(I'd been desultorily listening to the radio while driving through the Garden Valley-Banks
canyon--bad place to be hit by inspiration... The song "Lady In Red" came on...and I got
this flash like a lightening bolt; a past life--somewhere between 1905 and 1930--coming
back to me. I had to write it down on matchbooks and napkins while hanging on to the
curves for dear life. This was in '00 or '01.)
***
I’ve been there before
in that place between lives
my suit a crisp clean
starched white shirt, stiff collar
behind my ears, my heart
all aflutter with the chance I am…taking
for that special Lady who owns
my heart
my sand-blonde hair, greased down
into perfection, brushes
my collar-rim, and gleams
golden, I am sure, in the lamplight
outside the door I can hear the music
playing, the violins, ten-piece band all in
suits like this one, all
lesser gentlemen, like I seem to be, not quite
like the ones out there; I step
into a room, cooled with fans
glowing mellow, beeswax smelling
blowing the scent of gentility
throughout the room; step
out, make my debut
a seeming young man, and not tall
my starched black trousers precisely creased
their proper elegant perfection striking
my hidden knees, like a beneficent saying;
‘god helps those who help themselves’
and as I close
the well-oiled door behind me, there she is
a slender splendor in a gown of
brilliant red, a scarlet come-hither of
fine wine vermouth in a
slim-necked bottle of French-cut glass, and yet
as at home in your arms as the
girl next door
all class, and yet
familiar, with the
curls of her ringlet-hair brushing
a neck of pure perfection
--you are elegance--
--you are my only heart--
I step out across the floor, smelling
beeswax and cigar smoke
and sherry and port, and
see only her
already have the smell of her
in my nose, the feel of her
in my hands; curl my palms
feeling her, savoring
this long suspended moment
of approaching…my destiny; knowing
already, what she’ll be
above the other smells so overpowering
she lies beneath; a thread of calm
a scent as clean as a fall rain, as the
leaves of autumn
wet with a crisp dew
a cleansing presence, I know her body
like I know myself, as similar
under our different clothes as…
they are not
though they do not know it; and I breath
again
and they do not exist
and I am drawn to her like
an arrow released
the slow-steady
inexorable progress of a hawk stooping
a pigeon homing to its cote
a lover to his home…or hers
I reach her as the music starts
anew; the strains
a carefree waltz
the romance of this moment beyond
any expectations met; she molds to me
like a lover’s hands, like clay
molding to a form meant to be, and I cannot help
but to mold to her like
a drop of rain in an
endless sea; I am lost in eyes
as big as the world
as the music plays on
we begin to dance, the tune we know from
those endless nights before the radio, wishing
we could be as they
in the shadow
of proper
but no one knows but
I and she
and I can see it in her mischievous
smile as she lifts her
white-gloved hands to my face
the illicit joy as she
brushes my cheek
my neck and throat, surrounds
my being
all the planning, gone for naught
but this moment
with no eyes on us because
in this now
we fit
with the rest of the scene
the society we both wanted to try…
just once!
and finally
the music turns us further
to where the truth is, real
and further into one
and just for a moment in time, and none…
where none of it matters but you, and me.
Tags: dreams, past lives, poetry, sexuality
Currently Living In...: Olympia, WA
Fuzzy or Emo?: fascinated
Brought To You By:: "Lady In Red" by Chris De Burgh
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