The Lost and the Loved

The Lost and the Loved

 

Glitter from way beyond the farthest stars

sheds ancient light on celestial memoirs,

a long time departed, still reaches hands

to rinse among coarse quintillion sands

within shoreward lapping sapphire brine,

beckons us to scan back through time;

piece together any puzzles we may find

with acceptant heart and unlaced mind.

Some kind few are forgetful; they know

that fingernails and hair continue to grow

once soil has sealed wood caskets below,

green crops paint on cold canvas of snow.

Look forward to less years than lie behind,

dim eyes bloom blind to old lovers’ crimes

and you, my lost love, do you still shine?

So many and yet still too few, all living,

all breathing, all mingle spirits unforgiving

or not inside my head; may well be dead

if all good memories have upped and fled

by your own hand. But damned if we won’t

bring them back in brief instances, don’t

be told it’s wrong to honour what’s past.

Now you say you can cut off and cauterize

septic wounds with hard phrase, vandalize,

spray the past with graffiti and call it art

to still be imprisoned by someone’s heart

who say they love, but do not set you free,

do time breaking hard rocks of jealousy,

that splinter into wild gyres, keen shards,

slithering serpents to poison kind words,

but we're so small in moment and so short

that I do reach to kiss you in my thoughts.

We all are stars; the loved light the lost

from Great Bear to the Southern Cross

calling to lovers brandished by flaming fire

in memories that live on and never expire.

You’re No Lester Bangs

You’re No Lester Bangs

 

 

He's a blabber mouth, I’m nearly certain,

rates countless tracks that leave us hurting,

send us straight back to Scottish midwinters

then posted. RSVP, PS, just deliver the letter

my dear, for these were the worst of times,

never bettered, only battered and 100 lines,

hard barracked in some ice box, a facsimile

of a room, that space still lives, it haunts:

Well, it’s not only fire that gives us warmth.

Strumming that bass like Dylan’s Mr Jones,

every festive 50 leaves us ever more lone,

and each track is pack-ice and permafrost,

listen to minor melodies and you’re lost,

bleak in tundra that births wild thunderous,

footsteps ascending, his wrath approached,

her hard vittles gave with caustic reproach

and I can’t get it out of my head, no, no, no.

What use analysis, what use blow by blow?

These charts show what you already know,

hanging labels, lyrics a ringing bell that rang,

but, then again, you’re no Lester Bangs.   

You’re No John Dunne

 You’re No John Dunne

 

Your interior’s just overcast windows again,

out-staring icicle skies, blue nude trees,

and those same two everyday magpies

recall Corfu Durrell’s rapid Maltese crosses:

what even do they ever do? Bonded for life

you read and they grieve, while last leaves

still cling on stubbornly to Winter’s trees.

Dreaming not writing, your clock’s clucking,

discs spinning memories, vacuums flocking

like birds of a feather and you call this being.

Flea, your blood, it never will mingled be;

a spider between sheets one night did creep,

and as it bit into flesh, I heard you shriek,

it drank deep, it woke you from your sleep

put its poison there as you counted sheep

until with balled fist you clench and sweep

and hurled it blind against an opposing wall.

In the morning, it was there, small dead thing

clutching itself tight, the way dead things do

when all that’s living has been extinguished,

no fight left, a noble death, its last breath,

as somewhere inside your blood lies cooling,

thickens as at this window finds you brooding.

Between separate beds blood is never shared

then again, the truth is you knew it all along,

because face it, fool, you’re no John Dunne.

Far From Kitchen Sinks

 Far From Kitchen Sinks

 

Far flung from drama over how plastic bowls

are best placed inside those kitchen sink holes:

she’s all about going without; I favour within

 

hearing wolves howl, while lone magpie sings,

I let thoughts float on winter’s biting breeze

distant from hoary frosts and the big freeze

 

for I know a place where teasing looks grow.

Brewing hubble bubble scents in casseroles,

I’m stewing, she’s all fragrance; her door’s ajar

 

and if I risked a peek, I’d catch illegal glimpse

of her hair through thin stripped bare chink,

but I’m chaired at her table, bound and dutiful

 

and breathless and, oh my God, she’s beautiful,

smoulders hot enough to stir a good man bad,

around her hair she’s wound strawberry hijab

 

as crimson as roses that bloom upon her face

in blushing petals. She’s rushing, makes haste

to place food, asks if I like or not her tastes,

 

almost avoids brushed glance, flirted scan,

comes in, out, in, tests what makes me man,

holds hot spoon to her lips and the sauce drips.

 

Later in her car, she’ll sidelong shift her hips,

lean in to scarcely whisper I love you so much,

and yes, you can look but you can never touch.

 

At some far flung date we’ll marinate together,

savour flavours of her every promised pleasures,

anticipating delights we'll store and treasure.

…the face I can’t forget

 

…the face I can’t forget

 

 

Bewitched inside that scarlet black wrapped

where no curls are displaced, just stray wisps

beneath silk scarves, you’ll follow snaking hips

with wanting eye, urging her to come to me

in more curves than ever will surge River Nile.

 

Ah, your travelling looks, they roam, they kiss

just this side of fitting modesty and promise

and once you whispered but for that you risk,

all I could even dream would be given in tryst,

lissom negligent fingers traced my nape’s bliss.

 

For you only I will deny him this lace he lusts

which sculpts and clings me, says sinful things

that burst these seams your pleasures bring

to the very brink and sink us knotted in trust:

oh, these silks are weak that have me trussed.

 

Push him far from sound, out of her mind’s eye,

coyly comes her calling when together you’ll try

the patience of these flimsy things in hush duet.

She knows how busy tongues bring loving debt,

kneel tenderly before your face I can’t forget.

She, Maybe

She, Maybe

 

Brushing cross meadows, when he was young

in curiosity, parted reeds, kneeling at streams

struck by questions that could not wet lips

but locked behind those scowling dark eyes,

studied her bubbling spring waters that came

modest enough, but enough to press grains

of sand up to where flecked stickleback swum

dappled; dusked tans birthed perfect blends,

camouflaged are those signals that she sends,

in her zig zag dancing she, maybe approaches

coy behind her curtains and him red throated.

Now his older darkling eyes quest deeper still

at promising glances; bound secreted tresses,

wanting veils covering hot heads all undresses,

release in waterfalls those thick tumbling locks,

bring drink to soothe choked sand bass notes,

sprung free turning cogs will bridge her moat.

She, maybe smiling is more than just amused,

brushed cross rooms, brushed cross shoulders

with a sultry touch, slight look and fine motions

simmering within her warm sundrenched ocean

beckons, she maybe free to loose shackled fish,

coax them into perfumed deeps of secret tryst.

When Kisses Land

 When Kisses Land

 

I blow you four kisses,

restless here in the palm of my left hand

see them fly far

and I only insist on one for your lips,

you may choose where three others land,

in haphazard diamond.

 

Blown from here

where frost dresses clipped lawns

blitzed by strimmers within millimetres

of their toe nailed lives

and cowled clocks strike zero

with soundless howls of holed up hero,

and underneath the shedding burnt umber,

huddle people in restless slumber,

rusting under skies

that are blue enough.

 

Catch them and keep them safe,

place them in some secret place

beneath your hijab,

dark moist eyes glisten

evergreen in fertile vision

for my returning footsteps breathless listen,

stirring the pot, stirring the pot,

plump pillows cool with fingers hot.