Poems
by Perry L. Powell

 

 

 

 

The Lineaments

 

 

Slick as a slide I go down your long hair

pausing only to fall into your eyes,

eyes like clear oceans holding all I need,

to feel the gentle flick of your eyelids' brush

to measure your tiny mouth with my tongue

to catch the azure perfume of your neck.

Over and under we flow one body

running from myself, running from yourself,

running in place, running up a mountain,

all the while the light in our eyes strengthens,

blinding, teasing, withholding, entangling,

A light and a fire and a more than joy.

 

 

Then suddenly you not you, suddenly home,

suddenly a reason beyond any reason.

 

 

 

 

 

Unaccountable

 

 

The violet light of an evening sky

dims to a dark that lays hold of the earth

like a tiger at rest playing with its prey.

There is no pity in this, no compassion,

but also no malice, no intention.

It is but the way of things to just be.

And though we may gather our statistics,

they matter less than we think or we want.

 

 

Here and there the stars break through the deep smog.

Now that I am old enough no longer

to count the stars, I may perhaps see them

for the first time, unencumbered by hope

or fear or the relentless ambitions

of someone still becoming, someone still to be.

 

 

 

 

 

Denuded

 

 

At a certain point, it's no longer

about dead bodies. Dead bodies

dissolve back into the ground.

 

At a certain point, it's not even

about all the promises made

you didn't keep. No one living cares.

 

Days go by and the vise on your head

tightens. Gray sunlight intrudes.

Like it or not. You still live.

 

At a certain point, you realize it:

the snail with the broken shell

still remembers how to crawl.

 

 

 

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