Confession

For poets Stephen, Erik, Elisabeth and Shimmer.


You told me the other day:
people can't read between the lines.

My life is a play of words
carefully rehearsed
yet I always forget what to say.

Unlike Garbo
who claimed she really said,
"I want to be left alone,"
I've gone all the way
courting emptiness
cool as an August lake
to wash the sweat of society,
stench of anxiety.

When real tragedies
unwrap my protections
you'll find a body
half drowned with wishing.

Press me to the bed
and never release me.
Bind me in your arms
until I weep for mercy
and beg you to love me forever.

Thanks

This morning's poem was intended to be additional to my regular daily post, but I'm deeply grateful for the warm response to it and find I have little else to say today. I don't expect poems to receive more than two or three comments, even if they're good, even if they're what I like writing the most.

For music buffs, on the way to the gym the "Saturday Night Waltz" from Aaron Copland's Rodeo, an old favourite, came on the radio and struck me at once as the perfect companion for the poem. The same sense of sublimated longing. Okay, it's schmaltzy.

Now I have to go finish cleaning, because Danny's coming.