Monday, September 15, 2008

Looking back, looking forward.

I wrote the following poem years ago, it was in my book '4,000 Shades of Blue' as well as on my CD 'LibationSong,' but I was never quite happy with the ending. I'm not one of those poets who won't revise a poem after they publish it, for me poems are often living, breathing things that grow over time. I've been known to continually revise and re-publish poems. Here is what I think is this poem's true ending, the one I lacked the skill to find almost 12 years ago.

SOLO (IN THE KEY OF NICOLE)


She’s Miss Sweet Potato Brown
a steamy statuette
with caramel-colored eyes.
And with pepper tongue twirling
she sets whole rooms whirling
her black tresses swirling
so devilishly dervish
and needlessly nervous
though wordlessly
wordlessly weird.
After kissing her
I stumble into drugstores
and desperately undress all the chocolate bars.
Though she refuses all flowers
and will not hold my hand
she sleeps with me in a heavy sweater
as though almost afraid of the cold.
But it’s not until morning
over raspberry tea, that I read
in the lines around her half-smile
that she’s haunted passion’s alley
and searched through all the cans
but finds herself still hunting
with heavily soiled hands.

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