Love Looked at Me and Laughed and other poems - 14. with pen in hand & you in heart

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Poem No. 37

In your appearance

I wonder why I wonder

If you be the reason

Of my pain

Poem No. 38

What be the nature of this desire

that courses through my veins

that rips apart my brains

which ever saps my power…

Ever am I drawn near to you

for the sweet sorrow in your smiles

playing witness to your other wiles

and my torment gone through…

But what is the quality of the want

that filters you into my head

with longings impossibly said

with desire of only the want…

Poem No. 39

If while I slept the while away

a Muse came and stole my tongue some day –

crept between open curtains did,

slithered round my rug and in bed slid

with passionate thought of a lurid kiss,

low-seducing lips uncoiling a hiss –

my sleeping tongue aroused by hers

might abandon me when her favor lures.

When the first light of night

broke through my window

and fell upon my floor,

it found me there

with pen in hand,

and you in heart.

 

And in that light

I faded near away

to another shady sight

of a place so far afield,

time seemed its equal,

and I but cast adrift.

On another floor was I –

at a different light did look –

through the windowpane

shone the full face of torment

caused then as now

by a wilding moon.

 

Underneath me was

a floor of a different kind,

support from other regions

which vanish only when

names get tagged to them;

when hopes from them are craved.

Rang true the voice

asking me what I want;

sincere the look

that said I didn’t know;

for the spirit of the desire

is yet beyond me now.

 

Calm were the eyes

which asked me for my hand;

quaking was the heart

that handed it there,

softly delivered

unto your waiting touch.

Adrift the waves of night

midway ‘tween dream and world –

as the sleepy specter

ever crept her gain –

I never had

the fear I fight with now.

 

The thought to worry,

though drowsy were my eyes

and inactive were my limbs,

never before on a countless level

could I make claim

to ever be more awake.

So how can I,

at once adrift in two lights,

perceive which is true:

the hand that touched me there

with the greatest wonder known,

or the drifting sight upon my eyes?

 

I loved you then

as I love you now;

sweet wonder that it can live

astride the crater of time

in hopeless lapse of another

chance for what never was.

And if while I slept the while some day,

a Muse came to steal my tongue away,

she would turn a very startled head

at the odd things her new tongue said,

and woe behold that muse of mine,

for that wagging thing by rights is thine;

it can speak of no other heart but yours,

and with words alone your memory endures.

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