Hemlock
Alcidbiades' beauty was lost
on him whose only love was reason
on he who had no need of form, whose
only gods were beyond numbers,
alive with risk Pythagoras could not
have borne
Plato tried but could not follow,
the master's words became his own
til, as the way of all recorders, the
truth denied belies a history so
mercilessly shown
the un
examined life
lives
each day passing as the one before
with only thought to brook the distance
with only time
with nothing more
c.sdmrogers 26 january 2010
Every Night
he mouths
I love you
into the darkness
there is no sound
there is no breath
even
there is only the
silent
movement of his bitten lips
there is only the
voiceless
cry of his noiseless prayer
I love you
every night
I love you
he calls the dream that
can not does not will not
answer
and yet
she hears
Yes
she hears
Every night
she hears
c.sdmrogers 4 february 2010
Allowance
she lives for funerals
the permission to
cry
permission even for
her
and yet still there
the calls are close
the ends are near
the cliches teeter
always
perilously at the edge
don't cry it's alright don't cry it's alright it's alright it's alright
no you not you not you, just
you
must not cry
she buries her face in winter
among the scented scarves
salt drowns in stephanotis
and for a moment he is with her
and she is not alone
but it is a moment
only
it passes and is gone
and she knows that he was
never
really there at all
not you not you not you, just
you must not
cry
c.sdmrogers 6 march 2010
Memorial Day
today
the grave is not
open
greedy mouth, gaping void
empty, fresh as
the storm-softened
earth
around it
today
the grief is not
new
blinding torment, waking nightmare
savage, fierce as
the sun-kindled
fire
that ignited it
no
today they are
grave and grief
familiar, senescent,
still as
the evening-soft
wind
that envelops them both
c.sdmrogers 29 may 2010
Summer
priapismic yucca
explode across the plains
leaning left and right and back
from the weight of winter's wrath
hands in my hair
still unused to its short weight
I lean too, lean to, lean two
feet west of where I ought to be
and smile for you are with me,
crouching in the dust
squinting through the grass
my silent silver lion
stalking his next
best shot
c.sdmrogers 25 july 2010
Too Much
memory does not fail
it is merely
selective
in the cliche dead-of-night
it remembers faces
if not names
it remembers scents
if not flavours
it remembers
it serves
and in serving, it
saves
no
no
that is
not
true
for in memory
there is hope
and promise
and the strength to live
the strength to love
beyond the names
what was your
name
and why
why
why
can I
not
remember it
c.sdmrogers 25 july 2010
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