o, amazing

o, amazing

how you cup my face in your hands

and drink from me

my full sweetness and writhing delight

and how

our breath, shared in a circle of ecstasy,

hums with harmonious voltage

and how

in the dim silk cave of our joinings

one cannot tell where

one begins and

the other ends

and after this

unhurriedly our limbs unfurl,

the blossoming of black marigolds

sweet and bitter with the warmth and damp,

the results

of the shadowy vibrations of love

eyes and mouths burning

full of the tastes of the other

this that we have fashioned together

life is patterned

like the leaves 

on the lawn

of your childhood house

in autumn

in the colours of their painted living rooms

glimpsed through the blinds

(it is dusk, and you walk by,

head hooded & ducked 

against the dew

falling)

wait, no wait-

patterned in more colours,

colours in the velvet paintings of

tahiti

and

jesus

(why did he wear thorns and why

did he hold that burning heart?)

colours in the velvet pantings of 

your

first

girlfriend

(wet and distant, she hovers on the edge

of your memory)

patterned in more colours

colours of your secret dream time corridors,

the twisting, singing,

swinging doors

(the sacred geometry lab 

in your head)

patterned in rocking hips rocking,

and stinging lips

shocking

(you

held me down and

I liked it

a little)

patterned

in the latticework of

your music, ever

unfolding, undoing me,

beginning this over again-

life is patterned

basement room

in the blue glow,
your face a round sweet poem that cannot be expressed
full and shifting, wings of a night bird folding over eyes
fluttering of the heart
and the heat and the velvet and damp
O, the rotation of the day and the night
O, the tides of the dark and the breaking of light

ten years away, and ten years close,
as close as a coin in a fist
grip firm or uncertain, now is now is now is
now

isn't that everything
isn't that everything

now is now, and you sigh and curl and sleep
and away from you, I dream and travel and take flight
above the trees and low houses I skim, my way
an arrow to your way, to be loosed upon the world, to
travel to the heart of the heart of the world
to plunge deep into the beating mess of it
with you

isn't that everything

final gig (this lame poem)

a spinning light
like a spinning star
boys in the band
girls at the bar

the smell of beer
the smell of piss
the nights with you
I haven't missed

the smell of stars
the smell of us
I miss you most
when I'm on the bus

the weight of dreams
the weight of you
the heaviness
of what is through

I cooked your meals
I made your bed
you washed my clothes
you kissed my head

I got sad
I moved away
so many things
I couldn't say...

and this lame poem
is just for you
and all the things
that we went through

some things were great
some things were rough
and this lame poem
is not enough

broken plate

Sweet sweetness
you call to me, then let me be.
All I am is yours, what's yours is me.
we circle and spin, let each other out, and in;
end it, begin it, upend it, chargrin it.
You know who you are, and what you can do.
The fragments, the lightness, they come shining through.

wanting

five directions and
one broad smile opening all of the doors
in impatient haste, desire brimming behind
the rim of that sharks mouth, friendly hunger
gnawing and moving strange and unexpected
like an alien child within

we have the face of the dreaming computer, beautiful
in its mindlessness-- and we have the philosophy of sound,
galaxies of music,
birdcages cut open--
this breaking open, this undoing
carries me over,

carries me over

another one for coal

I say to myself:

rise up, dreamer
and engage in the sticky realities and
preservative-free joys of this wholesome life

reach through the window to that distant smile
swim with salamanders, hands outreached below the clear water

begin something
painting in colours forgotten, landscapes yet unseen
form and undulate, glow and press
against the grain of what you thought
you wished you had

but this:
the beyond beautiful,
the bigger unknown

so much better than any fading
fragrant dream
so much better than an imagined past:

this unfolding future.