1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/ untitled poem

UNTITLED POEM


Hey, you!
I know your name today.
What will it be tomorrow?
Maybe the same,
And I'll be happy.
Or completely different,
And I'll be happy.
So that, my love, is my life,
Happiness intrinsic,
That being, quizas,
The most poignant part.

O, I love you.
That I don't deny--
Not even to myself.
But loving you is a task in self-discipline
For I could love you madly, passionately, blindly
Without another thought of the things that usually invalidate my love
Without that analysis with which I prove to Susan
The utter stupidity of all that comes and goes in the name of love.
And if I love you that way
(The ending will be sad and full of pain)
Could it be any more terrible
Than this cold, analytic state of mind
I like to think is love?
I am tired of dissecting emotion.
For this week---I think I will love you
Without reason.

The love-song of Susan Skinner is forty eons long,
Mostly written in iambic nontameter.
And profound--
So profound I would not dare to read it,
'Les I were she--or you.
So she writes,
As she wrote for years before and after,
Smiling for the fools
Who think they understand it
Acknowledge defeat, you fools.
No one knows me!

There was an answer,
I suppose,
When they wrote it.
But yet, perhaps no,
I can't be sure.
Answers are meaningless without the questions,
And this, I think, is a question,
Which even an answer would render meaningless.

I, the ego infidel,
Suspended at times in a self-made hell
Or ecstatic in a purloined paradise,
The unbelievable, unbelieved.
Limbo is denied, too in-between.
A symbol of the sacred self is seen.
A slash of soul, examined by the world,
A slice of soul, served on a polished plate
By a maitre'd who knows his work so well
That seldom does he make a slight mistake,
"Les he gets bored, and to amuse himself,
Heckles the guest he's sure is parvenue,
Intimidating those who won't complain;
There is no satisfaction in the game.
To have, to hold the things we cannot touch,
Objective childish, seen most in adults.
I love you, and I want some tangent proof.
Knowing better, Still I think that love
Is something that I hold my hand out for.

A rhyme, a rhyme for Susan.
But only for today.
Tomorrow she will want the moon;
But this communique
Contains a very small request.
I'm sure you will comply.
She only wants a happy verse,
Her useless tears to dry.

ithinkthattheveryideaofcommunicationiscloudilydefined
Away with the mists that encircle our minds!
To know you, I must wait for some exchange of words,
Masquerading as communication.
If, and when, that barrier is passed,
I find true communication in a quick exchange of glances,
Or a smile, playing at the corner of your mouth.
And the silence and your nearness say so much more than can be put in words.


Susan J. Skinner

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