Tonight I light my 20th stick
On your behalf. Being the last,
IIt is lip-bleached
And wish kissed,
Cleaves to the safest space
Between a beloved?s
Furtive fingertips.
It burns gently,
Like a sun-soaked
Quarter moon
Decanting its beam,
Like a kibitzer nibbling
At the endearing coupling
Of smoke and silence.
Its lambent sear filter
Into my orifice
Not knowing
That I shall breathe
Its bitter end,
Its embers eloping
With the passing wind.
As the strains of my lyre span/
The distance between us until
the darkness fades into/
One tangible form/
That I can touch (that I might take/
Its pale shadow off your face),/
It does not matter if we/
Are on opposite sides/
Of the great river/
Or that hound of hell bars/
Our passing into each other;/
For I know,/
As do you,/
That, as the boatman continues to row on/
In his eternal task,/
So, too, do the black waters/
Of my being flow/ Into your pale form/
And not once, no,/
Not even at the point/
Before our total joining,/
Will I look back/
And see/
Myself left behind/
In the depths/
Of the underworld?s/
despair/
for morpheus: who never looked back/
Would we ride on a carousel/
On plastic horses that spin/
Around all the day and prance/
As if they were real?/
You think the earth spins/
Beneath you, and you enjoy/
Seeing the same sights and the same places/
As you end up nowhere/
And you wave to your mother/
Who stands and awaits/
Behind near useless railings/
Everytime you see her/
Why are you surprised?/
At the fact that your mother/
Would stand by and watch/
Her idiot son ride a carousel?/
You wait in anticipation/
For the next opportunity to wave/
But she has left?/
Sing happy birthday quietly./
