for John Thomas

I

Philomene:

John, you have to accept it!
You have to accept it!
You cannot write poems after you're dead!

John:

Philomene, if you ever get the firm notion that I am dead,
you've really gone around the bend!

Philomene:

John.

John:

Yes, Love.

Philomene:

You said that if I died and went to Heaven
you'd come get me.

But you died and went to Heaven.
Are you going to come get me?

John:

I have.

Philomene:

OW! That's got to hurt, John--
looking that beautiful!

*

Philomene:

John, what is it like to be dead?
Can you hear that small bird singing in the distance?

John:

Yes. I can do just about anything but eat it.

Philomene:

Look, John! A squirrel does not run.
It moves like a three syllable word --
possibly from a lost line of Yeats.

John:

Humph.

Philomene:

You're getting more lazy after your dead.

John:

I'm what!!!?

Philomene:

You rest now, my Magnitude.
I'm off to read Proust.

© 2004 - Philomene Long & John Thomas

II

It seems to me
Before our love
No pen could write
A poem that
Returned the word
To light

***

Our love
Erodes time

Its memory Has touch

Poems are its
Living ruins

***

Regarding our 100,000 couplings
Which you had said were real
Although the fingers were not

Is there a reciprocity
Of which I am unaware?

At night do ravens
Return their blackness to the sky?

By day do sunflowers
Burn the sun?

And most importantly, Love, Love--
Is there a way I may return you
To my touch?

***

Do you dream, now, my Love?
And do I appear in them?

***

Although hushed
Your voice is louder
Than any other's

***

One dies happily
And with ease
When there is
No one left
To die

***

I, now-- a tomb
(Your tomb)
The shroud of its evening
Encloses our drowsy whispers

My Husband, my Only One
We have never been so alone
As in this Silence
At the other side of night

© 2004 - Philomene Long