Summer Sudden

© 2012 Steve King

All rights reserved

…then evenings

and leisured memories

of each receding day,

bright and perfect,

brilliant mirrors to our sly designs

no matter how we chose to look at them.

Slow slipping to twilight,

faces turned to painted masks,

purple in encroaching shadow,

bared limbs unweathered by the lateness.

We knew it was no longer spring

no matter what the calendar implied.

It seemed the change would never come,

sun would never leave us

to abandon and dark dreams,

whisperings and star-lit conjurings;

our silence at the last

amid the calls of crickets,

and low insect hums,

other shadowed harmonies,

gathered in dark corners

of the shrinking day.

Dense air made wet the tall iced glasses,

leaving dew on ready hands,

teasing ready lips with thoughts of quenching,

quenched lips taunting ready ears,

sighs of easy promise,

leaving for the moment

all prospect of renewal or regret.

All ready.

Rings clicked on the cold glasses,

jeweled facets in rose sunsets

glimmering like lesser stars

as hands moved through shadows

back and forth in fading light;

painted lips curled for the sipping,

tongues for languorous rolling

of all bright sensations;

heat and summer air,

all breath enfolded,

words poised for saying,

if words would even serve a purpose

in the long twilight;

if words would substitute for sensations

waiting close upon the tongue;

if words would better serve the tongue

than soft summer bites,

dark appetites there waiting to devour

the ripening fruit of lingering summer nights.

The scent of perfumed bodies

swift touching,

sudden feeling,

all unspoken accident,

that needn’t be explained,

wouldn’t be undone (how?)

by words or faint regrets

unsuited for belief

or even for remembering,

(how might it be undone?

how could they be undone?).

It was the season made us move,

could not escape the touch,

the scent

the feel;

wondering of one’s own scent

and how to touch

and what to feel

and what to say;

endless twilight fading slow

to ease all pleasure and repose.

Yes, summer indeed.

Just summer.

And the guard was down,

because by then we held nothing

not gladly surrendered.

Summer.

Just summer.

Season of long twilight

and brimming retrospect,

though briefly were the morrows

presaged in each rising moon,

light breaching that horizon,

looming ever larger,

casting our faint shades

through the blaze of magic lanterns.

I wondered of the morrow,

small dreaming of another day,

the long wait for new twilight,

new games to play.

I wondered of tomorrow…

still nothing beckoned from beyond,

save moonlight falling empty;

tired shadows fled across the vacant lawn,

while magic lanterns guttered

one

by

one…

Seeing

©  Steve King

All rights reserved

I thought seeing you was best,

watching as the light would change,

waiting for the night to gather us.

But dreaming holds strange vision too,

that flickers through reluctant shadows,

touching on all wanting spirits there.

Those shadows, spirits, dreams, reveal anew

and serve as well as sense

to picture you.

Today

© Steve King

All rights reserved

Today I will greet sunrise with a glance.

It will have to be enough, just seeing—

Empty of new words for the old things,

I’ve done the best to rid myself of them,

shaking bare the word-bins,

purging old and occult motives

with a stream of gilt verbosity.

Emptied are all ill-stocked compartments,

shuttered now, swept clean

of all compunction and desire,

leaving few the rooms that must be kept

to tend a winter season of the soul.

And I will see

what I will see.

It must be enough today

to ply the uses of proximity,

make of it a ready world,

here, where I may gather and restore.

Further words would only draw my thoughts

back to an unintelligible map

filled with strange detours and false starts,

crossroads where I’d be constrained

to choose approaches to unknown ends,

paths a fickle will might not refuse.

No loss, or not so much…

Words often either aren’t enough,

or ring of hubris.

At their simplest, just cries of the heart, I guess.

Aren’t there enough of those to go around?

And how the heart itself does change…

Who would ever trust those cries for long?

I will see…

When I’m ready, you’ll know.

I’ll pick up the phone,

bring more complication to your afternoon.

You’ll see the number flashing,

perhaps recall my voice

and what it said last time.

You may even smile as you reach,

expecting me to say—

But you would be dismayed, this day:

remembering that I was out of words,

I’d probably hang up before you spoke…

I trust there is some way you’ll be assured—

if I have given up on the old words

it’s only to divine another way.

More quickly than I might foretell from this present refuge,

within these moments of…not saying,

it’s certain some new musings will emerge

to win exemption from intemperate vows.

They will populate these shadows,

the silence and the empty space it fills;

will reach beyond old words,

beyond the weight of wearied thoughts

that lead only to this...

It remains to be seen.

I’ll relish what this solitude allows,

but just as gladly draw the curtain

on this closing day.

Old silence will beget a welcoming void,

to echo with new murmurs of its own.

All pious tribulations gone,

grim musings undone;

each ready moment

filled with whole new seasons just begun,

crowding out those tones of twilight,

calling, as a larkbird lauds the sun,

upon a waiting chorus of tomorrows,

new gathered spirits singing then as one.

After

© Steve King
All rights reserved


You rose like a fawn this morning,
wild eyed, yielding.

Perhaps you fear my aftermath:
Am I safe?
Am I content
with mild indecencies?
Had I keen edges
your soft senses
mistook from the first?

What vessel am I in daylight
that cannot hold your evening dreams?

You are kind to linger,
so busy in another room.
But have you morning bitters brewing even now
to curdle this confection?