Monday, April 12, 2010

Us Two to Perfume
for D.B.A.

i.
what noise when you fart
what note when you fart
what smell

close enough to know
I wouldn't have to ask

as close to you as I am to me
where I want to be

as close to me as you are to you
where I want you to be

no partition between
your flatulence and mine

one room, one life
us two to perfume

ii.
used to being made outsider
to being left outside of this culture
outside in the rain outside

outside with yard fowl
with the birds, with the dogs
in the yard

no wonder I assail, rail against
your sensibility, your house
your walls, your city of Jericho

what if it all fell in, all fell down
won’t fall on me

used to being left just out,
just where, just near enough

to be thrown scraps
from your table

just outside
your kitchen's back door

not even a cat, fed milk
upon the kitchen floor

what about me, difficult to love
to embrace, to get your arms about
around

why the need to find
another man to love

however young
however old

iii.
why does she make these noises
like a warbler, like a thrush
on the phone, in conversation

it is/it was innocent
that is my story
I am sticking to
that
she says and repeats


have I penetrated nothing
is the question I ask

after all to have been through
gone through to create attachment

if I've not gotten through
gotten anywhere

just as cheep I go back
to enterprise I was committed to
engaged in, before she happened by
with her call to life, call to live

just as well I go, I went
back to the art of dying

if only she'd tell me she loves me
if only she told me how deeply

in spite of how impractical we might be
I'd know that I've achieved
much much more than nothing

am I a loser, have I lost her
was she ever mine

a little bit, a little while


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
Written of Friday, April 9, 2010
between 10 a.m. and 3:58 p.m.

2 Comments:

Anonymous D.A. said...

A lot, for a long time.

Monday, April 12, 2010 5:54:00 PM  
Blogger Obie Quiet said...

Saw your 6 words and though, oh, she is resorting again to being laconic, to revealing little and avoiding being at all emotional. I had to read through the entire 3 parts of "Us Two to Perfume" and then read your 6-word response to experience their impact and meaning. I discovered only then that here you reveal or confess rather more than ever before of thoughts and emotions. To say the least, I was deeply moved. I am grateful for the candor of these 6 revealing words, cryptic though they are. I had to unravel them. I had to unpackage them to get the impact. You are the right balance, the right weight on the other side of sweet see-saw.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010 7:16:00 PM  

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