The Taste of Truth

By Joseph Hesch

I didn't know I needed you
even when I saw you everywhere.
We'd never met, but I was sure
you existed, I'd see you
in the faces of the grocery checkout girl,
that nurse in the ER,
this television newswoman.
They all look, sound like you, yet nothing
like you. They are your pale echoes.

You'd sensed me, too. That breeze
that woke you was my breath
on your cheek, that chill at your neck
my fingertips. That sound, my whistle,
that hum of words harmonizing
with your heartbeat, my hymn in
your angel soul. That's what drew
you toward our inevitable collision
in the cave of the forgotten.

And now we reach for one another
in the dark, beneath a duvet of stars,
upon a mattress of space and time.
And it's real. It's your face, crowned
in gold, I gaze at. As no one has before,
it's me touching you, my Diogenesean tongue
seeking truth in your darkest places,
and finding it wrapped around yours.
You taste of it as we untie our bindings.

Heliophobia

By Joseph Hesch

Too long, I’ve worn delusion as a hood
covering my better judgment, when,
time and again, I tortured myself
with chains of baseless obsessions.
Sense of duty, senseless mooning,
all cloaked in claustrophobic darkness
where, if some small ray of truth leaked in,
I willingly closed my eyes to accept
my next bruising lesson in Life.
I wish I could find that hand,
the one I could trust to lift this hood,
leading me to daylight, instead of
coming down upon it again and again,
beating the emotional daylights out of me.
I’m willing to crack open my eyes
and extend to you my hand in something more
than its defensive or aggressive attitude,
but only if you promise never to use yours
upon me while my back is turned.
Or are you another of my delusions?

Another study of the lonely, those fearful of the light of truth or so deep in the well of depression that all they think they have to comfort them wrapping themselves in more darkness. Heliophobia is my post this week for dVerse Poets Pub's Open Mike Night. Check it out and see what all the joyous noise is about.

Cold Truth

By Joseph Hesch
 
Last night the snow
laid its ghostly hands
upon all the horizontals outside.
Some of the verticals and
in-betweens, too,
felt its curative touch.
Fresh-fallen, so softly
whitening the dark,
smoothing the points and edges,
beautifying the uglies that were
too conspicuous before
the fall after Fall.
But, come windy morning,
that which was covered,
and those sojourners
not long passed
have carved their marks
on the once-immaculate.
And with dawn's rising light
they reveal
Winter’s cold truth.

I wrote this poem back in February, right after I began this journey upon the vast sea of zeroes and ones. I think only a few people other than close friends have actually seen it, what with it being "old" and my being just a funny name when I posted it. So, with a few edits, I'm re-introducing "Cold Truth" to visitors at dVerse Poets Pub for the Dec. 27, 2011 Open Link Night, which I happen to be hosting. I think it's a proper poem for this Winter, to remember the past year and my latest journey, leaving my marks, my truth, on pages both white and virtual.