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maekju2003

Phil Slattery
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Over the last several months I have been going through my aging notebooks and submitting poetry I wrote years ago for publication.  Surprisingly, I have been more successful in being published than when I was writing poetry.  Here are the three most recently published poems, which can be found in the February edition of Apollo's Lyre (apollos-lyre.tripod.com/id114.…).  This is a beautiful online magazine and I recommend visiting it highly.


The Twilight of the Gods
by Phillip Slattery

When the dawn breaks against the velvet night,
leaving your warm embrace
I rise enchanted by the surreal night.

Forgive me.
I am but a man,
tempted by beauty,
weak
by nature.

"Have you?" she will ask,
her eyes all the time demanding lies.

Now the few remaining stars
disappear like the deities of the past
to leave a man with but a single god
to be betrayed with a purchased kiss,
purchased with the coins of silver in your eyes.

"Have you?" she will ask,
her eyes all the time demanding lies.

How can I tell her of the treason hidden
in this darkest of souls,
that a man creates his own hell

and this is mine:
after the tears have flown and all is forgiven,
forever hence to speak the truth,
only to perceive a lingering doubt,
as she struggles to believe.

"Have you?" she will ask,
her eyes all the time demanding lies.




The Trap
by Phillip Slattery

Drowning in confusion and whiskey
your love
reaches no hearts
only lovers.

Touch my hand.
Let me caress your eyes with mine.
Touch your lips to mine.
As gently as thought turns to memory
smile and warm this heart
with tenderness and laughter.
Cry.
My shoulder needs your tears
as your lonely soul needs it.

Lovers of life
terrified of the world
we shrink into ourselves
tormented for our cowardice by fear.

Let me hold you
touch you
kiss you
caress you.

I feel the soft moisture of your lips
my hands on your back
holding you closer I feel
the softness of your breasts.
We kiss still as our lips part
tongues lightly searching.
My hands drop lower
lower.
Heartbeats race.
You start to writhe
moan.
Your tender hands
are everywhere.
I have fallen into the trap.




Touching
by Phillip Slattery

He began by lightly kissing her eyes
then in a slow, deliberate process
worked
       down
               the length
                           of her body
until by the time he had passed the knees
not an inch remained that had not been covered
with a deep, probing kiss
but when most lovers would have stopped
at the ankles
he lovingly took each toe into his mouth
caressing it with his tongue
lightly teasing it with his teeth
massaging it with warm, moist lips
sending ten unnerving shudders
flashing through her spine
to release in quivering flesh
            and arching back           .
So they continued throughout the night until,
exhausted, drifting into euphoria,
they fell asleep in each other's warm embrace.

In the soft rays of dawn she awoke alone
again.
Resigning herself to fate,
and another pointless one-night stand
she walked into the kitchen to start the day.
Coffee in hand, engrossed in the paper,
she heard the door softly close behind her.
She turned to find him there, rose in hand.

Wrapping her arms about his neck,
she wept.

As they stood embracing,
he discovered
the most sensitive parts of a person
are those that a lover
touches the least.
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Faust

2 min read
I wrote this about 1991-92 and it was published in "The Hollins Critic" in February, 1992.  It has always been my favorite work of my own poetry and seems to effect a lot of people profoundly.  It took about eight straight hours of alternately lying on my sofa and pacing about in my living room before I finished it.  I feel lucky to have completed it in such a short time.   It is entitled "Faust".



Quiet

All is damnably quiet.

I can hear the spiders spinning in the darkness.
the breath of a rat against the stone walls,
a cockroach crawling through the sulphur-laden air.
The roaring silence fills the air like the grumble of the sea.

Pitiless eternity.

But a second ago he was here,
he whose eyes glowed like falling stars in bottomless pools,
he with the comforting voice of the practiced whore.
My wounds still bleed, my sleeves are still wet.
The rats have yet to smell the droplets on the floor.

For what have I been sold?
Square roots? Sines? Sums?
Will I profit knowing winds are not the breath of God?
     knowing the sun is not a chariot of fire?
     knowing mountains are not the bones of giants?
     knowing why the sound of pouring wine tickles the ear?
                  why lovers' eyes sparkle as purest silver?
                  why cool grass and shade bring easy sleep?

Did Da Vinci paint with a carpenter's angle?
     Michaelangelo sculpt with a plumb?

I will be reduced to monotonous lectures and boring sums.
And should I escape eternal hell
I nonetheless lose my soul.
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Here' s a very short poem I wrote and had published many years ago.  I was recently surprised to find out that it is circulating on the Internet fifteen years later.  


Eyes made of the Egyptian night
Sparkling like an oasis pool
Skin the color of the endless sand
The beauty of forgotten goddesses lives on.
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