Love

All posts tagged Love

Geisha

Published January 17, 2013 by rlmcdermott

She was a dangerous girl
all darkness
kept in a shoebox in his closet

at night she’d listen to his heart
a glass harp
played by holding her hand
just above his breastbone

this is love she thought
this silence
this slow descent into suffering
this dancing on the edge of a glass
eyes closed arms akimbo
splintered feet bleeding

she wouldn’t have it any other way
this music
this dance
this love

in the spring
there will be cherry blossoms
walking in her favorite garden
camellias and the eastern sunIPHONE GEISHAA

DEROS

Published December 14, 2012 by rlmcdermott

He came
air evac’d
from Camp
Red Cloud;
a thirty mile
flight seizing
all the way.

They stopped
the seizures
but could not
stop the blood–
we worked
sixteen-hour
shifts for a week

His mother came
three days before
he died. She
held his hand
and asked him
if he couldn’t stay
a few more days.

He died on my day off
when the dragon flies
low to the ground
and the ginkgo is full of fruit.

We Go Along

Published November 29, 2012 by rlmcdermott

we go along
as if nothing
is happening

as if the cancer
is a dream
and we can
wake up
and you’ll
be there
young and strong

today
I drew a picture
I wrote a poem
I peeled an orange
and listened to a song

these things I do
while you fight
to stay alive

the picture wasn’t beautiful
the poem didn’t rhyme
the orange was sour
and the song

there are no songs
that can comfort you
you are the one
who is fighting
for your life

a visit from a friend
tickets to a Giant’s game
your wife’s smile

these are the things
you do while I fight
to stay alive

two diseases
both cruel
mine is a secret
your’s belongs to the world

you long to be private
while I long to be seen

The Fortune

Published October 22, 2012 by rlmcdermott

I am not afraid!

I have lived with death
so long that it’s a friend,
a flower growing in a garden
yet to be discovered–
a song unwritten.

This was meant to be,
you and I,
this never meeting,
this always being met.

I’ll stand beside you,
I’ll walk the walk
until the road grows steep
and flowers bend their heads.

I’ll be the love that lets you go,
the love that never leaves;
I’ll live a thousand lifetimes
and die a thousand deaths
until I find you in the paper trees,
the silver moon, the polished stone.

I’ll be all autumn and all spring,
the seasons of my love will never cease,
and I will bring you home again
where home has never been.

Eurydice’s Last Words to Orpheus

Published October 7, 2012 by rlmcdermott

I knew that
it would burn
but I wanted
one more chance
to feel the heat.

Fire is as fire
does–it turns
to ashes all
it loves.

Up the narrow
path I went
riding shotgun
on my art–

the god ahead
was not a god
but just a man.

Inside the flame
I could not hear
whose name
he called;

I thought it mine
but I was wrong–
the song was beautiful
but it was not my song.

A woman scorned
is just a woman
scorned but I am
so much more;

and so, I’ll keep
my hand inside
the flame

and he will never know
the stillness of my fire,
the beauty of my name.

The Spindle

Published October 4, 2012 by rlmcdermott

I think of women
sitting at their looms
and sunny afternoons
spent reading fairy tales

I think of red-haired boys
in cowboy hats and sailor suits
running home from school

this poem’s for me it’s not for you

I say goodbye not
because you weren’t
there but because
you didn’t try

you lied and that’s the truth

these are the things of my life
an empty loom
a red-haired boy
a memory of you

goodbye to love
it wasn’t real
I made it up
to help me feel alive

now spindle cells have stopped me dead

and I cannot pretend
that what I hold is thread