You turgid, pompous, twitchy, you leave
No room for word. For thought, for
Silence violins, for tip toeing quiet
I am paltry poet, a woman of pursed lips
And body twined like a thread between
Your thoughtless finger and thumb
I was to dress in weightless garments
And skip a cricket about the greens
There was nothing in me contained.
You fill me up like a memorial wall

And dust me everyday before dawn
And you polish the hundred frames
That hang with mirrors clean as sun
Within which peer the hundred eyes
Of people who mourn themselves sweet
And a sag of roses red as me
Mourning itself about my feet
You bring me no gifts but a sorrow
That is not mine. With kisses sharp
As lemons, you soothe me then
Into the night, and you wipe the faces

Clean and you love me till I am
Mirror again. I was no dream
contorted in memory to a clever liking
I was to dress in simple garments
and write off to the seas, I was silence,
Simply, slow and tender, come
To lurk and stray in senseless song
I was word. I was word. I was word.
You with your hundred eyes of love

Swift with hands that move like flames
Flicker, stone, sand, stars, applause
You fatten me up like a suitcase
With your hundred other faces of me
And it burns like music, it is daisies
And sugar, you - beast, bountiful,
Beautiful and blighty, I want to
Clutter myself up with you - by Lord,

But, need I get up and go
And twist and twist myself till
It's dead. Then turn and bleed in peace
For long - then void and white - love,
You will. You will not kiss me again
To sleep.

In dream, abundant
As roses to a girl
Whirl, pool, whirlpool
Wool, wisps, tickle
Taunt. In dreams, awake
Wide-eyed and red
Haunting choir, your joy
Multiplied, magnified,
Colourised. Shimmering,
Hung up to dry, to drip
In beads, as grief
On ground. In dreams,
Alive. Rattling, rumbling,
Merciless as a train
Touchable, unstoppable
A body of metal, of human
Full, of child, man, woman
Well, I – I I stand
Like a beehive at work
I – I – I curl my toes, my fingers
My bones. Contort. I am
Gyre, turning, turning,
Gyre, astray. You sigh
And it spreads like a scream
Hot, smokey, the steam-engine
Churns. Limbs move, move and
And the sky moves with them
The sun blinks between
Your windows, the ground
Mumbles, disturbed, grumbles.
And I, well. I – I do not
Give to the flight of soul
I do not limit myself to
Sweet. I am full on sweet.
On infatuation and yearn.
There is no music, no disection
Of beast. The violins move
Without their kin, and with them
Moves the world. I am
No pilgrim, O pilgrim love.
In dream, instilled, a storm at work
Red. Blue. Green. Red.
Blue. Green. You move
the birds. You do not
move me.

I am slowly
Quietening down
The day does not
Shine as lively
And the nights
Are thickening
As if squeezed
Or boiled
For hours on end
I am

Thinning

Now, alone, unbothered again
O mourn in morning dressed
What becomes of sincerity
Laid bare to us in nights
Do you wander as pilgrim
From hearts of men to dove
What agony bleats in breast
Of that little bird of woe
What agony bleats in breast
Of our little hearts of woe

**** this ****, so pretentious

What a cold night to cry on
And I do not even love you

I do not even feel the presence
Of myself in this sorrow

What absence forms me
Jolting me out of sleep

Why do I leave the bed to wander?
Where do I long to be?

There is no remedy for tear
And you cannot soothe me

Here, simply: grief gallops
On horses of terror

It sounds its divine horn
Through the white halls of me
And there is nothing to give
But myself to the breaking

You do not know how to paint
On wall or on heart, my mumbles
Everyday you stray, cold in my hold
You leave the window open for snow
It passes, through us, shuffling
Leaves footprints on our body
Do you think I am dead and deaf?
I hear you singing softly to it
I feel the simple following wisps
That flake away and land on lip
On lip and railing of eye awake

Sun settles, a fading bleak jewel
Atop the smooth hued neck of sky
There is no remedy for lost dream
I chase reckless, clawing inside
Reaching like a tree into time
Of soft rose night and tears like wax
Like flame, like birds, like burning—
Sweet God stumbles, drunk and
A darling, pliant as clay: through hours
I fashion vessels, filled to the brim
With pickles of quiet. God
Is in the wordless wells of rue. You

Are lost, lost, to blindness and
Abandon, out about in search of dyes
So strong the ramparts of black
That bar, from me the remnants
Of our blunt tryst. Come - come
Back to body, now that it lives
Come, lost pilgrim, my plummet blue
Stifle the sun. Paint it all wrong.

Do not yet go
I have to say
Let us run
As one far
Into the sun
Let us burn
Perish fade
And singular
Stay
Never one absent
From the other
Do not go
Do not ever go
I become
A curtain
Over myself
I become
Solitude, still
And no cries
That I fashion
Are right
For the quiet.
Do not go
There is nothing
For me
Left to become