sometimes I wonder why

After the dream itself is lost
the memories persist, and in the jazzing whirl
of colour sound and sense confused and mixed
deep within the brain they twist and curl
tortuous and tortured , till
each at last is smothered by a sigh.

I spend the lonely nights

and more than lonely days, trying to find again
a truth that was , a truth that I thought might
with just a little care, remain

dreaming of a song

I thought might outlast time
but which lasted just as long
as you would smile
and I would furnish rhyme

That melody haunts my reverie

as a blinded lark
bursts its heart to sing,
as a small boy whistles in the dark
to keep from remembering

and I am once again with you
when our love was new

beneath me then the sullen city slept;
a solid bar of moonlight halved the room ;
you broke it with the promise that you kept

and each kiss an inspiration

but our love was alabaster , white and hard,
both flawed and frangible,
for it was cold and stone and marred
by being an ideal , but tangible.

and now my consolation lies

not in the love itself, but in its memory.
For often in the momentary chaos
of the half-dream’s formless mass,
watching the pendulum swing from fantasy to truth
from truth to fantasy
I have seen you as you are
and as I would have you be

but these are dreams and they belong

only in the stardust of a song