Never try to trick me with a kiss
Pretending that the birds are here to stay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

A stone can masquerade where no heart is
And virgins rise where lustful Venus lay:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.

Our noble doctor claims the pain is his,
While stricken patients let him have his say;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

Each virile bachelor dreads paralysis,
The old maid in the gable cries all day:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.

The suave eternal serpents promise bliss
To mortal children longing to be gay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

Sooner or later something goes amiss;
The singing birds pack up and fly away;
So never try to trick me with a kiss:
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

The red briny sea longs for the sky, the land
But she cannot touch either; she fizzes secretly with jealousy
That men may breathe the air and tread sod.
The sea has seen many things; tossed longboats, cloaked monsters,
Heard trojan song. She does not tell.
There is too much of her to count or chart,
At night she bathes the sun, and when morning comes
She hangs it out to dry.
By day she watches placidly, smooths treacherous rocks.
The sea smiles as she watches the fisherman at his table,
Through the little window that faces the bay,
Eating his stargazy pie.

I would like to float on a tiny boat
As lonely as can be.
Between silvery stars, and silvery fish,
In the middle of a dark, cool sea.

I would like to lie down in a freshwater stream,
A reed-tangled, shadowy brook.
Like Ophelia in her watery tomb;
Where no one would think to look.

I would like to be found on some shingle beach,
Blasted dry by the desolate air.
My siren song has died in my throat,
And I've samphire in my hair.

Let me sing to you my memories,
those pretty, faded, paper shapes.
How do you like the fire contained
in one dark and inward-turning eye,
Or the sugary fog of winter?
Borne in
on the broken wing of a collared dove,
a silvery sliver of northern air.
Do you hold my love in high regard,
as high as the strawberry moon that winks down on Trafalgar Square?
I think not.
I will snip the heads off those hot house roses of yours,
one
by
one.

This is winter, this is night, small love --
A sort of black horsehair,
A rough, dumb country stuff
Steeled with the sheen
Of what green stars can make it to our gate.
I hold you on my arm.
It is very late.
The dull bells tongue the hour.
The mirror floats us at one candle power.

This is the fluid in which we meet each other,
This haloey radiance that seems to breathe
And lets our shadows wither
Only to blow
Them huge again, violent giants on the wall.
One match scratch makes you real.

At first the candle will not bloom at all --
It snuffs its bud
To almost nothing, to a dull blue dud.

I hold my breath until you creak to life,
Balled hedgehog,
Small and cross. The yellow knife
Grows tall. You clutch your bars.
My singing makes you roar.
I rock you like a boat
Across the Indian carpet, the cold floor,
While the brass man
Kneels, back bent, as best he can

Hefting his white pillar with the light
That keeps the sky at bay,
The sack of black! It is everywhere, tight, tight!
He is yours, the little brassy Atlas --
Poor heirloom, all you have,
At his heels a pile of five brass cannonballs,
No child, no wife.
Five *****! Five bright brass *****!
To juggle with, my love, when the sky falls.

in the sun
the strawberries pulse
like arterial jewels,
and I remember
the velvet death of winter frost.
so softly, be still now.

but I am weak,
a rotten apple
plagues the clear waters
of my mind's eye.

the pool is still
and crows silent.
lay down my lady
in her cloak of green,
the winds of spring
blow now, blow.

and I sink down in the fold
of mossy earth.
the moon winks,
that elven eye of the night