Tag Archives: love

NEITHER HERE, NOR THERE

NEITHER HERE NOR  THERE

sadly I have
forgotten you already

though a little bird
keeps reminding me
how razor smart you
were
   and how beautiful

something I have to tell you
before this poem
goes off
   the boil

it’s Christmas day after the day
after the day after tomorrow
I would wish
          you every joy
but we cannot risk climbing
out of our trenches
onbewapendt
     exposing our shared
humanity
risking all
that vulnerability

I can whistle the tune of
every tracks on those
albums
you gave me for
Xmas
    God knows how many years ago

and soon but not
together obviously we are
going to
    wake up dead finding
ourselves one
hundred
   percent spiritual
able to laugh
   (not earthbound resounding
seismic belly laugh
more celestial titter)

at all
those
      misunderstood signs, wrong
words, mistakes,

as far as
     eye can see landscape
of obstacle and
barbed
     wire

here where time is meaningless
and
     spanner in the works and
as a
consequence jammed
clockwork

but I did send
a dove with a message

if it reaches you if you
read it
        deep as I have tried to be
it is all neither here nor there

YOUR ROOM

YOUR ROOM

I spent
a night in your room
choosing the couch
over your bed,
my most regretted decision
(our bodies not
      in apposition

minds in the morning
finding opposition)

and me
   and what I am and
what you might
have transformed me to
be

leaving no trace
of
   me or
my passion

to feel its way into
that carpet, those walls,
adding to
        its meaning, its
flavour
with just a trace
of my identity
    with those others
past,
   current lovers

to whom
this just a room, you just
a woman, most
magical woman

to me
      a comedy, a tragedy,
my Midsummer Night’s Dream.

LITTLE

LITTLE

I knew so little
understood so little

read page
upon page but
nothing stuck
nothing sank in

lost everything, all hope
in that insane five minutes
with you
in your car

at Salt River Station
you told me brutally
bluntly you
did want to get involved
but here you are
your fingers desperate
out of control
all over me

suddenly, and me blind to it,
like some witness wonder in
an Achean tragedy
not seeing
    this mirroring of
desire
for what it is

falling
   out of love for you
for the briefest most
killing
    of moments

but there we are
years later
words spoken
memories on the table

edging towards each other
warily, uncomfortably,
uncertain of
our certainties

and the swansong
       only in a dream

me in your car thrown back
by g force this thing
propelled by a rocket
redlining
skimming the
rooves of the
city precincts before

heading into deep space
only place where love between
us
   such as it is
could ever be

CHORD

CHORD

I imagine
there is a script in my head

the page not yet in being
crying out for
birth by improvisation

wanting to go wherever
it wishes to go

meanwhile in the forest
Puck never foresaw King Crimson
never anticipated
the marriage
of Robert
and Toyah
Toyah and Robert

when these stories
                        tell themselves
they believe
brain states but pen dictates

something in the ether
flutes, strings or
maybe
     an eerie mellotron
singing, cross-
pollinating

I don’t know
whence or why all this comes

flows first
        like a trickle, then
a river flowing
through a capital city

but it comes
it comes
              turns time to
its tune

and you
     as always an inspiration
to me

serenading me silently
but inwardly I dance, have
no choice
           but to

your body
          raw rock and roll, incipient
heavy medal

your mind
Mingus, Davis jazz solo

your voice
   the missing solution to
every unsolved ancient philosophical
problem

every genre
zone and miracle  twist
in the plot, jaw
dropping moment

leaving no niche
left uncovered, hoard unfound
across that sweet topography

and every
molecule fibre
              crying out, imploring you
to fuse
with my mythology
jump aboard my allegory

become my inner metaphor
 
in the confused progressions of this symphony

the very Devil’s chord lurking
I do believe

ON THE DREAM DESERT ISLAND

ON THE DREAM DESERT ISLAND

on the dream
desert island we have
created

we lie half naked
eyes burning
in the dipping Sun

exploring our ideas
of life and love, poetry
philosophy

exquisite notions
touching on everything

until the physical world
with warm insistence
magnetic forces

turns our thirst
to explore
    from abstract
to concrete

the here and now of
desire and
union

under this sky on
this sand beneath
these palm trees

TINCTURE

TINCTURE

tincture of something
on my tongue

hard to place it
need to pin
it down exactly

outside the world its
raucous self, perhaps
even
   more cantankerous maybe

we talk softly therefore
defining our demeanor.
quietly desperate not
to say the wrong thing
feeling our
way towards acceptance,
adjustment

we wonder if this could be
the same small bustling cafe
from all
    those years ago

and if we would be doomed
or maybe fortunate enough
to enter into
the same debate

as to whether what
we are eating today
is canneloni or
lasagna
    how we see now that
time before when
we almost
   shared love

so close we were but
such a gap between us
in our mutual
understanding
    of the codes and syntax
governing
offers and
suggestion

so much lost though
perhaps here we are again
in disagreement

could there be
any “if onlys” that we
actually do share

the ghosts of that love and
metaphysical questions
raising the hypothesis that
ghosts
   could be lovers

so much here the same
so much that has changed

LOVE STORY

LOVE STORY

Not sure
what it was

if it is anything
you night call a
romance

a love
story

an orange cobra in the
short grasp
dancing for me
foot of the mountain
scales
catching the Sun

the grass grown tall now
no hope of that mixed
fear and
delight in once
more catching sight of her

turning serpent
myself
surrendering my life to her
my sweet
zero at the bone as
Ms Emily might
have
described her

whose young image it
will be
brought back from
all those years
ago

so lithe
so wise

as my eyes close
embracing darkness
with
a feeling
of love coiled up forever

full stop to everything.

LOVERS

LOVERS

millions
were making love
when the bomb
dropped

a fat few megatons
vaporized them instantly

moment when
dream and desire
annihilated themselves

love and death
in dark exactitude
of intensity
    so mirroring each
other

as if the species
was fucked from the moment it began

but
the poem still here

jury out
clock still ticking

lifetimes of love
still to resolve