Poems by James Heller Levinson
EX
I am making love to my Ex in a usual manner. You ask why I am making love to my Ex not why I am functioning routinely.
She appears delighted. Not rapturous but delighted.
Is she feigning delight while experiencing rapture?
Is she experiencing disgust while feigning delight?
The playing field of love is complex. The torpedoes of gain both demonstrative & furtive. The strategies often clear and unspoken, often spoken & unclear.
She is on all fours and I am taking her from behind. My rhythms are steady and unimaginative. This steady motion, these penetrative incursions, could inspire reflections, could incite the fingers of memory to play across the keyboard of personal history, could raise questions, but instead, ... this rocking.
Cooking smells accumulate before I reach the door. I remove my jacket and sit in the easy chair. Her smile leads from the kitchen, she hands me a drink. Then one for herself.
How’d it go with your Ex, she asks, smiling.
Fine.
She begins with her troubles at the office.
After dinner, we remove to the bedroom and turn on television. Our bodies touch.
During Breaking News I take her from the front.
Seeking
Older women were taboo until an excess of alcohol produced a succumber resulting in new discoveries. The playing field enlarged. Miraculously.
To think that genital satisfaction could affect aesthetic predisposition was a novelty. Wrinkles, creases, sags, -- all the bugaboos that adept marketers prey upon – soon served as erotic devices. Sensuous triggers.
To extend chronology was to sprout a wealth of choices, of opportunities.
Her assailment had been thorough.
I was a convert.
I felt newly alive.
Current
We wake in spoon, the early sunlight treats her hair. I take her from behind. I want to leave but don’t. I lie quiet. Attempt to judge a decent amount of recovery time. “Decency” is becoming more important to me. Only because it seems to serve time better. Becomes a time-lubricant, if you will. I twin it with maturation. Not that decency emanates from maturation. It’s just that the days progress more facilely if you can tell yourself you are improving. I zip my jeans and kiss her on both cheeks before I go.
See of Joy
sonic whale tongue daffodil lark
the predisposition to alluring
is most unkempt at dawn
the darkest lark is just before
whitening
god do I love Coltrane!
is so much excitement the methane underlining the seabeds gaseous riots dismiss early foreclosures as unseasonable
specialized mouthpieces and priority reeds surface as enflamed palominos the stagehands chary
with democracy celebrating milestone birthdays biking through
Adolphe Sax rouses virulent a
in tracking an animal we deal with absence
an inclination birthday celebrations seek to arrest
saddling-up Bean’s sound wins dressage contests
why is duration linked to corrosive
I’ll take it up with corporate
see the golden saxophones skipping the sea
the gospel
of the
great pulmonary
Copyright © 2008 James Heller Levinson
James Heller Levinson lives in New York City, New York. He is the author of Bad Boys Poems ________________________________________________ Web Site: http://www.hellerlevinson.com |  James Heller Levinson |
