Loneliness

And I know you better
than darkness
and the silence of tears which fall
in dreams

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2012

Apricot Standing in Red Wine

She lay wrapped–in that soft-white blanket,
imagining how warm it would be–her back against his chest,
their bodies curved around each other.
She has this addicting idea that his thumbs will fit perfectly
into the groove of her hips–his breath on her neck.
She leads him, by the hand, to her bedroom,
quietly lets him undress her. She promises to be quiet.
To be quiet enough–that no one will hear
her–naked soul.

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Weld

What is the price of godliness
Save the seduction of a slow bullet burrowing beneath the skin
Loose the cold steel upon the rails of veins; unbridle the ether to make a bed
of a tongue, and abandon oneself to fleeting eternity
Milk the blood might that it raze the pain on a higher level consciousness
and walk amongst giants, savoring the taste of immortality
for you cannot kill the one who forfeits
Hope

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2007

Awakening

Is it not the radiance of the dawn
which stings my weary eyes,
but the passing of yester-eve’s touch
that I tremble like the leaves
with light

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Wither

Is it no more than the years
which have seduced me with this beautiful regret
that I am the rose dying on its vine
Memories fall like petals to the ground—lifeless and spent
like the very hope of which
I was born

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Love and Death

I find my blessings where they are
Lost in the reverberating laughter of my childhood
and hidden in the quiet moments when I held you in my arms.
And yet as fate scatters these fortunes to the wind
I have yet to find the strength to say
Goodbye.

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Guilt

The more I look—the more you are not there

And thus my heart is cracked by the weight of its sorrow.
Forgive me that I have found it easier to cry
Than to weep

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Intangible

When the night has gone still and the stars are cold
I think of you—quietly, softly, warmly.
like the kiss which floats on the fringes of my dream
and yet I am only able to ever hold you
in my heart

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

The same old sin

She used to call me “baby.”
Gliding effortlessly over to my table, she would sit on my lap
Then slowly tracing the line of my jaw with her finger
Put the warmth of her mouth to my ear and ask me to buy her a drink
I must have bought that insatiable bitch a thousand drinks
And yet here I sit, swirling the memory around in the bottom of my glass
as I grind my forsakenness into the abyss of an ashtray.
Still, watching the remnants of desire dissipate into the darkness
I tempt the brunette with a freshly creased dollar bill
She used to call me “baby.”

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Faustus

You incorrigible fool
how easily led you were down the path of damnation
for a simple promise at the cost of your soul
And yet it was not your vanity which was your undoing
nor your pursuit for knowledge in the stars
but this loneliness which torments me in my misery
that empathy corrupted
your heart

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Truth

As I lie in the solitude of my bed
I hear clouds move restlessly across the night sky
Moonlight bends softly through my window
and I feel truth lurking in the shadows of my room.
I am voiceless in the presence of epiphany.
It climbs into my bed trying to comfort me with regret
caressing me with the fingertips of memory
and yet there is laughter in the promise of the sun
as it finds me cold in the solitude
Of my bed

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Nicotine

Kiss me
Kiss me as if it were the last time.
That I might taste the bitter sweetness of yesterday
and all the tomorrows that will never
come

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Beyond the Sea

Does my comfort lie further than where the waters touch the sky

that my hope has been hindered by the reach of my eye
Are these waves upon the shore merely memories that I caress
rolling back into the sea as they are lost with its egress
The clouds along the horizon are they the dreams we once shared
or the wisps of wanderlust as they disappear into the air
And tell me what then could be this wind which combs my hair
like your fingers once did when I was holding you near
Then so I am thus moved by the recollections they would impart
that even the sun does sink with the weight of my heart
And yet as I sit within my solitude, it is surpassed by my envy
to I know he is with you, in those lands beyond
The sea

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Blind Intervention

Where were you
When the darkness enveloped me?
That you left me to tread these shadows alone
As I fumble through my memories
Of light

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

The Scent of a Woman

Fair is the bouquet which wakens my heart
with scents fragrant of ardor and allure
For it kindles the flame of mine embers dark
that the scent of her passions are pure
Garlands thus sweet of her wine and red rose
so honeyed are my words by her flower
Might into these arms they court her repose
and on her mine adore I could shower
Like a summer’s rain stirs a garden’s scent
I am embraced by petals thus warmed
Where the caress of her flora’s fragrance
does arouse inhibitions of mine own
Hence these gardens of amour I thus aspire
to hold and be held by the scent of a
Flower

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Stolen kisses

What then is this warmth which lingers?
For it sits on my lip, trembling like a lost summer’s day
Is this how the night feels when it pales with the morning’s light?
For I am trapped in the twilight of your advance’s retreat
knowing never that temptation could taste
- So sweet

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

Shadows

The tears of the sun
As it sinks beneath the weight
Of my tasks undone

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2011

December

Here lies her lament
Deep beneath the cold-hard ground
Where the lilacs bloom

© Charles Coakley Simpson 201

The Power of Estrangement

Such is the personification of my solitude
Whereupon my joy is restored by the winds of laughter
Just as my companionship is assured by the starry pillows of night
Even so, I am still subject to the implacable deceit of hope
that such was my heart seduced beyond the realm of its conviction.
May these matters now be matters of most, matter not
yet I never knew the meaning of loneliness
Until there was you

© Charles Coakley Simpson 201

La petite mort

As her skin tastes like wine
having pressed the fruits of her passion.
brushing lips softly along the flute of her throat,
caressing the small of her back tenderly
so as to feel her breasts ripening beneath my weight.
She yields to the firmness of my resolve,
and gathering me into the garden of her lilies
embraces my eminence with
Death

© Charles Coakley Simpson 2010