Impasse

Can you stop writing poems about me please, wonderful though this piece is in it's imagery, flow and focus...I'm old enough to be your cousin and really, waaay out of your league.

This is me letting you down gently.

/wink

First of all....Shakespearean!..Truly....

Second.....
"I seek to quell the frankness of my gaze,
but in your presence all my feelings shine,
they tumble forth,
clumsy and sanguine like children they petition for your smile. (this is soooo sweet)
Forgive me for my love - it is a brand that would mar
the blessed beating of your heart."....

From experience I just have to candidly say....

Go 'head on....Sparkle Plenty!!..To be the recipient of such looks is pure ecstasy....
lives of great depth, meaning, and length, have been built by couples trading such looks...;-)

I love these kinds of poems, that have to be read twice in order to fully comprehend.

On fist read, the first stanza stuck out to me and I can relate to these lines:
"shifting form, dances in poetry and prose...
but it cannot. A million lines I'd write and still fall short".
I never feel like my poems do justice to my thoughts, because the ideas are dancing around in my head, but they lay still when written on paper.

On second read, I realized that this poem was about those silly obsessive unrequited crushes, and the last stanza filled me with such a sense of familiarization, yet nobody has ever been able to put that feeling into words.
"but in your presence all my feelings shine,
they tumble forth,
clumsy and sanguine like children they petition for your smile."
I realized how true it is, when you're with that special someone, that giddyness and silly giggles are all of your emotions pouring out of you at one time to show this person how you feel, and often times it is done unconsciously.

This is an excellent poem, it feels familiar yet entirely unique.