Easy Web

I remember lying in that crib
we called our home
the sweat of youth
and the disconcern
of those around
the swift buildings
in our souls
and the cars
crossed the causeway
and the wind held our
heads
and the salt
grabbed at our souls
until it was
time to leave

I remember you coming to me
through a window
I remember cursing
star filled skies
the elope of our damage
would never recover us
and the chance to runaway
never came up
I lost my trials against
the stone
and soon to come
was my eloquent death

I would go through those
pictures
after we were separated
from those we loved
and the chain reaction
of each other’s sight
I would sometimes feel you
beneath me, giving yourself, the unchild
I have grieved for Thee
even as recent
as today
I’ll never leave that place
I made for you

The sonnets are left above the sky
and that love was a hell
unconceived, a damp passion
through an adolescent enigma
one day I may love…
each time I come back
it rules that shelf I bent
it’s a merciless sham
that penetrates
even my darkest showers
even the sun gives its rest
I pace the evening
and die again
like a man who’s never seen

It’s a causal holocaust between these words
it’s a damaged grunt aloud
because it was too shameless
because I know it never lied
not wrought or written bitter
it’s a mutilated baby in space
not craving or needing
because blood was not a cost
nor a fee
it was the brutal warmth
that doesn’t break
like a dark scar
or placid like the epitome
of my breath on the sand
or the way your eyes turned away
as I watched your body stand against
the shutterless shadow you gave

I will one day
lose my mind
for the focus of faith
that grew in groves
to be given to all others
but each other
had you ever left that world
had I given with fear
I would have never needed
to act
or leave my home
instead I’ll install that closet
to the past moment
a frequent trauma
a deluge in quarry

it is as much to ignore
as to quiver with




ШАМРО

selected from The Greatest Cowboy That Was Ever Sad
© 1990 Private Stock Poetry
The Tender Mercy Insignia*

January 23, 1990

from: Manfred (Act I, Scene II)

A lower Valley in the Alps. – A Cataract.

If I had never lived, that which I love
Had still been living; had I never loved,
That which I love would still be beautiful
Happy and giving happiness. What is she?
What is she now? – a sufferer for my sins –
A thing I dare not think upon – or nothing.
Within a few hours I shall not call in vain—
Yet in this hour I dread the thing I dare:
Until this hour I never shrunk to gaze
On spirit, good or evil – now I tremble,
And feel a strange cold thaw upon my heart.
But I can act even what I most abhor,
And champion human fears.—the night approaches.



LORD BYRON
b. January 22, 1788

(1816-1817)

from: ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE

The triumph, and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife—
The earthquake voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;
The sword, the scepter, and that sway
Which man seem’d made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife –
All quell’d – Dark Spirit! what must
be
The madness of thy memory!




LORD BYRON
April 10, 1814