Chuck deVarennes

Stared till I had to see
If that was she whom
I had met before.

I'm beyond control.
Arousal  draws her spark
to the whirlwind:

I want my lips
to rove, my tongue taste every
place passion leads.

Wrapped limbs know
Her soul by
My whole form.

She will sing!
Passion's cries
Raise me high

Kiss her eyelids,
Trace poems on her belly,
Risk the fire inside her.

I'll hear her song
Explode my ears in
Concert with the rest.

We will compose
Together every inch,
body and soul.

Wholly consumed:
passion fused to
One hot coal.

Part of me replays the old tapes
which tell me that I've never been as good as I should be
that losing my marriage is a natural consequence
of my condition, and loneliness is a penance
I must serve, an act of contrition.

I don't believe this anymore, except when I am weary
and my energy is low, when I can't face a single one
of a dozen tasks I've set myself
and nonsense words scrawl across my notebook pages.

I welcome the unplanned and frustrate
those who'd fill the calender's squares.
Yet I'm uneasy with not knowing
now that I'm of middle age.

I replay old songs that say,
"Find my mate or I will be
condemned to lonesome nights
for all eternity.

A couple years ago I took
a blindside blow and moved
within evolving pain until I found

I can live without a lover
to turn to when the nights grow cold.
I'm not rated by the state
of my romantic situation.

I've amended that truth, forgotten it,
remembered again and tempered it
under newly colored lights:

Desire will act.  Instinct blends
with eyes and sex, my mind and soul.
Patience will be thrown aside,
and I'll have what I can find.

The body will go where the mind won't follow.
Better to know whole love
than to share a hollow hour, the guilty sense
and wailed laments of someone's dreams gone sour.

So I want      but without seeking.
Not making phantoms in the air.
I am trying to learn patience
though the body's never patient.

Dear friend, I suffer and glory
though the ride is not so scary.
Heaven nor hell comes with one day.
I feel the juice from every joyous soul.

Often enough my spirit shines
through someone's darkness.
I find the light that ends my gloom
across the spectrum.

I am all right and know just enough
truth to keep my soul from spinning
past control and smashing
into the old steel fables
I beat myself against when I was young.

My hunger's not diminished since the times
when my romantic fancies played.
I still hope one day I'll wake up
inside a dream made real.