An Affair With A Poet 2013

     Private Messages

As I corresponded

in that instant, online way

with Lightning Woman,

with her flashing brain

and wicked smile

and oh-so-soft eyes,

expressing the most

soul-wrenchingly amazing

feelings for me to me,

I couldn’t keep the thought

out of my mind

that this wasn’t really happening.

             There and Here

For years I’d been avoiding any effort

to achieve anything emotionally

other than flatlining.

From out of nowhere

she enveloped my consciousness

and I descended

into compulsive and pathetic fantasies.

I took an uncharacteristic chance,

and she surprised me,

only she was there

and I was here.

She did what she could

to make me feel good,

with her being there

and me being here.

I tried to avoid

my new fantasies,

because she was there

and I was here,

and to focus on the magic,

whilst awaiting the reality.

I had physical reactions

to both pleasure and stress,

because she was sweet but there

and I was stranded here

during the wait

for the physical distance

to close

so that we could discover

what would happen.

      Absurd Status Update

Here I am, as I compose this,

living on my old-age pension,

and little more than a teenager in love

since she rescued me from

a comfortable living death.

    The Weasel Went Pop!

When I showed my new lover

a verse I’d composed

before I’d met her

confidently prognosticating

that nothing good

would ever happen in my life again,

and that it would surprise me greatly

if it did,

all she said was,

‘Jack-In-The-Box!’

This made me feel

better than would have been wise.

She dumped me in less than a year.

It’s a drag when I’m correct in the end,

like that.

    The Old One-Two

She is a poet,

although she dislikes

the guilt-by-association

that the term carries with it.

She writes like a champion boxer,

dancing and floating and

landing heaps of verbal punches

in combinations

all about her readers’ heads.

Unlike hers,

my writing

is reminiscent

of a straight-ahead,

slug-it-out

body puncher.

Primary Objective

My lover was so brilliant,

and so vulnerable,

that all I wanted

all I wanted

was to do and be

what’s best for her.

She said that to do that,

though,

I only had to be myself.

           Moderation?

My mind came to a point

at which it seemed,

when not otherwise engaged,

to oscillate

between ideations focused on

love for my woman

and hatred for my sibling

to the exclusion of most other things.

                                     No Biggie

My lover preferred to drink wine out of a glass and beer out of the bottle.

I usually drink wine out of the bottle and beer out of a glass.

We usually got along just fine, anyway.

         Clarification

I told her, and I meant it:

I don’t want to control you.

I don’t want to boss you.

I don’t want to change you.

I don’t want to crowd you.

I don’t want to manage your affairs.

I don’t want to disrupt life patterns that comfort you.

I don’t want to invade your private space.

I don’t want to restrict your autonomy.

I don’t want to be your other half.

I don’t want to marry you.

I just want to love you,

and for you to return my love.

She ended up dumping me, of course.