Poem

Pause, & add your own intentions…

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You found me at the worst possible time,
but only in the sense in which a dog-walker finds
a corpse in the woods:

        It wasn’t your fault.

The words in this verse are replacing
the excuses I’d prepared for presentation:
words about falling, & nihilism &
other self-pitying bullshit trying
        to play tragic…
but the truth
        is never quite so ornate
as I’d like to make it…

I told you that I’d become a mistake.

But that doesn’t make it ok…

I remember you as
vulnerable insolence &
timorous intelligence but
I was too selfish to realise how
much attention you gave to my words &
how little you understood about my
actions:

        your skin
compelled me to write a poem across
the inside of your left thigh
            & I think
you found it charming.

That poem had been written for someone else…

Attention is the rarest & purest
form of generosity*: you
    gave it to me
        & what did I
give back to you?

Nothing:

it wasn’t that I didn’t care
it was just that I hated everything…

So this
is an attempt to apologise
        for the ugliness
by replacing it
        with a failed attempt at elegance.

& that still doesn’t make it ok…

* Simone Weil

The Eyes of Death*

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For my father.

So that you wouldn't die so undignified,
I wanted to force a black rose
down your throat, so
                    that the thorns
would pierce your larynx
                            & silence
the animal noises;

a language
capable of expressing
only pain & existence,
            both
belonging to you alone.

Your cells were in rebellion:

First, they conquered your lungs,
before taking your liver
                        & then,
traversing your spine,
they laid siege to your brain:

dead pixels in your irises,
made me
think of machinery, but
technology
            doesn't feel pain.

Hours dragged past like sandpaper against glass.

I held your hand, sat by the bedside as
                                        you died,
until suddenly, what remained of you
sat upright
& pulled me close enough to hear
your last words…

& that's when I saw it, in the final moment
of your lucidity:

            the eyes of death

            staring back at me.

*The Eyes of Death – Off With Their Heads

Meena Muska

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Seperation, you set fire
in the heart & home of every lover. – Traditional Afghan Landay

The blue horizon of your eyes tricked me:
a mirage or sanctuary?

I can’t decide.

But,

last night,
        the blue horizon of your eyes
            came to me
in a dream,
 
Purple carnations brushed against
my face,
        you were careful
not to press too hard,
        just in case
I awoke at the moment of your
    betrayal, which
        in time,
            became a gift:

Even though
it filled me with sadness,
        now that our distance has
            multiplied across space & time,

I now know that
beyond the blue horizon of your eyes
the real sky reveals itself…

Die, & be forgotten…

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“This place is a dream.
Only a sleeper considers it real.” – Rumi

Soon enough every cell in us
will cease to repeat the pattern,
        & we will die

& be forgotten.

So focus on each breath as
our chests repeat the movement
        of our heartbeat;

in & out,
        up & down,
            until we’ve found

the place where presence elides into absence &
from something to nothing,
we return again
        to where all things
            begin…

The future is composed of consequence
not yet made manifest
& the past
        is the mess
            it left behind.

Diaphanous & thin,
the boundary between
    mind & brain; something &
        nothing;
            life &

                death.

Your Daughter

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For S.

You tell me that she was a breech-birth. I’d
always thought that was worse
        but
            you say
it was easier that way;
didn’t hurt
as much as the first time,
            when your Son was born.

She is two & a half years old.

She’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen,
& I used to fucking detest
        the word “adorable”,
            especially
                if it was ever used
to describe me.

When I tell you this, it makes you laugh:

“You’re not adorable!
Sweet,
        maybe,
but only sometimes, & sweet like
liquorice: a weird,
        acquired taste”.

We’ve stayed awake far too late tonight,
drinking red wine
        & talking
            about our lives.

I once believed we were defined entirely by
the roles we play in a stupid fucking game,
        & that neither the rules
            nor the roles could
ever change but

when you leave me,
        briefly,
to check on the children,
            I realise
that I was wrong:

You’ve changed me completely:
        
I don’t believe
that this is a game any more;
        now,
            I see it as a dream
                waiting

to be realised.