In Another Life...

[Inkling]

In another life I hold your hand, and gaze across that moonlit bay;
Where once we stood in years gone by, constrained to go our separate way
So much unspoken, so much unsaid;
So much left locked within my head.
And yet the memory returns, and every moonlit night it yearns,
To see your face again, unspurned;
In another life…

In another life I speak the words I longed to say an age ago;
When interrupted love lay churned by circumstantial vertigo,
And cruel fate and angels wings;
Took precedence o’er tender things.
And yet I saw you in my dreams, and hot tears cleansed internal screams,
To hear your voice again, redeemed,
In another life…

In another life I kiss your lips, and hold you trembling in my arms;
Where worlds ago you only knew the penning of this wordsmith’s charms,
Internal longings, whose external sweet;
Would ne’er be tasted, ne’er complete.
And yet I held as underpriced, the hope of our once promised tryst,
To kiss your lips, two hearts now spliced,
In another life…

In another life I wait for you, my secret heart, my summer’s sun;
To finish what a life ago this unexpected love begun,
And Ulysses forever lost,
Forever found, the threshold crossed;
Shall live under Italian skies, and feel the searchings of your eyes,
And wait for you, no more goodbyes;
In another life…

Written about a summer love that could never be, whose participants vowed to meet 'in another life' before their lives became so complicated.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I loved the way "In another life" linked one stanza to the next. This had the flowery quality of 19th century poetry.

[CdnReader]

I like this very much, Inkling. The structure and the vocabulary and the rhyming are all impeccable! It flows beautifully from one phrase to the next, from one stanza to the next. And the content.... oh, the content.... yes, I know of this story, and you have told it very very well. Welcome to the Poetry Forum. I hope we'll see much more of your work! :)

[AuntShecky]

The déjá vu mood of your piece reminds me of a popular song a little before my time --
(Forties? Early Fifties?) called "Where or When"

It begins:
"It seems we stood and walked
Like this before
The smile you were smiling
You were smiling then,
But I can't remember
Where or when. . ."

I just "Googled" it and found that the lyricist was none other than Lorenz Hart, who collaborated with Richard Rodgers way before the days Richard took up with the (in my opinion) sappier Oscar Hammerstein III.

I liked the Ulysses reference in your poem, and realize that you used the Latin name and not the Hellenistic Odysseus, but I believe that Ulysses's homeland,Ithaca, was in Greece, not Italy.

[Pendragon]

I'm with Jerry. The link between the stanzas is what makes this poem stand out. Very well written and balanced, with always the tiny glimpses of sideroads that never are taken, because you keep to the cental focus of your poem. The glimpses are like tantalizing signs that entice the reader onward. This poem could be the focus for a series of poems if you explored all the little possibilites you hint at as you go along.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Smilies/ThumbsUp.gif

[Inkling]

Cheers for the comments, folks - really appreciated! Nicely noticed, AuntShecky, regarding the Latinised name. My thought was of Ulysses longing to settle down with one of the nymphs who waylaid him on his journeys, one stop of which some think to have been made in Capri, which is part of Italy, thus we find Ulysses retaining his Latin lover rather than returning to Penelope in Ithaca. Enjoy...