they say write about happiness

and of faraway lands where the flowers are red and fragrant

and of peacocks and poems and picture books and forests verdant

the song inside is of sadness

of something beautiful, breaking in a flash

or slowly bleeding, oozing weeping sores years after

my lover leaving me mid-kiss on a sunlit evening in Venice city of water

 

sadness is memory that comes back to bite

in the waves that come and go

my love, have you seen shoals of sprat leaping, falling

as we watch, dying on our feet, the water trickling from under our toes?

 

sadness is voiceless, eyes morose dead, vacant in its many faces

 

the other day I laughed so hard my mouth turned inwards and lost shape

l painted a smile on , watched poppy fields turned blue

while the abyss inside mirrors the one outside in a desolate seascape

deep down the sadness in me, in my blood, skin and bones

column-like reaches the skies and boomerang-like pirouettes

 

Unseeing, unthinking

piece words unrelated

flowers in a vase

on the kitchen table

Lark, larkspur, lavender

 

When the night calls

answer

in words swallowed

in a life past forgotten

Eels, egalitarian, eccentric

 

then it’s morning

slicing sun through clouds

unopened eyes sleepy sex

harvest, hyacinth, harbour

 

a month is over

the thought still shattered

ravaged and unformed

the words meant

to disappear in bloodstream

vapid, victory, villify

 

like Rodin’s thinker

count words on  fingers

the tongue struggling still

to form the unformed

the pen curling, curling

to write the unwritten

 

 

 

 

 

Slowly, slowly, feel my fingers

stroking your forehead

wiping away the five folds moulded firm.

Exorcising you

of her with the long hair

sleeping clouds shaking serpents

of her with the anklets

drawing blood pricking memories

of her with the rings on toes you sucked

dry lips burning mouth

of her with the tattoos

seared into your skin flaming

of her with the dulcet voice

the tongue poisoning you

colouring your throat blue

 

Exorcise you of the past

fanning tendrils in your limbs

Slowly, slowly, chant in exorcise

Exorcise you

 

Your mind closes, shuts in

shuts in as I try

Your mind holds the beauties you have known

My love, they are burning you dry!

 

Healing you, I try

I am the exorcist, I try.

 

 

I will write you a poem 

It will twist

into you

like a corkscrew 

into stoppered Cabernet Sauvignon 

 

It will drill itself 

into your heart 

like an augur 

Boreholing hemispheres 

It will sit on your eyelids 

until they close 

unseeing the day

 

It will sift into your ears 

until they don’t hear 

wolves yodelling full moon blues

I will write you a poem 

to grow in you

evergreen boughs

suffocating weeds

I will write you a poem 

to submerge your words

like rains dissolving earth

to drown your voice

so that you don’t 

word-worship all your muses 

and make me wait my turn

 

 

 

What if this is

the only time we will ever meet

our paths crossing once over lifetimes

in a room like this, with windows in the right place

and doors set the way doors always are, in a corner

what if this is

the only place we will ever chance to be together?

 

You want a breeze, you wish a balcony with creepers

jasmine, lemon, where we can breathe a little;

the walls close in, all day

 

 

Then fingers taming what can’t be

fabric that slips off skin like memories

collecting thoughts and acts as keepsakes

Why do the good ones slip through, like silver fish

through fingers, pools of water?

Dark threads rise for days after

There is wine, cold on lips, on the body

more, more, I need more

 

 

What is never to be:

Why not the flowers I asked for

Why not the pictures to keep forever

Why not the doodles on palms

Why not a desire to let it linger

Why not a plan to whisper together

the poems which were to be birthed

unconceived now, always

 

 

What then if this is the only time we will ever meet?

If we’d thought this, if we’d known that was it: the walls,

lights glaring on the bed, this,

this the promised eternity

nothing more to look forward to

would we have looked for a clue

glanced a moment at those vast mirrors

to find an answer in our bodies, curled, prostrate

trying in vain the birthing that shall never be?