In the ivy cloaked quiet
the grey will close around me
and you may never find me again
here
I will curl against the leaden hart
and rest beneath his belly
sleep upon his shoulders.

No, the wind did not speak
of your coming
Stone voices silence,
blindness is no stranger.
I would lie amid the freesia with you
but fear your rennaissance noise.

Still,
we shall speak no more of this;
I will bury my heart
beneath the rosebushes
and cry in the pool
beneath the trees.
Turn left,
because the hart turns left,
and I will sleep beneath the lichen
my face against the clouds.

You may search
at the hospital for wounded angels
where I'll be trying on
new wings.

90

This mourning
wears me
like a blanket,
stretched i am
around my grief;
this mourning
wears your name
like twilight
wears the day gone by.

This mourning
is a box that closes
a puzzle-box
of endless latches,
this mourning
gives me small surprises
wrapped in chains of tiny lies.

This mourning
is the sun not shining,
your eyes not shining like the sun;
this mourning
is the lying down of two
who wake as one.

97

Bad Karma

how do i hate thee?
let me count the ways...
i hate you like oil hates water
like acid hates bleach
like a really really really bad virus.

i hate you from the
deepest
blackest
festering
pits
of my soul,
from the places where i grow
gangrene
pus
warts
and hangnails.

i hate you
with every atomic fiber
of my body;
my teeth
my hair
my bones
wish for your destruction
with every breath
that fills my lungs
i ache for your undoing.

my children would hate you
were they more than unconcieved ideas;
my ancestors curse your living flesh
with their dusty jealous lips;
i have trained my cat
to pee on the clothes
you left on the bathroom floor,
and i re-routed your mail to tasmania
yesterday.

i hate you so much
if you stood on my doorstep
and cried
for your wrongs
and begged for me
to take you back,
i would.

96

upon these still and silent rocks
we lay our hopes,
the moon above us
painting the sand
in white light and sorrow...

look -
nothing else here matters;
if we walked from each other,
from this place,
the trail of our footsteps
would always meet...

step into the water,
feel it run through your fingers
each drop falling
into the music of the spheres;
do not be afraid -
our hearts can hold the oceans
and still have room
for each other...

lying in the waves
i open to you,
floating my fear into the undertow
praying for relief
and completion;
lay your hands upon me,
heal this trust
i have torn apart inside myself
and i will give you
a king's ransom
in smiles...

leave the stones under your feet
and carry the water in your hands;
these wings will hold us
high enough
to walk upon the sea
if we believe...

96

Old Lover

his face
crossed the room
like a curse.

my cigarette bound me
to this small section of
space
and i tried to remember
frantic
how to leave inconspicuously
and failed.

wearing my best face,
i could only wait for his greeting
hoping i did not appear
dressed in bedsheets
and welcoming.

96

it was a simple explanation
that i never could explain...

a little angst for breakfast
and a coat around my soul
i wrote you poems in the bathtub
and i carved a little hell
in the back of the big mirror
that i hung beneath your sigh
but it was never more than nothing
it was never more than something
sometimes it could be anything
this lie

it was a simple explanation
that i never could explain...

you called yourself an angel
and i met you in the sky
i held you up against the sun
and melted you in rhyme
is poetry the end of reason?
let’s be practical, we said
but it was never more than nothing
it was never more than something
sometimes it could be anything
what we read

it was a simple explanation
that i never could explain...

now i hate you, no i love you
you're a band-aid on my heart
you’re a coda, you’re a symbol
you’re a shaped and subtle art
of the retelling of my secrets
into something huge and fake
but it was never more than nothing
it was never more than something
sometimes it could be anything
a mistake

it was a simple explanation
that i never could explain...

doff my hat and seal the box
buy another deadbolt lock
wrap it up in masking tape
call it just a willing rape
tell the world it wasn’t you
deny, destroy, rebuild anew
fuck you all and jesus too

but...

It was never more than nothing
it was never more than something
it was a simple explanation
that i never could explain...
It was never more than nothing
but sometimes it felt like everything
like the world upon my shoulders
like an ancient chinese secret
like a rocket, like a hammer
like an angel in the rain.

96

The Spaceman's Last Question

Do we dream in the icy stasis-state?
Do we dream when the heart beats hours apart?
When we close our eyes in cryonic sleep
do the images still float and flow?

Do we dream as the years go floating by,
do the landscapes unfold to the mind's frozen eye?
Do we picture our loved ones, our hated ones, those
who indifferently wander around in our sky?

Is it like sleeping or is it like death,
or is it the shadowland hung in between?
As we float between stars in our small metal barge,
do we dream, and when woken remember those dreams?

97