Which beer is mine, the Becks or the Heineken?
A ***** mauve has descended on the night, and
on the town a dank black silence, and I am sat here
folded like a peace crane. But I want to move.
I feel an itch to find someone, any resident up
for grabs - I can’t be the only one awake.
And my loved ones: if they worry, they worry; I’m
gone, but I am only looking for myself in another
form - the form of persons lost as I am, wandering
as I am through the lively dead-night. Which
baccy is mine, the amber leaf or the gold one?

The dog who watched us take off our shoes
on the steps before the laying Buddha,
this is for you. You were at ease,
not guarding, panting from the heat, warming
your belly on Bangkok’s stones.
Our shoes in a bag, passports strapped to us,
photographing the twenty foot high
resemblance of the man who asked not to
be praised - cast in mother-of-pearl the
man who shook off possessions - I
suppose to a dog looking up,
gods and humans are the same, barefoot idols
shuffling through a hotbox corridor
looking up at another barefoot
human with an immobile face,
downy eyes and nearly a tear.

Later you found shade beneath an
archway at the end of a long
line of Buddhas, almost identical,
decreasing in age towards you.
Some ideas are so respected
they need repeating in the same
manner every year, the same sculpture
carved beside the last, an echo,
a silent chant, and you lay there
at the end, the chant becomes your
visible panting. For a moment
you look into my eyes because
you recognised my feet, because
you know you take the place of the
next structure, you know that busy
hands will build upon where you sit,
that where you go, humans follow,
as they do with gods, with shadows.

To drop the latch and your belongings,
to say 'put down tomorrow's feat,
put down the tune of yesterday,
put down what calls away your
attention from the endless breadth
of now' - to drop the latch and slot
the key neatly in and not be reminded
of the worst *** of your life, to
look down at your shoes and not be
in a montage flashback of every
game of tennis last summer
when each stroke was a delayed rebuttal
from arguments before, the manly swipes,
the posed sliding on asphalt,
the gathering of ***** found sunbathing
with the brown baking weeds,
to run a mile and feel every jolt
and not imagine a face to run from,
and not pretend there is an
amalgamated idol of petrified lovers
just past the traffic lights, to not
invent telepathy and play it like a game,
reading the negativity in the loiterers
outside the post office across the road.
To see a mirror and forget to ignore it.
To watch the face in perfect humble
clarity, to see it as a friend would,
to say okay on a daily basis to the eyes,
to see for the first time their glory-
colour, to be okay without repressing,
to drink a glass of sauvignon blanc
without accompany on a Thursday morning
because the work rota allows the luxury.
To turn the television off.
to back into the night because you must,
to back into the night so you cannot
***** your way with hands, to keep
reversing and to watch what you pass
and to only stop when necessary, and
even then not for long, and turn around
and give thanks to walls and tripwires--

in the morning, with nobody there to know,
to take off all your clothes and then
that final layer, to be devastated
by the contours of another's, though
it may be only memory, to be distracted
by a speck of thought and start again,
to be one day older and to never age.

I wrote

'the waves adorned your feet
in silent hushes'.

I wrote and I never
said. When you needed it,
when you cried for it,
I never said. I wrote.

In your loft,
our joint belongings
swelled my throat
and I didn't say.

But I saw you looking.

Your feet descended first -
from the attic, from the attic,
your feet looked the same.

I couldn't say,
So I wrote this.

The working day is blue shirts and lies,
twelve last cigarettes, the balancing
of SMS from the powerful women who
know me. What are your plans later?

What are my plans? In the evening,
a globe I constructed from puzzle
pieces sits in my beggar's hands.
One day, they will be large enough
to cage it, but not yet. It's not time.
There is a cave-in exactly where I
next want to go. It's okay.

What are my plans? The rest of it.

When my Grandparents were young, or relatively young,
say, the age I am now, coincidence still had a name;
that is to say, was still rare enough to warrant one.
They had to wait for them - if they did wait at all.

But I am fortunate, am I not? I do not have to wait
at all, never, no way. I use an automatic service,
administered by somebody else whom I do not know,
deployed in ways I do not fully comprehend, utilising
techniques I do not fully comprehend. I have one
function in the algorithm: to press F5, to press
F5, and then - ! - a page appears which seems to know me:
'Lightning over Tucson'. Did I pronounce that right?

When my Grandparents were young, or relatively young,
say, the age I am now, coincidence still had a name:
'coincidence'. Did I pronounce that right? F5. F5.

We dance, half-poser, half-alone
and before the half-filled stalls
perform that half-twirl that moans:
'How do I look?' Head to the walls,
hands down and fingers parted.
We check our shadow from routine,
but the watchers have departed -
they have seen this show before.
Forget the shadow on the floor;
check the pulse, check the breath.
Quick. Curtain. One thing is certain.