Songs Of Inappropriate Desire by G. Murray Thomas nextmag@aol.com gmurraythomas.com © 2004 2005 G. Murray Thomas All Rights Reserved Orange Ocean Press Long Beach, CA Table Of Contents Songs Of Inappropriate Desire Table Of Contents Learning To Dance Love Is Not A Kid Launching A Kite The Garden Bird Watching Almost Valentine’s Circle Glass In My Bed The Song Of Inappropriate Desire Also By G. Murray Thomas Learning To Dance “There are things you can not write yourself out of. Take love...” -- Mindy Nettifee, “The Advice I Never Got” (A very overdue apology) (For Pamela Martin) This is where it really starts, isn’t it? Not with the endless litany of women who’ve rejected me, but with the one I rejected. The junior high dance-floor dim, and you coming up to me, three years after we were “boyfriend and girlfriend” whatever that means in fourth grade. But I had my eye on the blonde cutie you had not grown into, a cutie who wouldn’t even give me one dance, but still pulled my attention away from you. I did not give you one dance either. Perhaps, at that moment, my life turned, and I learned a new dance step -- pushed two steps away, rather than pulled one step in -- which I would repeat for 35 years. Yes, that night I learned the dance of rejection rather than acceptance. Even learned to enjoy it. And would forever search for the perfect partner to that particular step with. So now, I not only apologize for the heartbreak I know I caused on that dim dance-floor, but I say that, in that moment, I probably hurt myself more than you. Love Is Not A Kid Launching A Kite Love is the frame, the paper. Love is the string. Love is hours spent assembling the kite. Love is the empty blue sky waiting for you to dance across it. Love is the wind. Love is the tree. Love is the leaves tumbling through the gale. Love is testing the breeze, waiting for the perfect moment. Love is impatient, launching too soon into certain disaster. Love is still standing, waiting, long after the breeze has passed. Love is the tension which holds the kite aloft. Love is the desperate dance as the kite starts to fall. Love is the crash. Love is the splintered balsa, the torn paper. Love is putting the kite back together again. Love is trying again. The Garden I feel the ragged underbrush of my mind clearing. In quiet contemplation I pull out every errant root, every errant thought, leaving room for the important strands to bloom. Every morning: fuller leaves mew crisp life hints of flowers and fruit. And something new growing within as well. My spirit blooms with your every flower. You have nourished me long before I taste your first salad. Bird Watching A flash of feathers in the brush, too swift to attach a name to, but enough glimpse of brilliant plumage to create the possibility of a startling new bird. None of the standard manuals list this species. But what is this need to identify? As if, without a name, the bird does not exist. Relax. Enjoy the glorious, unfamiliar song. Almost Valentine’s Two days early we exchange gag Valentine’s toys and horror stories of car trouble lousy jobs and leaky roofs. Sipping cheap chardonnay we discuss the absurdity of holidays, the impossibility of assigned emotions: on this day you will be happy, thankful, in love. When I prepare to leave your kiss tells me I should stay. But I have appointments waiting and the rain tells me I may already be late. So I drive away with only the taste of pink candy on my tongue. Circle (A poem in parts.) 1. This is a poem about desire. This poem wants more. This poem is about desire. This poem desires to be about... This, just about, desires a poem. This poem desires to mean something. This poem cannot reach its desire. This poem is incomplete without its desire. This poem will never be finished. This poem can never fulfill its desire. This poem keeps making the same mistakes over and over again. This, just about, desires a poem. This poem is a circle. This poem is trapped in a circle of its own behavior. This poem is a viscous circle. This poem is self-destructive. This poem keeps repeating the same self-defeating behavior over and over, while its meaning keeps slipping farther and farther away. This poem wishes it could escape. This poem has no desire to escape. If this poem keeps up at this rate there will soon be nothing left of this poem. This poem is about desire. This poem is desire. This poem desires this. This poem feels there should be something more. Glass In My Bed There is a storefront window in my heart. Bright posters advertise compassion understanding sympathy. But within, desire leers through the glass and pounds on the pane. Now, there is glass in my bed. There is a plate-glass sliding door in my soul designed to keep my demons safe where I can watch them outside. But they charge on in anyway through the shattering shards. Now, there is glass in my bed. We drink the wine of friendship toast the promises of forever. But we clink the goblets too hard. You hold the mirror to my face. I claim not to recognize the image there. But my demons and desires stare back, demand their due. The mirror shatters. And now, there is glass in my bed. The Song Of Inappropriate Desire Like the moth to the moon. Like the moth to the disco ball. Like the dancer to the train yard. Like the train to the point of infinity. Like the mathematician to chalk dust to the eraser to the number of the names of God. I am drawn to you. Like the cattle to the cattle prod. Like lightning to the same old spot. Like the river to the power plant. Like e-mail to a manual typewriter to eight track decks to cuneiform etched in mud. I am drawn to you. I awaken to vultures singing outside my window. The vultures sing about the mirage, desiccated corpses shimmering on the horizon. The corpses dream about the Sea of Tranquility. The moon wishes for a moth. Like the hummingbird to stained glass. Like the saint to the confessional. Like the sin to the itchy palm. Like the Bible to the demented mind to the one-eyed king to the prose of the infidels. I am drawn to you. Also By G. Murray Thomas *Chapbooks* Death to the Real World (“poetry sucks” press) Opposite Oceans (Orange Ocean Press) Poetry Spilled All Over the Carpet (Inevitable Press) A Rare Thing (Inevitable Press) *Books* Cows on the Freeway (iUniverse) *CDs* *(with* *his* *band* *MURRAY)* Live at KXLU At the Laguna Brewing Company Live at Alta Collectible Murray “The Song of Inappropriate Desire” published in The Blue Mouse “Almost Valentines” published in Spillway