and these pictures and these
memories are great
but not my own eyes.

where is the time that drips like honey from the ark of eternity?
under the starry skies that are you eyes!
and yes, i've used that metaphor too many times:
so be it! so be it!

soft are the lips of truth, unworthy are my own.
up, down: my ever undulating tongue.
sinking into your seraphic image,
i slow dance with plasma shed from the sun.

plenty of the future
will not be consumed
by the ensuing seconds,
probably
(depends on geography).

take your time if you can, come what may.
you've lots of history to wrestle with
before you can truly reach a new day.

and i bet they spoke to you
of you as you refused to know
yourself
and before you knew
it, you were open, sunlight.

and i bet they looked at you and you
saw that they could see what you had been
keeping secret just enough to make
beautiful,
and you smiled and couldn't stop.

and we were looking out forever in
opposite directions but there
was nothing behind what we
could see when we turned around.

and what else could tenderness be if not
revealing what you've kept
hidden even
from yourself?

"****
the romanticisation
of despair"

forever taking things apart, not quite
piecing them back together: that was all
we knew, in those idle days of quiet.
our pretty words were leaning how to crawl.

before long we found that we each had wings
that made doorways difficult to walk through.
the worship of imperceptible things,
looking back, without, should have been a clue.

but a series of truly insignificant detours
could not sustain—o blue!—  
                                                    the flight  
                                                        ­     we knew
                                                                ­ as recourse.

stumbling through the endless
snaking valley labyrinth of twisted letters,
lost, looking for you;
the shadows do not always inscribe fear—
what i fear is that you are
where i cannot reach.

greeting faces just to watch them go.
slipping away, the makings
of fragile eternity.
finding traces of you here, traces there:
i grasp them so close to my heart,
so tightly
that they are crushed.

the path between us
is made of words
and with every step i take,
i step on something jagged,
and i have so far to go
to a place i cannot even know is really out there.
(i go on, there's nowhere else
worth going.)

here now later gone before forgotten
all of want none of have some of lost
enough never too much always too little
too often
time wasted time waiting time regained
too late
intimacy short lived distance prolonged presence
of absence
heart emptied heart broken heart reforged
illusions clung to truth ignored the everyday
mundane
god dead god reborn god turned to money
past repeating future destroyed present
slipping away
a touch remembered a bond abandoned an idea
betrayed
a day alone a night alone forever sleepwalking
a dream a nightmare the blink of an eye
earth burns oceans poisoned permafrost melts
a fascist here a fascist there fascists everywhere
random kindness calculated malice endemic
indifference
an old oppression a new form of terror an eternal
struggle
freedom abstract cages carried wings torn off
here now later gone before forgotten
all of want none of have some of lost
enough never too much always too little
too often
time wasted time waiting time regained
too late

the moon has changed its face
but i cannot.
were i strong enough
to push back the sorrowful tide,
this love could reach you once more.

may i become the rains where the drought persists,
and strength for those who need to resist;
may i become the pole star for those lost at sea,
and shelter for those who need to flee.

may i become a twilight for those who've known only night,
and healing balm and bandages to ease their pain;
may i become a ladder out of their pit and up to new heights,
and may i become a hammer set against their chains.

may my soul become a song
and may its melody become a protest and resistance,
may it find harmony, echo, and resonance,
as struggles go on and on.

oh my body,
may i become
all that others have been for me,
as struggles go on and on.

did you notice when the words shed their skin?
the hour was late in the idle day
and the light of significance grew dim.
at the shore, the waves compelled you to stay

and you saw, in the waves that slid away
all the ways in which you could not alter
the crash, and retreat, of waves come to claim
what was only ever borrowed from them.

be that ocean, it is asked of you, and
your wheel will keep bringing gifts to the sand.
sea and desert, two serpents coiled, two

vast multitudes, and between, some small truth
recurring. this world is a single breath
and uncounted smiles; no words for the rest.

i'm a greedy coward;
i'm just looking for one like me
to give me courage and hold me close.

my life is either empty

or too full to appreciate what’s there.
i must set off from the middle
and get lost
if only i wasn't so obsessed with figuring out where i am.

the poet in me is shorthand for everything i dislike thereof
his clumsy wrist smudges what there is of worth amid his average words.

the soul is in the noon shadow of the very profoundest rock bottom
and the receptacle fills with sorrow still
joy erupts subterranean and bursts high enough to stain the heavens
no matter where they fall
for they must fall if we’re all to eat.

i am learning i cannot deal with silence
because for too long it has sharpened my inner ear
and it is cutting into something unpleasantly.

what happened
to the song in your heart?
is it lost to you?
it will never end, it
will play on new instruments.

my tasteless escapes
always end up escaping,
leaving me trapped.

today is a miraculous disaster, like the same before but repeated: something new and undialectical. now i hear footsteps in the corridor of the sanatorium skull sanctuary. thoughts of the proto-symbolic muse have crept in like winter mists over the empty fields as the sun sets again. turning over in bed. deferred, all around me, the dead ones, the days, the exiles. teach me to speak
a language to-come
for the waves of love have long been forbidden from this one. aftermath of machine makers: beautiful, too feeble a word. the notions of self and hatred have become too antiquated and too childish for self-hatred to be of effect. wastelands too have their day. the way is non-lineal, wrapped in complex points. seeking to saturate the atoms of a life: immanence. seeking to witness the vistas of a soul’s minimum of two multiplicities. it’s too easy to spend too long counting your obsessions. the sovereign says nothing again, it’s nothing new, it’s not nothing either; it’s not something to stay silent about. the day is gone; but stay a painting with me a while longer. the day is gone; how many of us are forgotten? i don’t remember
when i stopped counting.

i want to tell her that everything i know about her
               fascinates me
and everything i don't know about her
               excites me.
i want us to be without restraint.
i want to show her and be shown the meaning of unknownness.
i want us to see what two bodies can do
if  you add just a few drops of chaos
and a splash of eternity.

life is eternal in the same way that our field of vision is without
limit.
if you cannot understand this, i cannot teach you.
to understand is what is most difficult of all
and of all the worthiest cause.

—and now there is music all around me, through me,
a zone of indiscernibility between us
—and the details of all these worlds i walk through
become such tiny temples
—and lo, all the texture of my life turned to gratitude
and they said:

look at that crazy ******* dance!

remember to be kind
to yourself.
it is easy to forget.

i know nothing of love
that is not an extension
of the sun.

i know nothing
but fascination.
unknownness for the fabricating.

our song will never end.
it will only be taken up
by other instruments.

all that is lost
returns
in altered form.

the place you are looking for
is on the move
looking for you.

what chance
to have laughed
and danced

and to go on.

every past sorrow of my life so far,
excavated from the totality of their meaninglessness,
has become worthwhile
if only for becoming the stepping stones,
across the misty tar-pit-ocean of time,
that have led me to know you in this moment,
even if it's only to be in this moment.

(these words are enough for now,
but they will be forgotten, perhaps slowly,
perhaps tomorrow.
if i find you again,
i will ask for more.
perhaps tomorrow i will find again the shore,
perhaps tomorrow, perhaps nevermore.)

capitalism:
the magnificent world structure
where money trickles
up, in flows and floods,
so often from pools of blood
—how disorienting a pyramid!
how green the sky it touches and devours!
how barren the grounds around its base!—
and i still hear
the clinking of chains.
can we sit and admire a work of art and majesty
that is produced by the slave? (should we?)
...
why are there those that lack
in a world where there is enough for us all?
has money, the fifth element, not outlived
its usefulness? is it even worth its costs?
was it not always an attempt at communication?
can we not do better? and what is debt for?
and why profit? why not equality and solidarity?
what are the effects of those who hold the right
to limitless property?
what is the punishment for those
who have nothing?
where is power? what do those who have it want?
and how do they get it? what does the exercise of power
look like?
who made us all enemies?
what does a smokescreen look like
once it's been deciphered?
where is the world going?
is there no other course (than off a cliff)?
who decides? is it too late to do otherwise?
...
there's a lot of work to do,
is it worth doing?
it's only the last question i can't really answer,
but if everything is meaningless
then the meaninglessness of it all is meaningless too
and the space is clear
for me to declare a call i shall heed to.
i set no destination, i yearn for comrades, i seek only
a horizon:
perhaps the grass gets greener
the closer you approach that mythic utopia,
the motivation, the far off joy
that waves and beckons endearingly.
"the journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step"
and there are many terrible and wonderful vistas
along the way.
"the masses make history."
"the one who moves a mountain
begins by carrying away small stones."
won't you consider being the movement
of masses with me, in search of freedom
for all
forever and forever and forever
...?
"you can always make something
out of what you've been made into"
so why not try to make something
impossible, marvellous and necessary
...?

you wanted with such fury to be
to be kind
to be loving
to be generous
you wanted with such ardour to be
to be there
to be all to one
to be understanding and to be understood
you wanted with such frenzy to be
to be wild
to be tamed
to be seen and heard and touched

what happened?

you spent too long wanting
and never learnt how to get

but take heart, my joy,
there is time yet!

i am a prisoner of my past,
i am a shadow of my future:
caught between a collapsing star
and a nova, perhaps close, invisible:
there, courage - vision - is demanded of me;
an abyss looks into an abyss;
am i up to it? on your head be it:
catastrophe is the opportunity missed.

petrify your fallen leaves
what i said and left unsaid
all at last you kept, not without the rest
seasons change songs that never end

speak with secrecy my myth
what remains that chance can offer
who lost and left closed the door to themselves
i'm caught in creases of your palm

too much for me to untangle
wasn't sure what being heard was
we catalysed the grace of this strange place
i can see the shore fading glad

the pink dawn greeting the sea
cumulus range billowing
a softness to all that was and would be
this was the light of your smile

i'm flying towards your sky now
and i keep with me his defeats
and i pretend to soar to forget the fall
but i know i'll keep on the way

to walk beside your welcome
i'm a refrain in your song
i'll set among suns, your treasures joyful
unbroken and beseeching

living for predictions
will ruin your life.

you let him *******
because before it felt metaphysical
but now fantasy has worn
and you're left with only flesh
and mechanics and the stench of sweat in your bed.

romantics aren't welcome in the hedonist's head;
you're nothing to him but his right hand.

it’s not a light story.

i just think before knowing you won’t know that it’s something you don’t want to know
so if you take this road
know i will be running ahead
and i may fall for all my looking back.
turtles all the way down.

i’m like the world, i’m in permanent crisis
but like the world i am vast
i hide serene places, and lonely places full of factories
and deserts populated by those sharing triumph
and defeats and misery and not the means for us all
and by all means let the flowers bloom in the ruins
but worker bees will be needed and the right dance to boot.

this pen writes out the end, my walking stick,
my staff for parting seas on this planet
that’s personal and purely arid.
this spells out the end, this called here and now:
new beginnings
tides summoned
sails set
ends of the earth reached and leaped across.

waiting
waiting for someone to have been waiting.

drowning anguish in
tantric abandon.
a smile like the sea at dawn.
the body glows
in solar eroticism.

i heard that the first truth of psychoanalysis is that
the only thing worse than not getting what you want
is getting what you want
but **** that i still want you.

a dark night of the soul
long to remember
how bright the moon can be.

i want you
to be another
world i can explore,
and someone to reveal
the hidden vistas of my own.

i must learn to stop staying up so late
as if my wakefulness could keep tomorrow
at bay. i never learn. perhaps i'm lonely.
but am i not here, in the milky way?

it is not enough to know the name. no.
he had told me, always will be enough.
i'm still to learn the meaning of these words.
there is nothing on the other side of

the word: this is the meaning of the earth.
it is not a tragedy, or at least
it does not have to be. it might be worth
our time, to enquire if we are free.

other than something or nothing
caught up in the scrambling of being and non-being
only where we can catch glimpses
of the joyous multitudes of a life
like fireflies in the dark.

crows gather
on the weeping tree.
wind departing gentle.

walking leisurely,
holding hands lovingly,
my fists clench, nails dig,
sadness washes over me.

i give chase with reckless abandon.
it's the thrill and the gamble.
it's the eyes that
pierce through and through
that tell me: "come closer,
this will destroy you."

depression:
reaching the end of history
yet remaining
under it's full weight.

i've never felt small when looking at the stars.
i'd always think: yes, very good,
but there's an even vaster spectacle
behind the departure of this gaze.

a world for us all
or no world at all:
it's not a motto,
but a question, yes, solemnly,
and a call.

a new world is possible
but we won't see it.

what would it take
to capture you, just for a moment?
were it as simple as a sacrifice,
my life might be in danger.

what can we do about things
beyond our control?
make noise!

the centre's hold must be broken.
it doesn't matter if you're right,
if you're just:
without the mettle,
you'll lose.

oh misfortune, how you are steady, dependable
and secretly comforting
(to the one who has suffered too much).
oh good fortune, how you arrive
at the most inopportune and awkward of times.
(but, of course, this isn't true of all places and lies.)

it's in the darkest nights
that the skies are brightest.

why do i hate this person so, to whom i have been
so little exposed,
of whom i know no more than a meaningless name?
because they express traits i repress in myself.
traces of hatred remain,
with all their searing weight and strain,
for as long as i, myself, the world's flows-and-structures,
stay the same, in torrid stasis, code, and axiom.

they spend thirst-filled days
and restless nights
scouring the ashes
in search
of traces of light.

laughter and smiling
faces of friends,
adumbrations that
reveal my loneliness.
speak up, tortured soul.

a madman shouting on a street corner:
"the apocalypse already happened!
it happened in your sleep!
and this is but a nightmarish dreamscape
on the brink of fiery daybreak!
the apocalypse already happened!"
i briefly ponder my life choices and move on.

eternally returning
metaphors, are you teachers
infinite, or symbols of limit?
(gods, demons, unending souls, the one whole, freedom, equality, justice, truth, love, isolation, emptiness, from nothingness, outside everything, space and time, the sublime)
monotonous waves
erode the boring cliffs
where we make our home;
in search of as yet
unspoken metaphors,
perhaps approaching
from beyond still unseen
superlunary horizons,
perhaps redolent of wonder
and radical adventure,
perhaps nothing but dreams,
or exclusively
for the contemplation
of smart machines,
and so we begin again.

just when things were starting to look up,
the whole sky
fell like a tonne of bricks.