Who…
Point Counterpoint
Lee: Please forgive me, I have brain fever.
Lui: Yes, but think not of Kronos, but rather of Kairos.
Lee: How do you spell that, comrade?
Lui: With a “Q” as in ineffable.
Lee: You mean question that t’is nobler in the…
Lui: No! Not that at all! Think my good friend about the pillow of breast against which once you slipped into a fantasy of milk and flesh.
Lee: I have not forgotten. But do you miss the feeling of placing your head against the sweltering nap of my delivery?
Lui: Your delivery? Have you gone astray? Have you stumbled into the lips of another mother, another metaphor?
Lee: Only in the company of a Chinese goddess, a bitch to be sure.
Lui: No, you fool! Your future!
Lee: And how do you spell that, comrade?
Lui: With an “M” as in slow death.
Lee: You mean that… Me… I…
Lui: Yes you.
Lee: Of course, this house of breath will stand forever. But forget not that all we have shimmers forgotten like the drop of swiftly falling love and sad separation embedded in a grave of morning glories, tomb of the bloom of memory as it seeks not agony though cannot help but melt into doom. There is life and there is death, apart from the rest what remains but the incumbent past trailing alone in the mind like a relentless and dreary rain upon the aching bones of old age. I thought that you… Oh no! I know that look that paints your thoughts and that verse that tortures your lips: “Swiftly the rivers flow keeping distant the feeding of pain.”
Lui: And don’t forget the rest of it: “Dew drops and the mulberries weep casting off fruits the size of bloodied lives that spread out into acres of forgotten years from which tottering intimate steps draw up under the flats of slippers the berry stain beating moments of a vanquished heart.
Lee: You bastard! I wept for you. I knelt in obeisance, my forehead to the earth, brow besmudged and hair tangled in your lightning gait, beckoning to be purged. I saw nothing but your shadow. And now you sing to me…
…yes, these are only beginnings…
Umbriate Press Poetry 