Low lampshades like crinoline skirts
Orange walls
Two men talking over a beer at the bar
glancing at
two men talking over wine
The men talking over beer
are discussing motorbikes and how one of their mates
has a tattoo that says naughty on his back, which you can see
when he’s riding
they laugh
The men talking over wine are quiet
I look at them and they look at the lake
The bartender has beautiful eyes
crinkled at the corners
I’d like his smile
as a tattoo.
Andrew
in the dark
in the bath
Apple trees
scrape against the window
Emily
in the study
candlelight
flickering on her gold ring
A blank page
and a row of books
I’m addicted to your
desperate rhythms, I rise and fall with your breath
When you stop I stop, breathless.
I’m starving for your
neatness, your careful fingers
sewing buttons with tiny thread through tinier holes
I’m clawing for your
calm, the lake’s surface
hinting at the depth, the way
you create parallel ripples
And so I hurry home
to spill you
and taste you as I spell you out
And when my own writing is done,
I’ll read a poem by Elizabeth Smither
which talks about the gleaming morals of potatoes
Laughing, ha! Potatoes don’t have morals
but on poetry they do
Poetry
not even once.
Today we learned about endings
How to create
a lingering sense
of full mouth and belly,
or the lasting sting of a slap,
something unvanquished, unyielding
How the shortest letter might
survive the thought that formed it,
ourselves,
our tombs,
and become a lasting link
‘Le fin est assez tragique’
But Oscar Wilde only ever expected
to be mourned as an outcast
by outcasts
We try
to say goodbye sweetly
the sanctimonious
pleasure of the succinct
but we are borne back,
ceaselessly, into the past
the last line only works if
it refers to the one before it
A small story impressed in stone
The last thing left
when we are called back
A dead language
on the grave of a Russian accentologist says
‘Language is a ford through the river of time
It leads us to the dwelling of those gone before;
But he cannot arrive there
Who fears deep water’
And so the teacher says,
to the upturned faces waiting below
we must not be afraid
to choose the last word
and let it speak for us
ceaselessly.
Nevermore.
“Works with obvious meanings
cease to be art”
yet we must not be obscure
for obscurity’s sake
the meaning should be clear, flowing
just beneath the surface
Like a heart beneath the floor perhaps?
Or a skeleton behind a door?
He disliked
pretenders , creating
deceitful characters to suffer ignoble deaths
though he died wearing another man’s clothes
and yelling “Reynolds!”
The first to try and live by his pen
alone, he suffered, as we do
losing his only love to a burst blood vessel in her throat
and descending into drunken madness
He was seeking
something, the real meaning
beneath, within,
but he hated
transcendentalists, and wrote
in careful, measured
heartbeats
“Lord help my poor soul”
he whispered when he finally saw the darkness
beyond the door
I
once sat in your lap
dragged my fingers across your face
hooked a thumb on your lip
then left
you
alone in the dark
I
insist
that you don’t drink in the morning
or go out at night
I
demand that
your bow your body to mine, yet
remain
a pillar I can lean against
There’s a question about
Singularity
and duplicity
and our pieces that fit or fall apart
“The one who cares the least in a relationship has all the power.”
From the outside that looks like you
and I’m the one standing
with a hole in my chest
But you forbade me to play games with anyone else
I felt guilty, and pleased
“There’s more ways to kill a cat than choking him with cream”
(said Rudyard Kipling)
I
bend to the system
You’re a subjective anarchist
reflecting pluralities of meaning
offering alternative options
I bow to the Prime Minister
even though I don’t like him
I’ve started narcissistically seeing
myself
in everything you do
maybe just my
imagination
maybe
true
It’s become almost impossible
for us to write things that aren’t somehow
about each other, or for each other, or just about me because
I’m always wondering
what you might read
when you read that particular turn of phrase
I used to
look in the mirror and see me
so familiar I am reduced to
the nouns of hair and eyes and nose and mouth
Now I look and see
what you might write about my face
I am raw material
the face, the lips, the words,
I think about them before I say them
about how you might edit them
and put them back in my mouth
So I guess you could say
that it’s some sort of muse thing
or maybe it’s some sort of sneaky thing
where I am stealthily slipping words from your pocket
before you get a chance to
write them
or maybe you could say
that
it’s co-authorship
and we both write this,
our
life, our
collaborative work
My father doesn’t like surprises
We tried to throw him
a fiftieth birthday
He found out and picked a fight
with me and mum and Aunty Prue
in front of everyone
I tried to tell him it was a positive thing
What do I want with parties?
he said
I’m half a century old
and not much to show for it
Do you want to drink to that?
We drank to that
Quite a lot, actually
So much so that my cousin’s friend Dave
started to look quite nice, really
and Dave and I
celebrated half a century together
Funny that Dave and Dad
said pretty much the same thing
when I arrived eight months later
with round belly proud
Yup
Fathers really don’t like surprises
2am’s not quite
3am, when you start making noises
about having to sleep
I have to get up in a few hours
why are we still talking, anyway?
2am’s not 1am either
when you’re still almost coherent
cognisant, expressing your thoughts well
because you want them to think well of you
At 2am we realise
we don’t really know each other
But the logistics of leaving
and the wine, and the time
makes it easy for me to stay
And I want to talk to you, laying
hands entwined, breath in the dark
I want to know
what you think about religion
and ghosts
and love
At 2am you can lose reason and restraint
and caution
Amongst the words falling I feel your mouth
forming slow ideas
about sex and tattoos and the possibility of this all actually meaning something
It’s darkest at 2am
I can’t see your face
I lie and listen to your voice
speaking poetry
that you won’t remember in the morning
One day isn’t much
to do everything you ever wanted to do
You can’t
travel the world in one day
walk Machu Picchu
see the pyramids
dance naked in the rain in Sri Lanka
stroke a lion
drink a beer in an Irish pub
You can’t
write a novel
learn the guitar
finally finish your degree
or become fluent in French
You can’t even, probably
return home one last time
to tell your parents
you know they did their best
Fortunately, it doesn’t take
one day
to say the things that really matter
to the person who really does
and I
won’t regret that
