ANOTHER COUNTRY

The past might well be another country
But the future has no map.
All we have to unravel its righteous riddle
Are answers to questions we once asked
In some previous steady state of mind
That has long become mere mist and dismal drizzle.

Still we set our faces to some Jerusalem
And travel on towards its wailing wall
Where we expect our sea of reeds to part.
We push on as if we were immortal
Eyes straight ahead and blinkered blind
To betrayals that can truly break our heart.

At some point the end rises up to claim
All of our friendly facts and fond imaginings
Before we can mend what has splintered disjoint.
By then we have only echoes of past epochs left –
In a flooded foreign land where we majored in mistakes -
Wet with watery memories that disperse and disappoint.

FLIRT

And so you flashed up from far away,
Stinging my tear-seared eyes,
Flinging an implicit promise
I might never ever inherit.

Then you flirted so fabulously
Like a champion of the chase -
Almost like her with her hunger -
But so different in your sweet way.

And so we proceeded -
Smiling all the while -
Never really knowing,
And never pausing to understand.

Just when it all seemed wrong,
A mutual tease of ego
Ignited a fiery glow -
So we connected in a fancy future.

And I experienced all the old thrills
While I stayed here stunned,
Wondering how to aspire to new peaks,
Worried about becoming a fool again.

And yet your face filled my dreams:
Those eyes danced dark
Across a floor of fractured fantasy,
As your lips moistened my mouth.

And I knew I might never ever see
What was in your pretty mind,
Because you seemed to belong to another:
Your heart clasped in complicated claws.

Yet knowing your warmth and kindness
Is a great reward for one like me -
Could I ever have glimpsed any part of you
But for those few brief words we chanced to channel?

And so I will sleep again tonight
With your face projected on my dreamy screen,
So that my moments of waking in hot harsh light
Surely will be briefly happy beyond explaining.