The blush of a crimson rose
Born of the wind
Nourished by its passion for life
Splits the dry cantankerous earth
gasping for air
reaching for the pool of sky
petals uplifted in the dawn's yawning light.
She waits
Searching for some sustaining cloudburst
Flaunting her blushing beauty.
Her heavenly scent
teases the wind's feathery wings.
In a cloud of stifling rust-colored dust
The Yammering Dynamic Duo rolls into town
Pants and guards down.
The nearly expired salt lake
gleaming heat wave exhilaration
at these latest of victims --
heat stroke, sun stroke, havin'-too-much-fun stroke
They broke the ego stroke, spoke
and skidded to a stop
The cool, shadow of the long-stemmed rose
Bites her lip and falls across their squinted, blazing
Half-crazed, bloodstained
Poetic eyes --
Four glistening globes of anticipation
Scanning the horizon like re-con soldiers
Two Smart-bomb brainiacs searching the wild hinterlands
the dusty, foxholes of their shared passions
their tousled liquid vision
animal taste for adventure, lust and the Flame.
Searching
for the muse.
They tumble, landing in an appropriate pile before her
Scrambling to pull themselves off of each other
with enough finesse to catch her eye; they dove for their pencils,
their sketchbooks, their journals;
dove for their sparking electrical outlets in airy,
scented hotel rooms in various climes,
in small dark piss-smelling rooms,
on embankments,
in church pews,
brothels,
weed-ridden drive-in movie theatres
deserted all over America's face like lost ideals,
vanquished morals, defeated humanism, faded love;
dove for their cocks to scribble
hard-earned dedication to craft
their teeming, fetid indecipherable scrawls of agony
their glistening chins and in-bred competitive spirits...
shit or shinola...
grit or granola?...
Nothing matters anymore...
don't care about anything...
you snooze, you muse...
all the hits...
i can't help it...
goddess...
angel...
lifeboat...
they've grown up writing nonsensical gibberish
aimed at their own egos
aimed at their own hard-ons
aimed at their own needy self-esteem...
write, write, write, write, write, write...RIGHT.
Electric bills soar, typewriters roar
politically incorrect p.c.'s throw their overstuffed similes
and metaphors back at them quicker than the monitor's green glow
can reach their drooling faces...
The pressure of coming up with something real to say
day in
day out
suddenly lifted
by a rose --
by any other name
a miracle
dropped into their billowing laps like a sack of golden moths
saved from the flame
fluttering
in baited anticipation of flight...
they each grab a satin corner of the bag
and in one brotherly shake
the sky is filled with the barely discernible sound of
thousands of flapping wings
wings of air and lace
flesh and lash
dream and hope.
circling the rose
in opposite directions
the poets
(as they address themselves in mock-serious tones)
nearly collide at every pass
grazing each others' self-image
imprinting each others' energy-field with a shared solidity
equal parts magic, obsession and trust
as they race to capture the rose's essence
on the open page.
-- for 67 days and nights this goes on one morning
on the dry lake bed
home to nothing but wind and dust and ghostdance sound
two circling poets and the blush of a crimson rose.
II.
The poets sit
Exhausted
their once strong legs twisted beneath them
aching arms around each other
a concessional display of confessional withdrawal.
Their lives, lies, ego-centric eccentricities tossed into a pile
tear-stained empty pages
reflecting light from the full moon's mocking
resonance. The desert chill whispers up a breeze.
In this light they see bursting from the distant trail of a shooting star
a widening glistening glow
slowly easing toward them from some heavenly niche in the
horizon's suit of armor.
there is a distinct purring
an angelic fluttering
of what has to be thousands
of luminescent creatures
floating on wing like a neon blanket of mother's tears
bathing them in radiant warmth and the dizzying perfume of
familiarity
and on the lightest of winds
the soft smile of breath beckons them...
they race to the rose
they each kiss its form with their eyes
they touch its heart with their devotion
the rose cries for more
the rose cries for immortality
the rose cries for lust
for passion
the rose cries for respect
the poets, naked before her
beg
for her mercy --
"Please, let us live without you in our hearts
we cannot be strong enough to love so deeply
to care so completely
to spend our hours wanting only to show your beauty back to you
to nourish and feed and wet your yearning soul with our caring passion
please let us follow the moon away from here
to a place of definition and solid ground
to a place of boredom and predictability
to a world where we can still fool ourselves into believing
that our words are important and not just weak reflections of
the moonlight shining in a drop of dew as it falls
from you
onto our unworthy lips"
she pulls them both into her center
the heart of her character
the essence of her magnitude.
it was easier to draw them in than she expected --
they didn't put up much of a fight:
one came, fast and easy, cock first
toward her...a flash in the night
bouncing her way like a magnetic confident ball of iron
all show of course
but such an exuberant little show
all youthful vigor and confused denial
a wall of carelessness, working hard to incorporate sadness and angst
into his broadening palette
failing to mask the terror of being without her affection, so easy to love,
so hard to be without;
the other, more slowly,
face first
smile full of doubt and tears
surprising himself with his ability to feel anything
to expose his soul so readily
naked wonder of lost identity
poking him awake then jumping back under the cover of night
carrying within his mouth a depth of conscience
deadly only to his fragile self
entwined with a strength of passionate, vulnerable time...
she absorbed him instantly.
Once buried
deep inside her heart
they find gilded streets of heavenly grandeur
paved by their best intentions
swept of their doubting nightmare visions
and graced by their own self-love and its respectful reflection.
They smile at each other
click their heels in a soft thud of naked feet
and soar off
into the rose-tinted sky of dawn's
yawning light.
In the red-dust of morning
Two books lay open catching heat
Pages flutter in the sun, empty but for identical rose petals
tattooed with delicate golden marks left
by butterflies' wings
and in each
a rose-colored inscription reading
"Beautiful"
III.
One poet
makes a mad dash and plucks the rose from the earth
puts it between his teeth and runs
fast and furious with all the speed and false fearlessness becoming youth.
The rose quivers in his grasp
free at last from her own self-preservation
succumbing to his restless fire
his hidden dependence on her essence.
One poet
raggedly staggers behind
follows at an unsafe distance
always keeping the faint blushing glow of their forward motion
in his vision
around every corner
around every brick wall.
waiting
for the call that will never come
crying for the time desperately wasted
cursing fate's dastardly bent sense of humorless spite
but still
walking
crawling
waiting
for that moment of transcendent beauty
that invisible tickle on his pounding heart
reminders of every lovely thought
every mind-boggling vision of beauty and passion and spirit
he has ever had the luck and good fortune to experience
all his long, twisting life.
All contained in the whisper of a scent
the blush of a desert rose
that sat waiting to inspire
waiting to give her radiant heart
to a wandering
floundering
shell of a man
who had forgotten the poet's heart inside.
IV.
One poet
The weight of this relentless beauty
this unforgiving perfection
the scent of this glowing, exuberant flower
blossoming in his presence
blooming a richer, darker red in his grasp
overwhelms his unpolished agenda
overruns his still forming vision of himself.
Scared he sets the flower aside
Gently
Sweetly trying to recall this exact spot for future reference
He turns to walk away spinning
again
to look with each step
unsure of his decision
unsure of his direction
unsure of his heart.
One poet, he finds her
alone, staring into the distance
a rose fading in the summer's heat
not responding to her own tenacious strength
watching the horizon
for the shadow of her heart's memory.
He kisses her softly
brushes his tears across her delicate petals
wishes only that he had the right words
the comforting touch
to bring her radiance back to her.
if only he could grab her attention
and for a slow moving moment in time
catch her glance
let her see reflected there in his moist, puddling eyes
let her see the beautiful
perfect blush of a rose that he holds deep within his heart.
If she could only see
beyond the past
before the future tears another soul away
takes another careening life
and instantly leaves nothing but memory.
If she could only see the deepest
burning fire
love's loyal commitment to defeat
sitting there beside her on the dry desert floor
crying tears for their crossing paths
crying tears for their thinnest of moments
crying tears for their happenstance neglect of
each other's powerful spirits
crying tears for two poets
and the blush
of a crimson rose.
~ summer 1996 (re-edited 10/24/10)
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