Walking through the streets
with all these dreams and ghosts,
caught by a shiver of moon,
a passing cloud -
a passing moment of perfection
in a sigh of stars,
that bathe me
in their distant glory.
Walking through the streets,
my heart a waiting murmur,
my lips now pause for breath,
one word: your name -
and now the night
(this miracle,
transformed)
is made of new beginnings.
Walking [...]
Tonight I’ll disconnect the phone
and lock all doors
and close the curtains.
It will be me and my TV,
some sushi maybe
and some wine.
The couch and comfy cushions
now a small tropical island
in a sea of quiet bliss.
I’ll start with something light
and frothy - something
that will make me smile:
‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ or
‘Beauty and the Beast‘,
‘Great Expectations’ maybe,
before [...]
The glamour of your face,
your hair now loosened in dark waves:
the sudden rightness of these moments -
all of me now here in trembling awe,
kneeling (praying)
tongue-tied to your flesh
and rising heat.
(I need - I need so much to see you,
taste you on my skin,
embrace you
and lay waste to years of caution,
soft despair and waiting.)
The earth-bound magic [...]
(I can see the shape of your dreaming
and touch the stem of your breath.)
Your lips surround me now.
You take me in,
like flames that taste
the heart of the wood,
and words on skin
or bone-carved flutes,
like a shock of warmth,
as the butcher’s hand
or a priest holds up
the heart of the Lamb.
Your lips surround me now.
You take me in.
(I [...]
The grain of the wood,
fastened and softened
by time and breath;
these pebbles so smooth,
coated and left
with the silk of dead waves;
and you, all of you, your flesh
so awake to my longing, my touch -
and more beautiful yet
than all these reminders
that night will embrace us
and change us in time.
Waking to the moment of your touch
I hold my breath and body
like an altar, like a kiss.
(I want to hold your breath
upon my tongue; I want to
weigh your touch upon my skin.)
As the light needs an horizon
to submit its colours
to the weight of night
(I want your eyes on me,
all over me,
your lips to take me [...]
You’re like a Rembrandt,
painted on the edges of slow
moving, moonlit clouds,
a promise that the world
is full of wonders,
new beginnings and encounters.
My love, you’re all the stories
that will start
tomorrow or tonight,
and all the waiting
turned to soft applause
and laughter,
all the moments that are
left for me to love and
hold you till the end of light.
And when it ends
it grows so quiet.
Logic has a weight to it
and so does magic.
Love,
when it is gone,
moves beyond time
and distance
and it grows so quiet.
Some journeys start like stories,
some like dreams.
(I can see the shape of your dreaming
and touch the hem of your breath;
these sheets, dressed in darkness,
touching your flesh.)
Strange journeys,
strange frontiers,
where some things end in stories,
others move like dreams.
(I can’t see my skin
through these fields of you;
all my seasons bound
to a touch of you.)
God (but you are beautiful)
I whisper,
half afraid to breathe
or close my eyes.
So beautiful
(and here with me)
and I am old
and I am hungry (lonely)
and not used
to worlds of wonder.
Come.
(She comes to me.)
And I am naked and I die
a miracle of dreams.
Dreaming,
cold and beautiful,
winter is back home again
in Prague,
like ghosts of lovers,
cigarettes and smiles,
the smell of beer
in crowded cellar bars,
the darkening rooms
and shadow time -
everything now reaching
for this sleepy, soft embrace.
The bridges rise in magic shapes
of rounding dreams
and coming back to where
the one you want is waiting.
My love, all of my dreaming
must be like the [...]
I wake up from dreams
I half remember.
All I know
is you were there.
Some childhood stuff,
some broken toys
served as background
to these songs of need.
Where do we go,
eyes closed,
if not to find some meaning
and blind images of hope?
I crawled upon a beach,
trailing bits of you and bits of me
and building up
this shadow of a soul,
waking up from dreams
I [...]
Tu es si belle, comme le soleil
qui marche dans les rues d’hiver,
qui touche la neige
et les arbres nus et dormants,
qui est là chaque matin,
chuchotant à moi:
Je suis içi… et je t’attendrai quand tu reviendras à la maison du printemps.
Wolf to your forest,
moss to your dreaming of trees -
I await,
all teeth and all feeling;
both wild and tamed -
and unreal
till you call me.
Call me: I’m there
to be nothing or breathing.
Call me: I’m yours,
to live or to drown.
All must be yours to decide now:
who lives and loves
or will die.
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.