Category Archives: muse

love’s memory

“It is I who decides that its image is dead.”
–Roland Barthes
the flame holds
in fragility
a glow
at wick’s end
then lets go
with finality
a grey
wisp of smoke

(August 3, 2017)

Scoria

“I have projected myself into the other with such power that when I am without the other I cannot recover myself, regain myself: I am lost forever.”
–Roland Barthes
he flung himself
as with all
his obsessions
fully into the idea
of her
slagging off bits
overtime
he became some other
diminished
irretrievable
a ghost
to her
to himself
lost
(July 31, 2017)

Drowning

A secret swimmer,
She resurfaced the dream,
Face first, hands aflutter.
With a patient disregard,
She waited on answers
He was unable to give.
As dreams are funny things,
He hid within language,
The danger used as camouflage
To his intent. He held her
In stasis, a thought no more
Relevant than water:
The air so pure,
And so remote.
(July 27, 2017)

Permeable Verb

“words leak through definition”
–Roland Barthes
He became a part of speech,
A statement without need
Of a response. She fell after
The predicate, and waited
To be acted upon. Yet, he
Couldn’t define the subject
By himself. There had to be
More than his limits allowed,
More to the conversation
Than life’s mundane truths.
He watched as she erased
Him slowly with time,
Leaving a smudged outline
Of an incomplete sentence.

(June 13, 2017)

Love Struck

“you resumed as best you could the thread of a story in which you no longer believed”
–Roland Barthes
Like a bird flying into glass
The fall surprised him—
The nothing he thought was there
wasn’t—
dazed, bloodied, bruised
he rose and stumbled on
almost as if he knew
where he was going
almost as if
she never existed
(May 26, 2017)

Love Tropes

“the wounds produced by stereotyped sight”
–Wayne Koestenbaum, Forward to “A Lover’s Discourse”
1

he could only see
what his words
allowed—
the wounds
filled with salt
of their own making
he reacted accordingly
through a bank
of emotions
a cacophonous disquiet
embedded
in presumption
2
her words were
hers, askew
to his vision
she suffered not
the barbs in his
intent—
oblivious
to his exhortations
she wandered away
singing songs
drenched
in his blood

(May 24, 2017)

Confession: How Far I Feel I Fell

I fell
For I felt
For you.
Falling away
I felt I must
Fall for you.
To feel
I felt
I must fall.
I fell
Through silence,
Through words.
I felt
Alive,
Yet alone.
I felt
You must
As well.
You fell
Away,
I feel.
I fell;
You fell
Away.
I fell,
And fell,
And fall:
Still fall,
Ongoing,
Unmoving.
Love lost,
Like leaves,
Falls away.

(May 17, 2017)

No Shade to Shadow

To whom should I speak
If not to you,
Or my projection of you?
The morning’s soft shadows
Flicker no light
Upon the lake;
A ghost gray glows
A presentiment
Into the day.
Are you there
In the morning’s shadows?
They flee the sun.
I hold out my hands
Empty of shadows.

(May 16, 2017)

last words

his head snapped
quickly to the left
as if he had heard
her voice
he had something to say
something he had forgotten
before she left him
hanging

(March 15, 2017)