a glint of the Earth in delight
  is in bare sight and how we leap not with
our body but with our mind.

a handful of air swallowing
  the air – love that somehow
half-rhymes yet not even so entirely with hover
   shows the infinitude of possibilities

when it was not your palm that reads
   an incipient star but a moon half-bitten
by an outraged soul when it was not
  your  body
       I  have  found
but    an   isle  full of  noises
   and I so much  the quiet,
  shall not  return  with  the wind  so as
   to  set  sail and  farther off into  blackening  space
    onto  a realized sea tinctured with
      such  blue  blood, o  sea,  which somehow
rhymes  with but  the  end of
  you and I coming   to   be –

stillness moved  the  air,
   and it was neither a lark nor a flower in my hand
but the Earth within the trees that unmoved
   and the hand that unrest. is it not that petals our folly
and that nothing are we when we live? are we
               not our own brookwater
   which silence metastasizes
       a source or a dart of water
falling  and  falling?
is darkness solely our own light?
  is it not the shadow that we carry in night and day
   but the weight of our own darkness?

so much the weight of our living
  that we, amongst ourselves, are but stone atilt
    on a river – the birds sit well against
the taciturn afternoon and all the homes
   transfixed in wonderment as though we recall
our first storms in the eyes of the old
   and the debris the hand that has carried us
through, something the wind still is a mother
    or a father, gently motioning through the world.

Imagine   hot
water           music
            traipsing  down  my  throat
when you   had  your  sharp   tongue
      shoved    down   my  throat
with   contestations    simmering   in  my   sinews,
  a  few   of    them   scandalous
some    true    like   the   sudden fleeting   of your   crepuscular brow
   to   two moons   paler   than   the love –
or   the    long    traverse   to the   treacherous
    roads    of   your   skin   mapped   out   in excess
your   lecherous   debris   sprawling  everywhere   like   words
   to   a   book   or   silence  to   an   early  morning    commute,
your     undulant  bursts   outmatch   the weight  of   my
     steady  anchors,  imagine   this   cold   wind  sinking  deep
into   the    bone    at  4 o’clock   in   the   afternoon
   drunk    in  front   of    faceless  crowds
hunting     for   purpose,  discombobulated   erudition
      in    sodden   corners   and cheap  thrills,

imagine      the     scrumptious   twinge   of
     the  Sun that  mangles   its   arms   to paint   a new
moon   for   us  both   and    think of  this   as   a  consignment  to
  oblivion    when  the twists   and  turns   of  the road
     remember  only    measures   of   steps that have no  names
       and   not   the passengers, where   one   wrong   forceful
  shot   at   fate   could   mean   the   end  of  all things down
   below  an ocean  of muck   or   just  stale blackness and  ravines
      of    voices   bellowing   to call  out departed   ones

where   you   are just   as trivial    as
    driving  in  Kennon Rd.   at night   without  maps
and   beacons,  only   far-fetched   city buoys,
    the  frigid     wind,  the collapsing   bannister   of the night
cloying   the   turns   sharper than  how  it was to   first  see you   leave
    in   the morning,      bringing   in  the  fog  for the first
        light   of  reality    to   burn.

I  know  the  world    has only    space
      for    a woman   and  her  heart,   her  ******* emblazoned in  the trees,
her  depths  in voluminous   books – let only   the   saltine  water
   touch   her brindled   body   atilt   amongst  the lilies   in the  silver  dawn

         and   that her    cusped   hands  demand  a softer  hue of  love    whereas
the   salacious  wind  continues   its   grasp  championing  things   both  fragile
      and   sturdy:  the   world  slides  in the  coloured  curve of   a woman
         and  the men dare  too,  follow  the road  where they meet first  with
  death   sitting   still with  the  roses  like   a    splendid   fragrance   stilled in the mind
      leading     you   to a  garden  which   thorns   are ensconced
          in  a smoothness   that  sings    salutations    to love – as  I   remain  to be
nose-deep   sheath   after    sheath,  ****   after   ****,   stalking   the
           perfume   of   the  world  a  woman   owns.

treading masterfully this  autumn-long  road  where
    at the  end of  first light so begins  your fragile  darkness.


i know  not where you  wait for  me as  birds in  all geographies
      land without further   recall; as though   by  saying  that the  Summer
  has   dealt   its   cards   and the serrated  grass   folds  when it thinks
   the  rain   to be everywhere   descending,  falling  as lithely   as a lover
     whose cockeyed    miracle  first has meted out   a singular  trapping  fate
         of hands that interlock    to    no   retreat.

i   know  not  the silence of  the Earth  when all is caliginously
    intact    without knowing. but  then should you  return, your  eyes
will   light all  the   lamps awaiting   your   shuddering step  and fruition
       us  both the  ineffable   rendering  me  forever  the life  of roses.

( i  do not  know which  gravitates me back  to   where we
      first   saw each other; only  something   in me  does not   think
   but is constantly   supremed   by   feelingfulness   when it   is not
    the wind   but your   breath not   in the garden   of   joys but  in the exuberance
     of    all that    is made  immense in me by  your    eyes,
         when    it is     not the   taut   clamp    of   the   sea    at   bay
but    the   island of your   hands   clutching   the penumbra  of my heart,
   shattering     the shadow   and letting   loose   a  sprightly   dove
        here     and   a  hummingbird    there)

do you remember one
     morning when it rained,
  chrysanthemums then lined the streets
  and each petal whirred to the sound of your passing?

you were too, a flower
in my hand. deep underneath the ground
you murmur, letting the twilight darkle
   into twinight. it was the dawn of your becoming.
the sky’s panging brought you here.

you suddenly filled all the mouths
that waited for you, with the marine of your name.
because we were joined by haunts that revisit us
  in this river of life
and that is why the unperturbed stone,
    the incongruent leap of water,
the bodies that sprucely lay adrift with the fluminous ways
      of the world all know you and i
because we are but from one source
    surrounding them in their laughter and silence
when we are apart as though
  they cannot sing when we do not make music
  they cannot wake when they darkly wait for us
  in their homes, trembling with unlit lamps of dust and sleep
  they cannot lift in the moonlight when we strip
  them of their fear
  as though they cannot love in the midst
      of spring when we are but two separate leaves
falling endlessly – finding each other in the Earth.

this is another form I would like to lose
   but what is a man to inherit but the empire of sleep after
being caught in a virulent web of dailiness?
                sometimes dreams are as empty as Manila
  on a Sunday – requiring things I do not understand,
  so as the departure of leaves to bring back the same existence,
   the parallel rawness, and the exact hundredfold inflorescence,
   a blank synthesis of light is another conundrum
                  as sidewalks remain steely and squalid
  holding themselves up to surrender; when another drone breeds
      sound from a distance, one is reminded of how gently songs in themselves
  break inward and release fully, a cloud of regret, leaving things and renaming
  them loose sobriquets;
                  and when all else have gone into total darkness
   I will sit beside everything else that closes its eyes to the world
   and rejoin them in the familiar and see nothing but the rest
      of beautiful things ignite to show scars and leave
       us all wordless, losing
                          this  strange  form of living.