Wales of Corduroy

I am delighted to have connected with a dear friend temporarily lost in the dust and discover that he has a blog! A Solipsist with a blog is a thing to behold. A Solipsist who I could make blush is also a thing to behold. Since this has been a day of memories, I will pull out another one, a poem I wrote about him a few decades ago to make him blush again today.

Visit his blog. (William Cushman Littlewood's Blog) See if you can make him blush too!

Wales of Corduroy

His jeans, smooth and reliable, speak more of the undeniable
than a chorus of pedantic Solipsists gone begging for lyrics
as melodic and deep as the corduroy pockets
that holds the hands, the hands
I still can feel pressed warmly against my back.

Pant legs with a scraping washboard beat
keep counterpoint time to the trimly neat
A capella lines I practice in my sleep:
“Answers aren’t nearly as interesting as questions.”
“Love is where you find it.”
“Only the self exists?”
“I have no promises to keep.”

I have not the words or logic to debate
what is existent and to whom.
I can only relate the wales of corduroy
and how they bend to fit against me as I stretch and unwind
like a primitive cat too long asleep to understand her dreams
of heavy-footed Neanderthals
casting shadows on burnt sienna painted walls
of fire and lightning, darkness and hands

and echoes in a cavern from a time,
from a place now inaccessible to the modern race
where pots of paint were stirred,
where points of arrows were honed
as finely as the prey was prayed upon a wall
and near the ritual throne where man and woman groaned
their progeny into a life that sadly would sing
A capella lines still practiced in our sleep:
“I have no memories or promises to keep.”

I have not the words or logic to debate
what is existent and to whom.
I can only relate memories from the deep,
Where only I will reap the sounds of breath,
The taste of claiming, the joy of naming
The sound of the wales of corduroy
and the touch of the hands,
the hands I still can feel
pressed warmly against my back.