i will miss you dearly
so apparently
they will publicly broadcast us
getting ripped apart
how now do i convince myself that anything changes?
(the title is: lamenting)
in daydreaming i swim
all long against the current of the city smoke-drag
the closest i have gotten to you nowadays
are the hooks of our spiral notebooks occasionally twining
the pages i wedge between the cover and the front page fall out
for you to catch and glaze over briefly
when the sun sets
the stars spin with the record of night
the song is playing in your eyes
again
(the title is: nothing has ever been new)
the act of holding your hand
playing your ribcage, measuring your heartbeat
pressing into the pillow until i can find you
is bounded. my eyelids cannot go any further down
my jaw unable to break any further from my skull
my throat unable to open any greater than this
and sometimes, to find you, i wish i could reach
inside me and re(dis)cover what is lost
according to science, we used to have a tail
according to god, we used to have wings
i am certain that, under the demand of kindness
we will unfold, and hang another star in the sky
again
(the title is: love in the age of historical backsliding)
we can't do much right now -
21st century now. they did promise that someday
they will find a cornerstone in the depths of some forest
that i can reach into and feel you on the other side
for at least six or so years before it stops working
in the 20th century we would just write to each other
but it was an excuse to get on a bike
(or a skateboard if we were willing to get into such trouble)
and we would always know where we were
and oh, have you seen those ancient times?
where my poetry would be less read, and more of better?
and music would be in its era of becoming, escaping
unshackling, moving with freedom
in the 19th century i would have learned to love god
or to lose him; would be all around us
as of course the century was full of his favorite years
but we would no longer be together, we would grow unlike
each other and perhaps die early and return to feeble grace.
in the 18th century you would dance to the music of Mozart
and i Bach, and we would trade only glances
that cannot be right, cannot be
17th century we would not even be in the same building
now only circumventing each other in the same ocean
over the same routes of trade
in the 16th century, 15th, 14th, 13th, we would stop being here
all together. go back and back again. to the 12th.
o, you knight, wherefore can it only be so that
only your sword can engrave your name into me
and my drunk, heretical heart?
11th century, 10th. i must go further back
before the fall of rome, into the throes of ancient greece
when was it? before the birth of the modern God
where love between us was not forbidden, only different
unequal, but you pride yourself on honor
and i have little enough of it to bequeath myself to you
we can go further
until these words disappear. i talk of the land of America
in proper nouns, asterisks. the United States. the FriXion Pen.
Cookies, Arcade Games, hot chocolate - no, that was around -
warm winter nights, but with a Jukebox and Christmas Tree;
summers with Piña Coladas. go Back, before Civilization,
before everything could have a Name, before Words. This, You And I.
Point - this Is pointing, this is Touching. i point To you and you to i
and That is this is We, and we
Are.
through the feathers
of my eyelids the world tilts,
shudders under a nightmare
-expunging breath. i cannot do
what i have to to love you. but i will rewrite
this world again and again and again
(the title is: relearning my native tongue)
remember the word for a deep grief
balahigit
remember the word for the world singing
huni
remember the word for water flowing
lagaslas
remember the word for letting time pass
ariyunda
what time is it where you are now?
salamisim
can you see the stars from over there?
malamlam
you can guess how i'd feel about that
marahuyo
alright. my flight's near, see you in a bit
pahimakas
galimgim
silahis
aninag
ikaw.
(the title is: i will miss you dearly)
i will write. exhale. ask the air what is the shape of profound
losing. (all night long) i will beg for August to stay. drink tea
-flavored seabreeze. (night long cast) i will loose the roiling
heart into the underpass. glow pink. (long cast away) i will
dredge from sewerbeds scarves, coats. drag nylon fishing lines.
(cast away life) i will crawl. the world will be made fools of by
another turtle. (away life dies) i will flip the page and write
again. solidify my endless toil. (life dies here) i will draw a bed
for you to sleep in. a box with three small holes. (dies here you)
i will ride the salt, nitrogen, and other airborne compounds. i
will make that crucial mistake again. the one that ends with you
(here you are) and i'm going to make it (you are you) i'm not i
am lying please (are you here) let me lie again in your arms (you
here me) you have to look at everything (here me) unfinished,
can half-open, zippers starry, fish herding the sky on the waters
towards the grace borne of free air. taste the cherry-chocolate
of freshly opened jasmines. get drunk. all year long i will ascend
deer-trail, goat-trail, ibex-trail, snow, water, vapor, void of space,
screaming, bringing sound to the universe until you feel all of it
calling your name. i can be home. i can be anything but right now
i will miss you dearly
lunging for you
again and again and again and a
gain .
(the title is: draft #2)