Love Poem: How Many Mornings
Mark Riedel Avatar
Written by: Mark Riedel

How Many Mornings

will I awaken
               tears?
     struggling, uncomfortably
                          adjusting to fears:

               change - stagnation breeding boredom
               acceptance - realization that it's over
                Self - knowledge that I must face
                truth - she's found another lover....

        discheveled droopy drawers
               howling down on all fours,

         drinking
  under table,
         walking
  though unable,      I

vanish
                                  in the wind.

Symbols of the ways
  that I have wrongly sinned,

Against my inner portrait
  Image with no mirror,

A painted picture of the soul:
  UNDESIRABLY SUPERIOR

         to the one you primp
                      and pose for,
         for vanity's sake:
                                      take yr daily dose
                                      of annihilistic rape!

Yr outer - woven
                 cloven hoofs
                                     are worn and swollen

Better take yr beauty sleep
  before Time has it stolen...

So wash yr guilty 
   wants with lie,
and scrub yr yellowish heel,

rinse yr drydrunk unconscious

and tip-toe at the wheel,

weave in
             out the traffic
and push the pedals hard,

to erase the dividing lines from memory

without a spoken word...