In some future time
when it’s all breaking down,
when stars fall like arrows,
can I come round?
In that then, when all of
our words are long gone
we’re literally mute
to Vermeer or Duchamp.
Or that point in Boehme
(you remember the one?)
the chorus goes ‘lah lah,’
the tenor’s struck dumb.
Later I’ll ask, ‘Was she
really into that guy?’
You’ll turn and then slap me
then kiss me and ask, ‘why?’’
Is it already too late
to ask if we shall meet
on the Rue San Martin,
in the Spring once again?
Or casually call
for no reason at all
‘Say how’s all that weather
been treating you down there?’
Books just like birds will
fly right off the shelf
& perch high up in trees
that no-one can reach.
Siri writes elegies
with mechanical rhyme
valorising our love:
don’t that give you the creeps?
Our way’s getting darker
as we run in the rains.
Though our tears are still tears,
Wine’s wine while it remains.
So the plane’s going down
for the very last time.
Our captain, our crew
left us way back behind.
With my last breath of air
I must ask, I can’t wait
for your whispered reply
as we disintegrate.
Image: John Gilbert and Lillian Gish in a scene from the movie La bohème (1926, dir. King Vidor) c/- Wikimedia Commons.
Written for Poetics 19 September at Dverse – Bjorn is looking for questions without answers. And…here’s an earlier story of the same name.
Peter Frankis writes 
Amazing poem!
LikeLike
Thanks v. much.
LikeLike
Throughout your poem I hear echoes of my favourite opera composer, Puccini and I love the black and white still, Peter!l My favourite lines:
‘Is it already too late
to ask if we shall meet
on the Rue San Martin,
in the Spring once again?’
and
‘Books just like birds will
fly right off the shelf
& perch high up in trees
that no-one can reach’.
LikeLike
I love the ties to the hope that lingers after a separation… will we ever meet again … will it be good or bad, casual or passionate…
is the connection even welcome?
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
The image of disintegrating while still hoping for your title’s answer is profound. We all need love more than we even need our bodies, our breath, our life.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice last stanza and that part about Siri sort of gives me the creeps, but I probably would not be reading what Siri generates.
LikeLike
There’s a desperate hope here. I like it.
LikeLike
The answer is in the questioning stance of the title. If you have to ask if I love you, then…I feel the disintegration. Sad moments in any relationship.
LikeLike