Butterfly Fables (Part II - Revised)

It comes of its own, in its own time,
.....promising some luck in swirls of fate,
fluttering a course in crooked lines
.....(even love, at times, will make you wait),
..........then coming close, and lighting on your palm
..........stirring both a joyfulness, and calm.

But it is a skip and skittish thing,
.....as light as the breath of a first kiss,
and the momentary peacefullness it brings
.....(even love, at times, can be like this)
..........will tumble on bright wings into your past
..........where you're reminded, beauty never lasts.

Disco Code

In the tranquil death camps
of take-a-number rest homes, we've
always had a code of conduct and
a waiting list that goes on
and on.

We took in your hippies
with their sandal sores,
and drum circle hips,

(the peace-pipe love
had mostly worn away
leaving rough coughs
and wrinkled hands.)

We called it communes -
and had them string
bright beads and fashion
far-out paper flowers.
At night we'd come
bearing bong water drips
and following the code
they went with peace (,man)
limping barefoot into the
paisley purple haze.

But these disco kings and divas
are coming with their own code
of tight pants and short dresses,
with there hang'n, and groov'n,
and sparkling disco balls.

How many backatcha fakeouts
and foxy, funk bunny tales
of cocaine threesomes (can we dig it),
before some cool
cat wheezer is stuffing
the new girls undies in
his oxygen mask, and breathing
like he means it.

We'll come at night
with our tray of chill-pills
and tubular salves
promising to ease the edge,
only to find the swish of skirts
and stiletto heel's slick
clacking down the hall
moving to the living beat and
keeping us up late with their
staying alive,
staying alive.

Burned

Had I only been aware,
I would not have burned my youth so low,
would not have ground its ash into my hair
til timeworn spent and leaning,
I shut the curtain, snuff out the day's last butt,
and fade into the suffocating evening.

And if I listen now
across the stillness of the waning room
I hear the echo of a shallow wheezing
(the air's been growing thinner with my hair)
and death slinks in prepared to reap his seizing,
till the morning caugh reveals he's just been teasing.

And this, I think, is hard to understand,
that I would trade it all - the memories, the loves,
the marks that show I once scorched through this land,
if I could burn a little once again,
if I could sear away this muzzy mist
to see a girl whose eyes asked for a kiss.

Is it enough to say
that when she sits across the aisle,
the air around her scented like a rose,
that I begin to breath again,
and worry that I'll somehow be exposed
for taking her this way, into my nose.

They have words for men gone past their prime,
an old pervert, a lecher, or a fool,
that mounts the stair one slow step at a time
to find he's no exception to the rule,
that every man will have his days to blaze,
and when they're done, he'll slowly slough away.

Journey to the shore

When a girl's a girl no more,
and childish things she puts away,
she'll make the journey to the shore.

Of course, we'll beg her to delay,
but find our words have little sway
when a girl's a girl no more.

Though she'll giggle, dance, and play,
and blush at times, and sometimes pray,
she'll make the journey to the shore

and find that barefoot at the bay
the sand's more fitting than the clay
when a girl's a girl no more.

Rushing through the ocean's spray,
the rolling waves, the water's fray,
she'll make the journey to the shore.

In spite of all that we might say,
and though we'll plead for her to stay,
when a girl's a girl no more
she'll make the journey to the shore.

Maritiming

I always find my way back here,
where slender barefoot curves impress the sand,
and virgin waves lift foam-white skirts
to sacrifice their softness on the strand.

Here where we met,
youths indoctrinated in the seaside rites,
searching seething shores to find ourselves amid
bikini days and margarita nights.

Where the water meets the wash,
swishing in the surf to stir a rhyme,
you found my sun soaked self amid the shells
and sat with me a while to maritime.

I was stricken with your carefree laugh,
despite your golden skin, and form so slim,
and sun bleached hair pulled back a tortuous tight,
and eyes so blue they made the sea seem dim.

And laughing still, you stayed,
as hand in hand we walked the water's trace,
and arm in arm we slipped down with sun,
and lips to skin we followed the embrace.

We discovered rhythms.
In a boldly swelling, rising, rolling, rush,
we lost ourselves in churning turbulence
before softly sliding back into a hush.

I found you then,
like the rowdy gull finds grace in flight.
Those moments that I hovered over you
are the only moments everything was right.

I often find my way back here,
as age engulfs me in a creeping pain:
an evening at a far off summer shore,
and a girl that I would never see again.

Oh Rose

Oh Rose, the time has come.
Your pedal's droop with rumpled luster,
your scent has faded to familiar,
and your water has grown tepid
and murky like the morning after.

It is time,
time for a bright Begonia,
or a long, thin Tiger Lilly.
A time for chasing cravings
for new scents, and curves and colors.

Can't you see?
Can't you see the beauty in this world?
Fields of flowers, rolling by in seasons
and I'm compelled to tumble after
drawn by flower faces flitting by.

So Rose, the time has come.
Know that I picked you with a purpose
and for a sweet summer's day
you were all the beauty I could hold.
There is so much beauty in this world.

Scraping

Hell is in the scraping of this
moment against memory,
The stagnant pace
of rigid distant space
and numbing, monotonic time.
These flawed laws of here and now
and the fickle fall of irremediable
touch.

I have touched her...

I have traced your naked lines
followed soft light into softer shadows
breathed you fully flower in
and kissed across your freckled fields
quivering between breath and touch.
I've tickle tongue tip teased you
moving, humming, pausing to hover
until the honey whispered echo
comes calling me, drawing me
home.

I've heard her calling...

I've tried to hold the moment still,
tried to be not here, not now,
not see you flush, or feel the hush
of holding back, and tremble hanging,
before heaving in a rhythmic rabid rush
that sets the bed board clanging.
This is the moment that we share:
that instant when we're naked and shaking
aware.

I have held her...

I've held my finger to your lips
to hold the moment hushed,
and quiet chests still heaving,
to hope we settle softly into evening.
My hell is in the scraping of this
moment against memory.
The moment where you whisper
that all is as it should be,
and I recall that I am only ever me,
and except for now, you never will be
her.