POETRY PAGE 1
ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHTED: ROY EISENSTEIN
PEACEFUL IS THE NIGHT
Peaceful is the night when old failures don't echo
When broken promises are forgotten
A night when those lonely howls of the heart are at rest
Peaceful is the night when it's flesh against your flesh
When a kiss can save my life in those quiet hours when you breathe together
When no one else matters
Peaceful is the night when I am fine with being who I am
TAPS
My father’s war came to me in black and white photos tucked in albums or stuffed in drawers beneath stacks of paperwork discovered during childhood rummages
Repeated in the mythos of old movies that filled the late night
TV march while tired my sleepy head found its heroes
And the stories pulled from him like reluctant secrets
Painful recollections of carnage across North Africa up through Sicily, Italy, and France until the last taste of hell on German earth
He’d flinch, so my mother told us, in movie houses when an explosion blanched the screen and his hand on hers would for a moment be a painful vice
Or wake him from a dream in sweat and fear and anger gripping an enemy who still existed on a battlefield of his mind
I grew in the emotional landscape of these images
Amid the half told half hidden truths of this man half known
In the fallout of his buried wounds where the promise of civilization was broken we often paid that debt when dealing with his damaged spirit
And still, coming out of the ruins of his aftermath, when my time came of age I too bore the steel pot headgear
Did the drill, learned the skill
And shipped out to discover my own loss of innocence
And that drum still beats for the next wave of braves
With no horizon no matter how distant that any man can see or imagine when Taps will not be played for some generations yet to come
THORN
That woman put a thorn in me that even time hasn’t had the kindness to remove even one inch from the flesh of my desire
I don’t expect anyone to understand who has not been stung so
Who has never taken that injury
No, it’s well lodged there in me and I feel its pierce as an inconsiderate distraction which demands a load of attention
Just something that adds to the Earth’s gravity and keeps the atmosphere a bit thicker than need be
I don’t know anymore what love is, or was, but it seems to be like a drunken stumble into some sort of insanity, which is only good if the knot is tied on both ends
Not just yours
And she?
Wherever she is Is she also bearing my mark in some corner of her soul, or have I disappeared into the wind of hours gone
And yet her thorn remains
That lasting goodbye gesture
That memory so securely wedged in me that I fear I’ll carry it on and on into the long line of tomorrows
PRIMITIVE TRUTH
The collision of our savage flesh Our primal dance of naked need
Where I pierce her as she coils around me
Ankles locked at the small of my back
Arching spines
Pythons taking ground
The grunt and thrust in animal heat
We tear at one another in a place where all civilization is lost
Engaged in this battle
Taking and surrendering
Writhing in our physical knot
No territory left unconquered
No prisoners taken and no mercy asked for
So carnal that even God must turn away
Until at last we erupt
And then soaked we sprawl all spent and used
Looking for air to refill our empty lungs
Hearts jackhammering within our chests
While dangerous escape plans run through my mind
WHAT IS LOVE
Love is insanity wrapped in a myth
It's lust attached to a poem
It's a roller coaster on fire
Trench warfare over breakfast
Trust and distrust pulling opposite ends of a rope
It's swimming against the current while holding hands
Falling off a ladder into whipped cream
A warm body on a cold night
An argument no one can ever win
Love is an alliance in a campaign against loneliness
A knot two bodies make
It’s knowing someone so well that you accept that you know nothing
It’s a kiss when you need one
And criticism when you don’t
It’s fierce anger
And forgiveness
Love is a crash site
A riddle with no resolution It’s confusion and madness
Delusion and pleasure
Comedy and tragedy
It’s an open wound
And a reassuring smile
Love is chemistry
Biology
Evolution
Revolution
And an intrusion
But it’s the only game worth playing
ONE MINUTE AT A TIME
Time sneaks in and steals
It never tires
Never loses its appetite
Won’t rest or sleep
It feeds and feeds as minutes gather behind us
As the journey ahead shrinks
We can’t run from it
There’s really no escape
No hiding place
Or sanctuary
It simply ticks away
Chipping at our mortal biographies
Everyone of us
So we must make a vow
An oath
A promise to ourselves to live
To be present
To exalt in the now
Dance madly
Make insane love
And laugh in the face of finality
THE ECHO OF A KISS
She’s tougher than her easy smile advertises
Beneath her quiet beauty a suit of armor protects
A survivor breathes
A well defended heart beats on without me
Last night I had a dream
She smiled when I revealed my injury
It was a look that acknowledged that the arrow was hers
And I awoke to an embraceless solitude that even a hot shower could not warm
And yet another day must be lived
So she ghosted my thoughts as hours passed through earthly details and obligations like a song that’s in your head everywhere
And even though she is forever miles away, I am a better man for having kissed her
TRUCE, BUT NO PEACE
Our romance was written in Braille
An unspoken groping for answers
A random search and destroy of emotions
Neither side would give any ground
We negotiated with no give and take
So we merely had the tug of war connecting us
Her kisses were tiny acts of revenge while I sabotaged every treaty with my resentment
It was a massacre of intimacy and no prisoners taken
We retreated into bunkers of self-righteous indignation from where we hurled accusations and blame
Launched sorties of cruel invectives and scarring innuendoes only to charge each other again and again
In the end we returned to the safety of our individual redoubts where we hid from the truth and missed one another terribly
DELICIOUS
Hands
Survey the landscape of flesh
Map the wild territories
Explore where danger awakens my feral heart
Breathing
We inhale one another in the
Unfettered wrestle of bodies
The insanity of losing self and erasing boundaries
Lips and tongues
Tasting, consuming, sensing without hesitation the pure animal aspect
The fever of two people
The flavor of passion
Delicious
BLACK FEATHER SKY
I’m fighting my crows tonight
Those dark shadows winged
Cutting black lines across my radar while screaming out their harangue
I’m nursing old wounds under a cool moon too far away to lend a hand
Those kisses so long gone that only faint echoes remain
Just enough to keep me missing them
I’m no hero of the heart on this cold night when rain touches everything and memories walk among us
I’m no casualty either
Just another soldier on this march
Just a man
Just needing to know I still can start a fire
DARKNESS
Darkness is not hollow when bodies tangle in the knot of embrace
When breath is shared by closeness and one’s heartbeat mixes in the percussion of the other’s
When the ache of solitude vanishes
And the scars of broken dreams become mere trail markers for the two explorers
Darkness is not the labyrinth of lost desires but a puzzle for the discovery
A meeting place of tenderness
A carnival of sensations
A war zone were all sides surrender
Darkness is only dark when eyes are closed to passion
When fear is the wall
When courage hides in safety
When a kiss is too dangerous an act to risk
THE HEAT
It was in the look. The way their eyes held and some invisible charge was exchanged. An animal signal that released unleashed the most primitive urge.
They knew. No one had to explain it. To put it on paper and have notarized. No formal declaration was required. Their blood knew.
One of those moments when it all just hits you and you know you’re done. You have no way of avoiding the next chapter. The opera you’re about to live. That dream on fire that you’ll want to escape from while refusing to let go.
She feels it. That electric eel that’s sliding through her veins looking for trouble. An ancient drum beat. That primordial tattoo. The call.
Him? He’s gone. He lost his mind in that first glance, and from there it was free fall. A plunge into that chasm with no bottom. All gravity and no splat.
Yeah, no force on Earth could keep these two bodies apart. Could prevent that dangerous collision of flesh. The ensuing duel of lust and madness. The endless combat of push and pull.
It’s insanity. A suicide of kisses wrapped in the human knot. A stampede of emotions right into the eye of the storm while bodies wrestle the sheets damp.
They knew it was going to be an ecstatic disaster. A romantic crime scene, and yet it’s better than sleepwalking or rust. Better than just fitting in with the wallpaper with your seatbelt on.
Sure, it’s a horror show of pleasures, but it’s the only game worth playing.
So why not?
ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHTED: ROY EISENSTEIN
PEACEFUL IS THE NIGHT
Peaceful is the night when old failures don't echo
When broken promises are forgotten
A night when those lonely howls of the heart are at rest
Peaceful is the night when it's flesh against your flesh
When a kiss can save my life in those quiet hours when you breathe together
When no one else matters
Peaceful is the night when I am fine with being who I am
TAPS
My father’s war came to me in black and white photos tucked in albums or stuffed in drawers beneath stacks of paperwork discovered during childhood rummages
Repeated in the mythos of old movies that filled the late night
TV march while tired my sleepy head found its heroes
And the stories pulled from him like reluctant secrets
Painful recollections of carnage across North Africa up through Sicily, Italy, and France until the last taste of hell on German earth
He’d flinch, so my mother told us, in movie houses when an explosion blanched the screen and his hand on hers would for a moment be a painful vice
Or wake him from a dream in sweat and fear and anger gripping an enemy who still existed on a battlefield of his mind
I grew in the emotional landscape of these images
Amid the half told half hidden truths of this man half known
In the fallout of his buried wounds where the promise of civilization was broken we often paid that debt when dealing with his damaged spirit
And still, coming out of the ruins of his aftermath, when my time came of age I too bore the steel pot headgear
Did the drill, learned the skill
And shipped out to discover my own loss of innocence
And that drum still beats for the next wave of braves
With no horizon no matter how distant that any man can see or imagine when Taps will not be played for some generations yet to come
THORN
That woman put a thorn in me that even time hasn’t had the kindness to remove even one inch from the flesh of my desire
I don’t expect anyone to understand who has not been stung so
Who has never taken that injury
No, it’s well lodged there in me and I feel its pierce as an inconsiderate distraction which demands a load of attention
Just something that adds to the Earth’s gravity and keeps the atmosphere a bit thicker than need be
I don’t know anymore what love is, or was, but it seems to be like a drunken stumble into some sort of insanity, which is only good if the knot is tied on both ends
Not just yours
And she?
Wherever she is Is she also bearing my mark in some corner of her soul, or have I disappeared into the wind of hours gone
And yet her thorn remains
That lasting goodbye gesture
That memory so securely wedged in me that I fear I’ll carry it on and on into the long line of tomorrows
PRIMITIVE TRUTH
The collision of our savage flesh Our primal dance of naked need
Where I pierce her as she coils around me
Ankles locked at the small of my back
Arching spines
Pythons taking ground
The grunt and thrust in animal heat
We tear at one another in a place where all civilization is lost
Engaged in this battle
Taking and surrendering
Writhing in our physical knot
No territory left unconquered
No prisoners taken and no mercy asked for
So carnal that even God must turn away
Until at last we erupt
And then soaked we sprawl all spent and used
Looking for air to refill our empty lungs
Hearts jackhammering within our chests
While dangerous escape plans run through my mind
WHAT IS LOVE
Love is insanity wrapped in a myth
It's lust attached to a poem
It's a roller coaster on fire
Trench warfare over breakfast
Trust and distrust pulling opposite ends of a rope
It's swimming against the current while holding hands
Falling off a ladder into whipped cream
A warm body on a cold night
An argument no one can ever win
Love is an alliance in a campaign against loneliness
A knot two bodies make
It’s knowing someone so well that you accept that you know nothing
It’s a kiss when you need one
And criticism when you don’t
It’s fierce anger
And forgiveness
Love is a crash site
A riddle with no resolution It’s confusion and madness
Delusion and pleasure
Comedy and tragedy
It’s an open wound
And a reassuring smile
Love is chemistry
Biology
Evolution
Revolution
And an intrusion
But it’s the only game worth playing
ONE MINUTE AT A TIME
Time sneaks in and steals
It never tires
Never loses its appetite
Won’t rest or sleep
It feeds and feeds as minutes gather behind us
As the journey ahead shrinks
We can’t run from it
There’s really no escape
No hiding place
Or sanctuary
It simply ticks away
Chipping at our mortal biographies
Everyone of us
So we must make a vow
An oath
A promise to ourselves to live
To be present
To exalt in the now
Dance madly
Make insane love
And laugh in the face of finality
THE ECHO OF A KISS
She’s tougher than her easy smile advertises
Beneath her quiet beauty a suit of armor protects
A survivor breathes
A well defended heart beats on without me
Last night I had a dream
She smiled when I revealed my injury
It was a look that acknowledged that the arrow was hers
And I awoke to an embraceless solitude that even a hot shower could not warm
And yet another day must be lived
So she ghosted my thoughts as hours passed through earthly details and obligations like a song that’s in your head everywhere
And even though she is forever miles away, I am a better man for having kissed her
TRUCE, BUT NO PEACE
Our romance was written in Braille
An unspoken groping for answers
A random search and destroy of emotions
Neither side would give any ground
We negotiated with no give and take
So we merely had the tug of war connecting us
Her kisses were tiny acts of revenge while I sabotaged every treaty with my resentment
It was a massacre of intimacy and no prisoners taken
We retreated into bunkers of self-righteous indignation from where we hurled accusations and blame
Launched sorties of cruel invectives and scarring innuendoes only to charge each other again and again
In the end we returned to the safety of our individual redoubts where we hid from the truth and missed one another terribly
DELICIOUS
Hands
Survey the landscape of flesh
Map the wild territories
Explore where danger awakens my feral heart
Breathing
We inhale one another in the
Unfettered wrestle of bodies
The insanity of losing self and erasing boundaries
Lips and tongues
Tasting, consuming, sensing without hesitation the pure animal aspect
The fever of two people
The flavor of passion
Delicious
BLACK FEATHER SKY
I’m fighting my crows tonight
Those dark shadows winged
Cutting black lines across my radar while screaming out their harangue
I’m nursing old wounds under a cool moon too far away to lend a hand
Those kisses so long gone that only faint echoes remain
Just enough to keep me missing them
I’m no hero of the heart on this cold night when rain touches everything and memories walk among us
I’m no casualty either
Just another soldier on this march
Just a man
Just needing to know I still can start a fire
DARKNESS
Darkness is not hollow when bodies tangle in the knot of embrace
When breath is shared by closeness and one’s heartbeat mixes in the percussion of the other’s
When the ache of solitude vanishes
And the scars of broken dreams become mere trail markers for the two explorers
Darkness is not the labyrinth of lost desires but a puzzle for the discovery
A meeting place of tenderness
A carnival of sensations
A war zone were all sides surrender
Darkness is only dark when eyes are closed to passion
When fear is the wall
When courage hides in safety
When a kiss is too dangerous an act to risk
THE HEAT
It was in the look. The way their eyes held and some invisible charge was exchanged. An animal signal that released unleashed the most primitive urge.
They knew. No one had to explain it. To put it on paper and have notarized. No formal declaration was required. Their blood knew.
One of those moments when it all just hits you and you know you’re done. You have no way of avoiding the next chapter. The opera you’re about to live. That dream on fire that you’ll want to escape from while refusing to let go.
She feels it. That electric eel that’s sliding through her veins looking for trouble. An ancient drum beat. That primordial tattoo. The call.
Him? He’s gone. He lost his mind in that first glance, and from there it was free fall. A plunge into that chasm with no bottom. All gravity and no splat.
Yeah, no force on Earth could keep these two bodies apart. Could prevent that dangerous collision of flesh. The ensuing duel of lust and madness. The endless combat of push and pull.
It’s insanity. A suicide of kisses wrapped in the human knot. A stampede of emotions right into the eye of the storm while bodies wrestle the sheets damp.
They knew it was going to be an ecstatic disaster. A romantic crime scene, and yet it’s better than sleepwalking or rust. Better than just fitting in with the wallpaper with your seatbelt on.
Sure, it’s a horror show of pleasures, but it’s the only game worth playing.
So why not?