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
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
Conversations with Clouds
Conversations with Clouds
As I lie here in this tall, green grass, I court the company of cotton bears and cosmic bunnies. Therefore, petitioning heaven for peace of mind, that dare I die tomorrow it would feel good to live today, and so I share my thoughts with the sky—
Rolling white caps of stratus and quo
awash in rhapsody blue,
Tall and proud for to be a cloud
is to be a rogue ‘tis true.
Wanderers, drifters, coasters of cumulus,
of what places have you seen?
‘Tis not so much of where you are going,
but of where you have already been.
And though I have traveled many a mile,
there is knowledge that I require.
Would now you impart your wisdom true
for this I do so desire.
For I have seen the end of my days,
would it be too little too late?
That I court regret and am thus beset
to only tempt that fate.
As ‘tis not so much the things I’ve done
but the things I wanted to do,
And ‘tis not so much the loves I’ve won
but the love I wanted true.
Bridges I’ve burned are lessons learned
and wisdoms by which to live.
Yet the hardest coin ever I earned
was the knowledge of how to forgive.
The resolution I have come to conclusion
I have lived life as like a cloud,
And the only solution is the restitution
for what sins I have endowed.
This burden of guilt that I bear to grave
be my only heart once broken,
And that is the love for you that I spake
but yet have never spoken.
As my thoughts grasp the sky wondering why
I let go of a love that should be,
I know now a cloud has a soul as a soul ‘tis a cloud
and a cloud ‘tis a soul to be free.
And closing my eyes—I listen for her heart.
Charles Coakley Simpson
Fate
Fate
What is the fault in our stars
that could I have held you but once,
I would have held you forever
If ever I was destined—to hold you at all
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
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 whispers tumbling warmly into my ear.
And yet as I consider the tenderness within your voice
It is only the sound of my heart—trembling
To be next to you.
Charles Coakley Simpson
The Memory
The Memory
I had thought to capture the moment,
However fragile. However fleeting.
And feel it move between the palms of my hands.
Soft and silent, like a moth.
With wings fluttering–yet frightened.
as it searches for light–
Within the darkness of my skin.
Charles Coakley Simpson
Feathers
Feathers
When I hear the sound
of sadness. And the light is broken
by the silence. Of the trees.
I know all the birds have flown Away.
Their wings like words whispering
Your name
Charles Coakley Simpson
After the Rain
After the Rain
When once tears did fall–
that we were embraced by the joy of intimacy,
and yet the deluge which befalls us now
is not for the want we have of holding each other still,
but that we never held each other
Enough
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
Cold
Cold
Even in the distance I can feel you pull away
as the warmth is fading from my arms.
And yet I am embraced by this tender despair–I love you still.
Powerfully. Passionately. Painfully.
The things you say. The things you do. The way you move.
Thus it is only in my heart where time stands still
and I am left to ponder how long it will be
until you miss me
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
The Hole in Your Heart
The Hole in Your Heart
I never told you–
how easy you were to love;
will you forgive me?
Charles Coakley Simpson
Charles
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