from almost the first moment
it was kant heidegger nietzche
deleuze foucault you-name-it
we name-dropped it, argued over
relevance and challenged each other
to define terms, over beer, over vodka,
in the dank cabin, in the smoke filled bar,
under the clear blue sky on the deck
tennessee accents vying with aussie twang
lone bird witnesses miles from anywhere
horizon sharp lined, cloudless
debates over truth and nothingness
from there, it was an easy leap
to politics, family, hallucinatory journeys
through addiction and suicide attempts
music, always back to music, that touchstone,
rocky moments half-joking about national pride,
ideals and the harsh everyday, whitman
and fdr, jefferson and how it could’ve been,
but definitely isn’t (stolen generations,
deaths in custody, oil wars, black men on death row,
fifty five percent of the population do not
want this president in power and yet:
florida, absentee votes, and on it goes,
the slow tide of change, the helplessness,
drowning in seeming futility)
then on to what it was really all about,
schopenhauer and genius, art and intellect,
poets and form and beauty against
a sunset ached with duskrose and tangerine
and burnt cinnabar and finally charcoal-smudged
musk fading into granite grey cloud,
while knees just touched and eyes met fleeting
then glanced away, casually deliberate.
and then we, he, i, climbed up
as high as we could go
top of the sky
wind-whipped tower cold
kissing and hungry, liplocked
shivering under an enormous sky
roils of dark cloud on blackest night
hiding moonshape and reflecting
the waves beneath and around us
and we tore at each other, eager,
warmth in bodies, warmth in touch,
the minimum of exposure, the sighs
and touch of thigh on thigh, and I
rose high, fell, echoing the boat below,
just so till we both shuddered and wailed
to the wind, no longer cold, and held close,
laughed in the vast wild air, moongazed,
crept back down, calm and quiet, no words at all
just the blissfulness of touch, his arms wrapped,
protective round my back like a shawl.