vigorli

Flight
V/O, G

slashfairy

Longings

Like the beautiful bodies of those who died before growing old,
sadly shut away in sumptuous mausoleum,
roses by the head, jasmine at the feet --
so appear the longings that have passed
without being satisfied, not one of them granted
a single night of pleasure, or one of its radiant mornings.

I put the book aside and look out the window.

The plane is full, I'm tired, and it's a long fucking flight.

Why I brought poetry with me instead of work or something mindless or music or a good sleep mask and a good pillow is beyond me now but poetry I brought and poetry it is that's stirred me up to this pitch.

I've Looked So Much...

I've looked on beauty so much
that my vision overflows with it.

The body's lines. Red lips. Sensual limbs.
Hair as though stolen from Greek statues,
always lovely, even uncombed,
and falling slightly over pale foreheads.
Figures of love, as my poetry desired them
. . . . in the nights when I was young,
encountered secretly in my nights.

When I was young...

Was it only 8 years ago? Not quite 8 years. 8 years ago I was my own man, I was free to believe what I chose, free to live as I pleased. Now?

Now everything is within the framework of not having you. Needing you, but not having you. Having your love, but not you, not you here in my arms. Not you in my bed, not you in my life day in and day out, dirty socks and unbalanced moods and everything that goes with my overflowing vision of how my life would be with you in it, properly.

When I was young, I was still relatively unknown. You were just finishing drama school, hoping to have a bit of work here or there in plays or small bits on TV, in British movies. I was getting paid to drive fast, paint large, kiss beautiful women and explore my darker sides- and when I wasn't getting paid to do that, well, there was always poetry, or photography, or selling flowers, or just heading out to see what was in the world. Not knowing, of course, that you were in it.

Now, though, now...Now I know, and it is harder every day to have you in the world, but not in my life.

I could barely sit still last week, interview after interview, fidgeting and twitching and wanting nothing more than to jump up out of my chair, run across the studio, and grab the first taxi. "Airport!" I imagined myself shouting, "And step on it!" First flight to London, hurry, hurry. Book the hotel from the plane. Buy the tickets anyway I could. Come in drag if I had to, to escape the ever-watching eyes, but come I would- closing weekend, your first play?

But no. Not to be.

Longings...

Still.

Still and all, I'm grateful for what's been given. My life's not a mausoleum- I've been fortunate. Not only to look on Love, but hold you, know you- come back to you, have you come back to me... are you? coming back to me? I'm coming to you, anyway I can...

In dreams, in stories written here and there, scraps in journals, on desks, folded in books of poetry- in all these places I come back to you- and you come to me, and we make a life where every longing is expressed- maybe not acted on, but not denied existence.

We'll have our nights of pleasure, and radiant mornings, until neither you nor I are young, and the world's learned to let us be here, in the life I hope we're going to make for ourselves.

~~

Flying into the sunrise
I force the day
To come to me.

Bring me that horizon!
A wise fool said once.

I don't ask for
Quite so much.

Only a place to stand
With you.

~~

[A/N first two poems are Constantine P. Cafavy, from Ithaka (thanks to

mirabile_dictu). The last is a vain attempt at poetry by the author.]