You walk by, but you don't see me. All you see is the skeleton of lost potential that you once saw in me. I've gotten rid of all my hopes and fears and everything that I believed in.

I have given up.

I don't know what you ever saw in me. Maybe it was the sea in my sad blue eyes, the fight in the will I once had, the depth of my laugh, my compassion for humanity, my faith in beings.

That's all gone now.

The character that filled me from head to toe now lies shattered in the barren waste lands of your love. As the wind rattles my rib cage, I can almost remember the warmth it once filled me with.

Almost.

You hear the rattle, like hollow wooden wind chimes in an Oregon October. But you keep walking, carrying a smirk in your pocket for when no one is watching.

Darkness came before the sun fell,
I never saw the eclipse in your heart
Fate turned you against me quietly,
Like the flattered fool I played my part

From the depths of surrender you resurrected grace,
My siren song, your heartbeat
Only I never understood exactly what I had become,
Just a convenient source of heat
Fire and light were born in the space between our eyes,
My soul the freely given fuel
But ice found purchase, in the abyss underneath lust,
Driving love into a frozen pool
Kicking furiously, driven by some Romeo complex,
I would have reached dry land
Yet as my eyes dropped below the surface I saw you.
And you never reached out a hand.

My eyes have betrayed me before though, love.
And I'm willing to assume they have again...
Our kiss is more important than our lips now,
A symbol of something that's never been.

My words are a never-ending ocean of instability,
Dark water like cursed wine
And at this Mass of souls I'll remain in sin gladly,
If only you are still truly mine
Because the words are something more than I am,
Clutching blindly at your sadness
They are the eternal record of your perfect beauty,
And a chronicle of my madness
I once believed that I could stop the world for you,
That such power would win you;
But my faith was never enough to break destiny,
And, in my heart, I always knew.

So when the first flowers of hope are finally dead,
And you have already forgotten my eyes;
I only hope one constant truth remains with you,
None of my promises were intentional lies.
Remember, when you feel thunder shake the world,
That something like this never truly dies.

this time has finished me.
I feel like the German troops
whipped by snow and the communists
walking bent
with newspapers stuffed into
worn boots.
my plight is just as terrible.
maybe more so.
victory was so close
victory was there.
as she stood before my mirror
younger and more beautiful than
any woman I had ever known
combing yards and yards of red hair
as I watched her.
and when she came to bed
she was more beautiful than ever
and the love was very very good.
eleven months.
now she's gone
gone as they go.

this time has finished me.
it's a long road back
and back to where?
the guy ahead of me
falls.
I step over him.
did she get him too?

A silence with you
Is not
a silence

But a moment rich
with peace

Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?

Oh, come to me in dreams, my love!
   I will not ask a dearer bliss;
Come with the starry beams, my love,
   And press mine eyelids with thy kiss.

’Twas thus, as ancient fables tell,
   Love visited a Grecian maid,
Till she disturbed the sacred spell,
   And woke to find her hopes betrayed.

But gentle sleep shall veil my sight,
   And Psyche’s lamp shall darkling be,
When, in the visions of the night,
   Thou dost renew thy vows to me.

Then come to me in dreams, my love,
   I will not ask a dearer bliss;
Come with the starry beams, my love,
   And press mine eyelids with thy kiss.

We are tired after a hot day; its separate frustrations,
expectations and disappointments they weigh down on us
Separately, separately.

We come to bed, we do not hold each other, even briefly.
We do not read, the heat says no, best not.
We sleep: despite the endless turmoil of traffic
Endless, endless
On the Finchley Road.

At 4.0am I wake.
There is this spell of quiet to allow those mid-summer birds
Their due chorusing for an hour.

I lie still, so conscious, so conscious
Of the exquisite fall of your right breast on the cotton sheet,
The rich curve of your upper leg and bottom,
Of the almost-pout of your dear lips
As you burrow into the pillow.

I can’t begin to imagine what you dream:
As for me if dreams have been, they have vanished
With the sight of your naked self I so adore, I so adore.

And lest my desire gets the better of me.
my hand reaches out to stroke that layer of air
Floating above your quiet form.
I fan this passion’s fire until it
Slowly dies, slowly dies.

Where is my Apollo?
Where is my Muse?
The eyes like amber rose
That burned my lips with scars
of liars words
and a foolish bards wish
to kiss the lips of he who plagues me
to end it all in
one
foul
swoop