What a season, an island of strewn rocks, Thrusts and inductions. Butterflies flirting with flowers, Lighthouses guarding the water. The old oak roads Imprint our naked feet through childhood, into middle age, Toward the day of our death when we are our strongest and most beautiful. We all follow the railway ties that lead us to sexual seas Then one day we’re swimming in a midsummer pond. Rotted oaks grow up from stumps and fall again. The unpainted barn rots and is rebuilt. Something new is conceived again in the hayloft. Quietly walking down the old oak roads Companionship and eros meet. They share a cigarette. They laugh and tell a hundred stories. They go inside to make a risotto, and clothes Surely fall away from their bodies. Sure as dirt lifts and falls Back down to the oak roads. We are shaded In conversation’s after play. We are late for work Because love is driving us away from everything. The vertical branches, that hilly road, the sunlight slanting, The seasons of our lives picking us up five minutes ago.
I am looking for reasons you love me. I can’t believe her when she says I’m beautiful. I don’t… Storms of moaning. I show my body never my eyes. I have a business of inviting others in to look at A house faulty with wiring but appearing safe and comfortable. You think it’s romantic that I write poems about you. You think I have stronger arms and a deeper voice Because I understand your sadness and it lives in me. Welcome to the match playing child born in the house of mercy. Between being loved and fucked, I feel Like a displayed art plate broken in two, Irreparable halves. You want me to say Home is a time not a place. We lay naked and listen to the late night talk of broken windows. You hold both pieces of the plate. Your eyes tell me somewhere you know the good half of me. Smiling with sad eyes. I tell myself, When you can’t swim do the dead man’s float. When you need to be rescued, listen for a beautiful laugh. Remember when something has rhythm, it will find you like a pulse. You kiss me and tell me, I feel your purpose before you know it yourself. One day we are walking and you take me down a one way street To show me forgetting is something we can be taught. You hold my hand to your mouth, kiss it, and say, Just love me Like I love you And never look back.
Oak Roads: Poetry and Musings 