Forms of Love

Almost a Double Ballade

Roses should bloom in the borders
of my home, and rocky cisterns
should hold secret tears of flowers
afraid to see the summer end.
Lovers who part, I pray, return,
inspired by secret melody,
never forgetting their garden
dreams, sleepless nights, and memory. . . .

Francois Villon, I can't go on.
Moths have eaten the angel's wings.
The sun has died and a new moon
lifts behind the silent black fog
like a blind man's startled fingers
reading the blankness of empty
rooms. I cry in shadows of vague
dreams, sleepless nights, and memory.

She dressed like a Chinese dancer,
a revolution of thin hips
fluttering purple hummingbirds
at her thighs; then, Villon, she stepped
into meadows where flowers weep.
One moment I thought we were freed
from old concerns and my locked up
dreams, sleepless nights, and memory,

but we couldn't seduce the guards.
We were hiding in suburban
cellars, dining on insects, starved
prisoners losing time on cold stone
floors in cages of love. Visions
descended then to our lips, seized
tongues, pressed moist kisses in
dreams, sleepless nights, and memory. . . .

But can I remember always
hands never held, a hungry mouth
that never wet the hip's tense shape,
the pearls of her breasts never soft
from tides washing in on the shore?
Memories are dreams of need,
wakened desires. I want no more
dreams, sleepless nights, and memory!

Villon, savior, can't you hear? I
no longer have this wish to be
a saint of love, free me from my
dreams, sleepless nights, and memory!