There is something inside all of us,
Freud called it the Death drive
beacause sometimes theory
has to be expressed
as poetry:
Thanatos & Eros.
Testosterone belongs to Thanatos:
the death-drive’s in my cock;
why else a ‘little-death’
after every fuck?
But oestrogen is not Eros:
love & passion belong to nothing;
why else are they
so hard to find?
Permutations of motion though matter;
the ecstatic union of void & fire;
mutation arrayed
in differential display:
is this
use of language the only way
for the feeling to fade
& finally escape
from my bones?
Can't I ever
go beyond what is here in front of me
& reach the place
I want to be?
No.
Escaping the maze
is not an option,
so I remain trapped
in oxymoronic structures;
the point
where concept concedes to content;
when precision
& all measurement
reach their limitation,
but grammar still remains needed
for practical reasons.
Without language there is
no way to express
this sense
of frustration & unease
echoing through me,
as I witness
unbounded expansions
ripple & sway
when thrown stones
disturb the surface of a lake,
reverberate
in brief undulations,
& sink
slowly
until they can be seen
no longer:
nothing ever
disappears completely…
but you're too far away
for me to care.
Even if absences linger within
every presence,
there's nothing comforting
in that knowledge:
what remains of the lost
is not enough.
For S
When the world reclaims you,
& I am left alone again
in my bedroom,
I will take the bloodstains
from the bedsheets & turn them
into roses…
Later, as I sleep surrounded
by the threads that fell from your skin,
I will dream
that each thread is a feather
of white,
impossible
iridescence
& a breeze,
heavy with heat
will breathe
from the window,
as one
by one,
your feathers
fill my lungs…
*Dreaming of You – Cigarettes After Sex
When regret casts a furtive glance over the past
& declares that the trail of our betrayals
is turning cold,
leaving us alone in a silent wilderness
of dead words that must now remain unsaid;
after potential meets its death
& consequence conquers all that is left,
what will become of us then?
I was walking home
through the dying Autumn leaves
as the wind whipped cold
deep into my bones
& I was underfed
under-dressed
& alone…
…but then I thought of you
stretched along the bed,
half-asleep in the half-light;
those gorgeous green eyes
filled with a love that can never be mine…
Green will bleed orange,
which will scab to black
before the white falls
& claims all colour back,
but through it all
you will keep me warm:
my wildflower in an endless Indian Summer*.
*Indian Summer – The Doors
Words for Ghosts 