A Treatise on the Structure of Romantic Art
Rich Ives

Those lovers have so much to do that ends with open clothing and leakage.
I've learned that all perfumes are heavy with the past on their shoulders.

Tunnels exist between surfacings, and in memory there's a soft pile
I can't quite bring to forgotten. Many of the imposters have fallen in.

It's become a way of seeing, and its creatures grow smaller with big voices,
the distance between their eyes measured by what they don't register.

There's a need of authenticity smoothed away beneath possibility,
the yearnings clever and wide and slow enough to simply be effortless.

There's a darkness, of course, and several more returning who contain it, but
their intentions are full, and by the time their future arrives, we're hungry again.

1996 © 2011