Absent Friends

Again and again I stumble,
over my words and deepest intentions.
You hold me steady amidst fantastic detonations.

Where do I begin?
One summer day you cartwheeled in my gardens -
a house lost now, a moment passed, impossible -
and in that moment something clicked

I waited.
Would it pass, this stomach opening?
You would have stayed up all night
and stalk through the darkest places.

Later, after a film, amidst the throng
I hardened thinking of you
and the moment passed.

What a long waiting I've had of it
and further to go.
Piece you together, so much still missing.
And what I was trying to say
again and again was lost and disappeared in all the cracks between us.

10:11

a long slow remembrance of skin
on the soft edge of a hard memory
the taste of all night folding in
and spread until the morning

your hands searching out beneath
the folds and tucks of us
and then your face so serious
suddenly caught and loved ferociously

a memory unhinged against a hope
the moment when our hearts
and all belief thrown tumbling
into a brave new world of touch

Borrowings

In the invisible places
where the first thoughts stir

This body and its ongoing history

Like a looked at thing
being turned in all directions
Suddenly looking

A swapping of shadows
glimpses through a sped-past wood
desperate to be poured and underfoot
and in the heart and keeping that promise
upon which the sunlight takes its bearings

Somehow smelling of a sudden entering elsewhere

Carrying everything; keeping nothing

Summer Poem

She stepped into the garden
Slow motion in a summer dress
Light caught in points around her
Something in the air
After a year of refusing kisses

Any intimacy
Once spoken
Loses elasticity

She hovered in the doorway
As if the day would last forever
Endless moments inside her
Nothing to be done
She began to unravel

Until the Leaves Fell

The rot set in early

There was nothing to be done
For a soul already torn by being opened prematurely

The rot set in early

She never wore the dress
Except on days she knew the sun would charm her

The rot set in early

His tree spread arms enveloped every hope
And held her still through every possible disruption

Until the leaves fell

Who could have known?
What would give and what would take and who to trust?
When winter came she was warmed
by it's inevitability

Inside her the spring holding back

The rot set in early

It took
She barely felt it
But shook
Still, almost from convention

Some Thing

There was something about her
about the thoughts and their
articulation

There was something unfolding
always
in the conversation between us

Picked up and continued
despite the distances between
each moment borrowed from time

There was there was there
was there something about her
that couldn't be articulated

Something about the us
that we became
in conversation now and again

That made both of us bigger
than we had ever been alone

That Evening

The young man left
the door wide open,
warmed up a cold floor
made a space a home.

And I gave you
my heart
although you never asked
and we didn't touch.

Well of course it's a lie
because our job is illusion
and all of this time
our lives have been passing.

Now I feel something missing.
It's much too late and I
couldn't get back if I tried.

A bottle of coke
and your sweet mouth in passing
and all that lost time spent
avoiding what's missing.

That evening
you left open every door
and made me ready to walk through.

The Sad Night

Is this how a revolution happens?

A kiss on the hand
the quiet betrayal
history unravelling
through the tender gesture.

Lucky coincidence
the right man in the right year
mistaken for a god
you made a history of us.

I was to blame.
An untuned radio
through the longest night.
Dead within a matter of days
retreat and return.

This is how a revolution happens.

Begin Again

Here are the last words
to begin a new way
of existing in this world
with memory and desire
always in the now

Here now today
these are the old words
becoming new words
through the warmed up tongue
and desire always moving us on

This is a new day
in which we discover
a language of the body
politics and sex
preferably at the same time

This is our new way of loving
always
hands free
no fear
forever
yes