Thin Ice
for D.B.A.

i.
I'd be assuming
when I'd not have heard from her
for too many hours or for a day or two
that she is ever so far
and that we had grown so very far apart

she'd surface, reappear as it were
call from her, she upon the phone
I'm here, I'm right here, ever so near

reappearance, reassurance
that she is mine, that I am hers
that nothing at all has or had changed
everything in order, everything in place

when I thought our world, my world,
scattered in every way, in so many ways
scattered, displaced, all intact,
she'd kept it that way, would keep it that way

even if our affair is laced with unfaithfulness
like Arsenic and Old Lace

ii.
tickle her pussy with my pen, without end
wiggle it about as if within an ink well

stories to tell about her, words to spell,
spell she's cast, I'm unable to dispel

spell I am unable to break
won’t want to if I was able to

tied up in her, tied up together
way I like to be, where I like to be
how I like to be, who I like to be

a man in love with a woman in love
whether or not, like me, she is able to declare it

milk I drank or ate, out poured over cornflakes
and I am farting so deliciously loudly

how convenient to be alone, to be living alone

my baby as close to me as the tip of my pen
if she were with me
we could have sexual intercourse
or together, we could watch Moulin Rouge
about Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

I am instead watching it alone
Dee in my heart and in my head

iii.
moving on from what, from where, from whom
away from what, from him to whom
you have not ever been faithful

wedded to another world, citizen of another city
another situation

what the fuck, is what I say
I still have life to get on with
poems to write, to right
tears to weep and to dry or not to dry

Sunday and instead of joy, enigma
unhappy messages

maybe I should not have mixed mentioning
my oldest girl's birthday
with that poem of you
must rescue it, title it, post it on my blog

what headaches I've been suffering
desire to get well without aspirins
or other medication

oh this narrow strip of something
of someplace we occupy, you and I
musie like a piece a wood across a rapid

often falling off, falling in
how much of me I feel, I fear is wasted

unappreciative of caviar
even the eggs of sturgeon fish
get left on the plate or are raked out
raked off, food for the dog

iv.
she'd run out of maturity
not knowing what to do next
because she is so young yet

unable to tell her, to instruct her
useless for her to hear from without
what she has to hear within, in time
what only experience can teach her,
can tell her

v.
little more to get up for
besides her and poetry
otherwise I could lie down and die
and I will eventually

be rid of the pains which existing is
which accompany it
rid of the struggle without reward

one of the most precious,
most priceless rewards of all my days
for living, for sacrificing, for writing
and I am unable to have her outright
all to myself

someone else eating something
someone else's something to eat
and I'm allowed a bite of pizza or apple

why, oh heaven, oh God, am I not allowed
the whole enchilada

am I not at the banquet of life
the banquet of my life

why am I limited to what's left over
to scraps of D'Anthra

allowed of her
what another fellow has eaten of
eaten off, played with, played over

all the music I write of her, create of her
I am inventing her with words
with what I write, for another man
to call his own

should I not be upset, angry
with poetry like this to write
with such a song to sing

should I not want to die instead of live
want to die more than I want to live

besides her and poetry, what have I
to get up for
to worry about bills and illness
impotency, failure, with insufficient
to sweeten life,
to inspire the mountain climb

higher to go and higher to go
without her love to lift me, to uplift me
to give me wings, to take me swiftly
to the summit of every day I have to be
to be or not to be, a bee or not a bee
life bitter and not sweet

vi.
we don’t have nothin’
we never had a fuckin’ thing
just thin ice, nothing else,
nothing more between us
the world has fallen through


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
Written between 1:10 a.m. on Sunday,
November 14th and 11:26 p.m.
on Monday, November 15, 2010