Poems by Jeffrey Side

GOLDENROD

I watched you gather goldenrod in the fields.
I watched you swimming in the forest.
And I watched you keeping your hands
upon your knees.

You breathe like a scientist. And your breath
becomes the count of dreams. You smell
as sweet as the second-hand books you
throw away.

And the caverns in the earth are not singing.
And I cannot walk around the laboratory.
And I cannot rest my fingers.
And I cannot stay in when the sun is out.

I used to think you were a gift to the
experimenters. I used to think you were a gift
to the men fighting for their home.

Or the men who cry on the heaths and moors.
Or the men who fall in the underground.
Or the men who wait for us when the clock stops.

I watched you gather goldenrod in the fields.
The sun was escaping from your hair
and your feet were deep in the wet grass.

And your arms were filled with goldenrod.


SHE LEFT WITHOUT DELAY

I mark the time when I fly high.
I'll be landing very soon.
I cannot relocate my genes.
I cannot fix the balloon.

When suspicion is in your heart
the innocent are hurt too.
My ambitions are paved with
thoughts of a nature aimed at you.

I'll take you off that man one day.
I'll take you at your word.
I'll take you very far away
to somewhere you preferred.

I need you in this room dead soon.
I need you in the air.
I need you on the moon in June.
I need you everywhere.

I knew someone who looked like you.
She haunts me to this day.
She was a screamer too.
She left without delay.


JULIET

Wearing the Earth
like a robe,
I flew across the world
today.

I could see
the buried memories
hidden
in the trees,

and I could find
no one
to hurt
the two of us outside of
you and me.

I knew you when
you were nothing.

And then
I knew you when you were
something.

And then I met you
as you were
passed
from friend to friend.

Each one leaving you
alone
to weep in the
desert.

You had that look
in your eyes
that said tonight was
the day.

And I wish you had known me
when the sun was bright.


GREENHEYS ROAD

The vessels of love crowd in.
Their traumas hidden
among the reeds.

No love is lost or given to them
as they clutter the minds
of thieves.

Strong, sober and drunk
I come to you.
My weakness revealed
in my glee.

And book-like I pray on
your need
to comfort — sometimes.

Now there is light.
And now there is dark.
And that is the way that you
can pay
the charity you give
to men like me.