Excerpt from Love Poems

The Furious Gazelle is continuing to serialize Charles Bane’s new book of poetry, Love Poems. You can find more of his poetry here.

You A Certain Chord

You a certain chord or
movement of a dance as
you crash in a tide and spill
like music or drugs into blood
and we down onto sheets,
your hair in kapok roots and
I think what bird is this, with
wings outspread, crying under
me?

When I Despair

When I despair, I hold
to you, the you that
cannot imagine floes or
among the masses one sees
everyday pained in
newspaper photos, the loss
of all. What can’t be
endured is separation.
I write, but you are my
religion too and I think
if the world could only glimpse
one face, all would be remade.
Is this not so? Can we walk with
all the population on the boulevards,
and lay all together with our
hands across our chests, looking
at the stars?

Charles Bane, Jr. is the American author of The Chapbook ( Curbside Splendor, 2011) and Love Poems ( Kelsay Books, 2014). His work was described by the Huffington Post as “not only standing on the shoulders of giants, but shrinking them.” A writing contributor for The Gutenberg Project, he is a current nominee as Poet Laureate of Florida.