“and there is a swarm of objects that call without being answered,
and a ceaseless movement, and a bewildered man.”
. (Pablo Neruda)
Watching a hand trail the worn pattern of
embroidered leaves on a threadbare sheet:
A hand, softly trembling – its surface,
cold and cratered like a careless moon,
barely containing the veins that slowly
speed towards death;
a hand, [...]
“Give me in its parcel of hours
a slippery, silken forgettable day.”
. (Moniza Alvi)
You stiffen. Then you sigh. Nothing’s moving now,
not for the longest time. It is so quiet that I almost
hear your blood slow down and settle to a quiet humming.
The low, crazed buzzing of a bluebottle
reminds me of the old and rumbling iron beasts:
Those [...]
(Collage by Suzi Dennis)
“And ungraspable multitudes swarm, come together
in the crinkles of tree bark, in the telescope’s eye,”
. (Czeslaw Milosz)
What veil is lifted when we first see
love,
not as a gift – or worse: A prize
but as a play of light, catching or
caught
on the wings of a bird that has
no knowledge of ideas or
destiny.
Not even thought [...]
“while below, the foghorns bend to their work,
bringing home what is coming home,
blessing what goes.”
. (Jane Hirshfield)
I can remember that I read to you.
November, it was – in Prague, of course.
You were sitting in that chair
with the Communist upholstery,
that creaked each time you moved
to pick up a stitch (creaking like
the masts of [...]
“We could never really say what it is like,
this hour of drinking wine together”
. (Sharon Olds)
You never knelt before me,
drying my feet with your hair
but then I never claimed
to be a Saviour.
The water that we drank
may have been wine
but how should we have noticed,
with our flesh and shadows
melted and [...]
There are no footsteps.
No one will come.
. (Kate Rhodes.)
Before, I was afraid
of everything that might
be hidden in the dark.
I always feared I’d stumble
upon truth: Something
the night would fail to hide -
a pattern that might half reveal
the distance measured between breaths,
between the birth and death of stars
as nothing – as the space
between two [...]
“and anger is no more than some old clock
ringing to itself in ancient ruins”
. (Selima Hill)
I did not set out to be saved
or kept inside the prison of your
arms, the stern appraisal of
your mind.
If I am guilty, I am so
because I dared to dream
that you would not hold up
such mirrors.
As it is – and as [...]