Studies in Passion
Tulips suck sugar from water, a miniature sluice.
You and this intravenous do much the same,
science arranging nourishment, each tube a kind of root.
To cut through static what else is essential?
Power? Money?
If intimacy could fit the bill these tactile surfaces would emit a series of
charges.
I have studied the battle, filaments, wrists, fertility dealt, held, barely kept.
Stillness now, then a flicker——
From eyes thresholds reel, pour feeling, this present's passion
making love with a dream.
Will we touch in that place?
Hand pressed to hand, all I can feed you are moments, faith,
the airy impenetrable hours that make up this and the next
now, now, now.
Metastasis
The word is almost floral,
a bouquet, an arrangement, wrapped up
by those other two: Cisplatin, Adriamycin,
the vowels, the blooming, the classic Latin roots
who pump, who take-----
all petal claws, all liquid crystal, this treatment
so formal, so scientific one should wear pearls
with the gauze, light candles, drink Mint Juleps
& listen to Chopin so the big stones of pain,
so the wracking, the retching, will return
to dream tempo.
I might be nectar then, kindness, sweet calla
for hummingbirds or bright, animated Disneyland.
Instead, sickness has no logic & canonization is
ridiculous when there's such hostility & bitter wit,
such humility & humiliation: mine, terminal
on the terminal thinking - Ginger ale? No thanks -
How about gin, pure gin & tonic-----
No rose shaken, no besieged bloom
just these seeds, fatigued, believing:
suffering is for fools.
Rain Again, Rain
The weight, the light - here these sheets are to travel
a death & all that lacking for which it seems entire canyons
could fill & there still be no bottom.
Other minutes the missing lifts, a familiar fog forever hovering
towards a clearing so huge peace wells & wells
for the presence is an energy again within.
So spirit may surround spirit yet never have a clue
to the awakening, to being shook, the impact of another's dying
a coffin for others to also become rain in an ascension of metal
in each drop as it hits & plops back up for a second.
Be glad about that, the percussions' quiet.
Meditate on holding fingers growing thinner but still hands miraculous,
little chapels, each & each, to enlarge the soul.
That is the rain walked in, memory being the resemblance
of certain brows, a permanent five-o-clock shadow,
the tactile taste of such in every dark wet sidewalk,
every vivid streetlight, an extension of skin, breath,
how it was counted until still.
Closure dictates an acquaintance with such truth,
closure essential to heal, return from the voyage again to start out.
The rain is a designator of that, the rains diplomatic descent
legislating away anguish to reveal the glade in that window
which was & is perfect time still stretching despite
what was throat-thrush-raw, or brain-Aspergillosus,
and an I.D. bracelet, & Memento mori sentences,
such as: you are a lovely person - neither pet or pest - you are
the someone dearest - in a roster of nursing guardians
changing places, & this rain that is a bridge carrying over
such brief times into time larger than all.
Author’s Biography
Stephen Mead is a retired Civil Servant, having worked two decades for three state agencies. Before that his more personally fulfilling career was fifteen years in healthcare. Throughout all these day jobs he was able to find time for writing poetry/essays, and creating art. Occasionally he even got paid for this work. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before Stonewall, https://thestephenmeadchromamuseum.weebly.com/
