“You can’t return from where you left”
You can’t return from where you left.
A Poem by Coyote Poetry
Old poem from 1993 with a re-write
(A Poet, is one, who believes and one who cannot bring himself to believe.–Tadeusz Rozewics)
I’m watching the waves dance on the Monterey Bay in my favorite Irish Pub. The drink is good and the company demand little and asked no questions. I’m 3000 mile away my Winter woman and the distance isn’t enough to erase her memory. Even the powerful Pacific ocean can’t make me forget her beautiful face and her long legs. The tragedy of touching bare skin and tender fingertips against us. We demand and need more. When we bathe in the sweetness of kisses and promises made. When we whispered hidden secrets never to be born again. Drink and song will not allow us to forget. I’m California dreaming and I’m wishing for things lost and cannot be found.
I roamed to one of the Sin cities. I love Reno, Nevada. People are pretending to be someone else and few show real face. I play the games and I drink the free drinks. Beautiful women are everywhere. Lofty ladies wanting payment for sharing warmth with no true payment. I refrain from them because in their gestures of kindness make me see your soft face near and I drift back to your memory. A woman with your clear blue eyes sat with me, she made me feel weak and I felt like a man lost in a nightmare of never knowing peace. I want to call you, but I know. You cannot return from where you left.
I escape to New York city. I’m trying to find Cohen in the city of 10 million souls. I read poetry in dark poetry houses. They call me the dark Poet. Women wearing black and their body are landscapes of wild and perfect skin come to me. They liked me and I liked them. People who need little can find peace in the salvation of embrace without cost. I read my poetry to generous audience and a pretty girl asked me after. If you loved her so. Why did you release her? Your poetry sweat of her memory. I told her. Sweet love is for the lucky. Dead love and forgotten places are forever tattoos on our skin and heart. I sat alone in the darkness of the New York city night. I whispered. I have not forgotten your face.
I returned to Michigan. I went to her home and I sat in the car. I saw her from a distance and I knew. Neglected love crumbled and we eat the past with delicate spoon. I left my dear love without a words or goodbye. I sat in a Ann Arbor tavern and I whispered. To you my love, you are my only sweetness felt in a life filled with madness and wild journey with no ending.
John Castellenas/Coyote
Music can draw me back to memories lost, happy times, sad times, magical times and oh how that hurts my heart. But you are right, we cannot go back, we learn to live with the loss which at times can be all consuming.
I loved this post John.
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Thank you my friend for reading and the comment. I went back to the old places. People change and we can change too.
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Well said and so true in many ways, John – “you can’t return from where you left”. It’s tender and, yet haunting, in a sense there’s a hole that can never be filled. Of one real truth, I’ve begun to learn about love (having now recently celebrated 50 years of marriage) is that it can’t be forced. It has to be allowed in whatever form it shows up.
I can share in your pain of loss in a different way, though, in trying to recapture something you loved and lost. The hole I feel and a sense of loss is in going back home. The house I lived in growing up was bulldozed and a new one built in place of it, as well as my old high school. It was bulldozed and apartments replaced it. So much for trying to relive those childhood memories. What you say that “you can’t return from where you left” rings true in the many faces of love.
Thank you for sharing. Beautiful and heartfelt thoughts, my friend.
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I agree. Few things can stay the same.
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You’re right, John, and, when it comes down to it, would we really want it to.
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Terrific.
“Dead love and forgotten places are forever tattoos on our skin and hearts”….. I loved this line…
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Thank you. One of my favorites poems.
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Really enjoyed. I read this the first time, I like it now as well.
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Thank you for reading. This is one of my favorites also.
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Really well done. I enjoyed it so much!
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Reblogged this on Becoming is Superior to Being.
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Thank you for the reblogged. I do appreciate.
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