Approach
6/9/98
I approach you
with a tremor
then I nod, and
then you smile.
We know we've never
known each other.
We hesitate,
we pause a while.
Thoughts of danger,
sharp rejection,
bad selection,
raise our fears,
yet the haunting
loneliness,
the emptiness
is worse to face.
We dance with
our faces,
our voices,
our looks.
We hide in
social graces,
hide all traces,
our secret books.
We are dancing
with our spirits,
we are playing
flicker flames,
tasting fire:
dare we stir it?
risk our bodies,
risk our names?
What will
we want of us--
what will
become of this?
To Shirley
5/15/98
O Shirley, how I remember
your touch, your loving, timid tremor
when we made love in December:
that's a jewel I'll always treasure!
All the world was frozen cold, clear,
bitter winds to make our eyes tear,
but you warmed me with your smile dear.
How I wish you still were mine, dear!
Now I see your eyes,
you're a spirit
perished love a-haunting me
I hear your sighs
and I fear it
is the closest I can be.
I know, I know you loved me!
O Shirley, I never told you
that I loved you so.
It's too late now to call you--
I have to let you go.
These emotions--I wasn't ready
and confusion twisted me
to deny what I was feeling,
what was bonding you and me.
Now I see your eyes,
you're a spirit
perished love a-haunting me
I hear your sighs
and I fear it
is the closest I can be.
I know, I know you loved me!
All We Are
5/4/98
Some say I walk around
like a stray cat or a hound--
that's not me!
I'm looking for new ways
through each week, the empty days--
can't you see?
I'm trying to solve my life's puzzles
and avoid your social muzzles
to be free!
I want to take that outward bound,
ride the train away from town--
that can't be
cause we are all we really have:
the rest are all things we don't need!
Words keep marching in my mind,
pictures to define our time,
our mysteries.
Try to work the light exstatic
without trying too dramatic--
do you agree?
But don't press the social mores
with sharp pointed bitter stories,
dangerously!
Let me take that outward bound,
ride the train away from town--
that can't be
cause we are all we really have:
the rest are all things we don't need!
Nest
3/30/98
I would nestle in your loving arms
and gush against you, frothing
like the sea in chilly April
waiting while its life begins to wake.
The riot of swimming forms
is not yet here, cold sleep
is shaking off. The sun
is climbing day by day.
I would nestle in your loving arms...
Cheater
When I look into my head
I see my thoughts of you instead.
I see your face: you tantalize--
I see you through another's eyes!
These lonely words resound around
since I have lost the love I found.
My thoughts return to our days,
and the pain cuts through the haze!
The cheaper they come, the harder they get--
no one survives life is sure as you get!
They sing while they're coming, kisses are wet
but they're looking to find another one yet!
Another night wasted on visions of you--
I dreamed I could taste you--I'm such a fool!
You cheated, you burned me, treated me cruel
and yet I keep dreaming, returning to you!
My love was such a fine illusion,
and you encouraged my delusions
through all the walks through midnights parks,
through passioned kisses in the dark!
You didn't spare the verbal lash
and always had to have your laugh.
You didn't care for anyone
as much as for yourself, your fun!
The cheaper they come, the harder they get--
no one survives life is sure as you get!
They sing while they're coming, kisses are wet
but they're looking to find another one yet!
Another night wasted on visions of you--
I dreamed I could taste you--I'm such a fool!
You cheated, you burned me, treated me cruel
and yet I keep dreaming, returning to you!
Choice
4/9/97
We came from far off places
and separated times,
but still I hoped some day that
you could still be mine.
I did not try to claim you
or hide you far apart:
I hoped that I could win you
by giving you my heart!
I have no right to steal
love you will not give,
so if my dream's unreal
I just must leave and live!
Please answer me the question
resounding through my mind:
could I be your selection
for all the rest of time?
Now I've revealed my secret:
I stand, self-exposed,
and bow before the hatchet
if your heart should stay closed.
I fear to ask your mind, dear,
fear you'll turn away.
Will you say the words to ease my fears?
The choice is yours: which way?
Constance
In a damp December doorway
six sick old men serenely
sigh sobbing sounds with every breath they spray.
The passers-by won't stare there--
those passing by don't share cares
of living dregs or stiff, sore legs today.
There, on the by way
our brothers burn out, dying
within themselves before they pass away.
They're living in our madlands
carved from stainless steel jumbles,
a mindless maze to monitor our ways.
But still we stand here--
at our demand, here--
and here we'll stay
until we go away.
Stop and look behind you--
one never knows who follows--
our gargoyle guards may seize us soon as prey:
we waken in the evening,
praying that we're dreaming,
hoping sleep will bring us through to day,
then total up our credits
balanced against our debits,
hope our God's accounting holds us true.
And as we look for new ways
we hope to find a true way
to save ourselves and aid each other, too.
Let's live in lands of forests
of trees that stretch forever,
exploring paths that cast our past
away.
Place canvas on a woodscape--
shelter from bad weather--
and fire to warm us to the dawn
of day,
and past our sheltering campfire
in the ringing darkness
hear padded feet where glowing eyes
hold sway.
Is there right in our reason
or is this only madness
of lunatic nights and the moonless light
of day?
I still remember
the graveyard last December,
the cold grey mounds, the muffled sounds
below.
All was so cold there,
in the night below there,
a paradise of sparkle, ice
and snow:
life in stillness, seeming sleeping
through the evening's deeping,
hid from sight, safe in the night
it holds
light in the darkness,
a flickering being incarnate,
cold as the wind rustling in
my soul.
I was a soldier, a beggar, a priest--
through every life I've passed to learn new ways.
Threading down the line between the angels and the beasts,
I've sometimes slipped, and often I am swayed
But still I stand here--
at my demand, here--
and here I'll stay
for I have found my way.
Consumed
I look into your furnace eyes,
my senses are consumed
and I fall, effortless
into a spiraled doom.
How do you bend me to your will
with promised passion's kiss,
then reel me closer for a kill,
steel me with your lips?
Like a spaceman I kept falling
through an empty endless sky,
lost until I heard you calling
Contact
marooned to this island
how can i
the blind
and you
The deaf
communicate?
i hear your moves
you see me here
i do not know
your language
sometimes we touch
contact is an impact
and we change
we touch
i hear
you near
seeing me
wondering
would we trade
i wonder if we're jealous
would we trade
are we
on separate islands
Disparate Lives
9/8/94
if only we'd met
years ago
before we'd set
blocks
inadvertent masons
building lives
is it too late
to bridge?
Click Here to Go Back to Joe's Poetry Page
Links to other sites on the Web
Get your own Free Home Page