Since boyhood came the sound.

At eight in a field of snow
Under a sky blue and high
I heard the sound.

At sixteen after love’s embrace
On sheets stiff and white
I heard the sound.

At twenty-two in a place green and lush
Under skies filled with war
Above all I heard the sound.

At thirty-two in early morning light
As I comforted my infant son
I heard the sound.

The sound of all the world trying to fall in love.


© 2016

Because your life is short
I thought you should know
about lawn bowling and polite clapping
by women in summer dresses and white gloves
and men in white shirts with club ties
and black trousers who we called the other
and who stood on utter green grass that day
and played the game with dignity
in summer’s late perfect light,
and all was well,
all was very well
the day before we went to war
and killed them all.
I thought you should know
because your life is so short.

Monday morning
is singing the indigo blues

the sky is wearing
a grey duffel coat

still I gotta pay my dues
gotta get happy
gotta get happy
an pay my dues

Step into the winters day
Air so crisp and cold
Snows on the way

Somewhere they will be
Freezing today
Somewhere they will be
rubbing chilled hands together
draming of warm summer days

Inside boxes filled with red faces
they will be dreaming of faraway places
where the sand is warm underfoot
and  in the chambray sky there are no traces
of water accumulation, just an argent sun
and on the breeze exotic spices.

These are the dreams of the red faced
and blue handed masses that ride the buses
in this crisp winter morn
.....looking for a scrap of chambray,
in the cold flannel grey of this Monday

There was a girl
I used to swap paperbacks
and spit with, once
I fixed her wiper blades,
I remember the soft dead wings
on the windshield,  pretty
as you please

She was alone in her shoes
listening to something
that kept getting darker
and glowing like morning
on the oil spilled under her truck,
she was drifting through
the rosewater of her soft red hair

She only wanted to be rolling
off a swollen river, sliding
out of a clean slip, turning
over in a deep sleep, trailing
a shimmering thread, hiding
under a pile of wet leaves

Then there she was sailing
in her river of blood,  going
white and smelling like smoke
from a struck match behind
closed blinds on a ceramic floor,
a white blouse red as a sharp knife
collecting the light of mourning.

Evenings like these
black as a keyhole

crossing a shadow cast
on the side of the road

where the ground sleeps
dreaming of smooth stones

and nights without love
earning a dangerous living

like a breath under water
choked on the mystery

of cornbread
and a farmer's daughter

I wake up thirsty
hungry and alone.

Some memories I give her
to drown in dark water,

like an old revolver
thrown into a river,

nights spent drinking
the moon under a table

made of maple and fables
we once believed true

love lost, found
and lost again together

where only the mountains
and seas last forever.

Morning will be here
soon enough says the moon,

only the night knows the truth
that lies dark in your heart

where love sleeps forever,
deep, and never dreaming.

Arriving in the dark
like a listing ship
at your dock
my fingers skinned
all ****** at the knuckles
from christening your door
like a bottle on a prow
or a broken mirror
in the morning, caught
in the hurricane
of your crazy hair.

A crowd has gathered
in the home
of the unknown poet

a house of smoke
he calls it, but the poet
left for another affair

his gallant wife
descends the stairs
and shows no misery

while the guests read
his work sniffing
over their peer glasses

and with no regrets
whatsoever the poet's wife
drives a dagger deep
in her pale breast

as the poet is laughing
and dancing with ******
the guests at the table
place their orders.

A storm is brewing in the east
and a white bird is flying high,
like the shadow of smoke
from the last fires in the moonlight,
lying crossways over the bed
on her belly in dark *******,
whatever she is dreaming
its meaning she keeps to herself.