Playful Art

(Falling In Love With Your Friend)

Kiss me with your eyes closed
and I will dream again,
more true than any other
in love with love and you.

What prizes these all are!
To kiss again and rise up when,
to raise high hopes
of pride and joy in lust again,

to seek bright love by Braille or sight,
to ride that rigid razor's edge
(straight as a vibrant spear is thrown)
that only you could hone.

But, God, this long delay! The way that time draws out
yet curves away and draws your flesh
no closer to my own nor brings your voice to speak,
your lips express, the love of which I dream.

Dear one, your heart's my own;
your soul is mine, is home.
To kiss you now would but complete one being—
we are two halves just one-half beat apart!

The heart that beats in you so strong
and longs for love and wrenches wildly from defeat,
that heart could flare with crimson buds
like thick-leaved green kalanchoes florescing in the dark,

could reach for heaven past all that's grim and stark
and like a gray catbird could deftly sing a song so calm
it glides above and rings the unrimmed roof cathedral-wide
with psalms too sweet and clear for any cross-eyed church conceit!


“I'm fall-down blind in love, bright star,” he cried,
but every time I rise again,
you stand there and insist
you're not the woman I insist you are!”

“I'm not the moonlight you adore, that's true,” she sighed,
“or some wise repose or skewed white shadow of you,
not some maiden wide and warm, supine or going nova—
close kin perhaps—a friend—but not the kind you have in mind!”

Dear one, your heart's your own,
your soul the same, I know.
I court you on this page as if life and I are fair,
yet we both know we'll spend and end our lives alone—
at any rate, not together.

But, oh, this burst of loving you
wrings new life from the dead,
brings me up and flings me back,
confounding all that I just said!

Dear heart, the pain, rejoice!
To be awake so suddenly,
to come alive headlong!
To feel things right for once
after such a long time wrong!

But, God, this gone-awry unguarded ardent bliss!
Brave heart! Mirage! I'm dizzy and I shake
like that unslaked tail-winged butterfly that clings,
rhapsodic, quivering, drinking in all that
pistil-sweet solution in my yard I can't get in!

Here, kiss me with your lips apart
and I will ply you with this playful art
(“Let passion live and rule!” I plead),
more true in mind to this dim euphonious dream of you—

SHE does not lightly scorn bright love
like it's some luxury or stain
or claim she has to shun it
like she does cocaine—

more true in mind to one like you, I cry,
than any other fool you'll find
in love with love and you!


rcs.
10th draft: 05/27/06
©1982 Ronald C. Southern

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