FIVE MINUTES

FIVE MINUTES

five minutes
with you

and you
had rewired everything

can you imagine
what deconstruction,
reconstruction
if I had
   spent a
night?

wandering
out from your arms
into the morning light
totally zombified

only for you
to catch me, hold me
whisper
      our
new secret code

and watch
my insides
turn
silver
otherwise gold

my eyes
see
    through everything

my wings
begin to grow

FORTHCOMING

FORTHCOMING

I beseeched the Universe
for a poem
so many
times I asked
but not one
was forthcoming

until
  much time passed
and suddenly then
fire and
massive winds
ripping through
the sky

poems everywhere
pieces of paper rising
falling
     floating, burning
like lanterns above
tiny boats
on the sea

too many by far
to catch and read
anything like
enough
really

but fire and wind
conspiring to
create
this scene of
crazy beauty

final triumph of poetry
even as it disappeared

final
flowering nothing
able to
surpass
as if
by definition.

BE

BE

end of the road
and so branching, back-
tracking, trying to
figure our evolution
before it takes
us on a path

somewhere where we
can live at ease
with the hostility of
the Universe to life
and yet
    perfect chemistry for it

figure out a way
to escape
     this impasse find
ourselves rethinking

overthinking
this Universe demanding
consciousness of us
demanding intelligence,

darkest
dialogue

why can’t it just let us be?

OR DO NOT SMILE

OR DO NOT SMILE

came to see you
found you in mood
assertive yet contemplative

strolling along the beach
inner peace broodingly tempered
by some dark cloud momemts

only adding to my sense of your
backbone, resilience, tensile strength

or perhaps you were
as I had half expected
sultry, inviting,
familiar
simply sitting on the beige sand
taking in everything
perhaps waiting
    for he who is indeed legendary
beyond compare,
or perhaps
just isn’t, will dupe you
in a masterclass of
male manipulation

and then we saw each other
which was a delightful
surprise or
might equally not have been

it’s all about probability
what
     the Universe at
its smallest is
determined to
decide for us

lifting up mountains in
a million year
blink, alternatively
                 grinding down
   
   and there we have it
all that is
and was and will
forever be

openly there between us
and openly
                   not between us

nothing in the cosmos
we know of
           to bend
in opposite direction
               the rigid arrow
of time

unless as we see
here
     not just bending but
completely melting

and
    seeing all that was fixed
and figured
helplessly dissolving

we see each other smile, are
sunshine
     or do not see, or
do not smile at all
             


UNLESS THEY DID

UNLESS THEY DID

you wake up
it’s all
a dream

all the usual
clear lines of differentiation

unless
scriptwriter killed you off
at home
she, they
still waiting for you

one of those inept
final episodes
wrecking what
had been a great show,
truly memorable series

or maybe
they forgot you, overlooked you,
left you in subplot limbo
no hope of resolution

twist to
the tale they decided
not to run with knowing
it was all
about to be
cancelled

narrative development no
one cared about
cares about

unless they do
unless they did

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

TAKES YOU BACK

TAKES YOU BACK

tell me
about simplicity

three chord song
garage band

haiku where
every breathing syllables
cut with
a scalpel

but there again complexity
structures with
levels nested
within
levels

incredible
architecture

you followed all
the arrows and
then were
surprised
to find yourself

facing
   you humming
a simple tune

you either never
heard before
or
takes you back

TAKES YOU BACK

TAKES YOU BACK

tell me
about simplicity

three chord song
garage band

haiku where
every breathing syllables
cut with
a scalpel

but there again complexity
structures with
levels nested
within
levels

incredible
architecture

you followed all
the arrows and
then were
surprised
to find yourself

facing
   you humming
a simple tune

you either never
heard before
or
takes you back

POEM IS WAITING FOR ME

POEM IS WAITING FOR ME

poem
is waiting for me

but I am not there
pen and
paper crying out

but no words, no letters,
nothing there
on the page
to remain
    unread

to add nothing,
exactly nothing

maybe
I should tell the poem
to switch itself
to go
automatic pilot

where I
feel that
there is nothing
to say, 
   no place to
start

poem can write itself
fill the page with
brilliance or
nonsense
whatever it feels
on the whim
of the moment
whatever it
    absolutely has
to say
   express from
its core, its heart,
plunder from the depths

find
   a truth to explore
simply
fill the page with

add
   its piece

to all that has
      been written, revered
and so much talked about