No Moon

Sometimes I feel you breathing in

but I’m away again when you

breathe out

That mountain light is darker yellow

than it should be

The price tag on the painting is

pretending it’s the moon

but it’s not

there’s no moon out tonight

dreams of lions

Had a dream I was out walking in deep dust.

I found a lion that had been killed by arrows.

They covered his head and one was in his mouth.

His face was fierce — he’d tried to fight.

I wore him like a coat and took him to the river.

I tried to make him swim — tried to animate, revive him.

He only floated, downstream, away.

I wanted to be his saviour but I wasn’t.

yearning

after all this harsh learning

I’ve arrived with this yearning

for us to take this on

mostly wrong answers

Did you come to my party
And stay for longer than you wanted
Because I did to yours?
You hate parties
You’ve forgotten I know that
As you’ve forgotten most of us
Obligated
That unattractive word in form and in meaning

Partly I’m roaring, raging
I don’t want dutiful, owing, paying back some stolen thing,
penance for some crime
(And there’s the bottom line

The heartbreaking truth of us)

The beautiful thing that became so ugly is
It was never crime to me
You always felt the guilt as if it were
Duty and fear clung to you
Like pills on clothing
They held you together
They made you up
You were threadbare without them
You thought they made you good
None of that is love
I am certain that’s the truth
Part of me (pride or something more) lashes out

Arms flailing or hurling objects
Probably at walls — probably books
(They’ve the right weight —
So much about people is heaviness)
Probably the books you lent me
And I tried so hard to read
But I always thought them naff
They were too simple
Too clear and life isn’t
You were looking for solutions
And I was ready to go without
Had been already for years
Happy to wonder
Excitable with questions
Long before all this
Don’t they make you larger?

More alive? Questions?
Children ask questions
And we mostly don’t know
But feel obliged to reply

With mostly wrong answers

I will remember you laughing

You’re all busted up broken these days

Our youth is a poorly designed and made maze

A tourist attraction for those never-arrived

But such is the beauty of walking away

Before you are lost to the swell

I will remember you laughing

And never that you fell

I will remember you laughing, love

And never that you fell

And so

This should not

Depend on you

But there it is

And here we go

not yet

the warriors, still, are

walking wounded

and it is too soon for

renew restore refresh

we are not quite ready for

we are yet to acclimatise to

all the colours of the fade

4am

At 4am it’s you I seem to miss

lightning/sun

Highlight the horizon

For my imminent arrival

My homecoming

Wants lightning and sun

verbal

love is a noun

but

is also a verb

if

you can make it so