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Monday, August 23, 2021

Harris Coverley with a Velvet Straightjacket, a Turning of the Page, the Flesh of a Peach...

Say Anything


 

I cannot make love to you right now


the moon glows too bright on my back


the sallow beams tickle my eyelids


it cools and burns in all the wrong spots


I cannot focus with all that going on



I cannot make love to you right now


the sea so near to us


is simply too loud


whistling and bending its turquoise waters


back and back and forth and rolling, rolling


it’s giving me a headache


or the likeness of one


at the base of my skull


and eye sockets


 


I cannot make love to you right now


my joints are sore with the day’s walking


my jaw is sore from the talking


you had me do with those people at our adjoining table


sore also from the ribeye steak you had us share


(tough, so tough)


 


I cannot make love to you right now


the sheets are too rough in some places


and too softly kept in others


it makes me itchy and drowsy


and distracted and too calm


 


I cannot make love to you right now


your dress is fitted too tightly


I cannot work it loose


it’s like a straightjacket made of velvet


and money


(too much money)


 


I cannot make love to you right now


for when I look into your eyes


they are mirrors of a memory


in which are reflected back some other lover


like a stain


something soaked into a carpet or wallpaper


like a fear of something


an unspoken oath


 


I cannot make love to you right now


the air of salt


and seaweed is making my nostrils sting


and my stomach rumble


and my heart feel heavy


and lost


a pebble in the sands


of your skin.




Equinox


I am not the mere sum of my parts


I yearn for more than this fragile body


 


Sat by destiny’s river


The waters of life flowing


The stones crouched like old men


The grass sweet with innocence


 


A smile is on the sun’s rays


Love on that brown horizon


 


I turn the book’s page and...




Drowned in Love


 


I am not raw


or burnt with love


I am softened


humbled


meekened


 


like I have been broiled


in love’s little oven


 


I have passion for a phantasm


a nothing


a ghostling


the feeling of a woman


 


and yet she remains


a faded picture on desire’s wall


 


she is like the gold of a temple


laid out on a bed


like the flesh of a peach


between my lips and teeth


like the taste of sweat


umami on a wandering tongue


smooth like marble


on a freshly shaved cheek


buoyant like joy


in a man-child heart


 


I am drowned in love


the nicest death of them all.



 

Harris Coverley was nominated for the 2020 Rhysling Award and is a member of the Weird Poets Society. He has had verse most recently accepted for Polu Texni, Spectral Realms, Flying Fox Flash, Scifaikuest, View From Atlantis, Ordinary Madness, 5-7-5 Haiku Journal, and Better Than Starbucks, amongst many others. He lives in Manchester, England