crazy to love

 
she used to call me soldier. I liked it, didn’t have to tell her
my name. I never want to give a woman too many details,
whether she’s a whore or not.

the night is made consumingly of hard rain. it murders the
moon & executes every star. if it’s poetry, it’s the omen of
darkness, the art of shadows.

she might have been pretty, but I can’t see that far back.
her hair was black & long; it was red, fluffy, & cupped her
head like the sleeping petals of a flower; it was auburn,
I suppose, but never blonde. & her eyes  –  her eyes were
the color of forgetting.

was I more, or less of me then? in fact, there was nothing
for me to be, not a lover, or a hero for her to crawl into. &
nothing for her to be.  except a whore.

those decrepit hotels: they are required for cheap affairs.
we made a mess of sex, & abandoned kisses for the bites
I put on her shoulders & other female come-ons, as I
patrolled her body for some proof of heaven.

I rode something wild in her, the wildness of an outlaw,
till I crashed in the barrens of a place that has no name.
and it was done.

she’d go to the bath to relieve herself & paint on the fresh
colors of prostitution. & quickly she was gone. I’d return to
a bar, where a sad whiskey bottle would have been lonely
without me.

she & I were desperadoes. we cantered into a dire sunset
and we lived by an oath  –
crazy to love…


(Art: Gerard Kelly)