My soul
is getting older,
the nights are colder

and the soles
of these soft worn out
doe-skin boots are thinner

every day, way too thin
to keep the thought
of a frozen plot at bay.

Moon, blow your light
my way, but don't cut my time

Let me dream just a little longer
while my eyelids shine
in the dark starlight

Let the ceremony end slow
back in my old home,
not in a cold forest near the sea

I want to see again
those three rivers that flow
together and listen to a woman
singing to a child
in her mild mannered way

But in spite of the night
and my wishes
something keeps creeping
past me in my sleep
like numbers of smoke

It was you, dark woman,
walking across the room bare
footed turning on the air conditioner
in the winter, a pair of scissors
in the folds of your robe.

Angels make the bouquets 
I see as I thumb through this Chagall book
life is served on a bed of blue sky
aspirations made of soft shells 
like molting ***** 
these flowers bloom risking penury 
to offer a glimpse of eternity 

make themselves windows of the blooming tree 
a prism in a subjective room 
they chose their lives in alternative 
and reflect themselves as canals of rainbows 

I sip a glass of wine and ponder this page
the museums of silken selves the artist left for us
Chagall painted old age so devoid of color 
and vitality 
because he knew as we age
we empty our imaginations
into the angels
who then arrive
holding flowers
for the young

A living ball of white plastic twine
its bulb of body conscious
slim head pointed down towards the floor
chaos of legs whirling
knees bend inwards and go slack
like a flower opening and closing
a shimmering life
the size of my kneecap

hanging from a thread of silk
spider as a puppet
marionette legs
flailing as they play empty notes in space
haggling without gravity

mused into waking they paw at the air
smoothing the surface
of imagination

making and unmaking
an invisible tapestry

all these careless maids
whatever their purpose might be
whatever heartbreak is
the encroaching ends of their creations
meticulous in movement only
when the sewing
commences

In the morning
all the magic has worn off
the spider is a tiny brownish
common cellar spider
a miniature Daddy Longlegs
just the hull of what
was massive
and sentient
in the night

i.

drunken in my pockets,
the day whispers to the trees that
pin to you, albatross
of a wind-swept sea loosening
feathers and heart-beats in
short, death-caught seconds.

ii.

gorgeous girl of height,
your caves are bright mysteries
your light an elephant's graveyard
of grey.

iii.

bitter note of earth,
you anchor birth
to our eye sockets, unwrap
mint and honey from the hills.

iv.

uneasy mistress,
dark daughter of sight,
sunk into all the corners of the world
you break like string,
you break and i break with you.



v.

vignette of ivy-coloured dreams,
sunny trail, you break my heart and
glue it back, sigh and sigh like a viking raider
conjured out of porcelain
and rose-water.

vi.

warrior of distant planes,
dense harbour of a lonely city,
landscape of water, unravelled
in an instant, a velvet
ribbon tied into a bow.