A Sonnet to End Your Nightmares
By Jim Savio
Over a thousand and one Arabian nights I’ll battle the demons in your dreams And when comes the time for your nightly fright You’ll see the row of daffodils I planted growing by a stream
Over a thousand and one Arabian nights I’ll write you poems and tend your every need As you live your days may you never lose sight That my love exceeds by ten, the sum of all my deeds
And if despite my promise I fail to serve you well Make no mention, for I will know it too so humbled, my remaining deeds will tell A story of love by no means new
And for a thousand and one Arabian nights No more will you turn and toss in sleep, but be at peace, at peace my love
When I Die….
When I Die by Jim Savio
Whhen the time has come to set this wondrous, painful, whip-fast life a-drift
The memory of you in me always
To venture forth like someone blind with adventure
With a longing I can’t explain
When I’ve had what time I need
Afraid of nothing, the greatest fears of all behind me now
I hope to assure you: there’s nothing to fear aside from apathy
Those anxieties about letting go
The worry…what will they think?
Fear of failure
That frightening thought of loving you too little
All gone
All regrets
All guilt and shame erased
Scatter my memory along the Brooklyn streets where I once played as a child
On the Shawangunk trails, the waterfalls and lakes of my four years away from the world
In the Gulf Stream’s current flowing north between Key West and Mariel
On the sands of ar-Rub’ al Khali where I was so so small in the hands of the world
In all of these and in you my wife and child and friends
I found my muse
Traveling North
I ride north as the earth turns and the sun bows for the last time
I applaud its brilliance with my eyes
And I await the darkness
We’ve parted again; just another practice run for going north
I want to watch the sun together
I want to hold it there, and be with you, ok?
When the sky grows quiet, then dim, and dark for the last time
In Another Land
I sit at your desk
I look at the photographs you have pinned up
I look at the titles of the books on your shelves
I find you
Again
I walk toward the sea
I look at the sandals and flip-flops left waiting
I look at the sand where you once walked
I see you
Again