Romance

Remember that rose?

From the Polaroid I took

At the rooftop restaurant

Of the Centre Pompidou?

Soft lobes, single stem,

Dipped in a slim vase,

In a Barbie-pink bar:

A dreamscape for lovers.

What happened to it

After we left, did the

Blush run to brown,

Head wilt and drop

Tear-like petals

Onto the table,

For the wind

To take them?

O rose

Thou art sick

Of being

In love.

On that sacre

Parisian Weekend,

Not like the first,

When I took ill and slept

While you schlepped

Round the 6th, alone.

Fell out on the Metro

And the Eurostar home,

My cheeks aflame,

The honeymoon over.

The next time we came

We fucked on the desk

In our room. Did we

Argue? Possibly.

Though it seems unkind

To say that we did,

That in the old us

There was the new.

The used-up now us

That crawls into bed

And sleeps like death.

This us. That us.

Here we are,

And there we were.

Whatever happened

To that rose?

Whatever happened

To us, for all that?

O rose

Thou art sick

Of being

A rose.

Other Polaroids:

Your shoes and bag

On a black tiled floor,

Clothes just out

Of shot. One of you

Taken prior to dinner

Your face radiant

In the flash,

Around your neck

The scarf you lost

In London. Where?

You can’t remember.

Whatever happened

To that scarf?

Whatever happened

To that rose?

Evervescence

Quite by surprise

I find myself

In the presence

Of God, or if not

God, Youth.

Not my own,

Nor do I have

Any place in it.

Yet here I am,

Effervescing,

A bottle poised

To pop its cork.

Summer heat

Refusing to fade.

Restive night -

That old foe -

Sour-faced

And anguished,

Walking tonight

In this street

Under lamplight,

Back to a time

When we drank

In dark alleys

Slipped a key

In a lock

And took

What wasn’t ours.

Raised sweet wine

To hungry lips,

Felt the ocean swell

Deep in our lungs,

Dipped the waves

And danced

Late into the night

Together, apart.

Once I thought

I would see

This world

Dreamt of voyages

By river,

Land and sea

Adventures

In the fevered

Grip of love.

And now I see

The impossibility,

The impossible sea

Between the dream

And the reality

Of what is

And what cannot be.

All the places

I have not seen

And never will.

The way of all

Who yearn to sail.

I have nothing

To give,

But these lines

And myself,

Wholly, to you.

Words rising up,

Fizzing briefly

Becoming still.

Tranquillo.

I want to dwell

In the realm

Of you,

Breathe you in

Like a bouquet.

Walk in step

And tarry, hold

And be held

As a child,

Feel the world

Through your

Fingertips.

Just to be

In the presence

Of God.

Your beauty.

Your youth.

Your love.

Autumn Equinox

Autumn. The pink-footed

Geese return.

On Arctic wind borne,

Anser brachyrhynchus

Drawn south for winter

By the failing sun.

Icelandic guests

Yakking to and fro

In loose formation,

From roosting site

To tattie fields.

Heading eastwards tonight,

Under the tattered canopy

Of variegated cloud,

In thin, ragged lines.

As pixelated soundwave,

Rippling and scratching

Across a dusk sky

Too pure to photograph,

Too perfect to be real.

A Window

Now I am not I,

Nor is my house now my house

‘Romance Sonambulo’, Garcia Lorca

He was sitting at a window

Watching the hour resolve itself

From the night’s black scrawl

To a muted green of dawn,

Listening

To the house

Coming back to life

In the morning’s pale cold.

The morning greeting him

With a stilled garden

Caught in the lure

Of autumn’s chill air.

Overnight, rain fell like lead,

Silvering the thatched lawn.

The beech hedge threaded

and interwoven by roiling coils

Of bramble. In the beds,

Apologetic poppies

Shaking sorry bonnets.

In the earth, worms ooze.

His eyes lit upon an apple tree

Planted by an unknown hand

Barely capable of bearing fruit

Its branches chafe

As if for warmth, like two hands

Over a hearth. Its neighbour

With one or two still clinging on:

Rotting baubles pecked by rooks,

Carcasses littering the grass,

Eviscerated carrion

And turning brown,

Left to spoil and seed.

He was sitting at a window

Looking upon a world

That was not his to know

A world being reformed

By the sun’s steady hand.

A garden which was like

A room of the mind

In a house returned to life.