So you ask me why. Okay, let’s see. It is Paris and it is winter and it is raining. The old and rounded stones are slick with oil and mud and the millions of burnt corpses of abandoned cigarettes. Head down, I cross the street: hurried but still haunted by the spectre of that old [...]
The red and brown, dry paper leaves
now do their dying season dance.
They float on air
and in their slow, slow gravity
of suicidal timing
they spin, they tumble
and they fall towards the quiet pond
that waits, all trembling surface,
in silent, silver, circular breath,
before it mirror freezes.
My hand now waiting for a breath,
a sign that here,
this is the season of [...]
And now this holy moment;
spent,
the blood withdrawing
and the moving done.
And now you whisper softly
and your lips
and arms still hold me,
draw me in.
And now my heart a furnace,
ticking,
cooling off -
and time restored.
And now you smile at me.
Your fingers lick my hair
and dress my body
for the night.
The singer takes his song to bed.
The sculptor takes his marble to the dance.
And I - I make a bonfire of these pages
and let the flames and shadows lick your skin
The days, like wooden bows of ships,
are lost against the silence in between
the gathering darkness and the waiting sea.
And in the red-lined throats of passing gulls
I seek the night and hunt you down,
where dreams invade the silent forms of man.
I look for you, like hungry fingers seek the clay;
like breath draws blood from paper cuts
and [...]
The lone bird flies too high
to cast a shadow on the land.
The desert down below lies simmering.
A stone clad in a haze of heat
leans into a wind that doesn’t come.
(CHORUS:
To be without you now;
without hope, without shade.)
The branches of the tree reach down
and almost touch the silver stream.
A stone breaks through
the surface of the river
and [...]
1)
I buried some friends.
I heard of the death of someone I loved.
I think I’ve done my bit for mourning.
I’m so fed up with death - that useless clown,
prancing on furnaces and bits of fake grass.
Safe from death for now we mime the hymns,
treasuring the failures that we came to bury.
2)
This is my testament:
I loved to [...]
I heard the birds of prey
shrieking,
preaching to their congregation:
Those who cannot eat better be silent.
Those who have no claws or sharpened beaks,
be silent.
Those who don’t tear flesh,
your tears are no shelter.
Your image is not of our making,
not to our liking.
Your voices are sweet as the pitiful flesh,
left for your Maker.
Now pray.
Walking the streets
(echoes of blood,
echoes of shame)
she’s got rainbows,
rainbows of hurt as her gains.
Lips that kissed too often,
eyes that drowned in flames,
she knows the rules,
she knows the game.
She’s got rainbows,
rainbows of hurt to her name.
There’s no turning back,
no turning back from the lies
or truths of fallen grace.
Walking the streets,
dreaming of silk on a bed of [...]
His masters have become the politicians,
hiding their old medals in the dark.
They’ve grown so fat on light,
they cannot tell the present from the past.
He remembers the days of secret glory:
the nights of grey,
the nights of prey,
the silent killings and the public trials.
The streets were filled with broken dreams
of pride and dignity and freedom.
There were so [...]
The sun must be a liquid:
a molten fire -
one gigantic Johnny Walker in the sky.
The moon an afterthought:
an aspirin -
small wonder all those astronauts get blasted.
Three o’ clock:
the hour of Rubicon.
One more drink and I am home and here to stay.
I could ask for the bill
and leave under the pale, protective sign
of Sister Aspirin.
One more [...]
SHE:
You took my emeralds and silver bracelet,
cut them to pieces - smashed them
against the oldest murder Heaven knows:
a grey and bitter ceiling of sooth and smoke.
You hung them like slabs of rotten meat,
a beaten corpse; a testament to bloody hunts,
dripping its silver whispers of life:
a broken string of shiny dreams.
HE:
Ah, but I loved you when [...]
And here’s to Mata Hari dancing.
Wrapped in thirty pieces of dirty silver cloth,
barelegged, barefooted and her hair undone,
her long, pale neck exposed,
she sings her stories to the passing clouds.Her toes, kissed by army officers last night,
are cleansed by rain and mud.
Her pains are now forgotten
and the general’s rusty sword
not even worth a shrugged-off answer.
I love [...]
Poverty and love must suit me well
(but then I never knew much else.)
Lonely to a fault I dare not mention hope
(or pay too much attention to its markers.)
I am this paper dragon, floating like a leaf,
(drawn to places where small death must gather.)
I’ve known these loves more intimate than death,
(carrying the other like a tune [...]
In the garden of rocks snakes grew
and they grew fat;
they grew heavy on the night.
In the garden of rocks
Man’s heart soon blossomed.
In the garden of rocks God’s voice was heard:
These are My words; these are My laws.
On rock My words will blossom.
In the stony heart of Man
the snakes grew fat and heavy.
She took me to the crossroads of the skin.
She breathed on me - she let me in.
She showed me all her secret places.
And while I thrust my blood and stories into flesh
and traced the lava through my veins
and through her died and rose again,
she laughed and hooked her nails into my back.
She rolled like the [...]
Across the road the summer park,
the trees and the lake and the moon
are dreaming.
Here, inside this soft cocoon
of slightly rumpled silk and wool,
all is warm and silent.
Our flesh a song that went to Heaven,
found it wanting and returned to earth
to sing these songs of passion once again.
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I want to be the baby
that you hold against your breast.
I want to feel your nipple find my tongue
and rise and bleed soft milk all over me.
I want your flesh to be a cloud that covers me;
my fingers be the roots that hold and move you.
All of me the soil that enters and protects you.
I [...]
And once again there is no fear,
when you’ve climbed out of the valley,
past the clouds
and all you’ve left behind
a half-remembered dream.
High upon the mountain,
where the wind is cold
but whispers of things that pass
and things that cannot change,
there is no fear.
The wings you made and carried to the top
are no burden anymore;
like Icarus ascending
or any witless [...]
Storm the night and break the Gates of Heaven.
This the whisper in the trees,
that turn their leaves to the rumours of spring.
Now done with death
and done with grieving,
they drive their roots into the waiting soil.
Hold her, hold her tight.
This the clamour of the cranes,
returning from the sun,
the shores of Lake Manyara.
Hold her to the light [...]