Poem

Here in the Light

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Here in the light
that forever fights the darkness,
we exist. Incomplete
            objects;

nothing more than sentience yet
always there’s a surplus;

effervescence of neurological excess,
&
the contingent biological flesh
            deceived
by the thoughts that haunt us
&
always finding ways to evade our gaze.

We call this thing our Self.

We can never own it, never know it,
by demanding
                    or calmly asking

but we can find it,
                    sometimes,
in other eyes.

Mi fea, eres una castaña despeinada*

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For S

Far above us

the Sun burns
                
fierce & uncaring;

a soundless scream of light
in infinite darkness….

but down here,
                        where we’re hiding,
the firmament of our world
is the bedroom window
& the Sun has become
lambent limbs of gold,
                        reaching out
to garland us
                        with sepia tones…

…but then
biology disrupts this reverie:

you need to piss.
                           
If, in this poem
I wanted to make you a goddess;
                        an image
that could represent everything from blue
                        to red,
I wouldn’t include your need to piss,

but I did it anyway because you
asked me to, in your humble &
                        beautiful way,

not to make you poetic & perfect
but instead
write about you as you really are,
complete with all your flaws.

This is the best that I could accomplish.

Do you like it?

 

*Sonnet XX – Pablo Neruda

“When night comes black”*

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Tattered feathers matted with carrion,
poisonous blood & a gland beneath the
                                    tongue
containing venom waiting to be sprayed
into the face of innocent creatures:

a hideous specimen, we should not
refrain from judgment; look & see
what it really is:

                a mistake.

Let it die unmourned, like morning worms
                            without the worth;
nothing can be birthed from this thing.

Watch it’s shaking skull cage, let the taloned
brain starve in it’s rage & let the last blood –
drop of it’s heart fall from self-inflicted
wounds into the dark,

                        unnoticed…

…& stop reading:

                stop writing,

just

stop.

*The Shrike Sylvia Plath

Our Silences

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For S

“The moment exists only in silence…” – Søren Kierkegaard

I like our silences,
        those shared moments
transcending the hungry gaze,
that float into
a simple but absolute attention.

I like it when we're quiet
        because then, when
our eyes meet & I see you seeing me,
I can believe
        in the existence
        of what you see.

Your silence is still & speaks to me
like star-light speaks of intense heat:
defined by perspective & proximity,
        a secret
revealing in concealment,
traversing immense distance
to bring colour,
                warmth
                    & life.

In silence, as in soil,
slow roots grow strong,
& the dilation of every second
        endures beyond
the depraved authority of time; we
cease to be a complex pattern
woven from
          a fabric of neurons
& electrostatic dreaming,          
to become

something more,
something I am only sure exists when
we twist together between & beneath
        each other,
sharing our body heat,
giving the prayer of our attention &
seeing beyond the iris reflection,
to where it lays waiting

        in the silence.

* Attention and Will – Simone Weil

Lost Futures

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For S

Today gave me a vision
of what could have been; I saw
between all the mistakes
I’ve made,
there in your home where
you & your children live:

an echo of
hauntology;
the lost future that could have been
if only

life had treated us differently,
if only

we’d received

what we really wanted.