Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Lives far dearer than our own

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Sleeping With Women

It’s the waking up that changes with each one.
Before you realize there is more than one bed story
to tell, aftersleep already has its way with you.
There is a we to account for and it takes time to arrive
there laden as you are with dream residue and the
thousand melancholies you wake to alone dispelled
because there is another who may well be waking
beside you, or is already sending the scent of French
roast percolating down hallways at altitudes that cause
you to sleep in longer for having fought oxygen
the night long, your sea-level sensibilities always slow
to acclimatize in her ravenous red bed. There are the
mornings when men rise risen to their purpose before
the mind has keened and a woman’s mouth has taken
there to pull you through triumphs you’ve no earthly
business proclaiming, but in yielding do so nevertheless.

There were cabin windows hoared with breathglaze
teeming on glass that sainted the early light passing
through to rouse diffused hosannas in the conifers
that led in time to tables and breakfasts whose sating
was certain to relieve you of ever requiring another.
But there is always another hunger, each day seemingly
born to it. I’ve been cast up into such constellary
atmospheres that I was sure I would hold my place
forever among the gleaming ancients only to find
myself in fallen reflection dawning on the watertop.

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Remember her limbs lengthening in low amplitudes
as snow-horned dragons stirred and settled reasons
for washing one’s hands of dispossessed messiahs,
pale and purring as she did so, golden fire spilling
down the perfect architecture of her Sybilance as
she told you, without speaking, of things to come,
charting full the course of what failed futures were
found within the shallow steerage of a false destiny?

I have slept with women I could not sleep with, this
is true. They, too, have slept with me. We were one
and alone encumbered by all those we brought with
us into our becoming and subsequently dispersed in
our unbecoming. This is the way of lying beside, of
lying alone together, of holding on for lives far dearer
than merely our own. Were it otherwise, I might have
wished it so. To sleep with a woman is to sleep with
all you may become and all you may yet never be;
to sleep with a woman is all there is of whatever might
yet pass for truth in this round and dreaming world.

Joseph Gallo
November 23, 2008


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8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous parried...

I read this as I listen to Peter Gabriel's "Of These, Hope"...
purely coincidentally...or, perhaps through some mystically decoded derivation of waters forded in my own memories amassed- and I marvel...

B

November 25, 2008 1:19 PM  
Blogger Joseph Gallo parried...

Ah, yes that piece. Nice. I've seen Peter Gabriel five times and he never did not astonish me with his performance and his singular creativity.

Mysterious indeed, as I know well to well.
I call them the happy little accidents in the perfect order of the universe, everything unfolding as it does, if not as it should.

Thanks for stopping by to read what lines I've heard first in my heart (yes, I have one) and then gave expression through my head (I've got enough for two on that count).

;-)

Be well, brother Bryan.

November 26, 2008 1:36 PM  
Blogger billie parried...

I see you are still blowing us all away over here with these lovely posts - such beautiful words and images. Thank you!

And Happy Thanksgiving. :)

November 28, 2008 5:26 AM  
Blogger Joseph Gallo parried...

Thank you, Billie. We do what we do and one thing I've done is created another post for the wonderful Mystic-Lit. I will get it to you as I edit some unnecessary things out and re-figure what it's about. ;-)

Defending one's writing, I think. Something along those lines. That and some delving insight into why we do what we do as spoken from the mouth of one of literature's most beautifully-souled characters. I will get it to you in early December, so please keep a spur in my side before mid-month.

Best of holidays to you, Billie, and to all my worldwide readers!

November 28, 2008 11:49 AM  
Blogger Cynthia parried...

A beautiful essay on women and
men. Well-written and felt.

November 30, 2008 12:22 PM  
Blogger Joseph Gallo parried...

More of a poem, but that's fine. Call it what you wish. A short piece that had some things to speak to me about. ;-)
We're quickly becoming fast friends, Cynthia. Thanks again for stopping by.

November 30, 2008 5:49 PM  
Blogger Unknown parried...

A beautiful waking, still a bit asleep, or a lovely sleeping, just enough awakened.

November 30, 2008 9:12 PM  
Blogger Joseph Gallo parried...

Ah, Kyle---you always say it perfectly in the fewest words. Unless I'm in haiku mode, I seldom do that.

Supralingual, I guess. ;-)
Thanks for your comment, friend.

December 01, 2008 8:53 PM  

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