Poetic Interlude CXVII

Post the Sixty-Second: Out In The Park Post the Sixty Third: Pride Recap

Poetic Interlude CXVII

Dreams and Landscapes

By Tyler J. Yoder

You’re old enough to lie, aren’t you, darling?

It’s life at all that’s so hard:

In the uninhabitable hours, I dally with my memories of you,

Then I put on a veil, blow out the candle, and hide on the chaise –

Sometimes, it’s necessary to lounge in evening clothes all day.

I want to arise, like a libertine angel, covered in cloud and in fire;

My heart was not gnawed by a specific tiger, my love.

There are days when I hardly speak;

I will frequently take vows of silence that are broken within an hour.

The ghost of Yeats will not leave me alone, today,

And I can think of no better way to die than a bathtub of champagne:

My sorrows, apparently, are survivors – why won’t we drown?

The secret ingredient is my blood; it tastes of cocktail music.

I had a dream, of the Emperor and Empress of Brazil;

We discovered a hamlet drowned in years, at the foot of an active volcano.

I had a strange desire to replace my teeth with carved ivory,

and with the unfertilized eggs of a dead woman.

In the uninhabitable hours, my love, I grow frustrated by the intersection of our madness.

The ghosts of our surviving sorrows, and our dreams, buried in an antique child-sized casket,

Are covered in cloud and fire.

You’re old enough to lie, aren’t you, darling?

It’s life at all that’s so hard.

Tagged: Poetic Interludes, Poetry, Tyler J. Yoder