My love bird – a carrion crow
           (unwished)
Who’s beak reeks of narcissus
           (the scent of thee)

Let me call the black rumble of wings
to fill skies and sheets
with the thunder of your feet.

           (Ah! Love. What A thing it is
           to be feathers on the wall
           and flesh in ice.)

She wore mountains round her neck

           (“No, lower.”)

Peaked with scented minarets

           (Softer and sweeter than strawberries,
           grander than a psalm.)

In the gulch between words
I offered you a prayer
and you wounded me with a poem.

I watched you  move
like a summer night
to disrobe the cover
of your collected works
           -a landscape of fire and blood
            that beats a wardrum
            deep in my hungry river.

Your petals pressed against my lips
           to drown , to drown
                      gladly.

She wore mountains round her neck,
and I wore her ankles with a smile.

Let me breathe the smoke between your thighs,
The way a drowning man breathes water -
my Queen of Oysters.

I will sup til hungers end
           the elixir
then sup, and sup again
the banquet of your flesh
with the thousand tongues
of my fingertips and eyes.

This Alligator that hides amongst daisies -
let him sleep in the black garden of your hair

           O concubine of Saturn

Open slow to the brush
rough hands spring petals
that gambol and gyre
in great prickles
through
the spine and scalp.

Let us run to the moon, together
or sleep til the noon, apart.

My Queen of Oysters,
Let me sleep in the black garden of night.

The winter here is proper,
not like the weak attempts
of childhood.

I put on one of my father's old records,
and sinkdrown
into the swirl
of old memories -
the scent of oil and wood
his workshop
the musicdrone of cicada's
(that signaled the arrival of hot summer sweat and slick)
the scent of musk mixed with coffee grinds
and bodyperfume made sick with wine.

Old roofs
in the distance -
redwashed and orange
by the blood of a dying sun,
trickle blue smoke
from the mouth of an ancient-
         Baal of cold nights
         Suburban Moloch.

Hands are turned palecold.
Dove's once ,
dexterous fish now -
white and roasting
on the hot whisper
from a cup of coffee,
sometimes they
(mechanically or artfully)
invoke the means
to my own blue trickle.

A time machine
to that junkyard of stolen moments
we christen "memory".

Yet the sun still bleeds
and the sky is cauterised
by it's sacrifice.

I sank a lie in the harbour,
watched it sink like a stone.
Your beauty an apostle
asked me to live quite alone.

The streets are empty of your laughter
wild birds still flitter and fly,
The children carry on playing
as every rose withers and dies.

The scent of your dew on my fingers,
the place where death goes to die.
A memory that breathes as it lingers
on the fringe of an innocent sigh.

The black dress you left here one evening
full of bats and sinister themes,
drapes an elegant coffin
in both life and my dreams.

Snapshots carved in my pillow
of the place where death goes to die,
chipped with a sharpened halo
once trapped between your thighs.

I found the place we once roamed
with my back turned to the sea,
a quick snap of my fingers
called death to die with me.

Instead he sang as a singer
"If I go you'll never be free,
in dream this love will linger,
in song and in memory."

The streets drowned in your laughter,
wild birds flitter and fly,
I light a candle on the altar
at the place where death goes to die.

Early mornings
With us wrapped
In the wings of our sweat
Ignoring the muted call of birds
And the bright,
Screaming
Sun.

I pull you close,
Lose my fingers
In the passion
Of alligator eyes-
The cheese sharp
Scent of your ****
Closed it's noose.

And I found myself upon the floor craving a halo.
But the saints are dead, and bleed like violins.

The unmistakable relief
Of your curves
Are distant now;
Where once we stalked the city's
Whispering night;
Now we entertain widows
Full of secrets.

Only distant eiderdown
Holds our halo
Holds our breath
And monochrome death
In relief of
early mornings

Dance me to the end
with your beauty
in each hand

Dance me, lover
Dance me.

through the shades of beer
and the nights we missed
let me hold you tight
and baptise with a kiss.

I will take my body
I will put it on trial.
for a moment of your cruelty
in the summer of your smile.

Dance me, lover,
Dance me.

Dance me to the end
with your beauty
in each hand
to the pyre of your love
in the summer of your smile.