Collapsing Stars

Speak to me in iambic pentameter
and weave Shakespeare sonnets with Milton anecdotes.
Read me riddles and rhymes divulged 
over uneaten dinners and swing-sets with broken chains.
Allow me to lip-synch to your ballad of broken piano-fingers
and I will lay next to you in the dew grass and smoke memories
wrapped in Marlboros. 

Paint anagrams for me in the colors of 
raindrops and oil spills.
Send moonlight messages in the austere silence
of silhouettes and shadows puppeteered
by flashing fingers and flickering wicks.  
Dance with me in the musky autumn aroma
of crackling, symphonic leaves
and I will smash angels into frozen oceans
and lay breathless beneath you and a blanket of snow.
Together we will dodge the juxtaposition 
of an angry bonfire affection,
and let the consonants bound ahead of us
as we lay beneath oak trees and dream of laughter.

Lie to me in stanzas of forgotten rhyme schemes
and fill my ears with cotton and Dr. Seuss until 
the syllables of make-believe words contort 
themselves into definitions.
Play me a harmony of grace-notes that last
as long as a hummingbird’s heartbeat
and drum me a cadence that filters up 
from the ground like dust-motes in sunlight.
Allow me to lay 3/8ths of an inch from your embrace
and feel the dove wing kiss of your pulse 
against my snow-cap knees.

Permit me to take one last look at the 
collapsing stars above, to take in the startling brilliance
of a beautiful thing that consumes itself,
and I will be content to close my eyes forever
and let you be my supernova.

Allow me one more peek,
one more snapshot of clairvoyance,
and I will let your fingers tangle with my hair once more.
I will let your ear rest upon my stereophonic heart
and your hand to settle delicately on my concave waistline.
I will permit your butterfly touch to read the Braille
engraved in the crease of my elbow,
and your quivering fingers to slide along
the skin of my forearm, smooth as fiberglass.
 
Chase me with arms wide open
and a daunting smile on heavy-set lips.
Fill me with sweet connotations and lullabies,
and sweep the denotations from my grasp with gentle
whispers and caresses.
Allow me a glimpse of what is good, and true,
and honest,
and I will float forever without looking up
and wondering why. 
Speak to me, dear,
--together we will race to the ends of time,
and find that nothing exists but the warm imprint 
left by two bodies in the dew grass.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2011

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Alienmermaid Avatar
March 25, 2012 at 8:16 PM
OMG! Elizabeth are you the reincarnation of Browning's wife? This is your FIRST poem on here? It stuns me with its polish and glittering metaphors. If you wrote this for a loved one, then I sincerely hope that they ran with you in the dewy grass in gratitude...as it is the least they could do. = }
Brown Avatar
November 7, 2011 at 5:13 AM
A warm welcome to PoetrySoup I offer to you today Elizabeth. I wish for you the best in your writing endeavors whatever they may be. May you find inspiration by reading some of the poetry written here by other poets. Read and comment on their's and they will return in kind. May the sun shine on you that you might find great joy in your life. Love and blessing always, Carol
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