Standing at the concrete wall
At the lookout spot at the top of the Conor Pass,
Your hair a mess of copper wires
Caught by the wind,
You remarked on the
Shadows of the clouds
Moving across the sky and
Blocking out the sunlight.
I like to think that you were the sunlight.
But does that make me the clouds?
Were we the wind?
Is now the shadows?
More of a dash than a splash
Of hot, pungent urine.
Yellow from an apparent
Lack of hydration. A lack of
Fluids.
And on my slipper of all places!
My old brown vegan slippers.
Yes. Vegan.
Because somebody cared so much
And I, perhaps, too little.
And all of this because I find myself
Distracted by the thought of you.
By the thought of what you would say
If you were here.
Not ‘here’ here mind.
But perhaps in the next room,
Playfully deriding me for my
Inability to close doors,
Lounging on the sofa
Draped in my soft grey blanket.
Maybe,
Pushing your hair back
Over your ear
And looking up
As I enter
The room.
You lower your gaze
To your feet.
A hand emerges
From deep within a woollen sleeve
And pushes a few strands of
Yellowish-brown hair
Back over a yellowish-brown ear.
Your lips part minutely,
And yet so generously.
Standing under a flickering streetlight
We have been sent back.
Back to a time when
Colour was an idea
That you read about in books
When you should have been working hard
In the fields.
Toiling in flannel and corduroy.
But now I notice your brow is furrowed,
Eyes cast expectantly upward.
I have been staring but not listening.
I send a prayer out
Into the night sky above,
Silent and profound,
And lean down into you
To hear yours.
When it comes to you
The words come rushing up
Bubbling so easily from below
Like natural springs of
Crisp, cool mountain water.
So many colours and images
Interweave in a myriad of shimmering symbols
From all the languages I have ever known.
Soft, delicate words.
Ferocious, powerful words.
Simple, sorrowful words.
Gentle, loving words.
Words I have never even heard.
Phrases clutter the back-passages
And corridors of my mind.
They slink about, beautiful and subtle,
With wry little smiles on their faces.
They shake hands with grinning similes,
High five the odd beaming metaphor.
They spin along in large open topped cars
Up and down the 6 lane highway
Between my head and my heart.
But none of them is ready.
Not one of them is quite
Perfect enough.
Not yet.
Not for you.
I have avoided my heart for so long
But with you it’s so easy.
I don’t have to second guess myself.
The pages of the books roll open
Coloured in ever brighter shades,
A rich melted green the most vivid.
At night I close my eyes
And dream of you
And in the morning
You are still there.
Although in the past
I may have considered myself
More of a ‘brunette’ sort of a man,
Relying solely on the rumoured
Mystery and aloofness,
Your blond offering could yet sway me.
And while I might compare it to
Rays of sunlight on a summers day,
It is perhaps more akin to the odd
Deliciously pale bowl of rice pudding
Or a pat of unsalted butter.
A soft dove’s wing with just the
Faintest hint of the sun’s glow,
If only to escape the food images.
But now the peacocks cry
Calls me out into the garden.
I will sip on tea and
Consider your complexities,
Your intricacies and your silence.
Should we date, love,
or would we hate love
if that’s what we chose to do.
You see, I wish to keep, love,
this sense of peace and love
that I equate, love,
with you.
Or would this secret love
secrete, love,
a sense of regret, love,
day by day.
I dread love
in so many ways, love,
and yet I yearn for its
delirious haze.
So let us wait, love
and see how deep, love,
I can drift yet, love,
into your dark-eyed gaze.
And we shall see, love,
if I can keep, love,
myself in love, love,
with you.
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.
When you’re lying
alone in bed
at night,
are you thinking about
you?
No?
Because
I am.
And I’m thinking about
hair on pillows
and singing in the bath.
I’m thinking of lip marks
left on glasses and about
our toothbrushes together
in a glass, bristles
wet and touching.
And I’m thinking about house prices
and shared investment.
I’m thinking about
holding your hand at my father’s funeral.
How, when you’re away
I’ll miss you,
and how I’ll make a fuss
about lending you my clothes.
I’m thinking
how, right now,
I want to be the person
that you keep clean for
and the future
in your gentle charms.
As I sit here
on the lavatory seat
shivering through my winter vest
that I wish I was wearing
in the early hours of the morning,
weary eyed in the lamp light,
wishing that i hadn’t left the window open
or that maybe the seat was made of
something less conductive of cold,
(The cold ring has awoken me)
I remark on all the years of diligence
and effort that went into forming the seat
upon which i sit.
The master piece of masking
the smell
and whisking it all away.
The years of thought and wonder
that went into my toilet
so that I could get intestinal cancer
from pooing sitting down.
Agitation of hands. Strength of words. 