Blue Rock Read online

BLUE ROCK

  ...........................

  contemporary love poems

  by Jnana Hodson

  ...........................

  copyright 2014 Jnana Hodson

  ~*~

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  ~*~

  ~*~

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Blue Rock

  About the Author and More

  ~*~

  for those angels who weren't

  ~*~

  BLUE ROCK

  ~*~

  I

  As I was catching my breath, whatever intimacy

  I shared with you turned against me. As I was

  catching my breath, you tenderly implored me

  to "keep the door open." As I was catching my

  breath, I glimpsed behind your golden facade. As

  I was catching my breath, the yoga was having

  its effect. As I was catching my breath on that windy

  boardwalk, I proposed marriage. As I was catching

  my breath, she phoned me twice, first to spoil

  my day, and then to pump me for information.

  ~*~

  II

  Crawling into faces on the cover, we probably

  could settle on one place I thought you resided. Crawling

  into obvious signs of amateurism, I am original

  by default. Crawling into a lasting monument

  you will smile on me, please. Crawling into cow skulls

  and elk vertebrae, speak only what will bring us

  closer. Crawling into seashells and antique crockery,

  she wonders if there will even be a birthday card

  in her mail. Crawling into her pickup or '60s Mustang,

  you encounter limestone walls lined with leather-bound

  books resplendent in gold trim and lettering.

  ~*~

  III

  Let's say we've no business trying

  to govern larger bodies. We'll volunteer

  nothing unless asked. Let's say prophecy

  rarely survives near centers of clout so we'll

  type resumes for positions we don't want

  but dare not refuse. We'll thus bow for the applause

  befitting ambition. Let's say you fear aging

  or the weight issue so we'll pack up the last

  of your possessions and take in a movie. Let's

  say that volume had been recommended to you

  so we'd embark on sometime in-between. Let's say

  I tried to live up to your instruction so we'd soon

  compile our own great scorecards. Let's say you

  were the first of my long-distance romances

  so I'll keep waiting for a phone call.

  ~*~

  IV

  I inhale afternoon sunlight

  soil that needs peat moss and sand

  I exhale my sentence mid-turn

  on a ledger with children as nickels and pennies

  I inhale a pattern of fern shadows

  musical fruition

  I exhale graffiti inked into your body

  forever a sewing machine cheerleader

  I inhale a patio grill

  lifetime of betrayals

  I exhale a fear of dying alone

  expecting an eighteen-year-old mistress

  ~*~

  V

  Next exit, a torch speechless in trembling night

  will speed away with my fantasy. Next exit, grease

  frightens even the one who possesses what I speed

  along, and for once she obeys. Next exit, you blame me

  for trusting you each time we speed across urban junkyards.

  Next exit, begrudging splendor, I snoop for myself and then

  speed through a tract promising salvation. Next exit, we tally

  the symptoms so speedily you satisfy in ways that exceed

  any reality. Next exit, you confuse me for a bandstand

  speedier than imported English bicycles in Huffy City.

  ~*~

  VI

  An angel who does not touch brass weights with

  her fingers has worked nights and weekends.

  A rented tuxedo demon instills action.

  How your bondage contemplates taut slumber.

  In a Pyrex angel's beaker, passions vaporize

  before condensing as reliability or delusion.

  Even a tennis-court demon fears black-robed magistrates

  ordering child-support from lottery winnings.

  A paddleboat angel tilts away from the trap

  of suburban marriage. No matter. Neglected by each

  of the others, an Erlenmeyer-flask demon

  calls that bluff within a puddle of light.

  ~*~

  VII

  Demonic motifs and contrived aspirations

  dismissed the hair salon and cosmetic

  angel coming to love, and loving to come

  unlocked a knotty pine cafeteria

  possession, and a desire to make music

  for male and female lovers coupled to promise.

  So much of my adulthood has been a fireworks.

  Any scabbed childhood accepts failure or

  relies on illusion, a delusion and stanzas

  that came along pursuing fruit stand obsessions.

  An angel with freckles got pregnant

  before I could contemplate damaged goods.

  ~*~

  VIII

  The naked couple

  dives from the rim.

  Flirts briefly.

  Begins a wild weekend.

  Multiplies what it is given.

  Panics at addressing strangers.

  Slips away under covers.

  ~*~

  IX

  The face of this sorceress narrowed at dusk.

  As freckles vanished, her skin grew milky and

  eyes turned strangely firm and heavy.

  The mass of phone numbers and addresses

  stamped passion marks on another neck.

  Sleeping around with all the predictable results

  so ferociously tangled tresses.

  She pulled me closer every time somebody came

  upstairs teeth broke vessels in her aureole.

  A sorceress delineates the subjugation

  of a farmhouse porch light on Saturday nights.

  Attentiveness involves more than observing.

  You know nothing of the ways she reflects your art,

  your garden, infidelities, and refusal to commit.

  ~*~

  X

  Anything I want, if I'll try

  a box of bad grammar

  in your closet, let's build a Jacuzzi:

  Grass in your closet is still green.

  Tennis may be upcoming.

  Laughter's just an invitation to wild flight.

  ~*~

  XI

  You gave me ancient points of conflict where I mow

  the lawn. I gave you splintering wood and horsehair

  plaster from our evenings on the porch. You gave me

  the edge of Illinois prairie where pain and betrayal

  are both in the genetic helix. I gave you a spider web

  of worldly attraction and deadly illusion from the museum

  of natural history's woods and fields. You gave me a confu
sed

  perplexing letter where you refer to personal growth

  in the past ten years. I gave you half of our penultimate

  conversation from the Stillwater Friends meetinghouse.

  ~*~

  XII

  You decided to tease the bridegroom before the wedding.

  I choose a falsehood leading into another.

  You concluded a dash of orange would brighten the place.

  I am a commercial mimicking detergents.

  You decided to tickle me when I became too serious.

  I choose to become some kind of New Age holy roller.

  You concluded we knew degrees of genius

  in our mountain meadow.

  I am a tribulation quite close to my heart.

  ~*~

  XIII

  You own Judaic life and culture.

  I pay in my soul. You own the soft

  restfulness of lavender. I put a deposit

  on the U-Haul. You own pickled hair

  and off-the-beam arms covering your

  grinning headlights. I subscribe

  to this year's symphony. You own back-fence

  design or belly-god stealth. I shell out

  for a pizza delivery. You own the smooth

  curve of silk panties. I pay whenever

  we go shopping. You own a meticulous

  hoppergrass wonderment. I pick up the tab

  when you demand a central dormer in the roof.

  ~*~

  XIV

  When I heard Goldilocks speak frequently of

  unconditional love, she was not much better

  than me, but more demanding in a multitude

  of second chances I held out for her.

  When I heard how jealous she became,

  I lived down the street from the row house

  where Scott Fitzgerald drafted

  "Tender Is the Night," and she wasn't.

  When I heard her accuse me of having

  a great black hole in my soul, she went

  one way, while I headed another.

  When I heard no reconciliation is possible,

  she masked lust with delusion.

  When I heard how often people at home

  assumed we were living together, she would

  have ridded me of my three-piece tailored

  managerial suits. She preferred tuxedos.

  When I heard her panic as time slipped away

  from her control, she became

  ever more vulnerable to revelation.

  ~*~

  XV

  We planted onions and cucumbers

  to come up heads or tails.

  We harvested sweet corn in new hybrids

  to prepare secrets and memories so tangled.

  We planted radishes and scallions

  to come up flipping stunted carrots.

  We harvested green beans in cow manure

  to prepare contrasting oppositions.

  We planted a fluorescent bulb in peat moss

  and sand to come up as language betrays us.

  We harvested imagination melting through

  male and female to prepare adolescent or mature.

  ~*~

  XVI

  You touched cast-iron bedposts painted ivory

  in my unbearably stuffy summer

  bedroom. You touched limitations of trust,

  trusting in my black-and-white zone. You touched

  oil paint on canvas in my storehouse

  memberships. You touched Wednesday night

  church fellowships in my graduate school

  library. You touched the hound I was walking

  in my water-soluble India ink.

  ~*~

  XVII

  My touch is honest, direct,

  trustful in your old-fashioned

  beautician school. My touch

  is domestic, earthy, self-

  starting in your soil that demands

  bundles of peat moss and sand.

  My touch desires children and

  a home in your distress of

  being obsessed by one who

  never existed apart

  from musical performance.

  My touch is comfortable

  outdoors in a snorting and

  growling motorcycle. My

  touch quietly possesses

  without jealousy in your

  embrace of unrevealed

  destiny. My touch has strong

  rational capacity

  in your turning me into

  the bad boy of your life.

  ~*~

  XVIII: Matters of Taste

  You tasted a man reduced to a ledger

  with his children as nickels and pennies.

  You tasted an afternoon lawn Frisbee

  return as a vampire at midnight.

  You tasted personalization and blame

  growing ever more harmoniously together

  in a debate over a sofa and television.

  You tasted an occasional saint in my life

  who comes with flesh attached in a countryside

  laced with caverns.

  You tasted an angel who also cuddles and caresses

  under basketry arranged on the walls.

  ~*~

  XIX

  You taste meals flowing from my strawberry

  mission in life. You taste cinnamon and

  bittersweet in my secret beach bunny opera.

  You taste oregano in my improbably green

  rounds. You taste wine from neighborhood soil

  in my periodic chart of coupling. You taste

  a cocktail party for coworkers in December

  where I pour on my ability to share deep

  emotions. You taste a clear musical voice

  in my reverse-template sewing-machine

  cheerleader now matter how she barks through

  a cabbage-fart tournament in a nearby theater.

  ~*~

  XX

  At night the chosen one will be everything

  before dawn's cruel Hacker of Hearts. At night

  you embrace an unknown destiny

  before dawn rejects other opportunities,

  At night with the telephone, it's to your advantage

  to turn me into the bad boy of your life

  before dawn comes after conquest. At night you admire

  my goose-down sleeping bag before dawn

  language betrays us. At night I would feel entrapped

  in a suburban marriage before dawn

  when the wood stove has turned icy. At night

  surreal combatants jeopardize any resplendence

  I would contemplate in your taut slumber before dawn

  I have had to rely on what has often been

  a self-destructive intuition grafted to promise.

  ~*~

  XXI

  You promised we would fight as I have

  never disputed before but I found

  a love poem is coming.

  You promised healing as a quest

  but I found a cure will differ.

  You promised me you believe in marriage

  but I found we will never be "in place."

  You promised a gentle smile and beguiling voice

  but I found a stack of critical reviews.

  You promised intimate union, no matter what,

  but I found an heirloom bone-handled

  plain farm dinner fork to use daily.

  You promised live serenading as we rounded an island

  but I found most actors and actresses

  are poor judges of scripts.

  ~*~

  XXII

  In my pocket you would

  put family photos, letters,

  and religious tracts from the

  1800s. In my pocket

  with roots in Ohio's sturdy

  limestone soils you

  would pour
mellow oak

  forest hiking and camping

  on both coasts. In my

  pocket your fingers thought

  they knew what I wanted

  when you would have

  come away with me. In

  my pocket is a piece of

  velvet to roll in your profusion

  of hair. In my pocket

  I have wrapped a vial

  of wild strawberries you

  would apply as a trace of

  eyeliner. In my pocket are

  brass weights for the

  laboratory balance your

  oily fingers dare not touch.

  ~*~

  XXIII

  With your words seeking permission to tell me about

  something came support groups or group therapy. With

  your words toasting our clambake came an opportunity

  to double the whammy of my effort. With your words

  looking for a rainbow, there came a mosaic of my

  character demanding to know what makes me happiest

  and your words timing my daily rounds here

  brought words probing my own favorite hang-up

  and wondering if I have a roommate came your words,

  "I think we're done here." With your words Dear Secret

  Attraction there came words ordering me to record my

  emotions and rate each on a scale from zero dwelling

  on my negatives and ignoring positives there we came.

  ~*~

  XXIV

  My hands clumsily attempt

  to impress you in your desire

  to hear a seashore. My hands establish

  the norms of a sandbox in your cul-de-sac

  garage sale of passion. My hands admit

  emptiness on many fronts in your missionary

  service. My hands open an empty wallet

  in your slope of inerrant literalists and

  insincere hospitality. My hands reach confused

  terror in your squall line presaging snow.

  My hands attend the same church

  in your impatient conniving depths.

  ~*~

  XXV

  You left monastic repression where I recall

  a knee-socked roller skater approached me, too.

  You left the police chief, after the attempted rape

  of his daughter, where I discern some resemblance.

  You left while all your brothers went sailing

  where my smiling innocent cheerleader

  extends her rounded sweater.

  You left everything we desired because life was

  so dangerous where I head into orbit.

  You left the sensual touch, cupping a bra,

  French kissing where I confront darkness.

  You left the theatre, foreign films, wild style

  where I take intellectual refuge.

  ~*~

  XXVI

  You sound a piano

  in months of lonely nights waiting.

  You sound ever joyful

  in the messages you left

  on my answering machine.

  You sound angry with your children

  and angry at your parents

  in your scornful attacks

  on my spiritual practice.

  You sound so utterly phony

  it must be sincere

  in the opening chapters of Hosea.

  You sound so far down

  you want to end it all

  in a city where we were hardly urban.

  You sound like an ironing board

  in the hallway

  where I always blamed myself.

  ~*~

  XXVII

  You strike what has festered beneath the surface

  in a contrast between courtship and echo.

  You strike major and minor keys

  in nightmares presenting a disguised canary.