California Dreamin’
California Dreamin’
Cali was a cute little surfer girl from Santa Ana.
She was about this tall, had a sweet laugh, great smile,
deliriously long sun-bleached hair,
and a nice, tight little IM.
We liked to pretend we were in love.
She used to send me photos
of herself in the Victoria’s Secrets dressing room
at the mall with her iPhone
while she was sitting in Physics class.
“There’s more where that came from,”
she would wink.
She took me for a drive one night—
just her, her iPhone, and I.
We ended up out on the beach where
she lay me out beside her on a blanket, flipped me open,
and began texting with a warm, seductive voice
into my ear.
I thought I was roaming.
“Touch me—here,” she teased.
And forwarded me a photo of the inside of her thigh.
I was all thumbs.
I moved my hand slowly up the inside of her LCD.
She giggled as I started caressing her Instagram application.
“Do you love me?” She purred.
“I thought we were pretending.” I replied.
Charles Coakley Simpson
1-900-Anxiety
1-900-Anxiety
I get my therapy over the phone—
She pushes happy pills between cam shows.
“Take two of these
and call me in the morning… Darlin’.”
I receive the anti-depressants
through the mail in a plain brown wrapper.
The sensation of silk
feels good against my naked skin,
but what I really needed—was a Valium.
Charles Coakley Simpson
Ghazal
Ghazal
for Triin
Longing is the agony of the nearness of the distant. — Martin Heidegger
The wind caresses me in the winter of the night with the nearness of the distant,
while memory wraps me, warmly, like a blanket of wool, with the nearness of the distant.
Your eyes: grey stars , a pallor in the darkness that leads me through the absence,
a chiaroscuro, an unfolding of shadows, where I meet you in the nearness of the distant.
There, standing with the crows, your hair windswept with the color of the wheat,
I walk alongside you through the forest of the trees of moss in the nearness of the distant.
A great, golden spire rises up out of the fog, and a snow lays lazily on rooftops.
A sea embraces a sleepy fishing village as my windmills turn in the nearness of the distant.
The wind caresses me in the winter of the night, and yet I hear the singing of bees.
I am the sparrow caged by the snow laden limbs of its tree, but I will meet you—always,
In the nearness of the distant.
Charles Coakley Simpson
Nesting
Nesting
We carve a nest in the wheat behind your parent’s house and lay there at dusk waiting for the stars to fill the indigo void left by the setting sun speaking in half-whispers the tender sincerity of your words filling my head with the thought of what it would be like to kiss you pulling your hair gently behind your ear the Harvest moon shining softly on the nape of your neck your mother calling out for us in the darkness the cicadas singing their summer song from the shadows of the trees which line the river of my no return.
Charles Coakley Simpson
Snowflake
Snowflake
Single, solitary angel of wing
sifting softly, slowly sadly thou bring
Mine heart tumbling, trembling tragically down
As thou makes thy journey
To the ground.
Fleeting, frozen feather of white
Doest thine heart shine with the sun and light
That a cloud of high did set thee free
Hast thou fallen from the sky into the heart
Of me.
Wisps of whimsical wintry wind
Thou rides ‘round mine head as doest thou spin
Powdery kisses perfectly placed
The lilting of thy lace ‘pon
My face.
Touch, tease, tickle my nose
Lay ‘pon my tongue thy bittersweet ambrosia
For alas my endearments warm I fear
Are to leave me to be holding what ‘tis only thy
Tear.
Charles Coakley Simpson
Seashell
Seashell
My little heart of pink and pearl
bourn from bed of coral,
Deepest in blue I remember you
a shellfish with a soul.
Tiny crustacean, cerulean elation,
found is your way to me.
‘Cross whitened sands into my hands
a siren sad of sea.
Shallows roared, washed ashore
abandoned and alone.
Yet ‘tis within your kiss that I remiss,
your mother calls you—
Home.
Charles Coakley Simpson
The Clown
The Clown
And so they laughed at your expense—
Giggled when you tripped,
chuckled as you fell,
and applauded while you wept.
Still—there is nothing softer than your heart
except for your soul sad with tears.
And I shall find you when you are lost,
love you when you are lonely,
and lift your heart up in spirit so you know—
You will always have the key—
To mine.
Charles Coakley Simpson
Ambiguity
Ambiguity
Are we not meant for mystery
that we wander the corridors of our hearts—
Searching for love
Charles Coakley Simpson
Intimacy
Intimacy
Even in the dark I think of you—
That these shadows have made me long for your touch.
Might that I wrap myself in the soft, white blanket of your skin,
your words tumbling tenderly into my ear.
And yet as I pause to consider the gentleness within your voice
I realize it is only the sound of my heart—trembling
To be next to you.
Charles Coakley Simpson
Vespers
Vespers
Wake me with a kiss,
and stir my dreams with lips brush.
Might that I feel–
the soft, tender press–of loves flower.
Between the unturned pages
of my heart
Charles Coakley Simpson
Three Days in Bed with a Stranger
Three Days in Bed with a Stranger
The morning light is dark with rain.
There is an unfinished tattoo
on her left shoulder.
And I remember
you closing the door on us.
Your words hung in the air for days,
like this Louisianan heat.
As if saying that you still loved me
would set things right.
There is an unfinished tattoo
on her left shoulder.
In the dark. I am grateful.
That our scars don’teven matter
Charles Coakley Simpson
Comprehensive
Comprehensive
It has been long–I think, since I held you.
And wrapped myself warmly
Within the soft, white blanket of your skin.
Charles Coakley Simpson
Cricket
Cricket
Out of the distance, through my darkness,
I listened quietly for the solitude in your summer’s night song.
And yet I never knew where upon your heart did lie.
Had it only belonged to me, for in that fleeting moment I knew
That I was never truly
Alone
Charles Coakley Simpson
Plush
Plush
Thus awakened
within arms womb–Embraced.
I am locked timelessly in amniotic warmth
Without condition–Immaculate
Therefore suspended–I am thus weightless
except for the delicate influence
Of a whisper
Charles Coakley Simpson
Rafters
Rafters
What was the elevation of my heart,
except that it rode on the wings of your words.
And yet there was no “good” in goodbye that we said good night
when all I ever needed to hear you say was–
“I love you.”
Charles Coakley Simpson
Apricot in Red Wine
Apricot in Red Wine
for Alicia
She lay wrapped in a 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.
Leading him by the hand to her bedroom,
she silently lets him undress her, promising to be quiet,
to be quiet enough that no one will hear
Her naked soul
Charles Coakley Simpson
Mistress
Mistress
My comfort does lie not
in the compassion of your companionship,
even as I lay the weight of my heart on your shoulder,
but in the deep knowledge of the promise
that you will never say
“I love you.”
Charles Coakley Simpson
Thorns
Thorns
Such is the threnody of thistles–
That we are always hurting the ones we love
only to be left to love the ones we hurt
when we are simply always only hurting to be
Loved
Charles Coakley Simpson
The Catharsis of Love
The Catharsis of Love
Have we been any less loving—than kind?
When it was love we wanted, there was no love to give,
and yet when there was love to give–it was not the love we wanted.
Thus the love we receive is no more than–
The love we deserve
Charles Coakley Simpson
Cottonwood
Cottonwood
Where are my words–are they lost on the wind,
that ours have suddenly gone still?
For I have found myself beneath your dreaming
and your hold on my heart is my will.
Your sway is soothing, your whispers are warm,
and there is no place rather I’d be.
Than caught beneath the comfort of your dreaming
contemplating—if you dream about me.
If your dream is a wish of a kiss that you missed
then certainly your dreaming is true.
For of all of the wished of the kisses I’ve missed
know they have all been dreamt
Of you
Charles Coakley Simpson
Charles
Outlandos d'Amour 
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