Mostly I feel
That I don’t know
What I am.
Continually in the
Wrong place
saying the wrong thing
(And rather loudly at that)
But when you
Rested your head on my chest
As we stood before an open window
And gazed out across the skyline
Burning in the dwindling sunlight
I forgot about that
For a while.
On the train from Les Laumes,
Rushing backwards away from you,
I can feel my heart stretch out
Like elastic. The pull grows stronger.
We fly past lakes and highways.
The greens of a forest brush by.
Trills of your smile shimmer
In the window’s reflection.
I had been waiting for love.
Staying up nights expecting
A knock at the front door,
The hesitant mumble.
I had prepared slippers.
A favourite mug sitting ready
For a pair of gentle outstretched hands.
You push a strand of your
Peacock hair back over your ear
and laugh at my jokes.
You’re so beautifully quiet.
What I had learned of love’s face
I studied in flickering movie screens.
And what I knew of her devious ways
Only through the experience of others.
You smile and keep your mouth shut.
We may all wait for love
But we cannot wait forever.
I blow hot and cold into the night.
All these shelves are full of cobweb covered photo albums.
I pull them down and rifle through my mind.
Fingernails properly groomed,
I empty my love into you.
For one night at least.
But I awake to find a different person
With veiled, shaded eyes.
Fingers reach out to greet you
And then retreat
out of what? Fear?
You walk so forlornly down narrow country roads,
Dragging your baggage along behind you.
Eyes fixed firmly on the sky
You tell me to stop following you.
I can’t help feeling
That if I could only stop feeling
Then this would all make
So much more sense to me.
But instead I scratch my head
And draw a line in the sand.
A line that will not be crossed.
Something is very wrong.
In my mind thoughts are clear
And lucidly float behind my eyes.
I can feel soft words,
Some of them for you,
Dangling from my fingertips,
Hiding in the drowned spaces
between my glistening teeth.
But up close this mirror
Is muddied and scratched
With fingernail marks and
Something closely resembling
My very own brand
Of unsettling bullshit.
My tongue drips sour,
The saliva frothing and bursting
And steadily becoming
More embittered and lonesome.
Suddenly there are things
That I can no longer impart,
Not nearly so readily at least.
These problems course
Through my arteries and veins,
Through the skin on the
Back of my hands,
Along the bloodlines
That feed my brain,
My arrow-filled mind.
They lead me to believe
That some creatures were designed
To break with natures bonds.
And perhaps we will always blame others
For what we refuse to believe.
Or hate ourselves
For what we know to be true.
I can’t say I haven’t considered it,
Your cold white thighs sliding open
as easily as a book falling to the floor.
A book of poems, of sketches of stretched contorted faces.
But I too often stride waste deep,
Or shoulder deep upon occasion,
Through the mists of impatience and lust.
Too often I fall victim to the
Siren’s song, the cuckoo’s call.
Not tonight quietless one.
Tonight I will not be drawn by any tacit cacophony.
Your woe filled lamentings fall upon ears
Deafened by emotion and
Stoppered up by the belief
That good things come to those who wait,
And those who wonder.
This circular symmetry of notes
Makes me think about kissing you.
Leaning down to your still sleeping face
To steal a gentle one before
I make my way out in to the world.
Angelically pale. Make up still wet.
Your lipstick tastes waxy
But sweet indeed from these lips.
The ghost of you keeps me company through the day,
Leaping from chair to chair like a child Avoiding imaginary lava or hissing snakes.
Peeking over my shoulder to see me write my name for the thousandth time
You push my hair back over my ear.
In your sleep you wrinkle your nose
And your fringe falls low over your eyes.
The circles of my days
Begin and end with you.
And at night I dream.
Settle yourself and be still
even if all around you
the wind howls
cold and quick
and shrill.
Let your heart settle
for what you always knew
was the colour of it anyway,
the ‘less’ that is ‘more’,
and the uneasiness
that steadily rises in your throat,
with its greasy metallic tang,
may subside for a while at least.
Settle down now for a long wait.
Stare at your hands
and count the scars,
the callous calluses
of your existence up till now.
Breath deep and feel your
blood flow.
And if you can,
settle your head on their chest
and listen to their drumheart
beat,
settling to the
unremitting rhythm
the perpetual part
of their somatic self
and the rest.
And at night
when your mind spreads out
to find them in the darkness
do not fear so if you find
that you have to settle
for the stars.
The letters you sent me,
on the handmade note paper,
are like little pieces of you
that I can carry around with me.
On the bus, I can
reach in my pocket
and touch you.
I read them in the evening,
alone
before I go to sleep
and think of what you might be getting up to.
Wondering if
you are awake
reading bits of me too.
Committing them to memory.
Set a course through the heavens
in a white winged boat,
sorry, ‘yacht’,
and make sure to see
all the sights.
All those suns
with their fiery brilliance
and the patchwork quilt
of the constellations
long dead.
Pull anchor as close as you dare
to the black holes’ pull
into infinity,
before you set your sails
on the solar winds
for the edge of existence.
And when you’ve seen
all there is to see,
of the night sky
with all its twinkly little fairy lights
slowly going out, one by one,
make sure to come back
and have a cup of tea with me
and tell me all about it
with those lips and that tongue
and those eyes.
“Why did you make me
Walk so far. You said the
Bus stop was closer. And
Now my feet hurt and my
Back a bit too. And my fingers
Are too cold and my head is
Too warm. Silly thing”
But secretly,
I liked walking you to your
Midnight busstop,
Through the cold corners
Of this town,
Even if we’re not in love.
Cos I don’t feel like a gentleman
Not nearly enough, not to mention
A plain ol’ human being.
And besides,
On the walk home
Alone along the canal,
With its sound sleeping ducks
And its floating armadas
Of forgotten goods,
I can think what I’m
Going to say to a
Pair of bright blue eyes
That I’ve been dreaming of
For a while now.
Agitation of hands. Strength of words. 