Make me want you, but don’t give in
To my poetry, my poetry of desires;
The best poems burn with helpless fires;
A poem wins if the poet doesn’t win.
For my poems as poems to grow
Lead me on and on and then say no.
Let me see your twinkling breast,
So in my mind I get no rest.
Let me see your face
So I slow down my pace.
Give me your sweetest laugh
So I make gaffe after gaffe after gaffe,
And finally, in a sweat,
Write a poem they can’t forget.
Get me into my swimming head
By keeping me out of your bed.
Lure me down countless, countless roads
Covered by vegetation, thick and green,
Snaking along turbulent waters by lighthouses unseen,
Where barking Brahms harmonies call in secret codes,
And the passing night is punctuated with fog and mist.
Leave me on a Saturday,
So that I ponder for a week that’s grey.
And if we did, deny we ever kissed;
Get me to believe you will never
Hold me or kiss me, again, ever, ever;
Or much better, please don’t ever kiss me
And get me, when you see me, to think
You might possibly get on to me;
Get me believing the possibility there might be a link
To a figure made of cloth, gems, or stone,
Who cannot think, but thinks it thinks, when it is alone,
Turning in its orbit as if hope lived yet
To hope. Be disdainful, but not too cold. Get
Me to feel my fond desire for you
Could be a long series of poems. Resist. That’s all you have to do.
I think about you day and night.
You didn’t know? Now you know why poets write.
