I used to wonder
Who those people are
Whose eyes tear up when they laugh
Now I know
They aren't people, they're wraiths
Wraiths that need reminding
Lest they forget, and dissipate.

Long circles of the wheel
Was I arctic flat
The singing was sterile craft.

A brief bubble
Reflection rainbow, I
The songs unsheathed, alive
As hot pulsating rain
And scorpionweed suffused the desert spring.

Even in Chernobyl, the birds chirp now
But inside my holocaust heart
Black quiet gropes.


They tell me I make progress
I am now a mud cottage,
Solitary on the slopes.
Mice nest timid in my roof
Skitter, chew holes
For the breeze
To squeeze in
The gold dusk peeps
The door creaks
The leaves brittle, rustle
The motes swirl
There is music, again.
The castrato sings.

What end making measure
Of what has flown beneath
An eon is passed
Since the bridge
Was swept away

I pour diamonds into it
Flowers, and rainbows
And it looks pretty
My bejewelled grave.

When I'm ash,
Pour a handful of me
In a palmful of sea
And churn
till they are one.
This distillate, relay
To a poet's inkwell
And pray
She gently lace
My final resting place.

When I was young

the word 'shame' was loud and strong

in middle-age I began to realise

such mindset was wrong-



now in my 'soon to say goodbye' days

with what my conscience says I can easily go along

life might not be all joys and grace

yet to myself I've every right to belong

Her thoughts and I,
we stay awake
waiting for someone,
hoping for somethings
for the heart in pain
needs no tending
just a pinch of the divine
and that silver lining.

I think of the moments
we gently stole
from the curious eyes
of tired souls
our driving the distance
to escape our own
and finding the universe
in our palms, unfold.

There in the coffee shop
she stares at me
from the helpless tea bag
in scalding water.
In the bottle she would get
to quench her thirst
I find her asking if
my need's greater than hers.

The empty seat of car,
in front
is taken in her absence
by her memories warm
The gear shaft
without our fingers twined
is stripped bare
of our naked thoughts

The rains when they come,
they flood my heart
for a stormy noon
is still parked within
when the highway was lost
behind a sheet of rain
and in lights all turned on,
our tongues were mating.

Her breath is all over
this gluttony of a glass
half filled with wine,
half consumed by need
Now, the dam opens,
blood rising to the lips
flooding me with her thoughts
she can never read...