After quite a few years of deliberation and denial, I have decided it's time to actually take some steps toward my goal of becoming a writer and making some of my poetry public. I've been having dreams with shadow figures encouraging me toward more confidence, more openness. So here we go. If you read it, please tell me what you think!
Thanks all,
-RB
1. Yes, And
Your weekend was great
Yes, and I thought about seeing a film.
Yes, and I would have taken a yoga class, but my teeth hurt that day.
Yes, and you told me something else about that -- about your teeth.
Yes, and you smiled.
Oh.
Yes.
Oh.
...And you took the last Kleenex!
Yes, and I”m sorry.
We both are.
Yes, and we both are.
Yes, and you once told me you belonged to everybody.
Yes, and you were fine with that.
Yes, and you believed it.
Yes.
...And here’s my foot atop your shoe.
Yes, and it’s come to rest ever so slightly against my heart.
Yes, and that’s where it should be, no?
Yes.
Yes, and.
Yes, and.
2. Ceasefire
-->
This bloody abandonment
on a battleground of veins:
water through a twisted pipe,
cigar smoke from a candle flame.
Espresso jolts expressed in steam
on open earth that bleeds black mud.
Filthy grounds, crimson-soaked filters,
kerosene across a tongue:
the taste of someone else’s dream
An oil puddle oozing grease.
A button come undone.
3. Separately, Together
Let’s be lonely together,
You and I,
And in that lonesome pairing draw
double toward:
As separate curtains on a rod’s two sides
Once pulled
Form a solitary veil.
We need no more than our respective breaths
Velcroed in the air,
Zipped twixt fate's fingertips,
Drawn tandem as magnets.
Parted from the rest, but
evermore the center of an idiom;
let’s be turtledoves.
