L'azul

By Joseph Hesch


There are days when I emerge
from this thicket of self-doubt,
scratched and bleeding from
my mad-eyed crashing about,
searching not for you, but for
the me our story has written I am.
It's a dark hollow into which,
limping, mahogany-eyed and
lashed by the old demons behind me,
I think I see my fate carved into
the walls of this mile-long grave of 
my better judgment and best intentions.
But then I see your smiling face,
like dawn above me,
the lips that mend this broken soul.
And I feel it coming back,
that everyday love
of towering dimension, perhaps
a mountain too high
for this small man to climb.
But you, my spirit guide, turn to me
capturing an image in your polished lapis eyes,
mirrors with which you see me.
"Isn't he grand?" you say.
And I climb.

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.

Aether

By Joseph Hesch

You spied the light of me across Plato’s dark aether--
a comet you said, omen of a coming--
where others rubbed it away as an eye-corner flicker.

My Fire drew in your Air, consuming that breath
with which you make being of sparkle, songs of soul.
This drab Earth resisted the quenching rain,

until Life’s plow broke me and your Water
entered my forgotten softness beneath the crust
others had tread to adamant armor.

We burn brightly now, pushing up flaming blooms,
embracing ivy of connection, the sweetest fruit
of seeds cast from the stars in their aether,

where I sensed a heart-tripped something
between Universe and the Sphere and wondered...
Perhaps?

Empty

By Joseph Hesch

I feared you were going to leave me
alone, empty, without a hope or even
the merest chance that we could fill
these vacant dreams.
Empty, you might also leave yourself,
without the one who harmonizes
with the better angels
in your life’s chorus. 
How hollow our last acts would be
if we didn’t try,
if only once more,
to be more than what we were,
more than I too often still am. 
Someday, I will be there,
ready to embrace the real you
and fill your day with all I have to give.
Time has ensured it will not be
as much as I once had,
but it will be all.
Until I am empty.

The Missing Piece

By Joseph Hesch

Not very long ago I learned how
hearts react to warmth,
heads can be turned by words, and
vision blurred by the strain of the search.
It was when I realized we cover ourselves
in so many protective layers,
spun by those words like wire on a spool,
sometimes welding these bindings around us
into a cocoon with the heat of our beating hearts.
I wondered why we are unwilling
to shed our armor or even look within?
Do we fear the inevitable hurt from the other
or even from ourselves?
We’re two puzzles, each with pieces missing,
our souls seeking that other to complete us.
We all deserve to find that one,
recognize him, hold her.
That’s the part so few achieve. The Holding.
I know that such a communion exists.
It exists in the moment,
and for some it can last forever.
This I learned when I finally opened my eyes,
and you recognized me.


This is my weekly poem posted for dVerse Poets Pub's Open Link Night, which, son of a gun, I happen to be hosting tonight. Why don't stop on by and check out the many poets, themes, styles and talents getting together for this week's all-nighter?