Without warning
My tongue flopped like a dead fish
Being dropped into a bucket.
A staccato stutter;
My voice, ratcheted in my throat
And in an instant
You had looked away,
Then (thinking better of it)
Looked back with widening eyes,
Your lips almost quivering
With the word that I had just lost.
© GB 2008
Friday, 18 April 2008
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
Lost
Like Hammershøi’s wife –
Seen from behind,
Dressed in the same muted
Greys and browns of the room,
Looking out into the watery light -
I sit at the window
Pretending to read,
And wait for news of your drowning.
© GB 2008
Monday, 24 March 2008
Lost in the Supermarket
The shelves raced off to the horizon,
They arced upwards, craned over,
Unsteady on their little heels.
They closed the gap from behind,
Rattling and shuddering with anticipation,
Reaching for him.
Shedding toys like tears.
© GB 2008
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Stampede
With our raging limbs
Entwined and enfolded,
We cling to each other.
Swooping and bowing,
Always close to the ground.
Thousands of sandals
Snapping the rhythm
Of our red-hot earth
Puffing between our toes.
For years, the hardly suppressed
Violence of our thoughts
Danced.
© GB 2008
Sunday, 27 January 2008
Yours is the only love
Yours is the only love I’ve known;
The years we’ve shared have been so gay.
Please do not leave me on my own.
Such wild nights! Singing without tone -
Remember how we used to play?
Yours is the only love I’ve known.
And now that I am older - grown
Tired, wearied by our long days -
Please do not leave me on my own.
We used to dance all the way home
And you would skip and spin and sway.
Yours is the only love I’ve known.
More likely now to moan and groan,
My stiff joints creak, my hair’s gone grey;
Please do not leave me on my own.
And here I sit beside this stone
With nothing left to do, but pray:
“Yours is the only love I’ve known,
Please do not leave me on my own”.
© GB 2008
The years we’ve shared have been so gay.
Please do not leave me on my own.
Such wild nights! Singing without tone -
Remember how we used to play?
Yours is the only love I’ve known.
And now that I am older - grown
Tired, wearied by our long days -
Please do not leave me on my own.
We used to dance all the way home
And you would skip and spin and sway.
Yours is the only love I’ve known.
More likely now to moan and groan,
My stiff joints creak, my hair’s gone grey;
Please do not leave me on my own.
And here I sit beside this stone
With nothing left to do, but pray:
“Yours is the only love I’ve known,
Please do not leave me on my own”.
© GB 2008
Friday, 25 January 2008
Parting (or, The Long Overdue Valediction)
She called it cowardice.
She was right, but I would not say so.
My eyes glittered with tears I would not spill for her
And my tongue sat like a toad in my throat and strangled every
Word.
I would not break my stride, though I limped with guilt.
“What we need is distance”.
I glanced back, raw with shame and saw
In her moody, sea-green eyes,
A glint, as of a sail being caught by the wind and
Snapping
Taut.
© GB 2008
She was right, but I would not say so.
My eyes glittered with tears I would not spill for her
And my tongue sat like a toad in my throat and strangled every
Word.
I would not break my stride, though I limped with guilt.
“What we need is distance”.
I glanced back, raw with shame and saw
In her moody, sea-green eyes,
A glint, as of a sail being caught by the wind and
Snapping
Taut.
© GB 2008
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