I will not die for you
Woman fey of flesh and home,
I linger but to see you unfrock
The holy, set rogues to roam.

Why should I thus be consumed
In breath like coldest fire?
Shape of rising waterfalls
That state, I surely do not desire

The downy *******, the runny skin,
Spark of cheek, notes of hair in shower,
The gliding step, the gusty tone,
Fools have died for much less a dower.

The lancing pools, the hemlock mien,
The highland sheen, the dawn-bird voice,
The Safire eye, over step of pyramid
Merlin gave Arthur a safer choice.

I will not drown for you,
Flood of hair, red as the lye
In parted Jordan, that sea, not me,
Shall pine as ever, slowly dying.

Your healing humors, your subtle sovereignty,
Your blood, noble as seven-seas are blue,
Little mirror who paints the sky,
Though nearly, I will not die for you.

I should have told you that I love you when you told me
I should have held you closer, trusted us and given myself freely
It's what you were looking for

I let you go when I should have let you know
That you are everything to me
My heart and soul are wrapped up in you

Your touch burnt my skin, reached deeper than anyone before you
And now my tears burn my face, dripping hot onto the place
Where my heart once was

I hold it in my hand now
A lead weight
Aching from the absence of you

You are here but you are gone

I am everything and nothing without you

I am all there is and you are all I think about
And now the tears scorch my lips
Where you never were

And you go on

I hear you everywhere
I see you everywhere and nowhere
And now I'm not sure I even see you

All I see is my pain, dancing on hot coals
Filled with light and passion
And dancing without my memory

Will I ever get the chance again?
When you ask me what I want from you, will I tell you
That I have all I need when I'm in your arms
Your company
Your life?

Will you ever ask again?
How could I have let you go?
How do I put light back in my eyes and let you see your reflection in them?

How could you do this?

Don't leave me
The world is too hot and too cold without you and the wrong people sing my name
And my heart is breaking

I love you and I'm so sorry

I should have told you

If I could snap my fingers for you
Take your troubles down
A peg or two

Unencumber you from life’s demands
And set you free
In a moment

I would not

Don’t get me wrong
It hurts to walk away
To wake each day aware that you’re in pain
And feel your years encroach on time
You won’t get back

But if I took away the gift you have
Given to you by years
Of indecision and opportunity

You would not know
The joy of freedom
It would feel empty
You have to earn it

It is not taken
It can’t be bought or sold
Your rights to it are eternal
If you believe it to be true

It’s up to you
To grasp the thread of hope
That waits in you and leads through pain to joy

It’s your decision
Only your footsteps matter
No-one else can get you there

And it sounds horrific
But imagine the alternative,
That there is another who could carry you:

What if they left or died or disappeared
What if your only chance at life
Lived somewhere else?

Your chances lie inside you
They never die so long
As you are living

They are your one true breath
Your fight will be their name
Your prize their liberation

If I could snap my fingers and release you
I would not
But I will hold you close
When times are light and heavy
And life is at your side

For those who know what freedom feels like
Pay the right price
Every time

I heard you speak tonight
You bared your soul in a private space
And you saw me in you

Do you know?

I couldn't find the words to say that I understood you
That you had described my life, my wanderings in this world
So accurately
I almost didn't recognise myself in you

You looked so scared
So strong
So valiant in your battle
So confused by your own mind
And you broke me down

I had felt so alone in my conviction
That everyone else thought these things and won
I hadn't imagined that anyone else
Felt the way I did?

I thought I was surrounded by aloneness
Until I heard you
You made me see that it had just been me
But I was never on my own

You hovered at the end
Then left
I'd wanted to say what seeing you meant to me
But I couldn't clear my mind enough
To let you know how much you'd helped me:

In your hour of need
You gave me the strength you were searching for

I hope I can tell you to your face some day
That you changed my life tonight
In that way that only chance meetings can

Quickly
Quietly
Beautifully

Thankyou, my unnameable knight
You do not know your own strength

But I do

I yearn for a life of loose clothes and footsteps
Easy smiles and arms, draped like scarves about shoulders
A life of contact and salt-washed skin
Arguments heated by the sun and rinsed off with the dishwater of an evening meal

Glorious nothing, it calls to me as if it were already mine
To toy with and pretend not to pretend that it is real and I am in it
To believe in the haze of those times that could be happening somewhere
To someone that could be me, somehow

Glorious nothing
I could make it my all, given the right conditions
Carve out contentment in the sandy rivers that water-fall
From the cliffs of my foot-bridge
Dropping over great cavernous edges of toe to rejoin familiar regions

Make a life around it there instead of here

But I don’t believe it needs me much
Not more than my family might
Or I believe I earned something else in the unknowing
And now my debt is stacked and not against the door of a beach hut

The answer does not lie in his arms
It is not in her smile
It does not walk in their shoes

The answer is not at the bottom of a cup of coffee
Poured hot and milky over sleep-filled eyes
Lounging under the blue skies of someone else's greener grass

It is not a question of love or hate
Or a proposition of sorts with short-term definitions
Made to muddy puddles of friendly flirtations

The answer is more than money, less than time
Enough of a good thing to know the difference
When morning's indifference arrives

It is not in the arch of a sleeping stranger
Or dangerous liaisons with lessons learnt a long time ago
In lots of little lines in and around your eyes and nose

It is not about the pout on a pretty face or the taste of testing limits
Taking trousers down with tongues to triumph your tricks
And lick damp finger tips

It was never for the fun of it
Fearing fire, or worse, the cool uncompromising curse
Of casual or curt correspondence that comes down the disconnected chain

It is not in the first drag of the day
The way forward becoming as blocked as your bronchial passages
Black and blue in patches of promise and poverty

It is not for your benefit
Not what you want it to be
It will not bend to your flight of fancy

No - the answer is all it has ever been in the past
A simple preparation:
Knowing which question to ask.

Be careful of words,
even the miraculous ones.
For the miraculous we do our best,
sometimes they swarm like insects
and leave not a sting but a kiss.
They can be as good as fingers.
They can be as trusty as the rock
you stick your bottom on.
But they can be both daisies and bruises.
Yet I am in love with words.
They are doves falling out of the ceiling.
They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap.
They are the trees, the legs of summer,
and the sun, its passionate face.
Yet often they fail me.
I have so much I want to say,
so many stories, images, proverbs, etc.
But the words aren't good enough,
the wrong ones kiss me.
Sometimes I fly like an eagle
but with the wings of a wren.
But I try to take care
and be gentle to them.
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.

Someone lives in a cave
eating his toes,
I know that much.
Someone little lives under a bush
pressing an empty Coca-Cola can against
his starving bloated stomac,
I know that much.
A monkey had his hands cut off
for a medical experiment
and his claws wept.
I know tht much.

I know that it is all
a matter of hands.
Out of the mournful sweetness of touching
comes love
like breakfast.
Out of the many houses come the hands
before the abandonment of the city,
out of hte bars and shops,
a thin file of ants.

I've been abandoned out here
under the dry stars
with no shoes, no belt
and I've called Rescue Inc. -
that old-fashioned hot line -
no voice.
Left to my own lips, touch them,
my own nostrils, shoulders, *******,
navel, stomach, mound,kneebone, ankle,
touch them.

It makes me laugh
to see a woman in this condition.
It makes me laugh for America and New York city
when your hands are cut off
and no one answers the phone.