John T. Smieska III

Passion,

you have made me dumb,

waiting for you to come around,

becoming superstitious in what I do:

doing nothing

doing what you wouldn’t want

doing what you would want, but without you.

I act to bind you, to beckon you here.

I long to feel you again, purely as my own,

without false intermediaries or  substitutes,

moving with me and inside me like a pressure,

making me a wedge against the world

with the tangled breeze against my skin,

pushing me with ease,

lifting me out from time.

Expand me,

let me account for all that is around me

as mine, as I claim you within.

Make spider webs of my stones,

Loose everything that is compressed

Let all defensive shells break and unravel

Let my true contents become alive and light.

I am as fragile as material can reach.

Muses, for you, of my time I sing:

Let the sea storm
& the storm smooth stones
& the stones stand grey and glisten
Let the otters kill the crabs
that stand out from stones
until the crabs stand grey and glisten

Let the maidenhead ram
into the corsair stern
until the steel hull cracks the maiden
Let the hull play coy
until the missile destroys
some only corsair’s dream of freedom

Let the brace bend the bite
until the fork tines fit
the bite-size gauged for flavor
Let the renegade flavors flee
the downsized taste
until the bite-size best-fits flavor

Let the sea be an oath
to every bride promised beach
until the world shores mean vacation
Let myth be a dog whacked
to whimper in the night
when in secrecy we crave some ornament

Oh muse!
May I console? May I console a tear among you?
Even at first action we are rent
and scrapped for naught
& I know more
than I can pour
into the thimble brim
of my account!

My deare,
then I will serve.