The old stars petrify in place.
Stone-set heartache over sequences
of bar and melody;
they remind us of pain immortalised
in the human race, and that in itself
is enough to fill your curtains
with happiness.

I miss the blind Parisian Busker.
The old tunes over the river
as I feigned language;
as I swelled in my heart at the
sight of the branches under
faint March sky. Tears roll down,
and I am a soft fool once again.

I remember being seventeen.
I remember looking up at
the night sky;
attributing its hue and old knowledge
to that of an infinite God.
Now that cruelty is self-evident,
nature has no need for Him.

Now I scan the world
and land my eyes delicately on beauty
as a butterfly in grassland;
unworthy pilgrim of temper and waste,
I feel nature has no place for me
either. Without art and old sentiment,
there would be no place for me at all.

There are a thousand lovers
for us in the world. They fidget
in bus-stops;
excuse themselves in queues
and stay in for a fortnight
for every moment spent alone
in a group of old friends.

They cry in their bedsheets.
Lamenting love and lack of poetry
in everyday life;
they hold old songs to their chests
to keep them warm in the winter,
and they re-animate the limbs
of heroes sleeping in the mud.