Want Where No Word

I Invent for you a new astronomy:

Our old language with its hoary sooth 

Presage no longer glories our moments, 

Fall through the rime of tense

Where tone to plot characters the immense

Postponed knot of our coupling.

I missed you before I knew your name, 

And I knew I could not keep you, felt

You before I knew you were there, and

I knew I could not keep you,

Tasted you before I saw 

Your face, held you before you

Knew my name, and I, 

New, could not keep you.

These lines I will trace, never seen,

On your face, hold you, vase to mirror not

Between us – yet, this space we will

Create to emblaze amidst the planets – 

Name them now, new, replace

Them with little hopes, small burials – 

Hold them to the river where we cross, 

where we cross.

Time becomes quartered for you today, 

Every hour like four.  You will think

Of me, even though you will create 

Me to dream me.  Yellow will be the attend

Ant shading, quarters become eighths,

Sixteenths, thirty-second notes, 

Allegro.

You will dream me, thinking of you, creating

You, knowing shade of brown that is blue is missed

The most.  Your tales and tells and …

Will fluctuate:  beg to differ, who does not in this pittance

To empire, to empire, the wealth spread as you see fit

Amongst the overcome pillars and pillows, gently lay

Your head on my knob, regardless.  The luminous sea

Is stilled, agonizing, in wait,

Knowing you’re coming, knowing you are

Becoming, here I am, lying in bed, stripped, next to you:

language takes

the bullet.

Two rocks, by river,

One marked:  reparation,

The other:  goodbye.

Choosing, you walk away, 

Cross, walk,

Cross away

Becoming, I am in here, lying next, 

Stripped, to you in bed.  Lifting no fog

Heavy today, no ghosts, haunts,

Shadows just fog, riding your crest, 

Suffocating for a word, holding

Your breath in my mouth, for a nod,

For a gesture.

Your bare back like dove’s wings,

A-flutter at my sleep.

Selfish, it is too much this silence, 

This lack of you:  a gesture,

Breathe, that I may touch your dearth,

And wait,

And wait, one word, your word.

I am in here, becoming, lying, riding your silence, your

Air, your ground, stripped this sound of you,

This jazz, this blue blowing on the read

Of my being – you, word to my letter, parse

To my sentence, I fill you,

And you mute my longing, a breath,

I’m full of tune.

You will supply name, insert at chance 

The stilled murmurings of language’s signed game, 

A signal with taste of the tocsin’s primal

Déjà vu, this waste of return, resist, re-sign

To happenstance at occur,

To surprise at space between us, filled.

I do not

Know misery, stilled

I do not know wish or will.

Missing, I only imagine you

Entwined, this moment’s

Lanky kiss, at my base,

At your core,

Water to our silvered silences, 

I do not know, imperfect tense:

Here I, becoming, lie, next to naked, you, word

A bullet between us:

speak 

speak

speak

© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved