Big Red

I'd a call one Thursday late afternoon—as the moon 

Grew in to its star-encrusted crib;

When I was just beginning to have control over my mouth,

Mere weeks after most had tacked checks to last-minute lists

Grabbed their long-packed shit

And drove down South

Purged of those otherwise, the kids still in town

Worth the breath to hear from then or even now

Found footing 'long a path which perused front steps of a home

Belonging to some man I used to know

Whose number I'd not immediately recognized—

Although, two seasons 'fore, had tried all privy ties—

Whose voice ran the length of grapevines straddling orchards

Ensnaring through blaring drumbeat of light-hearted wars

I remembered alcohol in driveways

Transferred to styrofoam cups ablaze

By lusted fool or burnt-out soul, halved with carbonation

I remembered afternoons spent in bed with

His then-Best Friend

Who, since, has slid toward retract of contact

Though the recent circumstance grants less impact

Than it should—in reuniting the men who had

Re-introduced me to hours fondly to-be kept,

That life is a verb, not some form of object

I remembered the golf course, bay-side park bench

And a number of near-burn-and-crash accidents

The crimson plaid of a shirt

Sported by one whom I held more dear than I knew

In the context of the current frame on Winter;

Garden car-storms, and Icelandic indie films, and lullaby bands

I remembered the outside incidents

Which resulted in Engagement

Come winter's midlife—as well, disparaging connection

Intertwining any interrelation of mine to them—

To mark this abrupt delay but ultimate parade

In stark bliss of that time period:

The Age of Enlightenment

I remembered clandestine dew-ridden hills

Freckled by foreign trees and sleeping castles

Where the steel slate of sky was smothered by

Suave expanse in feather-banded stars

Collapsed by constellation

Commanding conversation captivation

Construed for Heroes and Histories across

Their blueprinted fragmentation

I was always in a wave of inertia

Slipping me forward on pure volition

More heed was afforded my soul,

Distracted from all my diversions

In the past month or so,

We've caught up—scape at neck-level—

But it's still just yet another fatal collision

Retrial on guile for viable 'experiment'

Will inevitably backfire as just one more Ex

And when then called to bed

By the amused whisper of Death

I'll duly afford a history of missing my marks

Remarkably well;

And own ten thousand tells

On proven trends that tend to break a heart

Or simply die, for flush by dramatic chagrin

Standing—though never in stable fashion—on my feet

Being that the irony

Of breathing shallow Goodbyes on my knees

Proves not to be becoming of One

Who's watched far too many more, knelt before her,

Promising Forever

When Immortality wore thin, there's not much else

But Love and Self to fault

So I shall remain until then

Persecuting the lack of precision therein

Where this backward word, for being forward, toward—

Not a language, and without a past recorded—

Application onward for want of better mindset

Though Self coincides with no given formula or set spectrum;

As Love prides itself on being not proficient for test—

Much less, any inch close to an 'Exact Science'