She Left Early

My image of her is a tender thought
A cool pool under a hot rock
A rain cloud drifting over undulating sand
A long stemmed flower of hope
A thread of water in a tundra

A bud bursting out of summer dust
A green shoot on a red planet
A desert vision rippling in the heat
A flash of healing
A whispered acknowledgement

A vine growing through my heart
A tone poem made flesh
A stained glass moment
A scrap of dazzle
A shimmering garden
A sign that says GO NO FURTHER

Picture Book Clock
 
The town clock is a picture book clock
but every second I'm not with you
has it's own lethal tick



Shatter My Shadow

Your goodness
is a burning white moon
Your goodness
is a white light burning my mind

Your goodness
deals death to my silhouette
and shatters my shadow
with gentle bullets

I lie face down
in a pool of dreams
assassinated
by your goodness

Ode to You

A pang
as you flit like a leaf on my retina

A shiver
as you slip like a cat through the institute

A blaze
as you leave your burning footprints

Your Answer
 
If Yes
life's crumbs
bloom in to loaves

If No
the crumbs
are iron filings

If Yes
the day runs to meet me
and I run to meet the day

If No
the day walks with sticks
and I walk with callipers



Scintilla

Give me something
Anything
A word
A nod
A straw
A shred
A fibre
An iota
A scintilla
A particle

Give me something of yours
It doesn't matter what
It doesn't matter how little
Give me something
Anything

On Your Borders

Living on your borders
is not really living

It's not really living
to be living on the borders of your borders

on the margins of your margins
on the sidelines of your sidelines

on the periphery of your periphery
on the fringes of your fringes

on the farthest point of your farthest point
on the outermost edge of your outermost edge

It's not really living
but it's better than nothing

which is what I will have
when I have to leave

Flat 3

I come home to an unmade bed and drawn curtains
I strip the bed and lie on the discoloured mattress
I put my arms around myself
I put my hands on my shoulders

I pretend my arms are your arms
I pretend my hands are your hands
I pretend you could want me
I pretend this is something that could happen

Eventually I get up
Eventually I make the bed
Eventually I open the curtains
Eventually butter bean soup



Dynamite Dove

Green girl
Decimation girl
Girl of the fabled city
Queen of forlorn hope
Emerald empress
The unattainable

Green girl
Anti-gravity girl
Rider of the water strider
Magic mountain girl
Dynamite dove
Flower of fire

Pre-Storm

The equinox has passed. Another summer's dying.
I weary my way through an evening of routine solitude:
TV, food, scribbled notes. I take a short but sapping walk
in pre-storm humidity, feet unwell, heartache like toothache.
Thoughts of you torment me through the sweat-box night.
This too will pass, I guess. I'll sweat you out like a fever,
go back to feeling nothing. I'll soon stop trying to square
the circle of desire with the unrequited hours.

Magnified Moon

If you do not touch me soon
If you do not touch me ever
If you do not spread your hand across my face
like a starfish on a rock
If I do not see light filtered through your fingers
like a sea beast waking in a forest of fronds
If I can not feel through your pressed ribs
the moon leaf engine
of your heart's unbearably sweet temporary beat
If your sky does not fall on me
like a gentle hundredweight bag of cement
If I am not sweetly polaxed and tenderly concussed
If I do not wake up
wrapped in the flag of your scent
If I do not see you naked
in the naked now
then the walls
ache like my bones
all is hollow with a hollow echo
and I'm alone
with the mist-magnified moon

 

Summer Ghost

At night her naked ghost
haunts my flat
moving through the dark
pale and long
her breasts sometimes
discreetly shadowed
sometimes luminous
small high globes
like moons
I shiver under blankets
She doesn't feel the cold
Ghosts don't
or so I'm told
by unreliable sources
and anyway
perhaps it's still summer where she is
Perhaps a summer ghost
superimposed on winter
will never know the difference
I peer outside
The stars terrorize the sky
I can almost see the air
slowing down to a stop
I dream of snow but when I go to look
it's a bugs' graveyard
In powdery piles
they've turned moon white
I wake up and the light's all wrong
The glare behind the curtain
tells me snow has really fallen
It crunches like beetles
like a billion shiny backs
She's dressed now in clothes like her
tall and thin
moving fast
hot-footing it away from me
It's still summer where she is
and now it always will be