Green Journal

Sleep Deprivation For A Good Cause 12/17/15

It's late at night and I'm writing you a song,

But I can't find the tune and my voice is all gone,

So I'm writing a poem

Because, as you know, I'm

Much better at this, after all.

My guitar won't quite fit to my body

And it pokes me and all of my chords sound so shoddy,

But I want to sing to you and the world all your praises--

Something in the vein of "Off to the Races,"

Something of how I want you and you want me.

I keep thinking I could play this for you sometime else,

While we watch the stars and forget ourselves

Like I do so often when I look at your face

And you're looking away and my jaw drops, amazed

At the way your freckles arrange themselves.

I think my problem is that I don't know what sound

I could make with an instrument that would tell how hard my heart pounds

When the thought of you in the middle of the night

And a guitar are all I have and so I must devise

A way to make you music and to strum it out.

So I write you a poem in the dark night time,

Leaning on the face of this guitar of mine,

Scrawling tuneless phrases

And stanzas, afraid it

Isn't as good as music, but it rhymes.