our bones will live a life after we die

fret not that to the grave we are betrothed
our bones will live a life after we die
and peacefully in desert tombs alcoved
we'll honeymoon forever, you and i
no reason will we have to leave our bed
each day we spend together, we'll be smiling
though everyone above us thinks us dead
we pass away the pleasant hours, whiling
our skeletons will make love in the earth
they'll go out drinking, they'll go dancing, dining
and gestate in a womb of pangless birth
our stillborn babies never waking, whining
and then, one day perhaps someone will find us
and some foolish poet's pen will mind us.

the music made of our remains

the grave will not yet mute our bodies' bones
though death may fret the body's muscle-cords
stretch'd over cryptic hollows and Unknowns
and strum away the flesh that we adored
and pluck away our life in quarter-tones,
our sinew clamped to spinal fingerboard
to mocking make a ballad of our moans
at least our love goes not untroubadoured:
here lies the lay of Tristan and Yseult
of married Monatague and Capulet;
Pyramus and Thisbes underscore us
and songs and lays and poems, plays result
arpeggiating lovers down Death's fret
adding measures to our lovesong for us
as if adding verses to our chorus,
epithalamiums to epitaphs
travelling from upper to lower staffs
singing lullabies to their better halves
and other lovers descending in refrains
join in the music made of our remains

strange dream

strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think
strange death that gives him leave to love past life
strange dram that did dispatch him quick as drink
that lately gives him leave to love his wife
and there, where flesh was tanned and lips were pink
since have been flayed off by his happy knife;
where eyes might miss some sight because they blink,
are now unburdened with that lidded strife...
and with the help of power passion-lent
and drugs, such dreams will guide us out from under
the curse of crossing stars and their intent
to short the hours that we came and went,
the turning earth that's turned you a white wonder,
and gives us leave for new love to invent.

strings

we close, like scissors, one though another
so, loosed of limb and our worldly tether
our ligaments under earthly cover
then might bind us closer there together
our bones suffer not to be forgotten
connecting tissues, 'round the world it brings
to life star-cross'd lovers, misbegotten
as at the end of marionette strings
they died with knives in desert Araby,
a pride of midnight lions standing near
and with help from an apothecary,
that exile who lived not too far from here.
we cut one cord together so to find
ourselves well-spliced, new-wrought and better twined.

let us not dare not

darling, we had beautiful bodies once.
remember? how quickly you forget it
and quicker still death resolutely blunts
everlasting love-vows if you let it.
its true that love has led us here to death
in to the arms of each other, dying
cruelly cutting loose our cords of breath
and our knotted bodies limbs untieing
but love and death and life and limb are one
and only are they in our bodies known
let us not end without having begun
or not dare not, do not, and die, alone
darling we are young and beautiful yet
oh, but still how quickly you do forget

...to the houses of the dead

make for us no tombs nor houses cryptic.
should i fail, then bury me inside her.
should i stumble down long Death's ecliptic,
never rising, let me rest beside her.
there is no terror left within my blood,
and no life left in Death's old mysteries;
the grave will either close us both in mud
or harrow hell, i, mystic Hercules.
perform no rites, nor pay my two-pence fare
(for Death is not so easily impressed)
should shadow join with night and breath with air,
our better parts at least will find their rest
if souls regard their homes with little worth,
we'll house each other underneath the earth.

i make you sonnets

now bury us inside a lover's grave
and let us clasp and kiss each other's bones.
beneath the overwhelming earthen wave
we'll measure out our love with littles stones.
our spoiling flesh will rot itself away,
staining nearby earth in underplaces,
where love-in-little-stones about us play
spilling through our skulls and out our faces.
sternum to sternum, our ribs entwining,
still, we dance through sunset color'd soil;
touch in places flesh was never finding.
and shuffle in each other's mortal coil.
for us a fading dawn will never break
the earthen lovely slumber that we make.

how to find your one true love

darling, we'll find our true love in the sky
in the fevers of the year
we will run away on the open road
we can take your car
i'll drive with my knees
so i can hold your hand across the shifter
while we hang our arms out of the open windows.
feathers will cover us
boy, girl, hands, arms, car and all
and we will lift into the yawning blue dawn
engine, hearts, arms pumping
a bird that knows the secrets that souls keep
finding its way back to the unfinished nest
it started building a century before we were born
that we will land in and finish forever
in the centuries after we die.
or, if not
and feathers do not cover us
and you do not hang your arm from the window
and we do not become a bird
and we do not find our true love
i will drive you back home
and give you your keys
and think of you, every time i fry an egg,
or arrive home without remembering how i got there