LOVE CHARM

I kiss your philtrum
and you moan.  

I lick a tiny trickle
of sweat  

from it.  

I know
it has no  

apparent function
& survives  

between your delightful nose
& your delicious upper lip.  

But what
of it?  

A kiss
fits  

so
neatly  

into
it.  

And leads to lips
& lips upon lips  

ending in an ******
ellipsis . . .

I love to look
upon it  

as the indent left
by the finger of God  

or where an angel
shushes the yet-to-be-born  

teaching it to forget
all it has learned  

in the world
of the womb.  

I kiss again
your philtrum  

a kiss  
fits  

so  
neatly

into  
it.

I LIKE TO SAY YOUR NAME

I like to say
your name

when you're
not here

turn you
into sound

conjure you out of
thin air

so that you appear
before me

dressed in sound
only

memory sketching in
the rest of you

as if sound
was just an outline

and love
colours you in

adding the voice last
so I can hear you say.

"Hello you..!"
and there you are

as present
as present

can be.

I like to say
your name

when you're
not there.

"DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION?"

her heart was a red
fire alarm

going off
with nobody

paying it
any mind

her heart was
an evening hillside

as the sun went down

the light stealing
into the ground

her heart was a favourite
pair of cufflinks

with one link
missing

or an earring found far
too late many many

years later

her heart was a lute
that was mute

unplayed for
many many moons

her heart
was a house

burningburningburning down
razed to the ground

the sneer of her
pyromanic lover

lost in the shadows

her heart was
the junk mail

that came in one door &
out the other

instant *******

she felt as if someone
had pressed DELETE

her heart was
a crystal ball

that could foretell
nothing....nothing at all

her heart was
a knocked over cheap cocktail

that left a nasty stain
on the carpet...on the wall

her heart was
a tiny torn pink knapsack

that held all
she had known

her heart was
the forgotten iron

branding itself into
her nice new blouse

her heart was
a poppy seen

from a passing train
there&gone again

her heart
full of the perfume

of memories that refused
to ever

...go away.

IF ONLY THE WAR WOULD DIE

If only the War would
die

but it lives on
crawls across the mind

the everyday things
infected

people in trams and buses
wearing my dead friend's face

until everyone
becomes him.

A car backfires
and I hit the ground

to the amazement and amusement
of passersby who pass by.

It's what kept me
alive.

This the curse
of survival.

Even birds wear
my dead friend's face.

Even his face
in a flower's petals.

He falls in the rain
again and again and again

stranded on the wire
like a ****** broken puppet

the wind
pulling his strings

dying for days
on end.

"Die you ****** ******...die!"
I beg him.

But he refuses
to listen.

Three men dead
by ****** fire

trying to get him
me I got it in the leg.

I see him rot
stage by stage

the secrets of the grave
open for all to see.

I see the rats
gnawing at his dear face

until only his skeleton
grins at me.  

His voice forever
calling to me.

BE THY OWN PALACE

Seated beside her
in the pew

her doll listened intently
to the Saviour who

emerges from
the old priest's mouth

an ectoplasm of words
as He manifests before her.

"Is there a doll heaven?"
she wonders.

Her little mistress however is
bored very bored indeed

much more interested  in
a sunbeam genuflecting

before the altar
extinguishing the priest's voice.

Or the ladybird
landing on a lady's foxfur

it more jewel
than the jewel worn.

Picking her nose
as the host is

held aloft

a bird perched upon
the left shoulder of

the crucifix
the Christ a mere cypher

how the artist
fancied HIm.

The crucified man smiling at her
despite how boring the sermon is.

Sunlight becoming colour
travelling through stained glass.

Her doll nods off
falling at her feet

"Shhhhhh!" father scolds
both doll and daughter.

Doll's head broken in four
nothing inside but an emptiness

all her thoughts
evaporated.

The smile still fixed
on her porcelain face.

Incense like death
walking upon the air.

The tiny ******
of a bell.

"DADDY...GONE!"

Too little to know
where father goes when he goes

out the door
his smile left hanging there

an after image
of him.

I touch the air
where he has been

wondering what's become
of him...believing

he has become the sky
the passing clouds

a bird that flies
a cat's meow.

He is now
all things

of what a world
is made.

I stare at the air
willing him to be the shape

I love him in
my big man

who scoops me up
the scratchy kisses of his chin.

He has been translated
into a language of absence

that yet
contains him

decanted from all he was
into whatever I happen to see

whatever he be
a tiny universe of dustmotes

held in a sunbeam's
hand.

And then the coming of a time
when he becomes mine

his smile that I trace
with my fingertip

this the ordinary
miracle of his love.

AT ONE WITH THE WIND AND THE CROWS

near & far
now one & the same
I look for you in love

"Dust to dust!"
priest intones
the wind dashes it in his face

the crow laughs
at humankind's fate
shatters the skies with cries

the bell tolls
putting everything back in place
for those with faith

me, I
think the wind and crows
speak the truth