Lekshe's Mistake

And Suddenly

You asked for a poem and suddenly

my mind is empty

–something

I’ve been trying to do for years–

I ought to at least

thank you for that.

(Yes, I see the tall rocks pushing up from the ground

against the backdrop of snow

and spring, buried beneath the cold foot of winter.

Yes, I remember the same hills in early summer,

nodding in wild flowers

swelling with colourful suggestion.

Alongside these images

crowding in

are all the walks

we have not taken,

all the conversations left on the wind

all the secrets embedded in the pale skin of the wakeful moon.

I am distracted.)

Summer will come, my pen,

Fall will surely sweep away the ideas of

This, Not This.

Winter will come over a curved hill

and nestle in

against the warm breast of October,

against the murmuring voices

of change

and I, who have been silent

will be drowning you in words,

building dreamscapes--

open places for your

images to appear.

One Movement that Counts

Buy images like this from http://www.artmystique.com/tarot.html

The same dread

moved to ask the same questions

without a word

already worried

surrounded by choice

she turned the images

face up and looked at me, wide-eyed,

and said,

"All hell will break loose or

the gates of heaven will open,

watch your step."

I said, "Too late."

When you stand at the well

ready to draw up

from the beneath the black surface of

something you can’t see,

there’s one breath that matters

one movement that counts.

Sun Coming In

the empty bed, there in the corner,

quilt falling over the edge

sun coming in through the eastern windows

catching on the gilded surfaces of gods whose names we know

it was a long night

it was a long winter and now spring

unfolds my life, death that much nearer and for what?

I watched you in sleep,

mouth slightly open

breathing evenly, left hand twitching now and then

you’ll finish even in your sleep, so start

and start again and start

All those frayed lines

left on tables, pinned to the wall,

scribbled on the sheet rock along the hall

those rough edges are intentional

for gods sake don’t smooth them out, all right?

the world does not need one more perfect man

one more couplet in perfect form

one more thought asphyxiated by propriety

Breathe, for gods sake. Cough.

use the back of your hand to wipe your mouth

and be ready for a kiss of the roughest kind

you call yourself a lover well let me say this:

god never edited the sky

In the Air

You leave me glimpses of

darkness and

blind assumptions

threadbare offerings to a madwoman,

a saint and dog.

I washed my face, my hands

and locked the memory before

going lightly up the stairs to

a butter lamp and an empty bed.

discarded discoveries

litter the floor

promises and wishes

all worn out

a thin stip of red silk from India

tied to the bed reminds me why.

I’d wring my hands but at least you

understand what I said.

You read the words

scribbled along

the abandoned

boundaries and then you

said something eloquent

with your silence–

your hand making a point

in the air.

Rough and out of tricks

I offered myself inside a voice

when god was rough and out of tricks.

We argued over the sacred places of your body

covering you in promises and lies,

all scribed in purple ink

along the best curves and the narrowest divides.

You filled the tub with water and I sat on the edge

while you read stories, leaned up against the wall,

wiping steam from the pages.

I spent the whole time hoping

I’d fall in.

That was the real ending of page 47,

that laughter,

that embarrassment,

that fish-like movement you made

with your hand.

The lantern spoke

the lantern, spoke, Thom.

we are all out of light. finished.

best we start over, now, and

learn how to inch along in the dark.

it’ll be simpler,

your breath as the metronome, reciting syllables

that dissolve the boundaries

we used to take as real.

i am old again.

you are embarking on a generous version of youth,

better this time,

in your old body,

with your new habits.

oh, god,

this is going to be Good.

Well within

Fire admits

pale moonlight

casts a shadow further out,

but spontaneous combustion,

is not a decision.

The ocean has a future,

returning the past to the dead.

I wanted to live and I said so.

(time unfolds the

wreckage of another day with

nothing accomplished

worth saving)

At night we count our fatal

assumptions,

make liquid promises

to know better, somehow,

the dark past seeping into the golden ground.

It never works.

So many things said

outside the narrow line of sanity

upon which our ideas

were once

so neatly deranged.

You through whom

a knife moves surely

have my face, my heart,

every passage has a lock

but not a single door opens.

The water of our thoughts

is deep but we will survive the truth.

Silence recognized doubt

and clothed in a garment of light

your eye saw

the open place

midstream

and told me to swim

in that direction.

Drowning is

only swimming without

remembering the air

between your bones.

It’s risky.

The world is filled with bones,

some of them yours,

scattered

in familiar pattern

in places

you once called home–-every one

well within the boundaries of

my heart--

but that was then.

As it Is

I traverse another night

second by second,

things come,

unchanged.

I am trying to find you

inside the cloth of skin.

I find my way, but in a dream–

images and sound,

the mind’s movement

taking form. Who

shapes this experience?

I am easily convinced,

in a world with no proof whatsoever.

I name things--

things I’ve never seen

never will see now.

This was the second mistake,

and the third and the fourth.

Desire drowns in its own shameless water

darker and darker

towards the bottom sands

No light there,

no sound.

No quiet, either.

The next movement of the clock,

one more blank hope for something new.

Time never knows the present,

tethered as it is,

to the same small circle

life after life.

straight from your doorstep

we believed in
the same moment
the same sky

the same rain.

our bodies did.

our hearts did.

tell the others

what we learned.

tell them
their future
vanished
and ours was a dream

that lasted three important days.

the beginning is over.

the end will never arrive.

i came straight from your doorstep

and already i’ve lost my way.

Against a foriegn shore

I miss your pen.

Grey clouds, slung low,

valiant strokes against a foreign shore

dragging the sea

in and in

and what’s more, your words,

my words,

a strange fleet,

all the feelings overboard,

their meaning drowned, their fate complete.

Love may be born in the present but

failure was moored in the past

scattered over these wet dunes

among the razored grass

with bare feet and damp skirts

I walked lightly

over dry leaves cluttered

with dread

and was moved to ask

what it was I did–

though

I knew for sure you’d never tell

and when I tried to buy your thoughts with words–

It didn’t go so well.