Wonderings In The Key Of Curiosity (Fantasizings Of A Lovelorn Virgin) Poem by Jacquelyn Frost

I must be a cat!
For this curiosity
Is surely killing me:

Oh! He’s my honey my sugar my darlin’ my baby,
I love him I love him I love him, but maybe
He and I will never be close to one other.
No, we shall never meet
Which will leave me alone,
With eternal curiosity…

And while I ponder the following circumstances there’s a song playing on the radio in my brain that exclaims:
(“Well, there’s a certain guy I’ve been in love with
A long long time
What’s his name? ! ? !
I CAN’T TELL YA!
NOOO! ! ! ! !
I can’t reveal his name, until I get him! ”) .

Well, I received a mysterious message
Back in the dead of winter and it warmed my heart so
With visions and hopes of future fires,
A realization of my secret desires.
I took it to be a romantic prophesy
For something that would happen to me.
It said: “April’s first kiss shall be mine! ”
For I knew I was to see him
In that sweet, sentimental month,
My most favored part of the year,
Even lovelier to me than Christmas.
Oh! April, that month of poetry and jazz
And amorous flowers blooming!
Ah, but April can also be so cruel
For I really did believe April’s prophesy to be true,
That it would happen to me.
But it didn’t, and now I’m blue,
It seems it just wasn’t meant to be…

So, thus begins my curiosities:

I wonder what it would be like
To ride the midnight train with him,
To consider the windows and reflections of the night speeding away,
Down the line through the tracks of time
As night folds back into day
As day melts back into night.
Just to ride a train with him, to sit with him, side by side
With him sharing with me his stories from many different times
spent in California, Canada, Rome, and London,
Japan, Australia, Scotland, Nashville, and Paris,
Minneapolis, Maryland, Mexico, the Mesabi Range,
The Deep South, New York City, New England, and New Orleans.
Perhaps he could help me see what it all means,
Since I’m stuck n’ stranded in a place that feels like a cage,
A cage that swims in symbolism.
It’s more like a poem here than a physical location to live in.
Of this fact I would try to convince him,
Though he might just shrug and chuckle at this suggestion.

I’m quite curious what it would really be like,
For just the two of us to sit on a front porch together,
With a moonlit mountain view,
For him there to lovingly croon to me
And to me only, the soul member of his audience,
As if there was nobody left in the world but him and I.
Perhaps he would hold his blessed, beloved book of poetry
And recite hundreds of vibrant verses to me
For no one’s ears to hear but mine only.

I consider the question of what else he might offer to me:
Coffee or weed, wine or cigarettes, or tea?
“Here doll, down some of this,
Make ya feel nice n’ right n’ mellow
Yeah, mighty relaxin’ indeed”,
Might be the words of his offering toast.
But who really knows
How his speech would go?

And I’m curious what a kiss between him and I would feel like.
Perhaps his mustache would make it one ticklish kiss!
I’ve never really been kissed before.
I love to imagine him standing outside my door.
But in reality he is much too far away
To give me his kiss that would make my heartbeat say,
“Hey, baby you’re a real fine lovin’ man.
Please kiss me again, if you think that you can”.

I’d love to know
What it would be like
To be near him.
I wonder what it would sound like to hear him
Speak my name so soft and low
So poetic, so sweetly mellow,
In that way, as only he could say it.
Yes I’d love to know just what that lovin’ vibration would feel like,
With the tingle of his whispered syllables
Ringing and rhyming so close to my captivated ears.

I wonder what it would feel like
Just to dance with him,
Just once,
Though I’ve never danced with anyone before, really,
But I think I could dance with him into eternity.
Just one unforgettable dance with the man
Before he’s gone for good, or for bad,
For heaven or hell,
But really, who can tell?
Cause’ he’s always been a little bit of an angel,
And a bit of a devil as well.
(He’s one evil-hearted angel of a man!)
He might be too fussy and rather lusty,
But he always keeps a good Holy Bible trusty
By his bedside, every night
So he can sing the Song of Songs out loud to his gal,
Right before he holds her good n’ tight.

I’m curious what variety of fine music
Would provide the spark and the fuel
For our fiery dance together.
…Could be reggae, could be rock’ n roll
Jazz or classical or western swing.
Anything really, just so long as it’s good,
That’s the important thing.

And, Oh, I’ve seen the way he dances
And it’s really something.
Not the best dancer in the world, but still
He’ll capture some part of your heart
That you didn’t even know you had.
His steps will make your mind and your eyes feel glad.
Comical in a sense, the way that he moves
And grooves in his own kind of 20th century fashion,
Not much akin to the way the kids move today
But you’ll be laughin’ and steppin’ right along with him anyway.

I wonder what it would be like
For us to bond together in the kitchen just a bit,
With me cooking for him all day
And feeding him right all night
With the food of love,
The kind that good ol’ Willy Shakes loves to eat
On a tune-filled Twelfth Night.

I would make for us our favorite recipes
Like down home Banana bread, hearty hushpuppies
Collard greens and cornbread, cranberries and pudding and pie,
And more and more of our favorites till he sighs
With that feeling of complete satisfaction.

And day through day
I burn with curiosity
As I wonder whether it would tickle
If he were to make me into one of his paintings,
In his own way so heartily, so passionately,
With his fine, fiery bristles brushing colors onto canvas
And with his lovely eyes studying every last one of my features,
Both the bad and the good:
Flesh tones, skin hues
Meshed bones, Sin’s blues.
Maybe with music playing on in the studio radio while he paints
And I’d sit for him, silently still like a statue in love,
With the music being perhaps punctuated with his question,
“You doin’ alright over there, honey-baby? ”,
Every now and then, like musical rests in his painting.

Well then, I might paint or draw him, too.
We’d capture each other spiritually and visually
And we might pose the questions to each other, mutually,
“How shall I forge your likeness, dear love? Dear one?
In paint, or in stone, or in clay?
Shall I paint you in the night?
Or by the sweet light of day? ?
By the light of the silky silvery moon,
Or by the burning, blushing beams of the sun?
Which light would best serve my sweet loved one? ”

(Unrequited love so extremely intense
Is something I just can’t fight against) .

I wonder what it would be like
To wrap my arms around him
And to feel his arms around me too.
I wonder what he would do
If it were a cold winter’s night
Or even a chilly summer’s eve
I wonder what his warm cowboy jacket would feel like,
Wrapped all around and over my shivering shoulders,
With the amorous warmth of his Western-style sleeves winding all around me,
Like a pleasing summer wind.
Yes, I do envision him wrapping his jacket around me
To keep me from feeling too cold,
In that age-old, lasting gesture of ancient teenage love.

Oh, I wonder and I wonder and I wonder some more
What it would be like to really explore him
And what his skin
Would feel like on my skin
And I wonder what his creative hands would feel like in mine
Would he clench my fingers tightly or use a loose grip?
I imagine either way would be just fine.
Oh, my music man!
He’s just so good with his hands…

And sometimes I sit with my head in my own hands,
Wondering what his hands would feel like on my body.
If they were to caress me,
I know he could excite me
With those ten fingers of his
That have, over sixty years, been playing
With the pencil, the pen, the paintbrush,
The plectrum, and the piano keys.
His hard working hands have given birth to innumerable families
Of songs and paintings and stories and love.
I imagine that those fingers,
The ones of my favorite singer,
Could surely thrill me and chill me,
And I know his hands could put me at ease
With a good ol’ fashioned tease or two.

Each hour of the day…
Curiosity engulfs and inflames my brain
With wonderings of what his musical mouth would taste like
(Perhaps like a lovingly nauseating mix
Of brass reeds, booze and tobacco,
A concoction 50 years in the making) .
I wonder what his broken lips and tongue could feel like
If they were to be entwined with mine.

I wonder what it would sound like
If I were to press my ear to his chest
And listen to his heartbeat,
To listen to it swinging like some metronome,
Beating away with a vital rhythm
Like the kind heard in his music.
Would it be a soft, slow, mellow heartbeat?
Or a fast, crazy heartbeat: rough, ragged and rockin’ like his songs?
Either way, I would listen to it all day and all night long.

And I burn with a curiosity
To know what it would look like
Just to sit and stare
Into his blue, blue, blue eyes
For at least an hour
With nothing much more to do than that, really,
And to meditate on that beautiful hue of blue
Of his two azule pupils
To gaze out at them as if I were
Staring out into a cerulean sea and sky
And surely, those lovely lines beneath his eyes appear
Like the rhythmic ripples of the waves of that blue sea.
I’d scrutinize his eyes, a pair of poetic searchlights
And I’d likely lose myself
Looking into those beloved septuagenarian eyes
As I’d meditate on the more than half-century of scenes
That those two eyes have imbibed,
And what his replies were
To the images that those two eyes took in:
Pictures of life of love of death and sin,
And the songs that came from those visions,
The lyrics and melodies that brewed up in his mind,
Brewed up like a storm on the sea or java in a hot coffee pot
In that that crazy ol’ mind of his that lies behind
Those blue, blue eyes.

Ah! But I know that shall never happen.
For to look into the man’s eyes is expressly forbidden!
No mortal man is to ever look
Into the blue eyes of this charming crook.

Although he is eternally
And constantly
So far from me
(500 miles or double that)
I can still feel a tingle for him, deed’ I do.
As if he were right here beside me,
As if we were sittin’ by that aforementioned blue sea.

(Unrequited love so very intense,
Has got me sitting on a fence) .

Ah, but I shall be curious all the way to my grave,
For we shall surely never meet.
Our paths will never cross close enough.
I was made to ponder and to wonder and to wander
All the way to my dyin’ day,
Never to know
Just what it would feel like
No way, no how
To really get to be his gal, not even once!
For I’m but an ugly, ordinary, plain looking poor peasant
Dressed in boyish clothes.
He wouldn’t really care for me at all, goodness knows!
No, he has only the loveliest, most beautiful girls around him
With their made-up faces so attractive that it’s a sin!
I despise all their vanity
Because he chooses them over me.
No, this man I love madly shall never be mine.

I wonder what it would be like
To wear that adorable ol’ hat of his
On my head for a while.
Maybe I would start to steal his smile,
Or adopt his charming, playful style.
Maybe something of his soul’s song would flow into my own head.

(Unrequited that’s this intense
Leaves behind too much evidence) .

Oh! how he has worked his sexy spell over me
With his songs, his melodies, his harmonies!
Damn his wit, his intellect, his charming humor!
For I can’t resist the man’s adorably seductive sense of humor.
A man who can make me laugh is simply incredibly appealing.
His knowledge, his wisdom, his talents
They all make him so excitingly sensual
His corny jokes have burrowed their way into my sad, rigid heart.
And they’ll wrap themselves around your heart, too
And make it express a youthful chortle or giggle.
Indeed, many are the giggles that he can provoke,
Giggles which nearly seem to evoke the sounds of sin
From undone belt buckles to excited chuckles.
-And curse his enrapturing, relentless knowledge of music!
And his sharing of stories and song,
Transmitted to me by romantic radio waves and headphones.
His enchanting voice has made love to my ears over the past 4 years
…So sweet so smart
So lovingly tender, mellow and relaxed
With a voice like no one else’s
That I can seem to find,
A voice so wise and warm with rasp and grit
A skilled inflection that’s been textured by the layering up of years
A kind of railroadin’ voice of Americana…
A calming, charming slow-burnin’ voice
So unlike the voices of everyone else
That I must listen to where I live
Where people talk only in unpleasant, loud, hurried tones
And harsh North Eastern Accents
Cold and dry, troubled, and lacking in humor,
Poisoned with the cynicism of these monstrous Northeastern cities.

Oh! , and his laugh!
Wow, that laugh!
I think I could write books about that laugh!
It’s a laugh that is so unlike the locals' laughter I've heard here.
That laugh of his is so charming and pleasant and warm and true
And it’s really quite seductive too,
So far removed from the annoying laughter of the people
Around my place, whose tongues can utter only mean-spirited, angry laughs
Or nerdy laughs, or mendacious laughs,
Expressions of their gossips and other witch-crafts,
But his lovely laugh is quite the polar opposite of theirs.
I simply love his laugh, it makes me feel so good
Like a man’s laughter really should.

…And I wonder what it would look like,
If we stood side by side.
-Not sure if he’d be shorter than me,
Or if I’d be shorter than him…

…And finally, dizzyingly, tremblingly,
I wonder what it would feel like
To lay down with him side by side,
For us to snuggle and to cuddle with each other
Together on a naked night cloaked only with our darkness
Illuminated by the hot, fiery passion
Of the stars and the moon.
With those twinkling stars glistening
Like the drops of boiling sweat on our collective skins
Falling from the skies, falling from ourselves,
Making the room so moist.
And would we be silent? Would he be quiet? Would I? ...mmmm hmmm…
Or perhaps the room would be filled with strange sounds,
Giggles, mumurs, mumblings, whisperings of sweet nothings,
Poetic improvisation shouted out by him in exaltation of love,
Skilled extemporizing in the inspirational climax of our act.
What songs could result from our time together, with me as his muse?
Our bodies, mingled in the stillness of the midnight…
I wonder what it would sound like,
What kind of music would be chosen to accompany our bedside tango?
Perhaps we’d burn it up to the blues,
Or keep the jazz records poppin’ and swingin’
While we’d do our thing,
Or perhaps rhythm and blues
Or rock N' roll could set the mood.
(I know that he and I both dig a sexy saxophone’s moan
So maybe a sax would respond to the call of our groans
And help us to find that colorful apex between us)
Who knows, though,
Maybe the soundtrack of our lovin’ could even be country & western
As the blankets would roll and turn
As if we were rolling together through fields of wildflowers,
Somewhere in the remotest, most rural part of the country
(A place where the locals wouldn’t know
What a skyscraper even looks like,
Let alone be familiar with the term.)
Oh, oh! burning hot moonlit moments…
He would be my first, but I wouldn’t expect to be his last
He’s had hundreds of lovers in the past….
I wonder where we would do this thing at,
Perhaps in an empty air studio of some radio station
Or in the back storage room of an abandoned record shop.
Maybe we’d get close on a railroad bed of roses?
Or perhaps on the floor of a quiet, peaceful library
With the eyes and authors and readers of 1,000 books staring down
Upon the two of us together,
Or perhaps we would drift on down by the beach
And find that cool space under the boardwalk…
And while tourists would talk while they walked above
We could be happily silent in the creation of our love.

But you know I think that the finest place
For him and I to conduct our love
Could be somewhere on the Pacific Coast Highway
Perhaps Big Sur,
Where Jack once lived awhile with Mother Nature, who helped him write
His beatnik 20th century version of the Ars Amatoria.
And we could love there, with the Pacific sea
Shining in our background,
A colossal witness and testament to our beautiful scintillating love.
The exciting moonlight would flash, flicker, and sparkle
Off of the ceaseless sea waves,
Rolling and shaking like we two,
With trembles and tremors and gentle tides,
And those wild California mountains, rhythmically rising and falling
Like our lungs and our hearts next to each other.
{{{But we’d have to be careful not to cause a Golden state earthquake
With all that shaking we’d be making! }}}
We would get it going and keep it goin’
For as many hours as we could go
For as much time as we would want.

I wonder what he would be like as my bedroom lover
Would he be fast, feisty and frisky
Chasing me round’ the room
Like some kind of wild animal?
Naughty and hot in pursuit?
Making nasty comments, trying to play cute?
Or would he be gentle, and slow,
And calming, caring, and mellow?
Tender and delicate, I imagine is how it would really go.

-I also wonder, if we were together to sleep
Would he snore? (yes, I imagine he would)
And furthermore,
What would this singer’s snore sound like?
(Hah! - I practically crack up
As I write up these questions, imagining his sound:
“zZzZzZzZzZ”) .

(Unrequited love that’s this intense,
Cannot comply with commonsense) .

But none of this shall ever come to pass, I know.
But, you know what?
Somebody once told me
That, “music is just like making love”
So I guess I actually have done all of this with him already…
In a sense,
Though I still retain my innocence.
I hear his music on his records.
He sings his snuggling songs,
Almost like he's singing to me, personally
As his lovin’ voice seems to wraps itself around my body
Like a warm, old-fashioned patchwork quilt.
And when his sensual song his through, I say,
-“Oh Baby, That was amazing! ”-

(But unrequited love that’s this intense
Still leaves me wound up in suspense.)