Another Love Song
We search for a Lara throughout our lives
and ultimately find that she has existed
all along, right before our eyes; embodied
in the woman long by our side.
The search for Lara was a temporal state,
a tease, only what fate intended to provide
some other me, compelled to search forever
for a Lara beyond his means.
I cannot credit you with having had a hand
in this, my Love, for you have always been
who you are, oblivious to the joy of being you
and the joy you inspire in others.
So Dear One, please stay in that humble state,
in which you embody all the Laras that may
or may not exist for someone I may have
wished to be, but never was.
Full of It
The empty space that is my mind:
so teased and tempted by all
those bittersweet love songs
that have made up my life—minute by minute,
hour by hour, night after night:
an intrusion on reflection,
on meditative moments that should
consist of nothing but the absence
of anything to mediate upon--
these have been matched by
the incursion of beautiful, blond,
bare-shouldered strangers with
dubious call-girl charm, such as
Allye who, when asked about the work
she does, replies, “I move around a lot”--
Allye, in whom (I suspect) the presence
of anything resembling timeless
meditation does not loom large,
but whose accidental company I do
enjoy until she hastens off to catch
the Westbound Departure Train
to New York City, leaving Old Saybrook,
Connecticut, a place in which (I did
discover) she was born: a place
in which I do not live, am just
visiting--sipping espresso
at Ashlawn Farms Coffee.
A minute or so
later, Allye returns, and smiles, and states,
“I forgot my phone,” which she retrieves
inside. “Can’t live without it,” I say
when she comes out, employing my
best user-friendly voice (I do not own
a smart phone), returning her smile.
We say “Goodbye” again, and I watch
her slender perfect backside presence
wander off toward the train station, again.
All this time,
love songs have been playing over
a speaker, softly, at Ashlawn Farms:
“Moonlight in Vermont,” “Georgia,”
“I’ve Got a Crush on You,” “Misty,”
“Guess Who I Saw Today,” “You Don’t Know
What Love Is” (“You don’t know how
hearts burn / For love that cannot live,
yet never dies.”), “Don’t Go to Strangers,”
and “Until The Real Thing Comes Along.”
Slowly, I
sip the rich kiss of espresso and attempt
to return to a meditative state –retreat
to those empty spaces of my mind,
leaving just enough intentionality alive
to suggest the words of a song I shall
listen to forever, but never write down.
Bill Minor has published seven books of poetry, the latest Some Grand Dust (a finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award) and Gypsy Wisdom: New & Selected Poems. Bill recently completed Going Solo: A Memoir, 1953-1958. Commissioned to write a spoken word suite CD (Love Letters of Lynchburg), he has also set his own poems to original music for two other CDs: For Women Missing or Dead and Mortality Suite.
We search for a Lara throughout our lives
and ultimately find that she has existed
all along, right before our eyes; embodied
in the woman long by our side.
The search for Lara was a temporal state,
a tease, only what fate intended to provide
some other me, compelled to search forever
for a Lara beyond his means.
I cannot credit you with having had a hand
in this, my Love, for you have always been
who you are, oblivious to the joy of being you
and the joy you inspire in others.
So Dear One, please stay in that humble state,
in which you embody all the Laras that may
or may not exist for someone I may have
wished to be, but never was.
Full of It
The empty space that is my mind:
so teased and tempted by all
those bittersweet love songs
that have made up my life—minute by minute,
hour by hour, night after night:
an intrusion on reflection,
on meditative moments that should
consist of nothing but the absence
of anything to mediate upon--
these have been matched by
the incursion of beautiful, blond,
bare-shouldered strangers with
dubious call-girl charm, such as
Allye who, when asked about the work
she does, replies, “I move around a lot”--
Allye, in whom (I suspect) the presence
of anything resembling timeless
meditation does not loom large,
but whose accidental company I do
enjoy until she hastens off to catch
the Westbound Departure Train
to New York City, leaving Old Saybrook,
Connecticut, a place in which (I did
discover) she was born: a place
in which I do not live, am just
visiting--sipping espresso
at Ashlawn Farms Coffee.
A minute or so
later, Allye returns, and smiles, and states,
“I forgot my phone,” which she retrieves
inside. “Can’t live without it,” I say
when she comes out, employing my
best user-friendly voice (I do not own
a smart phone), returning her smile.
We say “Goodbye” again, and I watch
her slender perfect backside presence
wander off toward the train station, again.
All this time,
love songs have been playing over
a speaker, softly, at Ashlawn Farms:
“Moonlight in Vermont,” “Georgia,”
“I’ve Got a Crush on You,” “Misty,”
“Guess Who I Saw Today,” “You Don’t Know
What Love Is” (“You don’t know how
hearts burn / For love that cannot live,
yet never dies.”), “Don’t Go to Strangers,”
and “Until The Real Thing Comes Along.”
Slowly, I
sip the rich kiss of espresso and attempt
to return to a meditative state –retreat
to those empty spaces of my mind,
leaving just enough intentionality alive
to suggest the words of a song I shall
listen to forever, but never write down.
Bill Minor has published seven books of poetry, the latest Some Grand Dust (a finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award) and Gypsy Wisdom: New & Selected Poems. Bill recently completed Going Solo: A Memoir, 1953-1958. Commissioned to write a spoken word suite CD (Love Letters of Lynchburg), he has also set his own poems to original music for two other CDs: For Women Missing or Dead and Mortality Suite.