*The Sweetness And The Sorrow

*The title is a line from the song "What I Did For Love,* music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban.

This set of poems can be called The Light Collection, a companion to the previous The Dark Collection, everything in life (and love) comes in pairs.

Please enjoy my offering, small snippets of what I (and countless others) have gone through. And once again, if a verse brings a smile to your lips or gives you pause to think, then I shall be happy; but if you shed a tear, that was never my intention. Either my way, my work is done.

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INTIMATE

Time has no meaning, words even less,
To tender emotions (we dare not confess.)
Mirrored reactions quicker than thought,
Pre-conceptions un-learned, but devotion un-taught.
Glances in the shadows, and our hands cannot reach
A distance unmeasured, yet walls we have breached.
If I had a wish to live just one day over,
It would be this… apart but together.

TRANCE

You are not here and yet you light the dark,
And though these nights are long, I feel sweet joy!
Why is that and how has it come to be
That I can delight in this loneliness?
Perhaps the lady who reigns in my sleep
Has deigned it so – that my dreams sustain me
When daylight ends and takes her final bow.
Do we long for the same awakening?
The sun to break first light, yet not intrude
Upon our intimate communion?
Shadows arrive with the morning’s coming
And so, too, will a throng of doubts and fears.
Perhaps it is better to live on dreams –
These vain illusions that keep me content.

BEYOND

I thought the word ‘magnificent’
Was meant for you and me,
For there was nothing we could not do,
Nothing – we could not be.

I thought the word ‘eternal’
Was what we were meant to be,
For what we felt far surpassed
The ‘immenseness of the sea.’

I thought the word ‘devoted’
Was carved into our hearts,
No force from earth or heaven or hell
Could ever make us part.

But now I’ve come to realize
That these words are a paltry rhyme,
And that you and I are beyond all these –
We are… sublime.

PASSION TRANSCENDED

I have caught the colors of the rainbow,
... they fell from the sky when I heard you speak.
I have imprisoned the gentle breezes,
… they came to me when I whispered your name.
I have tamed the fury of a storm’s might,
... it enveloped me when you held my hand.
I have found the majesty of heaven,
… it surrendered the moment that we kissed.

WEALTH BEYOND IMAGINING

I have kept these thoughts like riches,
Hoarded them like a miser.
I count them each night,
I caress every edge, every pleat,
They are your words… to me.
I have hidden them away in a vault,
And the only key… your lips,
As I savor the syllables that flow from them,
Bestowing on my brow, not kisses, but
Benedictions of promised fire.
I shall bury this wealth – as I do – every morning
Under a canopy of tedious labor;
I do not mind, for at night
I open wide my treasury and drown… once again
In unimaginable wealth!

ARTISAN

Open your arms wide that
Between them I can lie safe,
Away from the darkness that not even
Night can contain.
Breathe upon me the sweetness
Of honeyed words that I may
Never want to flee from
The cathedral that is your heart.
Crown me with your lips
That I may wear your kisses
Like a diadem, a jeweled
Testament to our mated joy.
Rouse my dreary soul with your fire
That I may become molten gold for
You to touch and form into –
Brilliance!

CRAVING

Impaled thus is her heart upon his breath,
A piercing so exquisite yet silent,
Chiaroscuro behind a curtain drawn,
She’ll dance in pain and joy, a helpless pawn.
To the muted beat of a captured heart,
Rapture and anguish refuse to depart,
The silent clamoring builds to a need,
An obsession only this dance can feed.

DUET IN VEILED MINOR

A shadow dance performed for my delight,
Exquisite little pirouettes en pointe,
A votive candle commanded to risk
Its own existence for my… amusement.
Fragrance rising, swirling then billowing,
An ‘almost pas de deux’ partnered by mists,
Intoxicating mix of perfumed haze,
Sadly lost… to a lonely virtuoso.

A CAPELLA

No key, no meter,
A melody stripped bare,
Tonality missing,
A cadence to nowhere.

Harmonies broken,
Measures fragmented,
A fugal dementia,
Legato segmented.

No sharps, no flats,
A modulation unheard,
A serenade bleeding,
…. A song with no words.

BOUND FOR HOME

And when this vagabond comes home
To lay her heart at your feet,
Will she have then reached far enough
To make your life… replete?

And when this traveler’s journey ends
Beside the open gate,
Will crossing through mend all your ills,
And all your pain… abate?

And when this wand’ring soul returns
To tend your wounds so deep,
Will she herself find longed-for peace,
Will she find love… to keep?

And when, at last, she takes your hand,
And sings, again, her song,
Together, will you find tender joy,
And together, at last… belong?