David Steinberg's Blog, page 4

Slowly, slowly

 

Slowly, slowly

we grow together,

skin across the wound

of our separateness.

Let me brush away protest with your hair

 

Let me brush away protest with your hair,

unbutton passion with your blouse,

stroke red blood into your pale lips,

make of you a river of wriggling, squirming life.

You are so clean and orderly.

I want to play to the secret smiles

that dance over your lips.

I want to disarrange the perfection

of your careful control.

Afterwards you can tie together again

your vagabond hair,

hide your scented body under stylish clothes,

stuff joy back into the corners of your eyes.

No one will ever know

that you carry laughter between your thighs

except me,

and I know already.

You Ask What I Want

 

 

You ask what I want

as if we are in a doughnut store,

as if I could say:�� two glazed,

a chocolate old-fashioned,

or a jelly roll to go.

Always I am without words.

I move my mouth, say nothing.

What is this want?

 

It’s not like that, I say finally,

as if I don’t want.

Yet I do.

I go away empty,

the vacuum sucking at me.

I’m hungry to put voice to this void

and still the words won’t come….

 

I want

to see the bottoms of your eyes

looking into mine

beyond all images

beyond all history

beyond all wishes

beyond all hopes.

 

I want to feel

all of your connection to me

in the tips of your fingers

in the texture of your mouth

in the flow of your breath

in the pulse of your blood.

 

I want to be with you

all the way up the mountain

and all the way down the other side.

 

I want to touch you

spirit to spirit

aura to aura

just to feel the colors mix and swirl.

 

If you are with me, I will feel it.

If you love me, I will feel it.

If you run away, I will feel that too.

The body never lies,

that’s what makes sex so vulnerable.

 

Don’t you know?

Three A.M.

 

Three a.m. and this is crazy

but I am full and crazy

and I want words for Dylan

asleep on cushions on the floor,

rolling because it’s three a.m.

and the lights are still on.

 

Dylan whose body is still whole

after six years of world,

who loves saunas and hot tubs

and splashes of cold water,

who snuggles in bed and on laps,

who moves toward the touches,

toward the warm,

who jumps free into loving bed

asking in clearest plainsong

“What’s this all about,

this lying on top of each other?”

 

Dylan who goes to school

to learn that farts are to laugh at,

that fuck is a word for frustration,

but who comes home to lie with me in bath,

legs around legs,

while we talk warm talks,

soften to the intimacy

that comes with blessed touch.

 

Learn, my son,

learn the best of me.

Learn deep to remember

through the wars,

learn to remember

somewhere much later

after a hundred tidal wave confusions

that touch is love

and warm is wonder.

 

Out of nowhere in a peopleful room

he wants to hug.

Arms reach up.

I stop everything,

sink to my knees to hold warm body,

feel the love in my touch,

in his touch,

yielding, surrendering

to the sudden flow,

one moment among a thousand hundreds,

chits against the future,

the bombardment of giggles and embarrassments,

or roles and pretendings.

It comes hard and fast, gentle boy-child.

I have been where you must go,

death and distortion on every side.

 

I will pray for you,

pray that the ground in you

built of the soil of all these moments

these warms

these laughs

these touches

these wisdoms

that the ground will hold

and keep you from the abyss

that splits pleasure from mind.

 

Slowly, slowly, my faith grows.

Faith in the strength of these seeds.

Faith that the body knows all.

Faith that somehow,

through the maze of contortions and snares,

you will flower in your springtime

and leave barren desert alone.