THE LINGERING
the sadness
of never knowing you
the real you
always looking
from the outside
seeing the people
you are close to
and this
I show you now
is that image of you
I hold onto, keep
in my heart
Oh if
I could just relive
that captured moment
feel once more
feel once more
those small, exquisite, endearing joys
that deep, sublime, long-
lasting,
lingering pain
CASCADE
sometime I don’t know when
feels beyond anywhere
where cosmic logic demands
we should meet again
let us
live the moment on it’s own terms
forget the past
forget all that crazy quantum stuff
about parallel universes
alternate histories
not even how it might
have been had we
got things right
where
with beautiful timing
a right word was said
the rest
thereafter just
cascade
after cascade
GUITAR
my telephone beeps
it does
not speak
it tells me
her message is here
was
holding my breath
but now
I can breathe
this is what she wrote
fingers that once
tippy-
toed now
dancing across
the keyboard
express
delivery
heart to
heart
(would those nimble
fingers were
here
plucking my strings
playing me like
a rock guitar)
EDGE
only a love descant
could be that beautiful
unless we consider
the melodies of death
whose
melancholic timbre
haunting finality
succinct
completion
all things considered
give
it the edge
SUN GIRL
what is it
about these lionesses?
this one pitching up
late trashing my party
all because
by right should
not
allow myself to
feel depressed on this day
by immortal decree can
only be pure
ray
of sunshine
Gil Scott-Heron cassette flashing past my ear
hurled
with such
aggrieved force
birthday present saying
the sender she so pissed this
not
(however revolutionary)
going to be
televised
such an apt and thoughtful
sought -out gift
thrown with much
malice or
that thing called
love
I had failed to recognize
POEM FOR HELEN NATASHA
tough love
cruel to be kind
but let mention she
who needed to win
most of all
see her favourite’s name
up in the city of lights
Achilles slain
the towers fallen
she who was raped
less than harmoniously returned
and who, being man,
being man born of woman
would be so
out of his right mind
to vote
against her
spurn that offer
she flirting with the idea
of full divine disclosure
revelation
of that so in utter excess
of mere mortal beauty
mere legendary
beauty of
a Spartan Queen
straining against the bit
holding back unless
her hero
lose his sight
die sublime
kind to
be cruel
cruel to be kind
LONG NIGHT
let me walk you through
the length of a night
the breadth of a poem
sorry if you so surely Shelley
about the nature of rhyme
miss a beat, grimace
flutter as the lines stutter
not Homer blind but
pretty much a
stick-shuffling cripple
trying to make it through
short days
long nights
when you so cookie-cutter
about everything
dial in delivery
everything on the menu
from hot to
G spot
long night love afterglow
basking in luxury
let me
cuddle my pen
dishing you
this trash
EDIFICE
let’s start with the cliche
we used to drive past
your supreme campus
buge, lofty bukldings
and I used to dream
of being here, battling
my way against
the odds
tp achieve some
sort of degree
taking two trains
to ger here
and the climb
up the mountain
red gown red wine
one glorious moment
standing in the sudden
sunlight
outside of the Hall
my very lazt dsy
and you
your last day here too, twenty
four years earlier
younger
that previous graduation
(already becoming
part
of the furniture)
and thinking
here in this place doomed
blessed to always
keep crossing paths
quantum entangled, caught
in the same
fine-
spun web
not really not really
empirically verifiable
falsifiable
just two names once spoken
in the same passing
oblique sentence
two names
to conjure with, before
they
headed off in different directions quite
diametric
and me long before this
floating past the University
in my father’s car
making
a wish
TRUNK CALL
trees get caressed
the wind don’t give two hoots
about how
gnarled the trunk
venerable the branches
me, however,
not so lucky
had to donate
my sex manuals to charity
now the print
grown
so small
funny how it happens, how
time loses elasticity
my sprint becomes
an amble
becomes a crawl
but you
faithful breeze
finding blossoms around
my boughs could
not believe
I had
something under your
touch eager to
comply, act
in
concert
go reciprocal
be bathed and baptised
believe in
gospel of my resurrection
what you whispering here
poems 2 die for