Obliterated Spaces

Once there was a space a goddess made,
from scratch, for you,
lined with tenderness and lust and forgiving lapses.
But vacuums want filling,
our physics teachers said.
You came by to fill
with words with eyes with restlessness.
You liked that space before it got crowded
with my dreams.
The space did not expand - got used up I guess.
It got smaller, denser all the time.
How curious, to have been caught up there,
like a tiny voiceless tiger.
A jarred hunter.
And who tightened the lid? and who let it loose?
Don't answer that, I wasn't asking.
Get that genie back in. It's time to let the worms have a go.

Agricultural Love

fertilizing, cultivating indifference;
feast and famine interlace,
an exercise in exorcising harmful breaches of nature,
futile for some, fruitful for others.
we learn to swim up stream
in the river between us and our desire.
we must study each detail in the vast meadow that lies
between want and need
where the love of yesterday and indifference of today coexist
without inducing notions of ugliness or failure
thoughts just swish there in gentle winds
sweeping across fields
like wheat heavy with grain
in the heat of summer they bow their heads
while everything around dries, evaporates.

The Making of Fossils

For a thousand days or more I burned.
A small mound of ashes remains,

gray matter blowing in winds made 

of thoughts and words
(I like words, don't get me wrong)
gathering here and there
then elsewhere on my face,
salted dunes of sand, yet
somewhat sweet and bitter.

Wrinkles form where none have been before,
of familiar tracks and words smoothed over.
One day another wind will unearth a truth (if there was any)
then will shift a little east or west or north or south
and I will look upon the body of words at the bottom of this
and marvel.  (Is that all there was?)
Impregnated by distance, by time, it will grow
a sense of something calcified,
a skeleton of burnt bodies.
Under the shadow of giant insects in an ancient world
we are made as insignificant as we have ever been.

Dregs of June 30th.

Dregs of cold coffee make me think
of a thumb stirring in my mouth,
of fingers on breasts,
of forbidden correspondence.
I look at those thoughts
from a distance.
I think I felt them once while driving.
They were hot then as this coffee was
in the morning.

The broken Shell

I loved that broken shell.

Into the beautiful cracks
I poured patience and glue.
This kind of work takes a
lot to keep it together.
Keep your fingers clear
or you'll never get them unstuck.
It all looks good as new when
pasted tight underneath
with blue pieces of tape.
Only I see where the pieces don't fit.

I put it back on display.

Shipwrecks

Each one of us crashes on someone's shore.
for some there could be a temporary rescue.
warm hands might pump hot air into stopped hearts,
even a resuscitating breath upon our lips will do.

sometime you even bring us up to shore.
you like us stranded on a rock,
a tragic-romantic sight.
we watch when others follow suit
and you carefully resuscitate another crasher.
a crowd could gather on that rock,

like forlorn penguins looking out to sea.
you promise visitations when you have some time,
you check our vigilance.
we take your shifts,we watch out for you
each time you come you are the one,
each one of us believes we are your one.

if we despair of you, as often happens
the sea is always there to welcome us again
through rocky waves we try to swim away
only to surrender powerless against the pull,
to crash again in currents stronger than our will
and when the waves are calm, too soft to kill
we rock there like a seaweed back and forth
back and forth
and we watch you as you stand there, still,
on a rock we have finally vacated,
your gaze scans the horizons,
you wait for other wrecked souls to reappear.
You know they will.

Sweet Talk

One icy day, long ago
I let some sweet talk poke holes in my bark,
sugary sap to flood my life.
The drip congealed on the ice,
sealed my thoughts that winter,
sweetened cold days,
by nights I was feeding on candy.
Until another winter, another year,
White cold days,
hour by hour I imagine you baste time in silence
my sweat love ruined
your sap did not thaw in time,
no more spring for us.

Contradiction to P.N. (Integration)

Before everything, I do not love you
as if there was never after
as if before, not waiting,
seeing you coming, breathless
you were already far from me

Far from me in your unreliable ways
without colour or sound
as warring countries never agree
their fields divided by borders,
not a river or a volcano in sight.

Far from you is far from me
your presence is close to nothing
and the sun is the color of clay
on calm days roots divide
silence is only silence
without music or courage.
Courage is a street
smooth, without stones
nothing tender runs through it
no feet, no lips

we stay in the boundary of a past
wide open, determined
you detach a wisp of tomorrow
to dissipate only once, in peace.

My Good Hands

Pieces of you are embedded in me.
I want nothing to do with them, but plenty to do to you.
The shards grow sharper,
They dissipate into my blood to spy vulnerable trends:
a word or lack thereof strolling through my veins and arteries.
A better man might try to flush them out, to heal me. Not you.
You keep your entry/exit points open,
And what if I bleed a little.
I notice when a lightning of a laugh
comes at me to smear a temporary calm,
careful, not to erase my nicks and bruises
or to restore some points in need of luster.
There is no such kindness.
Your memory awaits my good hands.
They will not come.

Little White Pool

Civility weighs upon you.
I am to be transparent
Like the little white pool left on your skin,
gathered in a handful of tissues
'I'll get rid of it' you say
we laugh, never to put you out
You buckle your belt without my help
today I wear no buttons
an armour of warm layers
impenetrable to your touch
ready for nothing
for when you change your mind
It does not help much
Hearts have no on/off buttons
I’ll see you whenever
Your mask says
I hear the door
white tissues fall on fresh snow
and just like that
I am gone.