Ragged Claws

This is where the blood goes
and love songs come to rest:
onto the mountain,
praying for wings;
hold me,
Whoever is out there.
And out of body-bag cocoons
voices sing to Heaven.

I can play or be the child
but she will notice.
I can try to hide in words,
all kinds of thoughts and notions;
try to hide inside -
but she will notice.
She listens to me with her eyes:
never claiming,
never needful -
always ready with a smile that waits,
till I am done with all these words.
But she will notice.

I make our bed;
you make our breakfast.
Mister Chamberlain met Hitler.
I drink my tea;
you smoke your cigarette.
Mister Chamberlain got on his plane.
I look at you;
you try and smile at me.
Mister Chamberlain arrived at Heathrow airport.
I go to work and you must study;
we do kiss at the door.
Mister Chamberlain and his umbrella wave the treaty.
There’s nothing to [...]

My finger trails your spine.
Your face half-buried in the sand;
your hair now evening sky,
covering your eyes, your mouth;
the landscape that I love
and touch in awe.
Your shoulders specked
with sand and sweat,
bronzed and bare, are beautiful
reminders of the wings we used to wear,
before we made the flesh
a carnival of want and words.
My finger trails your spine;
all of [...]

Telling,
mesmerizing
tails
of
comets,
lost
in
beautiful
reminders
of
frozen
space.
Shooting,
falling
stars:
wishing
nothing
would
and
nothing
could
ever
touch
me.

So you want a poet for the night,
forget yourself,
while you listen to his stories
of love and death and waiting -
and what was your name again?
Lies are so easily remembered.
You are a poem I wrote long ago,
for someone passing in the street.
Are you that poem?
I remember poems.
What was your name again?
Yes, I think I remember now:
April [...]

(And I would offer you my bones
and restless talk of dreams and love?)
Ah yes, but you are beautiful;
a light that moves the universe
from stupid and contained
to God-spill wonder.
(And I would offer you my love
and restless wounds?)
And where am I,
so old and naked,
stupid and alone,
still dreaming of angels.
(And I would offer you my love,
be mid ship [...]

Huntress moon,
your skin so soft and pale
against my dark-filled throat;
my fur and nails and nose,
so open to all threats,
all killing and all feeding sounds,
that fill this nightmare wood.
Protector moon,
your light now seeking me
and keeping me alive;
now telling me
there is no need to hide in fear;
that you will see me safe,
all through the longest night.

Where is the spider
that I saw this morning,
mending its web,
recovering but not retreating
from the storm,
that hit its web last night?
And where are you:
what storm,
what private longing broke the threads
that kept you safe?
Are you recovering,
Retreating?
All these nights and all these storms,
these endless mornings:
what are spiders and mere mortal minds to do?
Sipping my third or fourth cup [...]

Like any God
I have a junkie heart,
existing for the rush
of that one first, true word,
that one defining moment,
that a universe is born;
waiting for that one true touch
of lips and teeth and tongue and throat,
exhaling, eating, breathing, being -
living for the wonders
of that one first syllable of love:
you - and only you remaining.

What is the surface sound of love?
How do the roof of lake and moonlight mingle?
What is urge to touch soft skin,
a young mole mountain fill of breast
and what is certain knowledge,
that your life
will never be the same,
an empty hush of grave,
without her?
What is the surface sound of love,
where lust and need are but poor shadows
of [...]

Another winter’s almost gone.
At last,
the ghosts of spring
are getting restless;
wood of winter coffins
tears and breaks;
hopeful, hungry tendrils
push through mud and lime of leaves.
One ritual awaits,
as old as time itself:
young blood
that must be spilled,
to teach the buried ghosts
of spring,
how to breathe again,
to live.
I offer you my heart,
my soul,
my warm and leaking blood.
I will go down
and call [...]

Dew clings to cobweb silk:
an elfin trampoline,
where spider dreams
come close to truth,
come close to hunger,
feeding on the microscopic details
of all epic endings.
Here is beauty,
hunger beauty:
dawn’s early light
in mystic glowing;
the forest and these heartbeat seconds,
wild and ever dying,
ever greedy.
But then, through lashes
that are clumsy still with sleep and dream,
I look at you -
and fear and forest [...]

Love is not enough
and hope will never do.
We know all stories
end with death:
a pale and grinning horse,
that has no time for prince
or maiden.
We know all that -
and yet we tell our stories,
keeping night at bay.
We are so brave and tempest-tost;
we spit into the face of Gods
and sing our hopeful dirges,
through the stinging smoke of funeral [...]

There are no words without wounds
to colour the blood and the healing;
the heart that grows stronger
with breaking at times -
so much stronger in love
and in knowing that pain
and these wounds and these words,
that describe and can’t live
in these colours of hurt,
are a function of love
and of trust and of hope:
that some day,
yet again,
I will love.
And [...]