I Can’t Defy The Rain
I can’t defy the rain
As you stand there holding it in your hand
I can’t deny the shadows of the night
As they swirl within your mysterious hair
I can’t forget the clouds
As they emerge from your lovely deadly mouth
I can’t grasp the earth
That is your miraculous and trembling brown body
I can’t breathe without the air
In the sky of your laugh and in the atmosphere of your smile
I can’t ignore the stars
As they lie imprisoned in your deep secret eyes
I can’t defy the rain
That you hold in your hand
My own body deluged
At the very thought of your hands turning over upon me
The sound of your voice is the tide
Your open arms the waves upon the sea
As they recede and as they fall
Away from my heart and upon my heart like a resolute stone
Your heartbeat the birdcalls of the morning
Your pulse the brash singing of the moving rivers
I can’t defy the rain
I can only pray for it like a farmer whose crops are nearly dust
I can’t desecrate the memories of the history of our time on earth
That are expelled in your every whisper and sigh
Revelation
It was like a revelation
The first morning I woke up
With your body beside my body,
Smelling your presence like fresh coffee.
You were all of the angels singing
And beating their wings in time
Like that Rolling Stones song.
There are devils hiding beneath the beer caps
And angels swimming in the suds.
Tonight the angels are swimming
In some kind of Busby Berkley synchronicity
As I remember small times,
One by one by one
With you having this hold on me.
The devils will wait for another night.
It was like a revelation
The first morning I woke up
Knowing you would never return,
The room smelling like nothing
And me feeling like nothing.
All of the angels dead for a moment,
Only to return as ghosts
In nights like tonight.
The Shape Of Her Mouth
Just thinking about the shape of her mouth
Is three guitars and a mandolin
With a banjo and a stand-up bass
Playing a song about the most beautiful woman
The singer has ever seen
Dipping her feet into a frigid river
On a sunny and cool April Sunday morning
With a laughter in her eyes
As she thinks of the man she wishes could be there.
Just thinking about the shape of her mouth
And the music plays so sweetly
That I weep
In the darkness of this room, this night,
This world.
Whiskey Mixed With Honey
I dreamed her all of my life
and then one day she was there
in front of me:
skin the color of whiskey mixed with honey;
not only a voice to match but a heart;
an acre of wavy black hair that shines insanely red in the sun
and eyes as dark and voluptuously mysterious as obsidian.
I drink deeply of her
as she burns my gut
while soothing me,
making me dizzy and silly,
enamored with and guilty of my happiness.
Intoxicating, sweat, deceptively addictive,
I drink deeply of her
And am broken down in eyes like earth;
Built back up in eyes like earth.
Built back up from a boy
to a man.
The man I am.
