Sometimes you need a poem.
Sometimes only a poem will do.
Or at least a couple of words
That hardly know each other
Dancing together
Close.
Just a few steps.

And you never know – it might build.

Hesitantly...

Has
The grey rain
Taken

The Beat
Away?


No way, No WAY, NO WAY!

In absent minded surfacing from sleep
He rolls and bops her gently on the head.

A jump for both.

(They still sail dream-skies singly: clouds and rain)

A yawn, a sigh of loosening night..then giggles
...and half into the pillow:
'Do you always do that after...?
'Always.'
The secret smiles that start face down in cotton
Mean mischievous all.
And so the artful stray: fingers across the sheeted fields to find
To touch: the stroke, the tease, the tender joke
Of cartoon-witches' nails that swiftly change
To quietest whisper of his finger-end near lashes  
To brush the boyish shock of hair that falls
Across her face and is so  

Perfect.  

2. And growing light reveals what last night shone
From so deep within her
And now she knows it too.
Seeing in his eyes the certainty she feels -
Now her Longing Being is achieved
As they climb to light together and  
The lovely dance that wants to happen
Draws them on the little loving path
To earthly joy - and no worse for that...

3. What fingers and eyes began as wisps
And threads of possibilities,
Now feel the planet-surge of ocean swell
And sensual intertwine of selves and limbs so serious-silly
That detail blurs then flashes sharp as ice:
The little sweat that slightly pools - twice - at the base  
Of her back
He strokes with hands behind her
As her naked song and curves and rhythms rock above him - ribcage moving
breath half open lips...
Yeys and ooaoos and silences.
She dives to ****** a smiling kiss in midst
Of whirling storms (that shock of hair again!)
Then resumes the unselfconscious closed-eye calm
Whose movement is the music of the earth.  

4. Then all goes quiet.


Excuse me.
Mmm?
Are you meditating?
Mmm.
Don't you mean OM?
Shh! -  A secret smile -  and, well, why not?


The shiver of a different self - not unwelcome but unsettling
Creature of a liquid ecstasy
Now very close
And something far beyond itself
Or rather saved to birthright body-spirit-soul
Answers, tells,
But will not be tamed.

5. The final moves:  her face sky-upwards, back,
Eyes closed, she sees the bursting stars
Inside her head - falling falling falling  
The golden smile of Rightness Here and Now...
It's done...

Ruined, softly felled on forest floor
With sighs of syncopated  breath

He draws a sheet the length of her pale form.  

6. Hands on his chest, she rises  

Face framed by sheets - medieval queen.
"I thought you were a Princess, not a nun"  
"I'm glad you noticed -  I am both, of course."  
Exalted from the inner pagents' light
With one smooth move you panther to the floor.
"Stay - let me see you whole again and human"
(She knows he fears that alien point in love)
She stands patient, watching, while I gaze.
Enough?
Enough.
It is not right to linger.

A playful far-too-rapid Tai Chi twirl,

Then off to make the tea...



- For The Dancing Princess
- For S.
Late Summer 2009

("Undimmed the joy of this new-happening love.
With all the confident lightness born of vows
As yet unspoken but more real for that.")

I passed to you a magazine with
An article on Love and Loving.
'Here - look at this', was lightly said,
- With grin and irony of look -
'If you want to know about love...'

Then back to screen and papers, emails, work.

Quiet for a space in open plan humdrum.

Then looking up: your hand, the magazine.
'Yes' was all you said.

But your eyes
Were full and dark and teared in pity
For you.

For all the World.

Light labour
But labour still
To crystal the words
So they, so you
Are clear lattice
Seeking nothing for themselves
Just light.  

And your slow dance
If I can see and sing it
Balanced in the air

Just so.

Here she is she is she is!
My wordy wordy baby
A gurgling delight
Of diverse messy
Life.
Almost ready for whatever
you may bring...

Yes
She's a poem
She's a song
She won't be here too long,
But she can sing,

And all for you.

Words are dangled, shown distant
To me
A hint of pattern
Links
And music
Perhaps.

Have I the strength or will to walk towards them?
In the swirls of life noise,
Litter distracts my feet
And in itself, might form..
Maybe another poem..?

That's the trouble
And the glory
You never get there.

Good.

She sits behind her screen
With few words for me, lying
Barely in her presence.
We both wait
We both hear constant wind
From massive fans some rooms away
But they have taken all the stuff
For air to ruffle – no leafy movement to distract
From thoughts of what I owe
To all not here.  
So, still this room for now -
Like a pothole, really
Where the only thing ruffled, usually, is me.
(All these tunnels look alike to some)


Now - wheeling in to shelving thick with labels.
Green gowns, short words each to each.
"Rapid induction for this one please, John."
And with a green mask and cold sharp
To the back of my left hand,
I fall back from the world into...

Gone.