“I’m in love”
She declared,
And stepped back a yard
or so
To survey the impact.

“It’s the first time I ever liked anyone –
Ohofcourse I’ve liked a lot of people but ….”
“It’s the first time you really liked someone?” I suggested.
She smiled assent.

Come you then now,
All who really liked
And called it love,
All who came to this place
With intentions to deceive
By silence,
By violence,
By groans against a night,
Stealing precious light
And casting it to darkness:

Beyond the circle of fire
The glowing eyes can wait,
Too soon dies the pyre,
The flesh devoured by hate.

[1970]

Sing of springtime, when child and man alike
Scorns anachronistic concepts
And seeks the elemental spirit,
The keystone we know is never there.

If less time were spent in honest quest
And more in cynical seduction
Christ and law would suffer
But December would find more children born.

Love is the politics of springtime,
The compromise in the hayloft,
The bargain struck in the smoke-filled room,
The betrayal of trusts when summer heart abounds.

Let us quickly rape the virgin season
Lest we pause and be chaste for no reason.

“Guess what?
I won’t be seeing you ‘til Friday.”
You said.
Said too quickly.
Triumphantly, as if in punishment
(do you wish to punish me?)
Relievedly, the lifting of onerous compulsions.

I am a chore to you,
I know,
It is hard
(life is hard)
to be all things at once, and be them well.

So your mother issued a reprieve
(“So you don’t see him tomorrow; so what?”
She said,
I know –
I picture her very words –
The intractable logic of it all –
The finality of “so what?”)
And you eagerly snapped it up,
Relishing a day alone, wherein
I would not upclutter
The mill-race of your mind.

Sleep well, exhausted by the weight
Of doing all at once the things
Of life and love
both
together
merged
in the separate channels of your will.

There is time to love me tomorrow,
Having barked your “Just leave me alone” today,
I will wait
(I think …).
After all,
Life if hard in the living.

“Man Bites Dog for Love”
(Headline in your local newspaper, page 3)

Man bites dog; that’s news.
But bites for love – means what?
Loves whom, and how?
Can’t love dog, or else why bite?

Let’s try again.
Man bites dog for love of whom?
Not love of self, or wouldn’t bite.
Dogs taste bad, I’m told.

Okay, okay. Try again.
Man bites dog for love of woman.
Driven to it? Understood.
But untrue. Women won’t allow it.

So what’s this mean, all this news?
Man bites dog? A silly thing.
To bite a dog for the sake of love
Is not what a loving man should do.

Okay! Okay! I confess.
I bit the dog, for love of you.
Want more proof of how I feel?
I’ll eat him up: love mutt stew.

[These poems date from 1970 through the end of the ‘80s and explore the ups, downs, depressions and elations of personal relationships we categorize grossly as love and hate; it is actually far more complicated than that, as can be seen from the euphoric and bitter works below. Seems that I remain often wed to rhyme, clearly a 19th century affectation; but the rhyme creates a controlled mood that can express peace in pace, or sardonic reference to peace when really what is happening is war – or worse. As to the blank verse, freedom from rhyme permits stream of emotion much closer to how we experience emotion ab initio, in its unanalyzed initial iteration. In all events, never apologize for what you write; worst that can be said of it is that it is bad poetry, and as to that judgment – who is to say?]

Cadenza

You are my song of love,
Cadenza in the sky.
You are the birth of Spring,
A new-born virgin’s cry.
You are the moon at dusk
Along the silent seas.
You are the breeze at dawn
That frolics in the trees.
You are the voice of life
That rises from the light.
You are the first-seen star
Across the spreading night.
You are my symphony,
Sonatas of the soul.
Flarings of the cymbals,
Drums that dare to roll.
You are the rhythm beat,
The how and where and why.
You are my song of love,
Cadenzas in the sky.

Somewhere

Somewhere
across a night that knows no shadows
getting on towards morning
she came to me.

Seisin

I lay claim to you
And own you.
You are mine.
I refuse to be denied.
Well, you know it, and I know it,
And it’s time they knew it
Lest they trespass my domain
And learn to rue it.

Waiting

I love you when you smile.
I love you when you move.
So if you put my heart on trial
I don’t know what you’ll prove.
I’m willing to stand still
To wait while you decide
And when you’ve had your fill
I’m willing to abide.
I ask you just one thing:
I ask that you be kind.
Whatever news you bring
Be gentle on my mind.

Make Up Your Mind

Either you love me or you don’t.
Make up your mind.
I am a busy man.
Today I must sign a contract,
Sell a building,
Dine a bureaucrat
Or two,
And talk the whole thing over.
So answer me: do you love me?
If you need more time—let’s see…
I can give you another appointment
Tomorrow after three.

I Love You in Four Short Lines

I love you (in four short lines)!
It’s towards you my heart inclines.
With your life my life entwines.
See! One line left in rhymes.

I Love You in a Greater Number of Lines

Once,
There was a moment
Soft as gentle memory
Warm as glowing fire
Intertwining—refining—combining
Slightly tangled in dawning but
Arising
As stars burned deep onto the night—
Uncompromising,
Emphasizing
And then singing
Humming/purring and unfurling,
Releasing flowers and moist perfumes.
Once
There was a moment
And it was you.

I cannot make love to you when you speak.
Our very words are the anguish that they wreak.

You will not let me love you with your skin.
When I reach out you will not let me in.

My poems only soften for a while.
Your fears well up, the ultimate denial.

There isn’t any sense to what I do—
I really don’t know how I can love you.

By the way … can we get together Tuesday night?

No, I don’t think so. I think that I have to skip next week.

[Pause]

May I ask why?

[Pause]

My husband … When I got home the other night he didn’t even want to talk to me. He didn’t – couldn’t even talk to me. He didn’t even look at me. After about a half an hour, he started – talking naturally, but even then …. And I couldn’t even look at him … not that I didn’t want to — I was just so … ashamed.

[Long Pause]

I’m sorry.

It’s not your problem. I’m not asking you to do anything about it.

I know — I’m not saying it because I’m guilty about it. I just feel badly for you.

[Quietly] – Thank you.

You know, I react to this on a couple of levels. The first is, generally, I’m very sorry that you’re going through this. The second I almost hesitate to say. It’s on the — functional level. We talked – identified ways….

I know –

… where we could be together without being so regular, predictable.

I know, I thought about that. But, well …

You don’t have to tick off a checklist ….

They’re just not good, for me.

[Long Pause]

I’m sorry, I know this is not the best time for you.

Miss Lilly: How’d I get mixed up with a shoe salesman from New Jersey who thinks that he’s a cowboy?

Running Water: Don’t you know what Bronco Billy’s Wild West Show means? It means you can be anything you want to be.

What then is the promise
Of Laura in the morning,
Hung at edge of dawning
On the ledge of waking day?
An early, grumbling rising,
A hoarse, mellow surprising,
Then – galvanized unwinding
As she coils and spurts away.

And then, in work’s unsettling
There is a drive and brash expression,
As her energy’s compression
Escapes into the fray.
A middling, roiling fusion
Of an entire world’s confusion
Cannot cut illusion
Or cause the mind to stray.

In evening’s shallow shadows
There is still a pulse that’s beating;
‘Though the hours may be fleeting
There is still a will to stay.
And as coyness comes uncovered,
As she learns the word “beloved,”
And is shocked not to be smothered
By the ebb and flow of play ….

At last it’s time for sleeping
And the restless search for calmness,
And she curls and twists in warmness
“neath the cover that must fray.
And at her last inch of waking,
Reaching out with foot and taking –
It’s an effort that’s worth making
Or – at least – that’s what she’ll pray.

It’s so nice that I don’t love her anymore.
I don’t even care that she showed me the door,
That her anger even now eats at my core –
See, I don’t even love her any more.

It’s just as she had told me at the time.
A relief to be freed of all that slime.
I don’t have to strain to smile, or laugh or rhyme;
Don’t have to act sincere all the time.

You may think it’s really hard to live my life,
But I simply do my job and love my wife,
And take refuge in the absence of the strife
That used to mark the tensions of my life.

My life is so sublimely set and yet
I have a single quelling sad regret.

If I’m happier than anyone you’ve met
Why do I believe I love her yet?