Felonies and Arias of the Heart

I need more time, a simple day in Paris hotels and window shopping.

The croissants will not bake themselves and the Tower of London would

Like to spend a night in the tropics with gray sassy paint. It has many

Wounds and historic serial dreams under contract to Hollywood.

Who will play the head of Mary, Queen of Scots, and who will braid her

Hair? Was it she who left her lips on the block for the executioner,

Whose hands would never find ablution, who would never touch a woman

Again or eat the flesh of a red animal? Blood pudding would repulse him

Until joining Anne. That is the way of history written for Marlow and

Shakespear. They are with us now that we are sober and wiser,

Not taking the horrors of poetry too seriously. Why am I telling you this

Nonsense, when I have never seen you sip your coffee or tea,

In the morning? Not to mention,

Never heard you sing, although some claim it is quite grand.

Will you teach me to sing like Chaliapin? Will I impress you with my

Cartoon Russian accent? I like sour cream and borsht;

We went to school together. My minor was caviar and blinis.

This is what it means to listen to Boris Godunov late at night.

Cool mornings are for Lakmé and songs of flowers for misplaced lovers.

But why should we speak in a foreign language to each other,

We are not birds. I have other stories too strange and beautiful to be

Told. They have no sound or memory. They will rest on your lips when

You bring your hands to your mouth to stop their gush of air against your

Face. We should go back and meet again at the street fair of cufflinks.

Our hearts teach us how to fly with wings of pain.

That is the price of the disarticulated lessons we should not abstain from

Playing. The accumulated misdemeanors add up to the most egregious

Felony: ignoring the demands of the heart. We remain in abeyance to

The muses who are only interested in their outcomes,

We are just the worms on their hooks of selfishness.

What do they care, we are not Greek. We are just a dream of pleasant

Comic arias that suffice as whims in the morning.

We are small enemies to them with strange large hearts that control the

Weather in the heavens. They cannot change or unteach us not to

Trespass their quarters of endowment. Perhaps, after all, you are an

Affable spirit bubbling over with your own deductions to minimize the

Pointed dots in your beautiful endeavors.

Although I feel like a bird with a broken wing,

Each day I think of you I fumble an attempt to fly to impress you with

The color of my paper wings.