http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
Over the centuries, many metaphors have been used by writers and orators for some transcendental passion for life and love. Someone once asked me what, as a poet, is the one to which I most closely relate. I suspect today’s poem is as good an answer as any.
Irrelevant perhaps, but I have to confess to a long-ago fling with a really nice guy guy. He was visiting London, and we spent a great week together. He had a fetish for black shirts and only ever wore one whenever we met up. He liked me to wear one too, even gave me one of his own for a souvenir on our last day together. Only, I didn't know at the time it would be our last day. I guess he decided it was time to move on and wasn't into goodbyes. Whatever, I discovered he had checked out of his hotel with a young woman, and never saw or heard from him again.
I kept (and wore) the shirt for years.
Over the centuries, many metaphors have been used by writers and orators for some transcendental passion for life and love. Someone once asked me what, as a poet, is the one to which I most closely relate. I suspect today’s poem is as good an answer as any.
Irrelevant perhaps, but I have to confess to a long-ago fling with a really nice guy guy. He was visiting London, and we spent a great week together. He had a fetish for black shirts and only ever wore one whenever we met up. He liked me to wear one too, even gave me one of his own for a souvenir on our last day together. Only, I didn't know at the time it would be our last day. I guess he decided it was time to move on and wasn't into goodbyes. Whatever, I discovered he had checked out of his hotel with a young woman, and never saw or heard from him again.
I kept (and wore) the shirt for years.
DARK METAPHOR, SWEET SEDUCTION
I sensed before I saw
the stranger leaning against a wall,
observing me;
black jeans, high black boots,
rippling black tee
Shoulder length hair
tumbled like sea waves in a storm
while dark eyes
invited me to strip naked, dive in,
explore their depths
Oh, but try as I might,
I could no more ignore Man in Black
than my reaction,
fighting off thoughts of caving in
to dark seduction
I turned my attention
to a bird in a gutter, at first glance
seeming dead to me
till its wings managed a last flirt
with history
I grieved for the bird
that would never fly, never sing again,
and ‘never’ a lonely place,
island of lost dreams ghosting time
and space
Suddenly, I knew for sure
I wanted more than ‘never’ out of life,
needed the Man in Black
to enter my mind, body and spirit,
never look back …
Where metaphor serves sexual passion,
the Man in Black served mine
Copyright R. N. Taber 2013
I sensed before I saw
the stranger leaning against a wall,
observing me;
black jeans, high black boots,
rippling black tee
Shoulder length hair
tumbled like sea waves in a storm
while dark eyes
invited me to strip naked, dive in,
explore their depths
Oh, but try as I might,
I could no more ignore Man in Black
than my reaction,
fighting off thoughts of caving in
to dark seduction
I turned my attention
to a bird in a gutter, at first glance
seeming dead to me
till its wings managed a last flirt
with history
I grieved for the bird
that would never fly, never sing again,
and ‘never’ a lonely place,
island of lost dreams ghosting time
and space
Suddenly, I knew for sure
I wanted more than ‘never’ out of life,
needed the Man in Black
to enter my mind, body and spirit,
never look back …
Where metaphor serves sexual passion,
the Man in Black served mine
Copyright R. N. Taber 2013
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