April  2004 National Poetry Month

That was After, This is Later  

 

“Hug my knees but don’t lift my skirt”, you said.

But that was on cam with preppy clothes and all,

Yesterday, ready for action,
just back from an afternoon run, 
you stood chest heaving in the hallway

and I said, “Take off your Nikes.

You said, 
“I’m keeping them on in case I decide to waffle.”

 

I would gladly strap on any false world you choose, let you party in my video reality with both hands on my Van Dam Commando guy, feeling right at home like a street fest; I’m dancing with my guns in the air.

 

I’m thinking, I can’t have enough of you,

how can this get any better, when later,

you slip into something more important

than a bi-mental telegenic transmission.

 

You show me your seduction by joking,

teasing my sense of humor, pointing out

the absurdity of separate rivers we wade

neck deep in our encoded worlds, everything

that’s missing from my desperation, a world

narrowed down to a smaller list of things to do,

a worthwhile dance, not based entirely on

orgasmagoria, a list of things you hunger for

down to the last of your passion’s embers,

and what to do when sex is over. Yes, things

 

Slightly left of lunch, right of rainbow 

Skewed a bit off beam, off center, parts of

Your growing unrest just west of gridlock

When you show me all the funny stuff

and how I’m so out there with nothing that

can’t be decoded or broken down into fears

and disappointment, later, when my Yahoo

brothel mentality gives way to a nabster music

for cruising loose on the strip and I say, wow,

you wear cool shoes to bed, are they Gucci?

and you say, undress me slowly, but don’t

say more because more is not enough.

 

I can’t believe I’m playing in the lap of Venus

longing for the coral glow of your shadows,

veiled by a blonde modeling of virginal stance

discovering by chance your blue recesses of

an ever weakening resistance.

 

I want to feel your co-ed caution

as well as your infantile bounce.

 

I see like a blue aura through your hair

The occasional wet sadness you bring

To my attention when I am inattentive.

 

Like a mirthful mantra I am coming back,

rushing with different colors, prism warped

to a fantasy with a future of crystal afternoons.

I want to think of us beside ourselves in love,

Real window light reversing raw earth to blush.

Copyright Jimmy Warner, 2004