The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sun 4/2/06)

Other Lives And Dimensions And Finally A Love Poem

My left hand will live longer than my right. The rivers
of my palms tell me so.
Never argue with rivers. Never expect your lives to finish
at the same time. I think

praying, I think clapping is how hands mourn. I think
staying up and waiting
for paintings to sigh is science. In another dimension this
is exactly what's happening,

it's what they write grants about: the chromodynamics
of mournful Whistlers,
the audible sorrow and beta decay of Old Battersea Bridge.
I like the idea of different

theres and elsewheres, an Idaho known for bluegrass,
a Bronx where people talk
like violets smell. Perhaps I am somewhere patient, somehow
kind, perhaps in the nook

of a cousin universe I've never defiled or betrayed
anyone. Here I have
two hands and they are vanishing, the hollow of your back
to rest my cheek against,

your voice and little else but my assiduous fear to cherish.
My hands are webbed
like the wind-torn work of a spider, like they squeezed
something in the womb

but couldn't hang on. One of those other worlds
or a life I felt
passing through mine, or the ocean inside my mother's belly
she had to scream out.

Here, when I say I never want to be without you,
somewhere else I am saying
I never want to be without you again. And when I touch you
in each of the places we meet,

in all of the lives we are, it's with hands that are dying
and resurrected.
When I don't touch you it's a mistake in any life,
in each place and forever.

Bob Hicok

********************

RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

if you want to see some of my poetry, see the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/retropaul

:hi:

:hi:

RL

That'll teach me to stay up late reading The Wasteland. ;)

that'll keep you awake too!

RL

But that'll make for nightmares when sleeping. ;)

Hope you get some sleep today.

Great day for a nap...

:hug:

RL

I'm supposed to be searching real estate listings.

There's always more coffee. :hi:

Moving?

:hi:

RL

I like my house. I dislike moving. :hi:

How lovely and how obscure this one is.....

Sometimes I just don't "get" them....like this one....

But I do love the cadence of the words.

The last two verses do make sense to me....

I guess I am too literal minded for the others.....

But, still.....

I thank you......:loveya: :hug:

:hi:

RL