Can you still feel their pain?
Or have we forgotten pleasure
Try to bleach away the stains
Blood left on your treasures

Bury the coins down deep
And lock away the guilt
While choking on the key
My inky guts spilt out

I'm sick on melancholy
Numb to what's right or wrong
The ship has sailed, behold her glory
Sirens wail, so great their song

Stories told by word of mouth
Gossip scribbled out a map
X marks my heart, 10 paces South
Tricked again, fell in the trap

The clash of steel, the smell of smoke
Aye, I gouged out his eye again
Nay, just another sad bloke
Who's plans went awry Captain

As I patched up my face, and dusted my coat
A crack in the mirror split across my soul
The two parts of myself, the survivor and the ghost
Both covered in blood from others we stole.

love doesn't dash, it loiters
with repeated movements like music
and beautifully crude endearments

love doesn't dash, it lingers
with rhythms like dance
and boastfully rude aphorisms

so dally with me, my love
lollygag, lounge and in a while
we'll share breaths and mess about

As a baby, I

had a lot of fun falling --


into daddy's hands.

pain does not become
pleasure it becomes nothing
but pain

Grandma is bored, she waits
for my wedding and perhaps
she fantasises that I'm getting pregnant

How would it have been
with grandfather and her in bed?
We don't talk about that

just about the afternoons
in the sun, gaining some
colour for the summer

She would have liked that, but
at that time people thought differently
Anyway, bikinis did not yet exist

So much has changed, she reads it
to me from the magazine
and I laugh at her astonishment

She is old, her hair as white
as the walls in this sun, lovely
Lu does not have to come yet

Yes, mwaw hwale re hwoot,

so nice, oh ** mwurt, careful --


ow, you're hurting me!

throwing stones
into the lake
i discovered
the dog
likes to chase
the staccato splashes
as the surface
of the water
is broken
with inexpressible joy
pebbles were tossed
individually
and by handfuls
as i watched
the playful bounding
for over
half an hour

unfortunately
i had not spotted
the fisherman
further along
the water's edge
rolling eyes
and shaking head
as wave
after wave
of rippled chaos
disturbed his lure
and line
scaring away
anything
he had hoped
to catch

I feel flesh on fire
light my skin
and name me pleasure.

All hands
and waist
and thighs
and bare.

Lips not only inhaling
what the other exhales.

I still trace my hands on my collarbone
the way you did that night.

I named my pleasure after you.