The hangman shakes the hand of the convicted,
measuring his weight.
The priest who has no stomach for these things
holds tightly to the shaking holy Bible in his hands.
Last night the murderer confessed his sins;
confessed to him.
There was not one he hadn’t heard
so many times before,
from the judge who summarized the trial
or the members of the jury,
delivering [...]
The tip of your cigarette
dances through the air:
quick-quick-slow & ready to go.
The rising smoke’s just hovering,
happy to hang around
for another short while.
Today was not a good day.
The buzzards were circling low.
I only came in here to drink
and drink,
give up on thought for now.
(The tip of your tongue
now tasting every sentence
you will not pass on the [...]
From a thousand potholes
filled with rain
one lonely moon looks up
and searches for its mirror
somewhere in the sky,
between the angry breath of
clouds and pin prick stars.
And I have come to sing to you.
I bring to you these
gifts of reckless longing;
to mirror the perfection
that I see in face and hips,
a flash of thigh,
the curve of lips -
I [...]
Â
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 [...]
(For C: Each day you do become more beautiful to me)
What hand
What tremors raised these mountains,
filled these seas?
What forces tore my clay apart;
remade it into something new -
something strange,
and raw, and bleeding?
The hand that made you
made my bed
from broken stars
and fractured light.
I would love you,
in wild despair
and silence.
In groves of unborn trees
and ghostly fruit,
I would love you.
I would love you,
in a breath of Gods,
a wake of lovers.
Mourning for the sight
of moments passed,
I would love you.
I would love you,
all of me undone -
all grieving for your touch.
I would love you,
for the light and flesh
that I once entered.
The nails of the tree scrape the window at night.
The clouds are keeping very still
and the face of the moon
will soon fill out
with promises of angry blood.
Cats fight in the dark
over souls that dared not seek new territories.
Like mice they flee and are disassembled.
In bedrooms blankets are the key
to a safe passage through the dark:
tucked [...]
Enola Gay,
deliver us from madness.
Cleansing fire from Heaven,
take our Sodom hearts
and our Gomorra tongues -
and make us pay.
For we have sinned;
oh, how we’ve sinned
against our jealous Lord.
Tear up the Covenant:
we are not worthy of the rainbow
and Your light.
Send us Your son,
Your only child:
Enola Gay,
deliver us Your Little Boy.
Engulf us in Your flames,
for we have sinned.
For R.
It’s four in the morning. The square is empty; the snow lies untouched. I see your breath: a white glow that almost enfolds me. Your hand warms my hand. I look up, from the green-moulded statue of Jan Hus, past the chimneys on the rooftops and the spires of the cathedral, to the low [...]
Rebirth is a bitch. It hurts like Hell and it would be quite simply the most humiliating thing that could ever happen to a person, were it not for the fact that it gets worse with each new incarnation. There is, quite frankly, nothing worse than being reborn.
What was that you said? Death? You think [...]
No suffering is unimportant.
There is no greater good;
no units more important
than the individual soul.
Not need.
Need is a myth invoked to tell us
there are ends to meet,
that disregard the others.
Not love (not necessarily.)
What most of us call love
is too self-centred to be trusted
and too vain.
It can’t be fear.
It can’t be hope, whispering
its stories in the night
but [...]
In slow, slow motion the stick comes down:
a man lies bleeding in the street.
Soon the blood will stop its desperate running.
It’s not a sight or sound uncommon to the city.
Cars go by and sirens call for witnesses,
who need not carry red-striped canes
to tell the cops they didn’t see a thing.
No angels coming down to fetch [...]
1
The lone bird flies too high
to cast a shadow on the land.
The desert down below lies still,
lies simmering.
A stone clad in a haze of white and heat
leans into a wind that doesn’t show.
2
The branches of the tree hang low
and almost touch the river.
A stone breaks through
the surface of the stream.
Diamond-fractured, reaching
for the evening light, it [...]
That evening,
the shadow of the olive tree
came down from the hill,
where bits of cork
and crumbs of bread
were carried away by ants.
Our revenant embraces,
knotted and dry as wood,
flickered in the ashes of some fire.
Places to go (a chorus whisper)
places to go -
in haste and time.
That evening,
the olive branch was swaying in the wind.
Ants ate the carcasses [...]
(For Renata)
“Come.”
I can hear you but I am so far away…
(…I am Columbus on the foredeck, listening to the sound of an unfamiliar surf. Seagulls draw lazy circles in the sky. I think of all the things that are so far away from here and from this moment:
the carts that moaned under the [...]
Just in this moment - not looking at you
I can see the things that I would love to do:
to kiss a naked shoulder,
touch and tremble - trembling lips:
my lips would never be
at home with yours.
Forever strangers,
they would meet
in moist, exotic places.
So easy, again,
to get carried away -
so Goddamn easy.
Not looking at you
I can see everything [...]
Ink becomes crude oil;
my thoughts like seagulls,
coated in this thick black waste.
What makes it
so damned hard
to say I love you?
Fuck the seagull and the sea,
the tanker split and bowing
like a dream come true.
(Now would be the perfect time
to quote a bit - give rein: well-educated
and performing to the needs of poetry.)
Fuck that; I love you [...]
Our hearts like flocks of gulls
(the white of feathers, torn from waves)
all noise and desperate flight.
We are winged orphans of the sea,
caught between the tides
of love and isolation,
where all is hunger,
all is fear - and all
the blinding white of hope.
The elders were inside, deep down in their bunkers. They couldn’t bear to watch the sky during this week. However broad and deep this new sky was, all eyes would always travel to that one small pinpoint of bright light: the latest star to join the endless, silent choir of night’s bright passengers.
The children called [...]
It is the night, the silent shroud that calls
upon these images of soldiers,
locked in trenches,
waiting for the order to arrive,
tomorrow or tomorrow:
to rise and leave the safety
of the dull and horrid clay,
the company of the newly dead,
and join the screaming and the silent;
those who were hung on the barbed wire
or lie half-drowned, half-frozen
in the [...]