love doesn't live here anymore (a sestina)

The first man to dare ask God about love

only wanted to know where it resides,

"So I may discern if it ever flees,"

he explained, and God laughed and went away.

Dejected, the man turned inward instead;

surely his body could not reveal lies.

He asked his heart if it knew where love lies,

to which it replied, "I know nothing of love

or its effort, ask me of music instead."

The man frowned; the heart paused. "My joy resides

in the beat that chases fear of death away.

I hide not love because, at sight, it flees."

The man wondered why love so often flees

from safety, and if it conjures up lies

to tell the soul and push the mind away

from any truth. Maybe, he thought, this love

knows not of constancy and so resides

nowhere near, but in a distant place instead.

And the lungs seemed the place to ask. Instead,

the man found his own deflated. "Air flees,"

the lungs lamented. "We know it resides

in all worldly places, we just hate that it lies."

"And love?" the man interjected. They sighed. "Love...

doesn't live here anymore. It went away."

The man blinked. What do they mean by away?

There can be nowhere else to go instead.

All the burned bridges...how foolish is love!

When one motion becomes constant, it flees;

when it happens upon a truth, it lies.

I can no longer care where it resides.

(But love's a wily creature that resides

in that sliver of space, from man's heart away, 

between his first and second rib. It lies, 

not doubt, because it loves the chase instead

of the stagnant life where man waits until it flees

to give it notice. Such is the nature of love.)

Somewhere, God laughs along with love,

and bids the inquiries of man away.

The universe has much to think about instead.

my satellite romance (a found poem)

there is nothing i want to remember forever,

so i am content with my unbeing in love

with anyone who needs a something blue.

the alignment of stars does not concern me;

this is not romeo and juliet.

(God is certainly no Shakespeare)

instead, i will pursue a romance with you -

safe, with your essence confined in 

the sixty-inch space on my bedroom wall.

i am soothed by your television smile,

drawn in by those billboard eyes.

(this ten o'clock dream dwarfs any dull reality)

you will never know me by any name;

i'll forever hold my peace (but not in pieces).

seventeen years old old old

No one ever talks about the day after, because the day after is not a story that exists to be told. The girls appear ashen even in the ethereal light of dawn. They exit in the irenic silence that obscures a lack of repose. A car idles by the curb. Ahead in the liminal order there is a television on. What is playing is a show about Hitler. A man enters and his voice echoes the blustering fuhrer's. Something shatters. I pick up the pieces and the keys so that we can leave. Outside the silence is as austere as the blank panoramic canvas of sky. The wind catches in the branches of the trees. Later I will climb atop a concrete acropolis and the world will look impossibly small. Underneath, an opalescent city will blink innocently up at the universe. 

ashen (adj.): pale, gray in pallor

ethereal (adj.): extremely delicate or refined

irenic (adj.): peaceful or conciliatory

repose (n.): rest

liminal (adj.): following designated thresholds, as in timelines

blustering (adj.): loud or arrogant, abrupt

austere (adj.): solemn, severely simple

panoramic (adj.): unbroken or surrounding, as in a view

acropolis (n.): the fortified height or citadel of a Greek city

opalescent (adj.): polychromatic