change

V.85

The cold warriors are dying –
amongst events they slip away
like the crackle of a spray can
and its hiss which turns to a roar

The cold warriors are dying –
the second movement of Dvorák
lingers in the musky swampland
of Florida, among torn flags

The cold warriors are dying –
falling away one by sad one
like mist withdrawing from windows
leaving thin dilemmas for drips

The cold warriors are dying –
their children are melancholy
unsure quite what this means to them,
despite, of course, that soft fizzing

The cold warriors are dying –
for arguments cannot outlast.
The eyes of history open
and see streaming neon glazes

The cold warriors are dying –
gears that have not turned for long years
shift and let off streams of gold rust…
Things are glowing with potential

Us

I

you bite your nails outside
the coffee house – you sit
next to me your perfume
hums through me like a bird
flock sat on my black wires
your hair curls up – I look

deep into its spiral
I sit – across from you
you eat sweets – your tongue floats
on my pool like tadpoles
gulp it – each time you change
my want for you goes on

II

god If all I could eat
were the crumbs from your mouth
That fall, I would rejoice,
And survive, I swear it
A diet of your voice.
If it were my only,

choice, my only choice
to be smashed by your car –
the car of your body…
I would giggle loudly
as I registered each
sacred injury’s pulse

III

What can I say? I am
an anechoic room
Your clothes might as well be
vanished along with all
your skin and bones and me
for all the attention

I give them, your language
just the tongue, floats, hovers
still in the centre of
clearings in woods by nests
warms nests, damp nests, we talk.
The city crawls with us

Poem From Page 45 of the Butterfly Notebook

If a house holds old things of you;
such as you, leant on a wall
trying to cry to ‘An Ending: Ascent‘

or you, sat on a step
the salmon carpet wet with tears
your hair, the faintest warmness

even you, on the dark landing
taking a glance into partial rooms
where concepts of girlhood collide

It will also hold the sublime
the purposeless snare trap of time
things you can see, but never know –

A few of a godfather’s schoolbooks
a tool chest full of tools and old signs
and those we love, who see us with sad eyes.

Another Life

How the moment is still
and hangs under the eaves
like the mythological ice

your future melts,
ash is on the grate
ash blows upon the world’s face.

All the plans become
never to be done
and life, moving on
as one would expect,
moves on.

I drive down to the valley floor
and follow the river
of cars, a tear, a tear