teer (after Reginald Shepherd)

the time, over
deep and near

north west, a neat tree
bound for years
in French

wings spread sights
a welcome over-cast

hills and me sitting
naked on damp grass

(it rained in my yesterday)

black frock coats, a situation
I am used to.

a basket filled with a fruit
I can’t make out - nor desire
to

if I build it
will
you?

special ones

So rather than being kicked around, I'm going to kick you to the curb
So rather than being pushed around, I'm going to push you away first
So rather than trying to protect you, I'm going to cover my basses first
So rather than trying to open my heart, I'm going to lock it with a key
So that only the special ones, so that only the special ones, can ever get through to me ~ 'Special One' George (Lyrics K. Noonan/N. Stewart)

It's the cynicism of empowerment as fear
'This is about me' a licence to seek
yourself -
a righteous kindness
that I denied you (worn grey scarves aside)

that within us, you excised,
covered over in
acrid thinner, scraped and denuded,
canvas and bone and push-pins -
that you
disappeared into we

So sing hard lyrics and lament notes
no longer hit
I didn't take your voice -
you've not got me to blame (delicious)
but I feel seething

remember, how I see you
there, de-structured, wire-framed
in stark relief, crimson
for what you fear, not who you
delight to be - how you dream you are...

how's the light at the roller-disco?
do 90's school-sport memories
ache up your scattered child-hood,
and its indiscreet confusions

before a time you remembered me with
(she always said it was difficult to be jealous)
others hands - all over, deep
but do not make me feel

I'm the knock at the door

Yerke Nayev Aghotk Eh *

I promised to see it all again
ragged and hemmed by too many stitches

I still pick at it, unthreading hairs,
clutching tweezers, pulling and probing

pull back the bedding, re-run the tear -
unsafetied and unhinged, tinkling

said just say out loud, such things
but you don't know I'm up now

just enough so I can hear you
as you are with the excision of

our life's exposed here early
to radiation, steep and strong

whir, click, whir - see this with you now,
over chemical peels, straight out

as long as your hair, I feel privilege
that's what I said 'lucky to have...'

no one got deeper, but that's your
burden not mine love, your malfunction

as long as it takes eh
no, no, not for you fledgling




* Songs Are Also Prayers

Poem in front of Gorky's 'Waterfall'

Carnation falls to a young girl
her feet reverently bare
over orange juice and pale
copies of Rilke, Webb and
other unmentionables.

Sari gelin, sari gelin

to get here rocks like sepulchers,
swimming in your dirty whites
wearing his jumper to dry
she seems like him now, hunched
and bitter hacking at the sterile
ground, all salt and wattle brush

Sari gelin, hye kacher