  Did you cry in your pillow?

  Did love happen too fast?

  Did you face reality?

  Did he promise the world?

  Were your dreams shattered?

  Did you know the truth?

  Did you call his name?

  In the dark lonely night?

  A name you made up?

  Did one heart cry out?

  For a lover, for a friend?

  For a man not taken in

  by all the rest?

  Of a Sweet Moment

  All your old men,

  put together,

  can't explain it away...

  all your old women

  can't nag me enough

  to keep me from it.

  I hold it to my breast,

  and coo to it softly,

  willing it sleep.

  The warm fire burns

  in the ashes of my heart.

  Words of pressing need

  spill onto your lap;

  I am a clumsy waiter.

  Nearness of hot kisses

  a companion to my wishes...

  and a small patch of sky

  that the sun broke,

  seeds a score of shadows...

  scampers, to the task.

  Under lock and key,

  a note from fine crystal.

  She is close at hand

  singing her long grief...

  and the hours fall like leaves.

  At the chill of morning

  comes the yearning for the easy days...

  and after awhile the rest awaken.

  As My Hunger Grew

  Looking, I thought, for a humble meal

  to soothe my hunger, and tired and worn,

  I found a diamond I could not steal.

  I know my coffin, stamped with a seal,

  that I'm buried in, if forever torn...

  looking, I thought, for a humble meal.

  Protected by guards with dogs at their heel...

  kept as a secret, caged and forlorn...

  I found a diamond I could not steal.

  Do even I know if I see and feel?

  And, where is the difference in halo or horn?

  Looking, I thought, for a humble meal.

  Precious, and rare, and bright, and real,

  I have wondered where since the day I was born,

  I would find a diamond I could not steal.

  Like a frightened mother and her sad appeal,

  like a scarecrow watching over feather and corn...

  looking, I thought, for a humble meal,

  I found a diamond I could not steal.

  I sincerely hope you have enjoyed my book! Anyone who would care to can contact me at [email protected] Let me know what you thought of it!

 
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