My grandpa
             Words he gave
                            To me once upon a full moon
“Son” he said
            “When you go into this life”
“Remember, that love is a language “
             “So find, my son, find someone”
                     “Who speaks your language “
      “So you don’t have to translate your soul”
                                   Hmmm.

the
first bike I bought ever
with my savings cost quite
a lot in relation to my income

from the shop near peters hill
where I thought the pram and

other things

when a child I had a tricycle which
broke bumping down a kerb

i remember disbelief
and devastating feelings

the next one was blue and I fell off

so I thought a blue one again
with a seat on the back & a basket
on the front

she got heavy later
too big so we took
the bus

and I used the bike for work
or walked there

i still have that bike
stored

four bikes in total ever
two second hand
two brand new

james

they say bikes are hard to get here at present
while mine is on a waiting list at the bike repair
shop in town

it will be my first visit for
months james

When the silence penetrates the valleys,
and the darkness climbs the mountain,

When the flowering jasmine sleeps in the dry river bed, you make me feel beautiful!

There is a feeling of austerity
in the beauty you make me feel,
The beauty beyond aches,
The beauty beyond pleasure,
The beauty beyond time,
The beauty of thousand yesterdays,
The beauty of despair,
The beauty of never ending sorrow,
The beauty of life flame,

This choleric beauty you make me feel
wipes away the defences of time,

It is you making me feel beautiful!

I want
to be the one your pen
and paper talk about

When I think of the drive home
I hardly remember a thing.
Just the time
and the wide open space,
the way my heart ached.

The sky was light that day,
which to me seemed appropriate.
My outsides never matched insides.

See, I remember my insides
a tangle of intestines
a wild thrumming heart that beat
and bruised my insides
my insides
inside
You. Could never let me inside.

Outside we were a fissure.
But me—my insides
soaked in sun, drenched in love,
dry to the bone
and your outsides, I—inside
a steel safe just beneath
the skin

When I think of the drive home,
I hardly remember a thing.

I have daydreamed
love-drunk off foreign tongues
and felt that heat off hands which held fast
and unfamiliar.

I have waded in that.
A dizzying, dissimilar daze,
and I have been ashamed
to love a world and want to leave it
all in one kiss. One kiss
that is and wasn't and can't be

but someone roams the wisteria laden halls
and daydreams drunk in periwinkle
and she—is me.

And while I wile away my sleeping days
under golden archways, I think of you
...and you too.