To A.D. Poem by Rob Dyer

Oh smile not at me like an angel,
raise not your arms to gather in my lips,
say we lost each other while there was still time.
It is not true that on the judgment day
I will be found crying your name.
You were only a dream at winter's end,
love too young to cage my fast virility.
A year and a day I loved you, wept for you,
raised my arms to gather in my dream.
It is only when I wake I sometimes see
your ghost vanishing within the night.
See I am a man now, who walks and laughs
and swings his shoulders down the city streets,
drinks his martinis eight to one, parades
his learning down the quad and nods his law
like thunder throughout his growing world.
Pity my solid earth, my four-square home,
the revellers in the city where I live.
Raise not your arms to gather in my lips.

I know still the tremor down their veins,
there is nothing new for me to learn.
My lips are stone, they cannot burn. Beware
lest from these flaming walls may spread
the raging torment of a fire you cannot
quell with tears or love or supplication,
that may destroy all breathing hearts within.
Your speechless children break silence with a cry:
'Raise not your arms to gather in his lips.
It cannot be for him a casual or
a senseless kiss. Bring not within our walls
his shattering footsteps. Tell him his art
of how in dangerous silence the poet makes
words for another man's bride.'

Oh smile not at me like an angel.
Say it is not true on judgment day
I will be found my stone lips crying your name.