Truth or Consequences -- Against the Coryphaeus

 

They said you had no life

Outside

My imagination

They tell me that the few words

You spoke 

Were empty

Only a residue of vodka

Beside the pillow

They say you had no life in you

That I did not put there

But I believed

In neurons and in you

Chorus: 

Did you not smell the smoke on the wind?

Did you mistake fire for flame?

Did you see the absence of promise

As a sign of an honest heart?

Hear us now:

Kisses are but ashes on the breath

Of an unkind lover.

They said you were never anything but cold

Clay

And I breathed upon you

The only heat you held

Past dawn. 

You had already put me down

In those first weeks

Looking across Montana for the next woman

To prove

What I already believed

Chorus: 

Forget,

Forget, what you think you knew.

His kisses were ashes

Lie, lay, lye

Under my hand your face went still

You brow unfolded

And thus you settled, lay across me, rested

We slept and did not

For my lips a quicker quickening

And I persist in thinking

It was no false delight when you laughed

And surely I did recognize the tremor

When you so recognized

Me

Chorus:

You should've listened to us

Do not fall so hard against

The unquiet evidence of hands,

Of lip, of tongue, of breath, of sweat, 

These most tender gifts easily spin

The only human treasure

Or slip upon the weft of that oldest lie

A fool is fooled

As many before and many will after be

Ashes of kisses

Lies upon October

December silence

January empties

No deposit, no return

Why grieve over

The detritus of faith?

They say you were poaching

Needing nothing

But the seducer's micaceous gold

And by finding it again and yet again,

Can prove you still have the stakes--

Until, of course, you do not

And must take what is left

Paying then a higher cost for smaller heat

Proven wrong

Even thrice

With the instinct of the branded

I am yet a last believer

In the paradox of who

I knew

Chorus: 

Fool, he gave you nothing, brought you naught,

Took you nowhere, showed you to none,

Gifted you without one object of good faith

Kisses are only the ashes of breath....

Hush now

You singers

Tell me no more of the acid moon

The sorrows of sparrows

Nor of birthday's without wishes

And one lost black feather

I hold the secret

I believe

Comments

[Semaphore]

A Greek chorus! As with all your poetry, this will need to simmer in the unconscious for me - but I am already floored.