We should make love upon a stage:
watched by millions upon millions;
our sighs and whispered words,
amplified and multiplied,
spread out amongst the stars.
All the world should see the beauty of your flesh -
aroused, your body flushed and wet;
your eyes half-closed,
your fingers curled upon themselves -
the glory of your hungry cunt and breasts.
The earth should tremble when you [...]
(for Rupert Brooke)
As the waves go home once more,
to dream or to forget;
the beach now still,
coated as with tears,
a new sun takes away.
A seagull dives or dies,
as the waves go home.
Some future beach will find its bones,
as beaches do eternally,
as the waves go home.
And is there time between the tides
to sample all our lives,
that waited [...]
A lot of people died on the job.
Some fell to their death
and some were crushed by falling stone.
Some hearts gave out.
But the church got built:
from the portals that one day Monet would paint,
to the gargoyles on the roof,
sitting there, grinning.
Knowing far more than they should,
who carved them out of nightmare stone,
all but invisible to mortal [...]
Writing words of milk and honey on your skin,
my fingers feather light and anvil strong,
raising nipples and goose flesh mountains,
indelible words of love and want,
all over you and into your skin:
mine to touch and to behold
(yours to offer or withdraw.)
Lower and lower the feather pen goes.
Milk and honeyed words and truth,
seeking for, reaching for, now [...]
Hanging from the branches of the Tree of Life
(snakes hissing up and down its trunk;
flies buzzing ferociously)
we grew and ripened -
till
(heavy with desire;
leaking sweet corruption)
thankfully we fell.
I am made of wild unreason,
running through my bones:
unreasonably proud and lustful -
wanting all
and touching all
and drinking, fucking, wildly trusting all.
All of me is all unreason,
all my thoughts exploding wildly:
butterflies
that start as demon storms -
storms that have no centre
and no check your luggage points.
All of me is wild unreason,
Gypsy blood that’s raining
from the bluest skies:
fierce [...]
I can see you naked in the morning,
opening the windows,
letting out the night.
I can taste the smell
of morning on your breath.
Early sun-beams stroke your body,
coat your hair with baby light.
Your eyes still moist with dream,
your lips half-parted;
breath
as sweet and warm
as sheets,
now left abandoned
on your bed.
I can see you now:
naked,
looking at the sky -
your back to [...]
I would like to read you slow pages,
feel the warm trickle of ink,
slowly engaging in summer enchantments;
taste the sweat of old spells
on sandpaper armpits and sandpaper tongues.
Sing a salty song of lust;
trust these old parchments, brimming with life,
covered with dust
and dripping, burning wax
of solemn seals and stolen keys.
Read you slow pages,
feel the warm trickle
of slow [...]
They are burning the crosses.
Jesus is dying, night after night,
on well-kept lawns,
all over the South.
Father, forgive them -
His sensitive lips explode.
His limbs are now melting;
longish black hair burns into bone.
They are burning the crosses.
You know how it feels,
when your hands are on fire
and you still are aware of the fact
that fingernails melt and don’t burn?
That [...]
Tell me a story.
The old man wept;
the ovens waited.
Tell me a story.
The old man somehow
forgot about his fears.
Tell me a story.
And told a fairytale of light
and dreams come true.
Tell me a story.
The ovens waited;
the child was happily asleep.
Walking through neon-lit rain,
turning a corner;
cutting a deck of choices,
turned to stone,
crumbling in his hands,
teasing the soles of his blackened boots.
Turning a corner,
turning a card
that holds no surprises;
the sound of spades
(neon-lit)
hitting stone.
Sparks of night dust,
like babies in a garbage-can
or pink and cosy cradles,
die without regrets,
without a tale,
a thought of time or loss.
Turning a corner,
facing the [...]
There is a time of life,
a time of night
that words don’t come to us
so easily -
no more the swarm
of music-torn, sweet words
or long, soft letters;
no more the simple confidence
that sentences breed life
and love;
that a sun-touched waterfall
of ways to say I love you
is enough
to make love happen.
There is a time of life,
a time of night
that we [...]
I live like long-forgotten soldiers,
locked in trenches,
for the hunger of the guns,
the skies that low as thunder,
purple grey and soft with snow,
now seek to cover us in longing.
My heart, like far-off hills,
now is the grave from where I rise,
remade.
The tired threads of uniforms
and scrap-yard medals melt
before your eyes.
Your skin, like early light,
now covers me.
Your eyes, [...]
Where the nail meets the wrist
and the tree tops explode
in a firework of birds,
going off in a wild change of heart
and a murmur of clouds
now gets caught in the light
of the razor-sharp wings
of angels, restored to the sky,
there I stand and I sing,
from the rooftops of hurt
and the ashes of dreams
and the emblems of hope:
in [...]
From the servant on the mountain
came the song.
The clouds still leaking colours
and the tall grass,
dressed in yellow plumes;
the birds a burst of laughter in between.
This is the glory,
the land;
the rivers that run it,
the trees that forgive it,
the rain and the wind
its applause.
This from the servant,
the master
and heir to the land:
I shall stand here and learn
how [...]
Back to the bridges,
back to the river once more.
Mud floor,
swan ceiling:
back home.
Me and a million other ghosts
dream about some past,
some ever fading future,
that won’t ask us
to take root.
No roots
and no commitments:
here to stay
and here to float,
forever.
No more faces,
no more skin -
the hollow of their throats,
the soft hair on their legs and arms:
no more.
Just silent ghosts,
a [...]
Into your arms,
your warmth and longing -
a drowning in caves,
a wonder of silence and need;
an opening,
opening up.
Your sighs
and tightening muscles,
widening eyes;
you’re all-embracing,
holding me,
now calling me.
Into your arms
and elf-shot nipples,
oven lips and cunt -
and all the words I whisper,
Heaven-bound;
my wild white mist inside you now.
All of me a calling:
take me in.
Be naked,
warm and flesh
and welcome heat.
Now [...]
Like a candle holds the feather light,
I hold you and I need
your grace and strength,
to rescue me from darkness.
Holding you,
like dreams of day,
inside the night I find
the strength to pray.
A midnight mass of hair
upon my bed -
and naked as the night,
hot pearls of stars,
bright light and darkness mingle,
melt.
You hold me,
take me in -
till all of me leaks into light,
and into you:
a break of Heaven now,
inside you.
Dancing lake,
rising to the wind;
your laughter
and the way
your soft-spoken voice,
your wisdom moves
the meadow towards lambs
and crows at play.
The way your fingers
sculpt the air,
your shoulders move
the unseen wings,
that make you angel bird,
waiting for the sky
to kiss your lips,
your eyes and hair.
Dancing lake,
whispering to the wind,
cleansing all that’s ugly,
hateful,
old -
cleansing all of me,
you fill my eyes
with rainbow [...]