POETRY

Lying Deadweight

what is the street saying

outside my window?

the clock diffuses to nothing

stirring only to play gentle strings of silence

as my memory falls about.

the gentle presence of the garden

body settling

as a headstone in water,

shipwrecked in bed

as the night glides; stretching, stitching one thin illusion as countless days

that silence that rises like steam

from my skin, my muscles, my bones.

I hear the sirens, the road is calling

me from my house

my own electric score

some quiet whirring

and I hear the dog and my childhood outside.

the arms of the clock no longer demand

I am lying deadweight

like a flower falling slowly through an ever-lasting sea.

the cool ease of the moon I cannot see

I know

she is hiding from me.

Walk. Stop. Stare

Eyes swallow

The cool leathery night

Blinking to climb through the folding dark

Below and enclosing

A small rough moon.

My skin washed and soft

Hiding in front of the world.

The cold clothes rest upon my bones

Leaving me thinking of lungs and beautiful emergencies.

A warm breeze betraying the sternness of my flesh

The dreamy fluttering of cloth

I feel like calling myself

‘A lucky organism’,

So I do

And a thousand years fall into my skull

Flowering into the present.

Moon

see the moon

dripping down her light;

deformed, inexorable,

stifled by clouds,

they are advocating her in their silence;

cheating the void,

in as far as we see

a bloodless fist hang above a sparkling desert of oil,

sparring her electricity along spines of waves

flushing irises with neon,

in livid choreography,

that light like a billowing serpent

clipping you into his den;

into his eyes,

and the cool swooping kiss of his skin

is an orgasm of strangeness;

rages through you

a feverish, tearing yawn

and you are leathery,

sighing,

revolving,

heavy in the pupils of dawn,

the sun fixing droplets of morning to your ankles;

drawing gravity upon you,

so you are ready

and in turn she is there,

now with light to bowl down the day

in her blistering outpour;

wailing her beams down,

kneading every surface

all we know is stone rotating,

yet it is well for us by a calm sphere

in the fairness of her distance.

Eden

Boil down your most inner self

And let the truth arise:

Time is not of the essence.

Sweep your hand over the window pane

And bathe in the softest light.

You are my garden now

And I, yours.

So meet me in the shade; as trust will wait.

Another breath of rain to help us grow devoted.

Formations

in one of those I made eyes with

your lips’ instant ‘utterness’

still, a dusky different peace,

figuring my transparency,

in a laugh,

or in your hands,

felt like a wind against me.

you made less sense in profile,

much less,

your design in shadow

where light peeled free the truth of you

against a desk,

like a mountain at dawn

toiling with its penumbra,

as edges are at war;

how else to explain

the insanity of flowers,

or the sun’s famous hoax of moonlight;

these I am always drinking in,

dancing biologically,

a luminous circus,

the crowding candles in my lounge

they know well their trick of carousels and silhouettes;

and I know you,

I know your lips will draw me under,

suggest themselves in dreams;

and I know,

that in the hardness of waking,

with all feelings stuffed up between us,

that you know not the mountainous purity

of your example.

Fielding

I shoot down.

fall to study a steep mosaic

and a masculine band of violins;

some desperate politics had been relayed

from this shaking country and my aging skin,

from all the heart of it.

I tread fields for miles,

measure and assemble motorcycles,

master the archery of glances;

speak of water and keys;

I am researching the ground,

the dark theatre beneath our feet.

Vehicles

a train dragging itself out of the imagination,

motorcycles winding down to hell.

airports relinquishing their planes like wishes.

The Wolves

we lived with the wolves,

huddled under bridges, shivering

in the churches,

crowding the crypts

with hunger and hope,

sanity thrown against the skyline,

cackling, frenzied bat-wings,

hellish silhouettes against the stained-glass sunsets;

soft for night in tight murmuring packs;

but murderous in hunting minds

eyes opening owlishly,

upon mornings,

upon breakfast,

upon the feast of death.

Lavender Walk

You are so not as you think.

The lavender walk

of the golden full moon

is bespoke;

holds a deep and resonant joy.

It is felt within

a midnight gap,

endless harmony.

One comes bending to the secret,

stooped to the moon's perfect oath

and in dancing silence the revolution is relayed:

To discuss with mind

is not the answer -

it is to listen

and thereby to be;

and such to peek over the mere-ness of words.

It is to lavender,

to moon,

and to know

in the deepest possible way.

Understanding

Mystery is the dance of the truth

When truth calls mystery back home

there is a timeless arrival.

There, no sound nor sign in shadowed moments’ doorways, a stillness;

there the space completes.

There is understanding;

and in the light of understanding,

in the silence of that light,

all mystery

all understanding

all truth

fall into one another

as one,

as love.

Hakhtor Nieh Gah I am here

Hakhtor Nieh Gah, I am here,

Dor’rian. Hear, me.

Dynim ym ma I. I am not my mind.

Hakhtor Nieh. Gah I am. Here

Im-ma. Hear this.

Im. Ma. Hear. This.

Hakhtor Nieh Gah. I am here.

Dor’rian. Hear me.

Detalosi mai. I am not isolated.

Etarepes mai. I am not separate.

Hakhtor Nieh Gah, I am here.

Dor’rian. Hear. Me.

Dynim ym ma I I am not my mind.

Coast

upon the shores of our southern neighbour

the city is a smile, relaxing against a weeping edge;

its wine bottle-neck steeples

posting shadows eastward,

sulking out like oil, gripping lotus-boats

softly converging

where the wind clips corners of normality;

sleeves, collars billowing out to sea.

a necklace drifting between armies of nymphs;

limbs thrown from a jewellery box,

drowned in chairs laid out for countless speeches;

the infinite function of waves,

bursting fringes of this world

bursting lips of promise,

promises of death flourish the blood

soaking to crown seeds,

to push and multiply,

the teething truth;

tearing hips and screaming births,

soreness kissing arms,

the flames of being

all written clean in the ebbing tide;

each visit to testify to the earth

all creatures tumbling through shapes of violence

in a laughing torrent, marching into the blue of infinity,

whispers of drowning light

of a lavender sun, of branching veins

arcing to orient

our compass in this void,

a blue ball,

a pearl on the sea-bed.

the exquisite soundness of the moon.

Untitled

Power in form

Where the essence is wept

With its provoking storm,

Behind eyes; they have leapt

Upon worlds of their investment, their softly sculpting love.

The dimensions we have climbed to admire from above.

I Think I Was Looking at Venus

I think I was looking at Venus

infinitesimal, moaning light;

poking fun at the blackness

with monsters' thinking,

or is it agony?

some decorative urge?

she has my brain entirely,

as the Earth’s axis would always lean us away

from dwelling on simple thoughts.

I funnel my attention,

engrossed in the forest

and my mind is thrown

back to revelations in the shower.

When I am turned to see so purely

‘When I am turned to see so purely

those small movements in this pond

and taste the effortless gravity,

a poem of you is delivered to this page of me.

I am waking out of nothing.

And some nights

in the suddenness of eternity,

the mildest of densities

are spoken in my silence;

gentle as a lover,

and fade as quick

with no colour

nor trace.

A divine footprint,

a drop,

a dying ripple

in this ocean of me.’

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