Bed (2)

Within the timid constraints
of timber
we face each other
and face the future.

We discuss the triviality
of sentience, the disruption
caused by depth
we agreed that these things
aren’t for discussion
in bed
but they creep in anyway
and like us they lie
and they stay.

When you’re asleep,
who do you think of?

Because it pains me to think
I’ve betrayed you,
in dreams.

Hurts to say that my psyche
could be so
captured by the other.

When you turn away
you turn to her
behind your eyes

And no one ever says
that when you buy a bed
you wont be able to sleep in it.

But sadly so, perhaps
you’re better off on the sofa,

better off just going.

My side, your side
the divide created by sharing
is impossible.

Time to turn out the lights.

Just know that when you say goodnight
you’re really saying goodbye.

A Minor.

You littered the piano with notes
Took all the sanctity out of my singing voice
It's a cold, cold day it's been a
bad, bad year
How nice it is to sit a mere
closed door away
and hear your music.

And watch your fingers stroking the keys
as though my body would burst into song
if you chose the right notes
if you commanded it so
if you filled the air with sentience

you could just as easily fill me with hope.

Rising up that scale, shrill
my nerves surrendered to the utter,
utter majesty of your music
Your muscles tightening when you touch
the blacks, whites, my hips, the strings, my waist
the waste it is for you to
make these tunes,
if you don't want to play me.

Stump.

In the white clinical
casing it stands solitary;
A leg.

Wrapped in plastic, obscene
in it's heinous phallic
protrusiveness, hollowed out
in its sorry forgery.

Only a hop, skip and
jump away, a manmade
stick to rival the aspects
of bone and flesh,
blood and muscle;
If only I could
support myself,
If only I could feel
the pain of walking.

When they come to me with a knife
I close my eyes
and dream of
tying my shoelaces.

Each done with a stubborn
double knot,
the foot on my left leg
withering away, in a place that time forgot.

I think of a stone in my shoe
under the arch, bringing a tear
to my eye
and I think of the sad efficiency
of prosthetic
and it brings a tear
to my eyes

...a pair
to rival the absurdity of

a singular leg.

The symmetry of my body shattered
like a hammer to a mirror like
a chisel to bone the erasing of
days spent running
home meets the dream of my left leg
turning to dust all alone
the pang of metal against flesh,
and the wound where my life support stood
taughtened and sewn.
Tipping over like a domino,
stationary, surgeons flaunting
disregard for my DNA
by changing it with chisels
and smiles
I lay, invisibly crossing off miles.

You must be pulling my -.

I can only hope
when it goes,
that you'll stand up for me.

Y 4 ...

Look at the way we stand
shaking like leaves under
an Oak tree;
the grey sky, the gnarled wood
the carved words show
more love than is present here
if only you had the desire
to cut, to make permanent
your apathy, your indifference.

Roots in the ground go further,
go further than we ever will be.

Clouds in the sky part
just as fast as we do.

Tears in my eyes, rain on the ground,
rot in the hollow of the tree
your eyes, turning me

however far away

you are, there is always the shrill
whistle of wind piercing through me.

There is always the greener grass
on the other side, you graze there;
don't go to her.

Don't just stand here, shaking your head
there's no more room for death.

When it's Spring.

Let's change the clocks,
take back the hours spent in disarray
and spend them in the shade

of an Oak tree.

No room for shoulders,
cold smiles, leaves
No room for insurgence.

Love, take out your knife
and scratch on our righteousness;
cut like your life
depends on it.

Kundera.

My calves ache with the pain
of a thousand days
walking;
through the desert,
my mouth and eyes
as dry as sin;
my heart baron
and you are all awash in a sea,
away from me,
and there's nothing left to say
for the girl who's not forgiven.

But it's only now that I'm walking away
that I realise the pain of each step;
if my feet weren't made of lead
I'd come back, I'd stand up for you.

Alas my love there are
too many miles between us now
No time for the weight of your body
on mine/your fingers on my skin.

Night falls in the desert
the land cracks with the impossibility of it, you
and me, alone, wandering, never
The sky shushes the earth and I
don't have the strength to wonder
what I'd say, what I could say now
to placate you.

For forgiveness I ask
my words will not transpose
so harshly again, I can't see you anymore
But I want to touch you.

I want to feel the unbearable lightness of being.

Silver. (For ...)

We sleep in a room made of silver.
Dazzling in light, blinding
we sleep in eachother
our dull grey tears, we sleep in them
and then awake
and the morning is always washed in ache
prior to sex;
How appropriate it is
to love, and be loved by you.