From Beginning to End to Beginning

(Inspired by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal’s A Silent Wood)

You move like waves

Underneath the lights

My eyes and lust say

Tonight you are right

What I want—long for—need

You will give to me

As I lick my lips

My desire rises

While I measure and analyze

Your movements—your body—your energy

I can’t wait to be

On top

Behind

In front

Beneath

I will play the sky

Fly high and free

Explore my heights

You will be like rivers

Within your path

I will find the sea

Empty my tank

I will thank you right

I will treat you dry

Let’s not wait till

Tomorrow

Will hide

Until we are done

Until we do

The sun won’t come

II

How did she smash through my wall?

What happened to my impenetrable defense?

Where are my soldiers—my killers?

What happened to my men?

Every time I look at her they run away

When she touches me I crumble

She has conquered me

III

For so long I looked within for answers

But only half of them were true

The door you opened inside

Let in my other side

Like a search hound

You came and found

The heart beneath the ground

The heart beneath the mind

Singing without a beat

Beating without a sound

Before you came around

I was as blind as a one-eyed man

To the depth of life

My cloudless sky

Still hid the stars behind

The gravity that holds me down

Disappears when you are near

IV

How do I show you what you mean to me?

Will these flowers do?

Will jewelry prove to you that my heart is yours?

That my earth would crumble and my sky would fall

If I didn’t have your eyes when lost

Your lust when cold

When poor your laugh—your hug?

Your smile is enough

To lift my frowns away

How do I say what you mean to me?

Are three words enough to say how much your light in dark times helps me see?

I will try

I love you

No

More than these words can say

These flowers are yours

But in time they will fade

This diamond has value

But it only has meaning

If you answer yes to this question I ask as I kneel

V

It has been far too long

Since I said I love you

Not on the phone, but face to face

It has been too long

Since I held you, felt you, kissed you

I miss you more each day

I thought that love was all we needed

To keep our relationship a truth

But now each night away is a journey through possession

I am possessed by the thought of you

I can no longer bear the pain of this space that stands between us

Long distance for hearts often leads to guilt

I am coming home

You are my home

My life

I am a desert without you

I am taking a break

From all this work that stands between us

Long distance for hearts often leads to tears

I am coming home

You are my home

My water

My oasis

I need you now

Like I needed you then

Like I always will

VI

The winter nears

I saw it on the leaves

You loving him

We break apart

I see it in the leaves

I walk away

I see you cry

I rake up and pile the leaves

I lock the gate

VII

O' silent wood, I drink with thee

With a heart so full of misery

To drown in the waters of the past

I had with her whose love wouldn’t last

In your darkest shadow let me lie

Until the sting of loss subsides

Until the pain flows away like waves beneath the wind

And her face evaporates from my thinking  

And the memory of us together is but a cloud

Whose rain has already fallen and whose life has floated by

In your darkest shadow let me weep

Until my tears my mind won’t feed

VIII

Can God bring back the day when she and I planted

That God damned tree my axe will raze?

IX

How do I say what you mean to me?

You are the flowers in my field of dreams

Adding color to my soul

A sweet essence to my world

You are my heroin(e)