The Sonnets of Scott Ennis

Left arm, left hand, left shoulder did not move
when first my body broke, my left was still
But now I have a duty, I will prove
my left side needs to swim; I know it will
because my left is needed for my right
My body must have balance in the pool
or lake, the water needs to know my fight
is up against myself, the water cool
will bear the warmth of anger as I stroke
DeRuyter will be mine, my body flows
My arms in motion like my bike wheel spoke
around, around my left arm flies, it flows
And in the water, I will win the race
around the island to the starting place.

Let’s make our love inside all wrapped in calm
committed actions covered with the balm
discovered for the places, dry or hot
Although we don’t believe ourselves, we’re not
as dry as is required by this soft . . .
our love is made, a bedroom in the loft.
We rub the ointment on the tender skin
I love your hands upon me, I am in
a place with you, imagined from a dream
you rub the balm upon my skin, a cream
as milky white and cool, though you are warm
outside the rain begins, perhaps a storm
is coming. We will stay inside and let
the rain come down and make the garden wet
We’ll stay inside and listen to the rain
and rub the balm upon our subtle pain.
I have no pain when you are by my side
I’ll care for you and let you be my guide.
Just tell me where you’re tender and my hand
will rub the ointment. I’m at your command

To hear your name is like a gift of gold
To know the way you touch their hearts, I’m told
that you are sweet and lovely, but I know
more certainly than anyone can show
But show me more I beg when it is you
that makes my friends so compliment, my view
is roses made of sweetest flesh, your stem
is strong, and I allow the words from them
My friends believe my love for you is strong
And that I probably composed a song
or poem for my Mari, who I love
her metaphor will be a cooing dove.
A dove with strength and beauty is my mate
Her love for me is now; I need not wait.

Forgotten verse is like forbidden flame
I can’t remember poetry, her name
Is beautiful, but on my broken brain
I feel her song and feel I am disdain
I know they say I shouldn’t beat myself
But feeling doesn’t sit upon my shelf
And she can sing my disdain anytime
My poetry is full of trashy rhyme
But I would write her actions like the beat
of heart to heart or love that’s incomplete
One line may be the source of what we feel
I find the line and will before her kneel
reciting words that mimic beauty’s form
but wanting only taste of her that’s warm.

Expressions come without the sound of voice
Her eyes, her cheeks they move without a choice
She doesn’t choose to let me know she feels
attraction, so I think, like magnet steels
Her metal is creative, I would weld
Her shape with all my art and watch her meld
Her beauty needs no craft of mine to show
Perfection in the shape I want to know
I’d let her stay in her true lovely form
To love the perfect beauty of the norm.
I miss her voice, the sound of rolling pearls,
She sounds like all my memory of girls.
I love her noise or silence; I’m in love
with her, my Mari, sweet, I’m thinking of.

My death was widely felt within my brain
and yet my brain was cognizant of death
My body felt my death as ugly pain
and yet my body felt with every breath.
Perhaps my death was not my final end.
I thought about the concepts of my life
I thought a lot about my loving friend
and how I loved and wished she was my wife.
and yet my wife was still my wife, I knew
that only one could stay within my life
I only want my loving friend; they slew
my “errant ” thoughts and gave to me my wife.
And yet I made a project of my soul
for what I truly needed to be whole.

How far is far away? How much is far?
Does love deny the distance? Does it mar
such beauty as the beauty I have seen?
Too far is nothing unsurpassed between
my visioned beauty lingering away
in gardens I have been to in the day
when she and I walked brightly, hand in hand
like acquiescence lived by our command
like water moves when heat is flowed within
our love and beauty linger skin to skin
the way your hand and mine refuse to part
or how your mouth reflects a loving start:
a kiss or something whispered to my soul
and signifies the distance as a goal.

Unfold the page of memories of two
who love afar and cry like me and you
It’s us; the simile is written thin
the metaphor of love does not begin
to tell of how we love in burning rooms
or how we rescue love from dusty tombs
I drive my silver jeep and hold her hand
my memory may fail, but I’ll demand
the recollection of the fabric seats
to tell of how we moved without retreats
To touch our skin, our warmth, our lips, and all
the skin within brain crevasses can’t fall
from logic and intelligence; I’ll quit
from thinking if constrained or scarred by it.

Her dolls have all been put away, and now
she says her prayers, Hail Mary, full of grace.
My heart remembers pieces of a vow
she whispered in another time and place,
like pieces of a heart within a doll:
ceramic, shattered, hidden from her view,
below a painted face. The shards are small,
too small to represent the love we knew.
They cut their way through flesh, inert, like foam
and buried deep in softness cut the hand
of anyone who dares to take me home,
or anyone who cares to understand
that part of life is pain, the biggest part,
and love, the tiny shards of broken heart.

Her dolls have all been put away and now
She says her prayers–”Hail Mary, full of grace.”
My heart remembers pieces of a vow
she whispered in another time and place,
the pieces of a heart within a doll:
ceramic, shattered, hidden fron her view,
below a painted face.. The shards asre small,
too small to represent the love we knew.
They cut their way through flesh and heart like foam
and buried deep in softness, cut the hand
of anyone who cares to understsand
that pain is part of life, the biggest prt,
and love, the tiny shards of broken heart

I curse my words, my poetry, my breath
and wish for silent seepage of the death
of scansion as it rises to my brain
I curse my subtle poetry in vain
for vanity is like the tune I hear
while cursing words and poetry, I fear
my brain enables angels to descend
amidst the lightning thunder, let’s pretend
that noise above is sent from father-god
and mother-god approves with just a nod
perfection is the sequence she will sing;
redemption is the love her tears will bring
as rain begins to fall from darkened clouds
and soaks the tears of worship in the crowds.

Don’t cry with tears that melt on cheeks of bone
But if you can’t withhold the sobs you own
then give them to your love to break your heart.
A soul in love will tear itself apart
without the bath of tears, the saline mock
of real imagined pain of which we talk
with cracking breath try hard to understand
that love is mostly true when it is banned
Then ban your love and cry yourself to sleep
With dreams that will consume your lovely weep
And kiss your lover’s ghost; her body shakes
it gives your mind the images it makes
you won’t make love with someone who is ill
And if your love is well, you never will.

Come Kiss

Come kiss the kiss I’ve saved all day for you
I like to kiss the woman who is mine
If she can kiss, we’ll kiss the whole night through
Her kisses and her love are more divine
than some divinity to which men pray
And in her lips I taste our Riesling wine
I have a quiet mouth to turn her way
I love to kiss her when she’s most supine
Our love is something that I love and care
“I love you baby, you are who I kiss”
when I’m in dreams and need the love we share
We share our love more often though than this
Forever is too short a time to feel
Your kiss which let’s me know that you are real.

To be in Mari’s life it’s when I feel
the love she has for me; her love is real
I tell the world she saved my life; it’s true
And I would love to tell her what I knew
the moment that I felt her love and skin
I felt my life begin, my life begin
And now my life is hers forever more
I’ll keep her love and mine I’ll hold in store
for Mari when she needs my love the most
I hope the most is always; I’ll be host
to anything she wants, I’ll give it all
to Mari; I’m in love; I didn’t fall
in love to be a small pathetic thing
To Mari there is much that I can bring.

I hate to sleep alone, but dreams will come
and Mari will be in my sleeping sight
I love my Mari dreams; I sleep like some
new vision’s beauty guides me through the night
I touch her perfect skin like she is mine
But I would never touch another so
My broken mind with dreams of her is fine
My broken body misses her as though
her flesh compels my balance to be good
I never want to hurt again like now
I’ll trust myself to Mari like I should
she touches me with songs of us and how
Our love is pure; a love we always need
I love her song and how my soul is freed.

Mari Is My Life

My Mari is my life and half my soul
My soulmate lives as Mari, she’s my goal
My goal is to be someone that she’ll trust
I know her love deserves it and I must
be all the words I’ve promised I will be
because my Mari needs to trust in me.
She’s beutiful to me; I have a plan
to match her beauty with a trustful man
The man she wants to trust has hurt his brain
It’s me; I’ve never known a tougher strain
My life is harder now than times before
And now I feel my love for Mari more
Than I know how to give in beauty bright
but I will try my best by day and night
baby, I love you forever;
I miss you.

Dust. Wind. Dude.

Say “Us” again and babe I will believe
in all your words, they have the sound of truth
I don’t believe you ever could deceive
my heart; your words are new, they feel like youth.
Your beauty permeates the things you say
And “Us” is beautiful like you, my Mari true
I know we’re real and know that we will stay
As real as words proclaimed by me and you.
Reality is you and “us,” we’re real
I feel reality when you are near
And how I love the “us” of you I feel
You love “us” too, so babe I’ll never fear
that “Us” will cease to be; we never will
And I will say “forever” then and still
I love you babe;
your words touch me

Too low to give my dearest friend my heart
I broke myself then broke our world apart
Perhaps I broke our world when I was whole
But broken is her heart and her good soul
I love my Mari, she’s my dearest friend
there’s no excuse to heal the friendship’s end
She’s still the greatest woman that I know
And maybe I will heal and maybe grow
But if I do it doesn’t heal the hurt
I’m sorry Mari; I am worse than dirt
Like rotten mud you find by any lake
I want to swim, to wash for Mari’s sake
Forgiveness is the wish I have of you
And Mari, know my love’s forever true.

I’ll bring you to the place we disappeared
again before the dawn begins to bleed
the memories of memories we feared
would take us to a time where we concede
concessions like the streaks of heated clouds
at twilight in the early summer’s heat
which over-shadows rushing cars and crowds
and underlies the grass beneath our feet.
The world is solid, built with concrete lies
between the roads that lead to other roads.
Suburbia contains the stifled cries
of dawn as morning silently explodes.
And this is where our memories are kept
within the walls where silently we’ve wept.

It hurts to bear the comfort of the fade
of memories invoked across the night,
against the warmth of summer, coolness played,
the pain of passion, burning fast and bright,
the hands upon the sweat upon the skin,
surrounding life and pulsing like a beam
of morning’s promise, lingering within
the comfort as it faded like a dream.
My voice is distant, further than the moon
which rises just as brightly, so I’ve heard,
on nothing; I misspoke my heart too soon
and faded in the comfort of a word,
while every fading night becomes a day
when you arise too many miles away.

She stands, stretched out in graceful strength before
reflections of her youth, her beauty, gold
becomes a dull comparison, no more
than something bought and something cheaply sold.
But this, extruded beauty, more than form
of youthful goddess dancing in her sky,
like gentle lightning, heralding a storm
of passion, like the thundering reply
of some obscure, humiliated man
who knows no better worship than his shout
which signifies his lack of any plan
but opens up his heart and lets it out
in freedom’s best impression of intent,
his passion is immediately spent.

There’s blood beneath my skin which gives me life
as close to death as strips of sharpened steel–
a razor’s edge, the blade of Abram’s knife.
My faith coagulates; I cease to feel
the cuts of barbed-wire fence, the jagged tear
of rusted metal scraping through my flesh,
the nails of Romans forcing me to bear
the intersecting cross of life and death.
It’s warm for just a moment as it seeps
into the world of degradation; shame
enlightens every second as it creeps
toward some inconsequential, holy blame.
There is no cup, no chalice you can drink
to pull you back from life’s eternal brink.

I take my wine to swallow my regrets–
prescribed too late for pain, but not for sleep;
affliction sharpens memory and lets
my mind reject what soul decides to keep.
I share my wine with everyone I meet
within the consultations of my dreams
of soft inebriations which compete
for my affection even though it seems
that all my perfect flesh is still alone
in desperation’s comfortable embrace.
And though I should have kissed you, had I known
that this would be regret, I would replace
my wine with all my memories of you
and trade your kiss for all I ever knew.

I hear your absence, silent as the trail
between the sticks of barren winter trees.
They long to be remembered, to avail
themselves of verdant, peaceful reveries
when I can hear you running by my side,
across the bridge of demarcated space
which spans a summer’s brooklet, stride for stride
we run together.  Nothing will replace
the metaphor of you when I can feel
the failure of my strength; you are my heart.
It’s difficult to run, almost surreal
to move at all when we are miles apart.
I feel your presence, softly as a dream
each time I cross some difficulty’s stream.

for Mari