Sunday, January 24, 2010

Violet

Violet
Buried on a Wednesday
I stood at your graveside
As the rain drowned in itself
And the unkempt graveyard sang through the grass
Flowers wilted on headstones
Erosion and misuse
Forgotten
The gravedigger had fashioned a neat mound of soil
A single wooden stake with your name in black
It seemed a lifetime passed
As they lowered you into that grave
The minister said
‘Lettuce pray’
And I wanted to laugh
At the absurdity of it all
And the loss of you
A truant schoolboy flew past on his bicycle
His scabby knees and the shush of the wheels on the muddy path
Called of freedom
Birds on the wing
Escape
And I saw you cut loose of that coffin
Dancing above us in an azure blue dress
And like much of this life
The living becomes
Somehow
Second rate
And
Inconsequential.

Night/Day

What happened to those nights of beauty and splendor
Moths beating out symphony’s against the light bulb with their wings
And you playing scratchy old Leonard Cohen records
Nights where sleep bayed like a wolf at the moon
And silence was the beating of your heart against my own
Nights where the pregnant moon stood vigil like a sentinel
And sleepy stars blinked and winked their way to earth
So close and vivid I could cup them like water in the palm of my hand
Nights I held you to me like a child at my breast
No one could touch or know us except ourselves
In that room
With its peeling paint and old armoire
Evenings sipped from gin bottles where the heat hung like a veil
And the only mystery
Was the love you guarded like Cerberus at the gate
The love you scattered on baron earth
With other women
In other hotels
With simple names and lives
Those goddesses of the shadows
Who loomed like giants in my imagination
Who beckoned to me like ghosts
In cigarette smoke and perfume.
What happened to those nights
And the warm shell of your arm
And the boat of your body
Which sailed me home
It seems a lifetime ago
The years swallowed the tears
Kindness learnt soon forgotten
Daylight
A torch on the wreckage.

Goodbye

This is for you
This is time cut loose charging to infinity
This is rain on a tin roof beating out the syllables of your name
These things will speak to you
They have no choice
It will be so

This is for you
This is my heart knot
The bleeding is done
Siphoned off, clamped
This is not a love poem
You cannot be loved
By me

This is for you
This is the eulogy
The grand epiphany
The Demi-gods have fallen
Chaos in the streets
This is the conquering hand of my revolution
Complete.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

For Eurydice who is gone

You were the most beautiful girl in Gion
That day
With the rain in your hair
You wore shiseido red
And your mother’s kimono
Your hair swept up
My wannabe geisha
My beauty
My love
We crossed the bridge over the Kamogawa River
With the hawks calling above us
And you smiled the sun
And you lit the sky
And you laid your palms open to me
The votive of your hand.

I had walked those streets everyday
Watched seasons and years pass like trains
And gather like leaves and cherry blossoms at my feet
You followed me to Arashiyama
We ate green tea ice cream
And fed the birds
We walked the bamboo forest
Watched the boats wind down the jade green river
You held my hand
A burning ember in my solar plexus
A violent purple bruise on my heart
A throbbing, aching, clawing pulse
My undoing done
My love song sung

I lost you in Kyoto
The cobbled streets swallowed your footsteps
The gaping cracks whispered your name
The hawks flew away
I went to the temple alone
In the throng of people
I felt most alone
I stood for hours to ring the bell
I drank the water and washed my hands
I saw you
High above me
Dancing with stars on your feet
I cried cold tears that fell like sleet
You told me
I’d be ok
That I would feel you on summer days
That you followed me in wind and rain
That what we shared would come again
With other women
In other times
Far beyond the city’s smog and grime

I lost the veneer
I took off the rose tinted glasses
I looked for Geisha
And found Harajuku girls
I forget the song you sang to me
In my dreams you are all I see
I turn around to see your smile
You disappear into the dark
Far away and further still
The deep yearning in my heart
I trace your hand
It’s fit in mine
The taste of mint and sweet plum wine
I carve the silence like a glove
I cast away my hope
My love
I look for you in city streets
Your faint mirage in summer’s heat
Your face on other’s smiles back at me
I conjure time and you with me
I watch the hawks
Those benevolent Kings
As they dip and glide
Fast, falling still
To kiss the fish that lose their tears
To the water
To themselves
To the years.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Eurydice

Don’t look back
I am behind you
Always
The snow knows my feet
The puddles my heart
My face in black ice
My heart in the Kamogawa River
The cherry blossoms are dead
And the grass is brown
I walk behind you
Don’t turn around
There is enough of the knowing here
There is enough time
There is a steady leak from your heart to mine
There is nothing to see here that you have not already seen
I am the same
I always will be
Besides
You know all there is to know
I wrote it in the snow
I sent it with the bell toll
At the temple on New Year’s Eve
I gave it to the mirror lake
I threw it in the sea.
I am behind you
Do not turn around
Trust that I will follow
It is promised to the ground.
The light ahead will guide you
And you shall be my guide
My hands are in your pockets
My kiss is in your ear
The world grants us a pardon
We’ll get another year
For now the hawks are calling
To the fish down below
Songs of love and freedom
That no one else should know
And your footprints grasp my own
Soft sinking – not a sound
My love I am behind you
Do not turn around.

Reflection

There are no Geisha in Gion tonight
The tea houses lit
Seem empty
And the street lamps dim
I walk a cobbled street
My hands are cold
The river is still
The city is lost
I catch a glimpse of myself
A moment of reflection
I am somehow different
And still the same
You take a photo of me
I wish I could stay this way forever.

Promise

I had that dream again
Twelve in a white dress
Fingers like Popsicles
Goosebumps on my skin
A dark shadow across my heart
Unable to let the light in
And you saying
‘we’ll be magnificent' –
And I almost believed you
As I tied myself into knots
Rain on the wind and the scent of forget-me- knots
And the world asleep
Unraveled herself like a giant snake
And the coil of your love
A hook in my skin
As I scratched and I bit
To let the light in