Mirror

There comes a time when you find someone
Whose soul fits you so well
It’s like holding up a mirror to yourself

And every light you shine      from mountain peak      comes climbing back into your eyes;

Every smile bestowed on breathless waiting beauty paints
_             your fortress face            a portrait just as kind
And every adoration rains from right to left and back as
_             winds of favour blow           your words into your ears
And every watercolour paint that wanders paper stains your eyes
_             with beauty borne of           rose-pricked finger tips
And every poem pulled from lover’s lips will taste as sweet as song
_             to hear the intonation         ringing from a kiss

And every crack on glass is echoed through your brittle bones
And every careless word is      body-blow and        needle-point and
Vicious glass-house shattered under sudden hail of stones
And plaster smiles that crumble      to the touch     of violent hands
And salt in wounds from           mirror-tears that shout
_                                                     the truth of love’s demand

Anatomy of a Lover

She has hair like satin cobwebs

She has eyes like broken hieroglyphics
She has eyes like gothic poetry

She has teeth like ordered tombstones
She has teeth holding every kiss in marble scripture

She has a smile like eggshells breaking
She has a smile like parting clouds
She has a smile and the moon, and the sun
She has a smile like a jigsaw puzzle
She has a smile like a desert flower
She has a smile so shy to bloom
She has a smile like scattered starlight
She has a smile like a broken mirror
She has a smile like a thread unraveling
She has a smile like surrender

She has a tongue like a matador’s cape
She has a tongue and the blade that rests behind it

She has lips like a bear trap

She has a chin like a palisade
She has a chin like the prow of a ship

She has a neck like sea spray

She has ribs like a birdcage

She has a heart like a cornered wolf

She has breasts like slender blasphemy

She has arms like willow trees

She has a hand like a runaway train
She has a hand like a burning kiss

She has fingers like bible verses
She has fingers like curling pages
She has fingers like hammers

She has a touch like autumn
She has a touch like candlelight
She has a touch like galaxies closing
She has a touch like falling leaves
She has a touch like a pretty knife

She has hips like sanctimony
She has hips like a marching band
She has hips like the sound of a mountain top
She has hips like a chorus

She has legs like a symphony

She has feet like sharks
She has feet like sleeping birds
She has feet like tree roots
She has feet like restless laughter

She has me – held in those hands
She has me – wrapped around those fingers
She has me – shaking from that touch
She has me – lying at those feet

She has everything that I can give her

Bastion

We met under the clock tower
You handed me an umbrella
And fell apart in my arms

And I took every piece of you
Every crumb, every tear, every portion I could hold

I turned them over in my hands
And held them out into the rain

I washed them in the water
I listened as the downpour loved your every curve,
w                                             wet your hair,
w                                             kissed your skin
I wove my fingers through your folds
I opened your lips to the onslaught
w              and filled you

w              I felt you tremble in my grip
w              I felt you shudder in the cold
w              I felt you shaking,
w                                     shaking,
w                                            shaking,

And

I let the rain run through you
I let it wash you away
I let it numb your fingers, still your hands, blue your lips

I kissed every fraction until the tremors stopped and you were clean

Then I folded you, oh so gently, over my arm
And I brought you inside

And there I laid you down on my bed
Picked you back together
And let the pieces remember
In the bastion of my lips
What it was like to be whole

Moments

Letters in the fireplace

And oceans on your pillows

Every moment  –  the helpless tremors

w                         –  the small deliberate actions

w                         –  the shape of your fist in the wall

Each one more fraction of the ending he never gave you

Labyrinth

Sunlight falling filtered through the endless centuries all wrapped in
cracked leather, left on shelves, presented and rejected by the present in a wash of
graveyard daybreak brushing over pencils, tables, papers, books, the clock upon the wall:
broken, but still right twice a day
and in between the solid tombs, two ghosts
here fleeting shining flitting through the aisles and sitting, two
tattered chairs all tied together by elastic bands, elastic fanfare
every time they pulled apart, snapped back to start
these cautious echoes rolling through the haze of Time
the half remembered whispers, glances stolen, scurried over tabletops and
pressed like flowers under pages and
folded into origami aviaries that
fluttered shy between the clouded smiles
alighted onto muffled laughter, feather light fingertips touching and
wandering hands and pen strokes pressed to flesh
indelibly
leaving smiles scrawled over skin, and words, and a wristwatch
written on a slender arm and still right twice before it faded
and “here, a Rolex” hinted in an artful whisper
a show of wealth remembered far beyond the stagnant fortunes of
the lonely empires lost among the labyrinth shelves
the paper maze that wound itself around the broken clock upon the wall
standing still, black arms raised to a long salute
locked fast to hide their selfish hoard of time, and hold it still
to capture every frozen moment without pages pressed or wrinkles folded into memory
to watch with rapt regard the flash of ivory, delight, and hieroglyphic eyes
spelling out, all spellbound every loud unspoken story they would weave
beneath the timeless gaze of the clock upon the wall
a sentinel that had not shown its face in years to all the
years and years stacked up in vellum vaults around
but still was right for every second that
lingered fragile in the air

Storm

When the wind howled
It was the silence of her skin against mine
And the windows shook
With the heat of her breath on my shoulder
And my heart thundered
At every fingertip tracing lines in the dark
And she looked so peaceful
When the lightning fell across her face, and smiled
But everything inside me was a storm

Luna

There on the roof, I shivered.
Watching the wind kiss you like a lover
I pressed your back to the tiles and
Stretched out the blanket of my empty skies
So I could taste every star that caught in your teeth
And behind us the absent moon sank down
Cracked like an egg on the horizon,
Like petals opening to a liquid hunger and I
Drank deep of that silver glow
Rising between your legs

Walls

I always thought you
Built your walls up so high.
They towered around you, broke the clouds
Shone from such a distance that I
Could not help but wander near
And I thought they were beautiful
Concrete ramparts, spray-painted bright
Iridescent with your smile
And I only wanted to look inside
Peak through the cracks at all the countless
Treasures they must hide
But standing beside you I found
That to me, they were just
Stained glass
A cathedral window that
Shattered at my touch

Autumn

A smile
Racing
Like sea foam

Autumn
The season of
Worms and falling leaves

A flower
Filtered sunlight
Sitting on a gravestone

w

Every silence when the sea calls out to me

Hill

There was a hill behind your house, where
Every evening we would fight
All the kings and beasts and demons of the day
Wage war against the falling sun
Hold fast our battle-line horizons; so small
We could defend them
And every campaign would end in
Uniform glory: two heroes all triumphant
Frozen in amber glow
Until the vicious trumpet would sound to
Bring our castles down
Leave us broken in retreat,
Two grubby soldiers tumbling down
All mortal wounds and broken crowns, and wailing
To shrink beneath the scoldings
In our grass stained armour
And bend over books, our penance
Only planning
The next battle