the constant mystique of well-organised chaos

70

could there be late nights
and sweet reckoning
with honey-scented
lights, leaving their
traces over the linger
of a sigh

i'll tell you you're magnificent
you'll tell me i'm strange
and we'll feel all of
the things we want to feel
eschew the things we don't

could this be the sky alll
around us-a ribboned
blue box unfolding slowly
weaving its mystery
in drunken, heady
sensation

i'll write about the now
you'll sing about this life
and we'll glow uncomplicated
traveling measured by
the distance of breaths

could this be the calm cupped
comfort, steam and warmth
swallowed, you-
me, banished from
obscurity, made conscious
tangible and held

i'll tell you it's heaven
you'll tell me it's good
and we'll skip the dark
paths for a landscape paved
with the horizons of
everything we imagine.

snowglobed

bring a rush to
my bed shaking
in the upturned view
from a window-
it's sky blood falling
through airy, unfinished
veins

make me hide
my head in pillows
hands eyes closed
symphonies-
felt through tunneled
bones,delivered
echo

stretch out this day
under a breath held
like drowning rushes
gasping-
never stray from this place
of safety, childlike
wisdom

exchanges without words
flickering sun brings
the energy in bouncing
laughter-
easy now easy as though
the past never
bruised

found, and never lost

i am in love with the world
because you are alive
and no battle of flesh,
artillery, mere men can
take me away

and i am in love with the light
that freckles our skin
and we share the gap of an hour's
sun, chins raised
and eyes solemn, so
reflective of a rare cloudless
distance

i will come to you shy
this first time, the gaze down
my back, and you within
the safety of arms, the limbs
that shall love only you

and when you come
to me strong all wrong will
molt away, and this,
the remedy of history will
write anew as though
the snake of the past
should never exist

this will be the night of
two souls formed as a single
sentient thinker, lover
whole-being, completeness
born as one, and the hunters
the gatherers will cease
the sport

and there will be no need.

there will be no hunger,
no longing, no strike for
blood in thought or
in the body, and
this will be love

yes, this will be love.

and what of the seal,
the kiss to remain in the
deal? the key, it will
call upon forces beyond
the control of steel,
and make tender of bones,
to relax in shade and
sweeten the stones, looking
on at the tandem scene

dusk will appear, as though
on queue, lavender darkens in
the eyes of you, and you in
the sight of a thousand stems
place honour and what's true
forth of the pain of the
world, your hands spread to
touch the broken, vast
cracks and heal through the
love that escapes your fingerprints

and i am in love with the world
again, as the new sun wakes
and our bodies stir in the pale
fleeting, last holding of
sleep-we are ready,
we are the blossom of the
muse, under the gaze of
blue, glossy eyes

so goodbye to tomorrow,
and seek only today,
this moment-
a precise second of
forever to etch and live
and mull gently under
stars born from our
conjoined exhaling
breaths, stirred by the
quick movement of hands,
spinning us centered, then
slowing, slowly, slow.

66

make me clean-edged
and sane
a plain-tea drinking
example in neutrality

or make me the painted
desert
buffed from my spines
smooth, water-nurturer

pull me from my throne
to dirt
apply your lessons to
to buttercup shoulders

fling all my meanings
aside
and pattern new discoveries
into malleable will

i'm clay
milk and fire
treacle-sheen
molten muscle bending
toward the ideas of
smart dinner parties
where fingers exchange
cool energy

where such intensities
meet the flirtation
of a weak resistance
of arms raised to dance,
poised
spinning
like rocks skipping
over a marble-still
water's surface

chase away the old
sunday feelings and
greet me, enclose me
in the opiate arms
of 3am
where low voices blend
and burn into a static
emblem of heavy eyelids
and the scent of
your nape

i will fall amongst
the leaves, waxy silver
and sage, a chameleon
in shades of burgeoning,
floating spring.

65

somewhere
and i know where
my eyes hide
inside
a sight of a memory
that feels more
real than the real
and everything
i feel
is everything i know

and nails that
scratch living canvases
remind of the dreaming
marks that this -
a swollen heart
beating out his song
compose breaths
like refined tempo
even laying still

so still to stop this
(though it moves on
its own, it makes a
pattern on the sheets
where the body
longed)
and the mind is
left to meander
the questions, prickly
on bare feet,
a known-fact logic
born from the
ultimate
painful contract

i don't want to
feel alone

i don't want to
be missing

i don't want to
want so heavily
that the weight pulls
like gravity,
the magnets that
repel and attract
at once

i want
to feel, touch
the distances again
a space to fill with
the will of flesh
and a thumping
sound of us
in perfect unison
singing out the notes
that hit in staccato
unexpected
surprise with
eyes open.

noose-knotted

seems-
each time i manage
to forget
(or at least
bathe myself
in the distractions
of the daily)
i am shocked back
to it

good G-d, i am
so tired
of the daily,
that electrocution
seems reasonable

stand my hair on
end
kick the chair
from my planted
feet
and set my skirt
afire with hidden,
unknown folly

or:

send me on sojourns
to hot white
sands
oblivious to the blinding
sun, reflected
off skin, winter-pale
and just as sensitive
to the skimming
of fingers, lost
and yet to be found

my skin is snow
it waits to be
trampled and dirtied
(a seasonal abuse
brought on only by
the unexpected
soundtrack of clicking
keys, unfamiliar voices
and scented strong in
expensive, organic
pheromones)
it waits to melt
and shed to a lush,
moist flora full of
water and life
and colours of blushy
heart-racing sentiment
and hope-truth-
freedom-love

i do not want to die
no-
for the moment
i want to feel something
other than this life-

if only for the day.

hey, pavlov

when everything you drink
turns to pesticide and
you ingest
the poison because
you are thirsty

or when your heart
makes the jump out of
your chest, it lands
in your hands
and you eat it because
you are hungry

and when your every passing
motion distillates its
dust into the air's dust
and the change pulls
you through a flashing
déjà vu, and you see it
because you are lonely

but

if putting your ear to
a conch-shell causes the
sound of the ocean
in your head,
do you hear it not
because you're listening-
but because you
expect it?

madly the sunshine

for days
a cold smoke seemed
to sell itself to me
from above

i conjured you
far too often -
from inside an empty
pack of disease

and i tried
to crush you as
the ease of walking
made itself known

the muse of
dreams, though -
to sift you fine over
sleeping eyelids

the strangest thing
the mirror of desires
the sonic cause of
a million fires

there's a second
at dawn - surface water
flattens and bows
to a G-d

feverish it moves,
and madly - the sunshine
pulls a shadow from
its leaves, warm.

gethsemane

to a tall and ancient ceiling
i am earthbound-
dazzled with the
view of floating souls

the spectre's sceptre
reacts with a solid purpose:
to gaze upon the
ether-sheer inspiring
of damp-eyed
dreamers

but the name i
cannot voice-
the name lodged
in my throat-
isn't truth, or flesh
made real

i am not the child
of the ages

i am the whore of
the carpenter
rebirthed in modern
alabaster sinews

the vessel of hope
on night's last
breath for dawn
in a fearless
and cold quiver

my father
my husband
my lover
my friend
my recreant impression

eyes are dark
to the scene: a prosaic
desert of ripples
and bones
the marking of past
feet blown by
a hot wind

the feeling began
and lost me-
i was pushed more
than i had fallen

knees sandscraped
lips bloody rebellion
inhale the years
behind me
withering and pursed
with a single question

hands reaching out
to touch the unreal

goodnight neophyte

he was the machine
that saw inside
her head
that felt the body
of the invisible
moving below
the lights of unmet
streetlamps looking
on

the hum of a motorway
heard a depth
of tone
where speed divides
danger, excitement
extracting from the
united states of neurotica-
a fervor crucified
in the screeching
of brakes

the thousand lace-like
lacerations spread
their mesh over the
steaming surfaces-
a penant walk over
miles-
the phenomonon
still presents its puzzles

but remain
a mystery swelling
in the pulled-sugar
clamp of her sex
dreaming of all her-
limbs expanding over
time and tides of chains
and intervention

the movement of hands
stay steady-
their will a slave
they know no difference.