String In Mind
for D.B.A., R.B.C. & J.R.

i.
I just want to be in love
whatever the fuck is her response

just want to be in love
and ecstatically happy

even though happy has to play
see-saw with my being
as wretched as whatever

risking everything
like I have done
had been doing

what agony
but ecstasy as well, I've known
want this same fabric
with all its colors
extended more and more

poetry to spread
beneath her feet
that she'd not need
to walk on earth
but upon the verse
I add to the word
and to the world

ii.
friendship
all that was required
to do what you have done
to give what you have given
little or nothing

dishonest in the extreme
to suggest that friendship
could have inspired
all that I have contributed
or explains the degree
to which you have benefited

to come along after
and to suggest that it is
some friend whom you've inherited
from all the persons
to whom I had commitments
was committed to

devote myself
since I fell in love with you
in late February or early March
last year

you know full well all that was
pouring out of me, along with poems
along with tears

all that was being out pored
was some affliction far far worse
than friendship

you knew and know it was
it is the thing for which
no doctor has a cure

you know it is
what Christ died of
died from, died for

iii.
wish I had you
to express my love to
to express my love through
to truly express my love

come across things in store windows
I want you to wear

I wish it were entirely O.K.
to purchase
wish deepest possible appreciation
were guaranteed

girl I have, girl I love
concerned about me upstaging
her
just-out-of-college boyfriend
with my love and gifts
with my loving her and gifts

what though of poems
I write of her

a few every day

who on earth can compete
with this show of affection

with this expression of love for her
with my without end
serenading her with songs
freshly written, freshly sung

iv.
as delicately made as a musical instrument
as carefully strung

my wish- I wish, to strum from her
upon her, a song or two or a few songs

won't want a choir near, a choir there
to sing along

I'd want to keep her music
keep her musically to myself

heaven song, already a song
by heaven sung

gifts we are, given to us
we offer up, we offer back

she is as fine as women come
as women go
as fine as a woman gets

skinny, she is as lovely
as strands of rainfall
of falling rain

rain falls like beads fall

v.
Jenovia with a J
thought she'd said Senovia

even with a J, things
familiar to me, are set off

in what work though
is there mention
of, my beautiful Senovia

I shall have to recall
this sort of recollection
what I am good at

Jenovia though
what it brings to mind
is Genoa and Columbus
and his setting sail
his setting off

his first voyage
across the Atlantic
to the New World
his 3 ships, Pinta, Nina, Santa Maria
and I go back in mind, in my head

to early history lessons
in primary school
or junior school

how to the event of these ships
am I tied

what they set off, set into motion
tied to Jenovia and my being here

this side of Paradise, beautiful, full eyes
her smile, her ability to recall
name by which I am called

book in the Old Testament
shortest book in The Bible

what things, words, names
are able to trigger off

memories fire off like fireworks
way the mind works
the heart works

blood throughout the body
pumping,
connected to Jenovia, similarly

must have been a Jenovia or two
in classes I taught

linkages, why this word
makes me think of postage stamps
I know not

why my balls ache and my ears ring,
I know not

too far gone to fall in love
for a love affair

do I dare and do I dare
ventured deep into one
into a woman recently

don't know at present
where I am or what my status is
single or married or am I/
are we divorced

am I free to engage in
to venture into another affair

should I cross back
across the Atlantic
undo what Columbus did
or who was it
who got the slave trade going

do we go back
like Garvey suggested
or is it enough
our having become
prime ministers
of independent nations

context in which I right poems
in which Jenovia,
from behind the counter,
calls out to me when I enter
the cafe

happy to see her
happy to see me

how wide and how wonderful
are her eyes

vi.
must have strained a muscle in my mind

excited as I was, I overreached
might have popped a muscle in my mind

a string to do with thinking
talking, intellectualizing
at such a rate, at such a level

will need time to get over
feeling mentally ill

similarly in mind as in body
pull or strain or kink
and out of whack
until restored to health

well being back
well again after string
in mind or soul or body broke
and the notes, the music

sick as you were
until Mozart perfected it


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2011
Written between 3:45 a.m.
and 11:18 p.m. on Friday,
January 7, 2011