Venus (first draft)

The love of any woman makes
 a man into a hero
    keeps him warm in the lonely
cold watches of the night
    makes all his burdens light.
This ordinary magic, commonplace and
   dull,
      keeps us safe, and brings light into
 dark,
  The touch of her hand on a his cheek,
           the way she looks at him when he's shaving,
how she curls into the crook of his arm
       without thinking about it,
These are the eye of the storm in a
  scary world.
       The love of any woman, given
of the soft temple of
 her bed, is enough to
     keep a man from drowning in the grey
       sadness that stops his heart, or the
 red rage that comes when all is lost.

       But when a woman's love is broken,
           when the fire in her eyes begins to
              die,
There is no disaster,
       not the sack of Carthage or the fall of Rome,
Notre Dame collapsing, the grand canyon
        filling in,
   that makes the stars flicker out
         and die,
 and cuts the rope
     like hers.
   

Going,Coming,Gone

Who walked through fog and
    curtains of cinders, thinking of
the soft thighs behind cheap printed dresses,
  Beer and frying onions
talking about all the wise ways of  the
shore, the cards and dice, the smoke and growl
    joked about things they couldn't
understand like pussy and God,?
    Who forgot how to ask for bread and salt
 in their native tongue, shedding the cadence and
  words of their departed lands,
              incomprehensible to their parents and
  unknown to the dirt they left behind?
    Who were the ones that didn't wait
   to be given permission to get a leg up, or
        over and just start some shit
           if the deal wasn't right?
who got bloody hands from unforgiving steel
   and canvas straps, but kept up the pace
     not sleeping or crying
                ?
-- It was them, it was us
     They were who we are now
     and we might hear them as we
        walk by drunk with the night
           past the world that they
              raised up that turned  to rust,
  a whisper dry as dust,
          "Get up, it's time to work
                wake up, it's getting late"

memento mori

The touch of a stone,
 when cool and smooth,
  can bring you back ,
     awake to  sounds of a
street you once knew, the smell
of cooking oil and
flowers, perfume,diesel and
  garlic and garbage.

  the heat of a woman's
      shoulder just beneath
the hovering palm of your
 hand, still glowing from
  the sun until you wake her
   with a smooth stroke and
     a kiss on her neck,
        can bring you back
to the first time you kissed
  her, knowing only what
       she likes to drink
and that it was dark and
 good outside.

   Oh well, when you are
old and your bones
  like to ache and argue like
    beggar children,
  the streets are all straight and
      dry and burn the eye
 When no one can imagine
   that fingernails once
     scratched you back,
      you will always have that stone
         that street , that shoulder and
             that woman.