The only natural poem I have consciously been involved in-
The site, not just the reporting-
was when I happened upon a sheep gazing at me
in a field immediately off a motorway in Norwich.

This was not planned, yet it was
disconcertingly poetic.

Life whispers it's potentialities, it's immovable eros
the way billboards make us aware of our melancholia.

"Your hair is flaxen"
No, your hair is just damp. "Flaxen" reminds
us of a language that according our reading of poetry
existed long before our ancestors could read.
It does, however, sound more complimentary,
therefore more sincere,
therefore more comforting
than "damp."

I wear all my pretentious vocabulary and sentimental heart-stirrings
like a cross dangling from my neck
pretty as the plastic emotions I express
Because of my dearth of enthusiasm as opposed to experience
Because of the transparency of my speaking without first attuning
to the spectre of blood which no longer clots my lungs Dominika
but now sullies my hands.

But I wash and wash, and am clean, cleaner than most.
And my cleanliness infuriates you Dominika,
it breaks your back to see me so elevated among the wrecks.
When you speak there is no air that leaves your lungs to pollute the air
there are all only words whose sounds make the other sounds commonplace.
Whereas I am all white, brilliant, brutal air.

I've calculated the effect this has on your sense of self
Dominika, of your progress, of your place in the narrative
and though you hate me for implying so if I explained
You wouldn't understand
Dominika
I made it that way.

Momma says you can't be old
When your days are much too young
And old is far too often
Too much to be enough.

I keep replaying songs
Etched into the bible of chords
That older days recalled
When time fell ill in sickly wards.

Keep your hands in mine, we'll run
To the sky way up above
And we'll sing along forever more
While time just rolls along.

Hold them back, the sun creeps out
And the days pass right along
You close your eyes just once or twice
And the light is too far gone.

I to the open road,
You to the hunchbacked street -
Which of us two
Shall the earlier rue
That day we chanced to meet?


I with a heart that's sound,
You with sick fancies of pain -
Which of us two
Would the earlier rue
If we chanced to meet again?

I jingle homely lore,
While you rhyme is with kiss -
Which of us two
Will the earlier rue
The love of the Hoylake Miss?

Not I the first to go,
Nor I the first to deceive -
Which of us two
Shall the the earliest rue
Our garden of make-believe?

You were a Chinese god,
I an offering fair,
As we entered the
Garden of Allah,

To sing our holy prayer.
Entered with hearts bowed low,
Yet I heard a voice that cried:
For he is the god of the
Sacrifice,
You are the crucified.

It was all make-believe,
A foolish game of play,
Our garden of Allah
A drawing-room,
Our Chinese god of clay.

Strings of bruises for pearls,
Tears for forget-me-nots,
And a deadly pain
Of the sickening shame
Watching the fading spots.

As quickly they faded,
The heart of me faded as well,
Until nothing is left
Of my garden,
But a soul sunk to hell.

Hail!
Poet prend ton lute -Je disparaire,
No more together we'll enter the
Enchanted garden of make-believe,
Nor my sad soul listen while thine deceive.
No more you'll be the God of Sacrifice,
Nor I the crucified.

Ah, Garden of Allah -how bitter sweet
Thy fruit. Why breakest thou the heart?
Why spoilest thou the soul with notes
From thy golden lute?
Lo! our garden a common room
Our Chinese god burnt clay, and
The singing of verses a funeral hymn
That awakes with awakening day.

'Twas all such a meaningless play,
Poet prend ton lute -Je disparaitre.
Hail!

Poet, take my hand -we'll walk
Still a little way.
I'll not desert thee at the close of day,
I, too, must pray.
A beggar asking alms of passers-by,
Does not refuse a drink to one who's dry
That once by him did lie.

Poet, come close -before I leave for aye
Take thou my hand, we'll walk still
A little way.

One garment covered both to keep us warm,
What harmed the one, was't not the other's harm?
Close clasped, one single form.
Was it not meant of aye?
Poet, take thou my hand -we'll still
Walk a little way.

I dreamed of my father
crossing the fields
on his one-eyed tractor
mowing acres of sadness
heading east of a moon
that'll be gone tomorrow
and I waded the creek
beneath a ridge
where my mother is shearing
dead roses and the smell
of those flowers floating
to the foot of the mountains
reminds me of her hair
and my father's laughter
disappearing across the hill.

you are not attached
to a dead weight.

you are heavy.

II


if it bleeds
then it must love.
and the hours swarming the continuum
have no time for the minutes
of your day, you are too full of loss.
uncoupled from  the shelter
of nonexistence.
you grieve in
real time.

you are too beautiful to mean nothing

but can't recall.

Subject

Shortly after our
first date I joked
Don’t make me write a poem about you.

It’s been a year and I laugh
because my poems
have become your home.

It’s been a year and
you’re kissing
someone else and
I’m just kissing people
who aren’t you.

Waking up next to you
for the last time
we knew it was and
we had to tell each other
not to cry so we could
kiss for the last time

When we broke
you said to me
I don’t want to be the subject of one of your poems.

But I warned you.

Blood in my eyes,
Slack in my faith,
Baby, I know it,
Your love is a wraith.

Blood in my eyes,
Slack in my faith,
Baby, You know it,
I commemorate
All who follow
The dream evermore.
Live the dream.
That's what it's for.

Blood in my eyes,
Slack in my faith.
You say it, then you don't,
But, you want me to stay.
You're not the dream
That I've wished for,
I'm going to chase my dream
To the farthest shore.
Then I'm going
To board a vessel,
Without a shred
Of guilt to wrestle.

Blood in my eyes,
Slack in my faith,
Like a bullet on fire,
I break from your gate.
I'll be on distant lands.
You will wonder
Why you have no man.

Blood in my eyes,
Slack in my faith.
Baby, I know it.
Your love is a wraith.
Blood in my eyes,
Stars on my vest,
I linger on
No past regret.

Blood in my eyes,
Slack in my faith,
Baby, I know it,
Your love is a wraith.
This is a mantra,
I often say,
When I think
Of that sweet day
When I'll finally find
The courage to leave you~