Rolling deuces
Bold excuses
Felt the truth
Wrapped in bruises
Round the heart
A day apart
Between what’s seen
And where we are
Cope with me
I hope they stay
Told the pain
Now washed away
Let the rain
Save the day
Lost, forgotten
Thoughts remain -

Four pigeons sing-song, nine hours the day long
Menial and manual, this warehouse life is annual
Lonely industrial estates on a hazy morning
when the ecstatic eastern winds are horning

Where I count boxes, load lorries and dodge bosses
Listen to the birds coo and a phone playing blues too
I give names to them all, the birds in the rafters
and sing a nine hour song of all their ever afters

Dirt under my nails, from a day of insulation sales
The solace I find of an eve is the fantastic words you weave
You who write to live, you who my soul I will give
The ghost of my future self, a rambling poet
working for money, I'll be you I just know it

Simultaneous afterlife, generational satellite
The energy we possess, is transferred with every breath
You are me and I am you, together, nothing we can't do
Some day I'll run wild, a leader of a literary mob
but right now I just dream of such things on the job

If you come as softly
As the wind within the trees
You may hear what I hear
See what sorrow sees.

If you come as lightly
As threading dew
I will take you gladly
Nor ask more of you.

You may sit beside me
Silent as a breath
Only those who stay dead
Shall remember death.

And if you come I will be silent
Nor speak harsh words to you.
I will not ask you why now.
Or how, or what you do.

We shall sit here, softly
Beneath two different years
And the rich between us
Shall drink our tears.

If rightly tuneful bards decide,
  If it be fix’d in Love’s decrees,
That Beauty ought not to be tried
  But by its native power to please,
Then tell me, youths and lovers, tell—
What fair can Amoret excel?

Behold that bright unsullied smile,
  And wisdom speaking in her mien:
Yet—she so artless all the while,
  So little studious to be seen—
We naught but instant gladness know,
Nor think to whom the gift we owe.

But neither music, nor the powers
  Of youth and mirth and frolic cheer,
Add half the sunshine to the hours,
  Or make life’s prospect half so clear,
As memory brings it to the eye
From scenes where Amoret was by.

This, sure, is Beauty’s happiest part;
  This gives the most unbounded sway;
This shall enchant the subject heart
  When rose and lily fade away;
And she be still, in spite of Time,
Sweet Amoret in all her prime.

"Why one writes is a question I can never answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me – the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.
...
"We also write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely … When I don’t write, feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing."
('The New Woman', 1974)

I heard a cry in the night,
A thousand miles it came,
Sharp as a flash of light,
My name, my name!

It was your voice I heard,
You waked and loved me so—
I send you back this word,
I know, I know!

She places her book, marked with
a coupon I've been meaning to use,
on the nightstand. She turns the light
out on her side. It's her side, her light.
The left side is mine.

Night.

Night.

We're past clutching love. We're
not married, but I think I know
what it means. It's two lonely
people; it's two sides of the bed.
It doesn't take her long to fall asleep.
I watch her forehead unwrinkle.
I listen as her inhales and exhales
become spaced and even. At this moment,
I do not know her. She's not a woman.
All the inviting curves collapse. She is
a girl breathing in, breathing out.

In a memory she related to me--I think
she related to me--she asks a boy to give her
a turn on a swing. It's toward the end of recess.
She has waited. He says no. This is my swing.
She says it is the school's. He says the school
isn't sitting in it. I can almost remember why
she told me this story or some story like it.

I can't sleep without my fan on. She can't
fall asleep with it. I'll give her a couple more
minutes. I wonder what violence she dreams
of, of what forbidden ecstasy she views in
her private night. I do not know her. She
looks vulnerable, her body now bent in an S shape,
facing away from me. Am I scared for her? Of her?
Still sleeping, she bunches up her comforter;
she brings it to her face. Maybe that's marriage: being
scared for and of.

I turn on the fan. She stirs.

I'm sorry. I'll turn it off.

You can leave it on.

I'll turn it off.

Leave it.

She pulls my arm under her neck.
She brings her bottom against my thighs.

Will you hold me? Just for a second.

I can hold you longer.

Just a second.

Among the hills a meteorite
Lies huge; and moss has overgrown,
And wind and rain with touches light
Made soft, the contours of the stone.

Thus easily can Earth digest
A cinder of sidereal fire,
And make her translunary guest
The native of an English shire.

Nor is it strange these wanderers
Find in her lap their fitting place,
For every particle that's hers
Came at the first from outer space.

All that is Earth has once been sky;
Down from the sun of old she came,
Or from some star that travelled by
Too close to his entangling flame.

Hence, if belated drops yet fall
From heaven, on these her plastic power
Still works as once it worked on all
The glad rush of the *******.

It is autumn; not without
But within me is the cold.
Youth and spring are all about;
It is I that have grown old.

Birds are darting through the air,
Singing, building without rest;
Life is stirring everywhere,
Save within my lonely breast.

There is silence: the dead leaves
Fall and rustle and are still;
Beats no flail upon the sheaves,
Comes no murmur from the mill.

Alone here
Another soliloquy in my head
Only desires live
and the living dead
Alone here
An abyss for company
Only desires live
and the dreams faraway

Million voices swirl
A black hole in a milkyway
They sparkle and shine
While I drift away

Million voices swirl
The Sun and the Moon and the stars
Collide to condense
****** in an apocalypse
Licking their fresh scars

Darkness cuts into the deepest corners
Living off the bright
Out of mind
Out of sight

Alone here
As the fates divined
Dark and Light
Intertwined