Open Heart
By now Susanne
You’re reading my letter
If you are laughing
I am your fool
If you are sighing
I am your servant
If you are crying
I am your executioner
How these chains chafe me so,
Susanne!
Held to the cold damp wall
By a steel retainer
I pray for a mind transplant
— for I love the juice
But hate the container!
Caught In A Sunstorm
(1)
Often on days when I am spent
And I am dry from a dyke burst
Of words
And the sun is hot in heaven
Wrapping me in sensuous warmth
There occurs the moment
Of that kind of woman.
For being sick to death
Of brand-name ethics, I rebel
And turn away to give play
To my mind
Where that kind of woman and I
Can romp unseen
By decaying eyes of half-humans
(2)
She will say
She knows nothing of Sartre
As she lies there naked
Like perfect work from Rodin’s hands.
He would approve, I say,
Because we are here together,
Now,
She tells me
She was with a circus once
As she demonstrates the split.
Good exercise and constant practice
Were her secrets to success.
I asked if she performed upon the high wire
And she relates tales of how
She would sit upon her partner’s shoulders
As they walked in space above a million eyes
But most of all she liked the trapeze,
Swinging by her knees
Upside down so all was blurry:
“It was good for the thighs,” she says
“See?”
A calliope plays at a distance
As hours pass; we never tire
For the mind has inexhaustible energy
We drink pink wine to make us laugh,
And she swings from her knees
Recalling the blur of love
(3)
As she slept, I took my leave
Because the sun was setting
And I felt its warning chill,
The movement of the planet
Controlled our time together,
And it was good
Knowing that a higher order prevailed
Upon the movement of our bodies,
The power of the mind,
The shifting of the planets
The moment of that kind of woman,
The equation of life and truth
That we eternal nomads seek.
(4)
Why must this moment lie obscure,
Hidden in rejection
Until there must be love?
Can a burning star contain the warmth of love?
For love is painful when it burns
Leaving ugly scars.
Yet she came with the sun
Leaving only comfortable fatigue
Whose sunlike burn remains,
A gentle tan:
The imprint of her body and her soul.
She will come tomorrow — if I choose,
And the next day and the next
Until I tire
Of that kind of woman
Whose perfection and endlessness
Are guaranteed by the sun
That lights my internal world.
Blindman’s Bluff
I know a man
of sixty or so
who believes I must live
as long as he
before I can know
the meaning of life
To hold longevity
as the mark of wisdom
grants him
an honor
that God wouldn’t give him
For is it fair to say
of a sightless man
of sixty or so
that he’s the word
on the plot
when he’s never seen the show?
I think not.
E.J. Hudak ca. 1969
An Anthology Of Perception 