[lit-ideas] Re: Apologies For Posting Too Much
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2006 08:13:31 -0800
Powerful work, Steve!
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Steve Chilson
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2006 1:16 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Apologies For Posting Too Much
I do apologise, particularly for having nothing of interest to say and
for making you delete too often and frequently.
As penance, I leave a poem of mine for you to ponder:
FLIGHT
Mischievous winds kidnapped the evidence
of my love on paper, cupped it upwards.
out, scooped it with invisible hands,
carried it down the mouths of avenues,
scrolls of my blown words flown past the feet of
strangers, the nipping jaws of dogs over
parked cars, hugging any fence or leafstalk,
slapped against a windshield like a flyer
advertising lagniappes before lively
dancing tarantellas in and out of
shadows, not as I'd hoped, through your opened
window, but finally out of vision.
So the words I'd warily scripted and
tucked in before midnight, (hoping you might
find them awake, ready to speak today,)
were stolen from my grasp en route, after
a demi-tasse and brioche, strolling down
the street to your room, set free by winds who
lunged and snatched with veiled malevolence. The
descriptions of my love, so carefully
wrung from my heart unto paper, are now
as worthless as the chirping birds whose song
you can not decipher: All excuses
created with clarity, while at home,
alone, you waited, perfectly sanguine.
II. HER WANING PATIENCE
Divinity is a sleep from which I'll wake.
Deficient love assumes another texture.
Incalescent, steamy worlds cool, leaving dew.
My capacity
for tenacity, holding on to thinning
films of faith, evaporates with little left
to cling to. I'll retain this expectation,
but not forever.
III. TEMPORALITY IS BLISS
How frugle, to attempt preserving love
as though it were a fruit. As though there were
no periods of senscence, no dates
of expiration. Are you not aware
this fruitious flesh will be forced one day
to wither, to accept its seedless future?
I would pledge instead, a pared-down version
whose courage falls from the core, ounce by ounce,
until we are bare of expectation,
reduced to eating only what is ripe.
IV. VOWS AND CRIES AND SONGS
This breath of love I've drawn in expectation
of a fragrant song exhaled has now grown foul
for lack of faith. I will not draw another
without evidence
of commitment. These mocking words of yours
are masks you use to hide your deeper fears
rooted in a world you refuse to show.
Why don't you confess?
V. THE LAW OF THE SUPPLIANT
Shall I confess that a songstress perched with
the intent of nesting in my heart should
persuade me to exist solely to serve,
a slave to the Law of the Suppliant?
That I should not protect myself as fruits
of passion grow so fat upon the bough
they could snap the limb we both rest upon?
You must slow down. Commitment doesn't come
when it must be drawn like blood from ardour.
I will be of little use, growing pale
and weak with obsession for the songstress.
VI. HER CLASH WITH REALITY
Reluctantly I see I cannot shape such
strong aversion to commitment, nor will I
find in you a man so devoted he would
disregard his fear
of courtly love. So am I left with only
modern applications, apprehensions fueled
by self-absorption such as yours? This alone
will never suffice.
VII. HIS SURRENDER
You win. It has not been enough to pledge
there are no others. Nor enough to vouch
that the radiance of every woman
darkens in the shadows of your gestures.
Is this your rendition of commitment?
If you want subservience then I will
renounce myself solely so my every
waking moment will be spent composing
catchy jingles of my love for you, songs
announcing to the world how powerless
I am in your wake. Yes, you can have all
my love, every ounce and leftover crumb.
But is this selfless dedication worth
more than what you had before? I wonder
what it is you wanted more, some clichéd
validation of devotion, some frail
token of my dying dedication?
You speak of fears and masks that I possess.
I seek to keep a portion of myself.
But as you wish, you'll have your evidence:
deception that will only fool yourself.
VIII. HER FAREWELL
No, I see this not as sincerity, just
a different brand of fear. Not, as it once seemed,
as a terror of commitment but now this
newer panic owed
to dread of loneliness. It is not me whom
you seek to love, but a false reflection of
yourself. This fruit of love I sought from you has
rotted with remorse.
IX. HIS LESSON
What element of cruelty persuades you
now to leave, when you have me on my knees?
Although I loved as richly as I could,
you leave me for possibility
someone else could love you more? Whom have you
deceived, yourself or me? You demanded
I succumb, that I buckle from the pangs
of love, that I weep, rotting my wooden
soul and all for what? So you could render
me speechless but for sighs? So you could make
light of my bewilderment? Abandoned,
I discover that you prefer to leave
behind the memory of your love to mourn
with me. But I will construct some patchwork
mistress and reach a lofty excellence
without this hinderance of loving first.
--
Steve Chilson
stevechilson@xxxxxxxxxxx
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