Sleeping Handsome

Sleep is too kind a word for what I did

   Before we met.  I faced life lifelessly

Behind a wall that all my feelings hid,

   And you broke through, the night you smiled at me.

You held my hand and something in my chest

   That used to be my heart opened its eyes;

You said my name, and that brief sound caressed

   My secret dreams out of their long demise.

Who you are broke through my every defense.

   Looking at you forced my blind eyes to see.

God knows that none of this makes any sense.

   You cannot know how much it means to me

      To know that I could not dream less than true

      If I could always wake up next to you.

Copyright 2016 by Matthew J Wells

Craving

I reach for you the way I used to reach

   For cigarettes—because my body craves

The comfort and the high it savors each

   Moment we touch.  You are the ache that saves

Me from the pain of loneliness, the need

   That says I lack for nothing—your cool skin

Melts my reserve like charity melts greed,

   Your eyes blind me with all that shines within

And deep beneath them.  And when those eyes look

   At me and judge me worthy, then I cease

To count myself a badly-written book

   And dare to think that I’m a masterpiece.

      And though the world may think the work is mine,

      Your love for me has written every line.

 

Copyright 2014 Matthew J Wells

The Beginning And The End

In the beginning, all we felt was love,

   Forgiveness, joy, contentment, ecstasy;

And in the end, we were the victims of

   Neediness, hate, resentment, jealousy.

While other hearts walked cautiously, ours dared;

   When every daring heart fell, we ascended.

We made a heaven out of all we shared

   And we were damned to hell the day it ended.

We swore that we would always be together;

   You cursed, I acted like a maniac.

We said: “There is no storm we cannot weather;”

   We said the kind of things you can’t take back.

      And though our future’s Never now, not When—

      Because it’s you, I’d do it all again.

 

Copyright 2014 Matthew J Wells

 

The Catch Of Wings

When it came to romance, no one could top us.

   We met and it was instant chemistry.

We knew the arms of love would never drop us,

   So when we fell, we fell gloriously.

We shared the heights and never shunned the deep.

   We defined “precious” by each other’s worth.

We had a love that made the angels weep

   To see true heaven in two souls on earth.

And then it went to hell, in flames that seared

   A hundred times more than the fires of love,

When all we hoped was killed by all we feared

   And we became the haunted victims of

      A love that ruled the heavens like a hawk

      And crashed to earth the day we tried to walk. 

 

Copyright 2014 Matthew J Wells

 

Andra

You said “I love you”--
three words that gave me new life
your silence murders


Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells

Strawberry Street

So many times
stuck on the stoop
looking for looks
holding back holding

so many openings
there at the door
promising windows
promising lies

so many shadows
long in the sunset
ending an evening
kissing and leaving

so many nights
famished and trembling
thinking of sheets
on somebody else.

Sometimes I see
our mutual future
there in the gutter
hungry and homeless

waiting in ambush
dangerous, wild-eyed
whining like puppies
lost in the snow

needing your warmth
and blood from my heart
to rise from the dead
and demand justice

for all the sins
we should have committed
to change for now
into forever.


Copyright 2011 MatthewJ Wells

Gayle

I always miss you
whenever I wake up in
someone else's bed


Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells

Lee

I hate you because
you cannot give me what I need
to despise myself


Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells

Marsha

The day I visited you
when you were ill
a mother swallow
fed her chirping children.

Remember? Filled
with words and presents
I repeated myself,
gave you one gift only.

And over your bed
the Japanese print
staring me down:
a man with a half-drawn sword.

Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells