do you...
Elegy
On a Fat Woman Finding a Lover
Soliloquy for Dylan Thomas
You are everywhere
You brought me joy

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do you...

do you ever dream of me? do you
sometimes hear my voice hidden
in the tones of someone else's questions and
feel my pulse beneath your trembling
fingertips racing to some unexpected finish line or will
my face drift into mind yet seem out of reach from
behind your lowered eye lids can you remember
some quirk of mine that was once so
annoying but that you miss just the same does the
thought of me set your imagination
in motion letting you picture what you never
thought possible do you sometimes
feel my form beneath you writhing reaching
craving every part of you and does my
shadow follow you down twisted
paths you've known since childhood or can a
breeze bring to you my favorite scent borne
along as gently as a wish on a spider web does velvet
remind you of my skin your hands on me the
soft sweet oh god so sweet sigh of your
lips on mine does your body just
shut down running on empty without
some explanation of this hole
torn out of the center of you that
used to be filled with me do you feel
my memory pounding out a
cadence in the pit of your stomach fading
in and out slamming into the
sides of you do your favorite
books keep whispering my name do your
friends say things i would have said does this make
any sense do you miss
me do you
love me or
is this all
just happening
to me?

copyright 1995 by Leslie Gilderson

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Elegy

Black as shadow, black as night
In the shadows, out of sight
Edging closer, slinking nearer
I softly whisper, Come, Bagheera

Come to me with sleek black fur
I feel you close, I hear your purr
Feel your silken, boneless weight
Gone too soon, I came too late.

copyright 1993 by Leslie Gilderson

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On a Fat Woman Finding a Lover

God, what he does to me.
This man
is
capable
of turning me inside out.
Of confusing me utterly
and making me like it.

Soft strong hands
as they roam over my body
make me someone new.
Make me, me again.
Bring me back to myself
and loose the chains
of my self-imposed exile.

As my spirits soar and
begin to glide back down to myself,
I notice
quite unexpectedly
what his worshipping hands
have wrought.

I am beautiful.
The swelling curve
of my belly
as it arches up
from my pubic bone
is sensual.
The big tight muscles of
my calves
are sexy.
The length of skin
under my arm
from my elbow
to my shoulder
is silky and inviting.
My feet,
high of arch
and long of toe,
are instruments of delight.
My soft and
overlarge breasts
are perfect.
All of me is glowing
with a fleshly desire
and I am ready
to believe
that I am
desirable,
loving,
beautiful.

Wonder at this gift
and thankfulness
are in my kiss
as I attempt to show
in my own worshipfull way
that the gift is well received.

copyright 1994 by Leslie Gilderson

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Soliloquy for Dylan Thomas

the first brought pain
tears, and a makeshift guilt
lack of understanding clouded perspectives
distorted all sense of truth

with the second came
deterioration
and apathy
weak confidences,
so recently molded
back together,
gave way easily
the mist of self-doubt
seeped through
hastily constructed barriers

and the third
its progeny
quickly on its heels
thoroughly destroyed all
semblance of order
crude pedestals crumbled
and the dust of ruin
has yet to settle

now the conscious mind
sits
unconsciously
on a plain thought
devoid of marking
and ponders
unthinkingly
death
and its meanings:
the sequences that
partially unfold and then
implode upon themselves,
never revealing
any vestige
of reality

gray fog permeates all that is
or is to be
or is not to be
as it evaporates
a wisp of honesty
pierces the dullness

After the first death
there is no other.

copyright 1985 by Leslie Gilderson

---

You are everywhere

You are everywhere, all around me
I hear you when you aren't there
and feel you though you're gone
I am consumed by this passion
heated, purified by its intensity

In love with your shade,
I make love to your shadow
and dance with the whisper of your voice

Soft wisps of damp night air
caress me as your hands will:
enticing reactions from my willing body;
enveloping me in sweet mindless release

Participating fully in this enchanted reverie,
my mind is conscious of your absence
but my heart knows no distance
we are one and you are within me
and you are everywhere, all around me

copyright 2004 by Leslie Gilderson

---

You brought me joy

you brought me joy
in a plain wrapper
and blew the bad things from my world
with the puff of a heavy sigh
you took my hand
and I felt your own happiness
as we ran together through
the fields of a spring-born love

the orchids had always been our flower
this one, a deep pink
bordering on purple - as bright
as my cheeks
at your hasty compliments - banished
the reality of how apart we were
once again you took me to places
my blind eyes had never seen
but the vision you left with me
wouldn't let me find them again

now I sit
under this tree
watching the ants gather food
and I notice my ability to love beyond reason
quietly packing a bag
and following my naivete
down a smooth, straight road
that interrupts the peace
of those same meadows we frolicked in
so very long ago.

copyright 1987 by Leslie Gilderson

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