Twenty Twenty Four

Twenty Twenty Four

As journeys go, honey,

a hard time we’ll have of it:

Odysseus himself could not have predicted

as he visited the oracle to check the score,

your answer something like:

‘yes…well, it’s 20 - 24’.

Well, okay, but to who and who, though?

I find it mostly feeling stiff, sitting

next to you, travel sticky palms not knitting

yours but drifting just so, alongside

zero reaction, soon fendered, pushed off,

but not so far as to be not near

to what we couldn’t hold undear.

You bustle moist, stir your sugar, sugar shook

face, gathered by Ena Sharples’ hairnet

into frosted teasing smiles, shadowy fringe,

lack whirlpool courage to down it,

plunge into deep damp cleavaged v-necking

tongue tangled ship wracking.

To tell you the truth, soft-sod lover, gentle

though those crashing rocks won’t be,

pounding us together like magnets

to mill many the suck salty sailor

or wren, well then, so let’s be honest here;

we’re all seafarers these days,

I think sirens shall sing us east of Malta

to landfall upon soft rocks of Gibraltar

where, dragged sultry in chains to altar,

you’ll plead innocent. Your halter

necked lace bra will wither and wane:

angel’s wings often perish in acid rain.

Not for us, I think. Not some halo bright,

love; we shall have to forge and fight.

Our busy, busy dirt soil stroking,

commit crime, oh, pleasure choking

long, it would be total tossed off wrong

to martyr up, wait out Marvell’s eternity

unnatural and, I think, off beam

not to come together, sigh and scream.

But if it pleases you, we can sit and burn

for Odysseus’ return, see Icarus yearn

to fly, melt too near liquid sun,

some sort of Lucifer turn, never learning,

strapped to rose thorny tree and trashed,

stripped back licked, wielding whip

 proud exposed, now thrash honey, grip

it, writhe soaking, deep bound

open mouths beat out blissed songs

coupled rigid together. 
But I suspect life’s sad history

scarred us with predictable sophistry

of this and this and this is plain wrong,

when it should have been us all along.

Now, a hard time of it we'll have for sure,

 shuffle silent to twenty twenty four.