Epyrus

hey boy, I watch

                 you take the skyway

while I remain here on the ground

knowing that one day you just won’t come back

so until then…

my mother in the next room

watches videos of the island she left

as a child 25 years earlier

to make her home

somewhere else

she tells me that a lone cypress

tree still stands in the same

place she remembers it being

                        as a little girl

and I’m not sure if it’s

                       a miracle I smell or

those lilies of the valley

imbedded deep into the soft folds

of the woolen jumpers she always wears.

Tess climbs up onto my desk

to watch me work

                        and he calls her

                        ‘the perfect killer’

because she is so small & beautiful

                      and deftly quick & silent

but that is simply

the nature

of felines.

Georgia

It is here that this moment of splendor fails us.

Give me your sight and come now, for we have

both lost. You make ready your shoes

and suitcase (it seems the parting was inevitable)

while I hide here amongst the curtains, clutching

your photography and praying guiltily.

Now sorry I, who failed you,

must watch from the window

as the old glass distorts this last image of you

so that I can’t remember how you really were

(a blemish, something minor, like

the sliding of my hand across your skin

or the dialogue swerving to somewhere

we’d never been)

New tulle of my skirt quivering as we danced

too lost in collected notes to worry. I scratched

your arm trying to stifle the shock that came from

an idyllic clarity disguised as sound

Who was playing that night? All I remember is

you liked my dress, fascinated by the fabric.

Your palm on my wicker-chair, silent.

Then you said you loved the evening

since it held no light, and forced people to

concentrate on the idea of a person, eliminating

physicality which only obstructs.

Wine and darkness you said,

are the two quickest ways to

really see a person for who they are

(you untying the ribbon around my throat,

laughing, then following the stepping stones

of my spine from my neck downwards)

and my hand, perfect

there upon your sleeve

is the clearest of any

regrets I’ve known since then.

the second

December boy,

while you help me find my shadow,  you lose yours

like in some stuffed up Asklepious dream

where it is Holofernes who cuts

off Judith’s head and so

the courageous suffering

woman dies instead

I stumble across your room         

                     knocking piles of records down

trying to ignore the feeling I’m in a

well lit Howard Arkley painting

(god, why does he use those colours?

                                     they make me ill)

And where were you when he tried

              feeding me a line from

              Casablanca?

something about ‘all the  bars in the world’;

it doesn’t matter, he wasn’t even wearing

a fedora while he was saying it.

the first

Here you make sense of the rare moment

                    where the pulse distorts;

turning all into chords

full of Valentines

and sorrow

the storm salt            the peace touch

a lighthouse and I framed indefinitely

(the rare moment;

where the pinstripes have

fallen off your trousers)

have I really know you

            for so long?

a reply to Thomas Stearns;

The phone rings but not for you

and you try to be calm, composed

-but that is not you

You throw a plate to the ground

in frustration

You weep into the crook of your

arm at the sound of the china

breaking. And upon looking up

you see Eliot

waiting with words from Burnt Norton

(and like the best of them, dead

so long) articulating your sadness,

making it all seem so trivial, and so

you sit up, and stop crying

and read well past East Coker.

blue

In the grander scheme of things

you and I are separated by eight

shades of blue. You, kingfisher,

mix it with the turquoises while I am

ultramarined between delft and smalt

And don’t you know that

a little blurring never hurt

anybody?

a day in the life

Wednesday, June 25th 2008


Reading Schopenhauer on the tube...everyone thinks he is a mysoginist and a pessimist, I actually am quite partial to old Arthur. I feel for him. I know why he has these opinons of women and understand that he doesn't really hate them but he never managed to get the love and attention that he craved. 
When the first female role model in your life (dear mother) doesn't make you feel your own worth and bags you out to Goethe where do you go from there? Endless rejection, endless longing. My favourite grumpy German.

Cradling Marlboro lights on my fingertips. Old friend. Always there when I need to regroup and focus, cigarettes will kill you though. Gah. Red red wine in the evening leaves me looking like I've been punched in the mouth...a suitable illustration for how I feel. I have been converted to the Church of Blossom Hill...who knew the Californians can make a mean Merlot? Certainly not me. 

Decide I want a poodle as an homage to Mr. Schopenhauer. Ok maybe not right now though. 
I read an article that said listening to sad music when you are down actually makes you feel better, as opposed to worse; cue Ryan Adams, a man who has given me more comfort than he will ever know. Oneday I will buy him a drink or three. Absolutely.

Being a hopeless romantic is hard work; it's hopeless because inevitably no one will love you the same way you want or need to be loved. There are people out there, I'm sure. I've only met one so far and I'm too terrified to explore this further with him and so keep him in the shadows, much to both our dismay...the dissapointment and longing is a badge we hopeless romantics must wear time and again. 

Try in vain to keep away from one very very lovely English boy who turns me into a gibbering idiot with every interaction, and he reads Schopenhauer too, oh the pain. Searching for converstation but only find stammers and stops and banal comments on both our parts; "it's really bright in here isn't it?" Holy crap. If only you could just say "look, I really want to kiss you" maybe just to see their reaction. Ok, I like stirring things up...but I will keep that comment to myself. I hate when people ask for permission to kiss someone for the first time. The tentative politeness ruins it. Passion is not synonymous with politeness.

Schopenhauer is an old friend to me now. I rue the fact we will never have a proper dialogue..our conversations are so one-sided; I read him and relate and say to him "oh you don't really mean that, you're just hurting and scared like me" and he just keeps on going. Sometimes he relents and I break out into a grin, gleeful that I cracked his gruff exterior if only for a second, buried in a sentence somewhere.

Thinking about Virginia Woolf and she's right, I do need a room of my own. What am I going to do with all that spare time that was once gobbled up and filled to the brim with a lover? Be completely selfish, that's what. It's about time. Boys get more attention than they deserve and don't give much back for it either. Write, look out the window, do my own stuff without feeling self concious...it's been far too long.