“Things I Would Like to Do with You.” is now available! It’s eco and lovely. Get your copy here.
Dance by the Light of the Moon.
Don’t matter if the road is long
Don’t matter if it’s steep
Don’t matter if the moon is gone
And the darkness is complete
Don’t matter if we lose our way
It’s written that we’ll meet
At least, that’s what I heard you say
A thousand kisses deep…
~ Leonard Cohen
If you read my words and if you are excited, remember I do not know you, not really.
If you read my words and you are upset, and if you said you did not want to read them anymore, I would like to remind you that this is not about you.
Except for the sweet parts.
I am a lover of love and I am a lover of words, and the two together spin visions of airy castles, but also may pierce the heart of hope. And so I remind you that I am a fool, a poet, and what matters is reality, not lovely words. They are full of promise, yet empty of matter.
And: you may not want to read this one, either.
I will not share this one with you, but if you find it in a book, know that my love is vajra: pregnant with space, replete with strength and discernment, golden and heavily beautiful and threatening yet a tool of use, for you.
For if I love you without knowing you these are just words, the kind of frustrating love where two people say “I love you,” to one another, and mean it.
But it could be the kind of love, just possibly, perhaps, that goes unsaid, and so I shall unsay it unto you: I may possibly love you, in the way an ancient underground spring courses its invisible way below us, unseen, unknowing. So I do not love you, and you do not love me. But it goes without saying, for it remains unsaid, for now: I do not love you, and you can not yet love me. But I hear the spring, below. It is nearly now Fall:
I wanna make this play
Oh, I know you’re faded
Hmm, but stay, don’t close your hands
I wanna make this play
Oh, I know you’re faded
Hmm, but stay, don’t close your hands
Caught in this pool held in your eyes
Caught like a fool without a line
We’re in a natural spring
With this gentle sting between us.
~ Rhye
I would like to see you. I would like to see you without your feeling pressured but rather with your feeling space and desire, the parents of bravery and curiosity. I would like you to want to see me without you feeling seduced.
I am not interested in playing games: for games are for winners and losers and I do not ever want to win against you, or for you to lose against me, and I do not want to lose against you or for you to win against me. For we are part of the whole, the main, as Donne said—and your gain is mine and my loss is yours.
Love is about finding one’s match, which means we shall touch our minds and hearts together at once, and never condescend or aim for any goal between us but the truth.
The Proclamation of Truth is Fearless, he proclaimed.
I do miss seeing you. It has been a lifetime. I have no interest in a relationship of words. I miss you and you do not seem to understand this and I can not blame you: for you are busy with your projects and to do lists and friends and loved ones and past and nervous possibility of new things.
Meanwhile I stand atop my castle, I do not fight down below but command my troops from the turrets: for I have fought my way up here and I am older, unbowed. I first fell in love with you when I saw your bow. Like Diana, the gold Goddess, you are strong and independent, quiet and self-contained and I have lost you through impatience, but I shall win you through fire, and when I win I shall give you my reward for I do not want to play to win or lose against love.
As I wrote first, I would like to cry with you. I can cry, now. For many years I never cried. For more than a decade, I cried perhaps twice. Now I cry a few times a year, but never for long. But with you I could finally cry blue tears. I would like to make love into you, naked, breathing, candles—unembarrassed because we are here together. It is not physical, it is…I would like to know you where that spring courses, pure dark water flowing; I would like to take your hand and swim down with you as deep as any two have ever dived and, down below, I would like to make love into you, and I would like you to make love over me.
What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the Moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull her down. Hey, that’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the Moon, Mary. Then you could swallow it and the moon beams would shoot out of your fingers…and your toes and the ends of your hair…am I talking too much?
If I lose you it is only because I am worthy of you but your fire confuses me. If I lose you through my idiocy and impatience, well, that is your fault. For you should know I am an idiot and impatient and that, beneath your sun, I can not stand to be indoors in the cool stale shade. It is like putting a wild horse in a corral: it is not right.
If I can see you, oh please let me: I shall be open. I am not vulnerable, you are not vulnerable, it is worse than that—I am like a mango peeled open: sticky, ripe. I am here for you. But you are vajra, too. Our openness is our solidity. I do not wish to write many more romantic words: you will be coming ’round the mountain when you come. I can feel you coming to me.
I wish to breathe silent words into your ears that convey something of my understanding that life is short and precious and I intend to benefit community, and all of society, and that I require a match, a princess, a fellow troublemaker with which to make love and mischief. And even if our love is bluegray friendship or even if our red love is for a minute, you must know I will treasure that time. And if I do not see you, you ought to be arrested: for you must know that I can not live long without your sun, once introduced. Please pour into me your spring water and please sun me with your orange gold eyes. And if you are busy or if now is not the time that is fine, for you.
For me, I shall wither into myself, hard as the old vine. I shall still bear fruit and serve thousands of noble warriors, but I shall not be excited. For I have no need of mere sex; I have need of full heart. Do not read this, do not read this, for it is too much and I want to be too little (as you wish). Ah: so my warning for you to not read this shall come at the end, when you have already lost.
We can not play games well when it comes to this love: this is how we will win.
I hear their voices in the wine That sometimes did me seek The band is playing Auld Lang Syne But the heart will not retreat There’s no forsaking what you love No existential leap As witnessed here in time and blood A thousand kisses deep. ~ Leonard Cohen
Get your copy of Things I would like to do with You.
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Read the first, Things I would like to do with you in the Woods, first.
Read the second, Things I would like to do with you this Evening, second.
Read the third, Things I would like to Remember about our day in Vermont, third.
Read the fourth, Things I would like to do with you in Time, fourth.
Read the fifth, Things I Would Like to do with You Before I Lose You, fifth.
Read the sixth, Things I would like to hear when you are Confused.
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