Perhaps Provence
Pedaling behind you and
your South of France chapeau,
a wide-brimmed beehive
buzzing with beauty; your pale
linens blousing in the breeze.
Pedaling past the purple and
gold swallowed meadow,
the chartreuse-stained barn,
the soon-to-be-sunflowered field
of another August, past fountains
of blue hydrangea and flocks
of rose hips and tiger lilies,
down to the absinthe ocean.
out on the South Fork of Long Island
Sagaponack,
New York
July 1998
from The Speed of Sight
Earth Mates
Let's join our hands.
Fill our hearts
like billowing sails.
And go,
without further ado.
On life's calling tide;
its favoring currents.
Turn our faces
to the sun,
the guiding stars.
Tune our ears
to the music
of the days,
our dreams;
each other's
sea-song eyes.
Lean our lovers' bodies,
salty and wild,
eagerly in
to every wind
and wonder.
Morristown,
New Jersey
2017
My Modigliani
Your roseate face gazes
straight out
from the frame
you’re painted in.
Making,
like other Amadeos,
open eye contact
with the viewer.
But for this moment
you are my Modigliani
and no other’s,
with your elongated lines
of black silk and velvet;
your languorously
outstretched body
turned at a diagonal
yet graceful angle
on the barest suggestion
of lamplit couch. Where
you appear one-dimensional
but are clearly three
or four; sensual,
quietly erotic, individual;
with your lips kissed
onto the canvas
and your eyes inward
and outward;
self-satisfied, expressive.
And the skin of your neck
and hands showing,
all glowing, luminously
out into the moving room,
where a pink young lady
is having a party
with cake and candles
while I enjoy the sight
of my beautiful, dark and
breathing Modigliani.
on Central Park West
New York City
January 2005
from The Speed of Sight
A Midsummer’s Night Gown
As I duskdream
in the evening breeze,
eyes half open
to the outstretched water;
under high green canopies
that silksong
with leaves and robin’s wings,
and cicadas that fade up
and out at the edges
of my ears,
I imagine you appear,
moving gently,
midsummerly
here;
move toward me
through the clovered glade
in a gown
of glowing fireflies:
their dreamlight
draping your bare shoulders,
floating over your long arms;
lighting your irises;
lamping the widening night
around you
with a deep enchantment.
in Central Park
New York City
Summer 2013
Luz de Vela
ode to candlelight
You who brings
such comfort
to the darkness;
spires of meditation
to the stillness.
Who tenders light
with simple grace-
fulness. You
who dances
on tables
and faces,
bedclothes
and bathwaters.
Who enchants
the mind's-eye
to flicker back
through rooms
and nights,
dinners and gardens,
romances;
remembrances
of other moving,
candle-lit moments.
And glows on
faithfully
thousands of years
and stories,
and many a poet's
heart-soft reveries
later, O Luz
de Vela.
on Degraw Street
Cobble Hill,
Brooklyn
April 2017
Pasodoble
El Beso, mi amor.
Of bodies, of lips.
Ripe, rhythmic, con pasión.
Hearts meeting,
beating doubly.
Your bull in the ring,
my ram, but no fighting,
only dancing, only loving.
Sombreros y Mantilles, mi amor,
of violet feelings,
scarlet flowers.
on DeGraw Street
Cobble Hill,
Brooklyn
May 2016
Sometimes Saudade
"Tenho saudades tuas."
Sometimes
the longing sings
so soul deep.
So untranslatably.
Like the Portuguese.
Into speechless,
laungageless
moments, days
when saudade
surprises and
suffuses my body,
spirit, cells.
Mixes them with
waves of sinking
and swelling,
missing and yearning.
Sweetness and
bitter-sweetness.
Aching and gladness.
For all the wonders,
the sense memories ~
of the bliss
found and lost.
Of swimming
in the sun, sea
and wild air
of Great Love.
Of being once
with another
greatly free-flowing,
waking and
dreaming lover.
on Degraw Street
Cobble Hill,
Brooklyn
April 2017