Telephones

Telephone (1)

Ah, love!
And so we ended with a sort of embarrassed retreat
from what we might have said:
A half word, a sound, a nothing;
And, the connection broken, a sigh...

Ah, love!
And what would I have said?
"I love you, I want you by my side."
I understand, I think,
that you do not know
cannot think, cannot know your mind
yet.
And yet, and yet -
I cannot help myself, now -
I have to hope. We have to have a future -
I have invested my soul in that one, single message...

Ah, love.
So what would you have said?
Can I dare to ask, do I want to know?
Do I understand? Or dare to think?
Or do I only dream
Amongst a nightmare of possibilities...

Ah, love.
I will not let it go.
Had we not faded on the line
I know what would I have said,
"Love me as I love you;
Know that I am yours;
Be mine"...
"I'm sorry, the other party has hung up"
Sigh

Telephone (2)
Do I hear reticence in your voice?
A quiet, but not quiet enough, retreat
from a conversation you would rather be without;
words you cannot bear to hear, promises that beat
at the heart?

Do I hear sorrow and regret whisper low?
Husks of pain mute your tender self, hush
the thought and quiet the tongue's despairing shout
of grief and anger you must not express; truths that eat
at the soul

Are we no longer what we were before?
Lost beyond the words in dry-mouthed desert;
Reduced, we shun the very means of rescue lest about
the very call we hear - or say - something indiscrete
from the heart

Telephone (3) - A Dialogue
Stay! Do not deny me this small thing:
even as I begin my mind sees you shift uneasy
your body half-turned away, eyes elsewhere
half a new thought forming on your lips.

Stop! I cannot move on beyond today's issue:
words out, and I know I shall hurt you
if I proceed. You who would make me a future
cannot now stand your present pain.

Hold! Listen, it must out now although I fear the telling:
will my outpouring of love and hope destroy
what we already have? Should I stop now
as so often before ? but now she knows my heart.

Don't! I fear what I shall hear; what you must bear:
such friends as we should not fall thus trapped.
I do not love, am fond, cannot respond,
am not so ready for this as you.

Sshh! My heart, I love you and this cannot be silenced now:
its said, into the distant silence and the sob. Stupid!
such words need supporting arms to hold, a kiss.
Oh! You should have? Stop now? you are a friend:
its said, and what could I do or say, knowing as I did
that love had won his lips the right to speak.