There Is No Rose

There is nothing that binds us
Except the clutter around
And the noise unwelcome

This was unexpected
I have not...
As what courses through us
As what flows away.

There is no rose
There is no rose of such virtue

Nothing binds us but the roses
And the boredom.
Everything else is a pasture
We dare not graze

There is no rose of such virtue
There is no rose

The rhythm is unbearable
Your face alone despises those fruits
Beyond your grasp
The rhythm is beyond my measure
We shall not eat
We shall fast
We shall fast

There is no rose
There is no rose

Grace and your skin and time unearned
Bind us in fasting
The rhythm burns my lips
There is no light there is no rhythm there is

No face
No rose there is no rose there
Is no rose

There is no rose of such virtue
There is no rose of such virtue

We expire upon the thorns
The light is cold on your shoulder
Your skin must fear me a little

There is no rose
There is no rose

Impeccable in newborn sunlight, a face forgotten.
Ash hangs alongside your indifferent delight
Warm in the dew

The fast it is that binds us
We are blind only in the light

Your body sways like light
The wire in my mind glows
And cracks
There is no rose

There is no rose
There is no rose

Just stars
Welcome, night
Cold your face now
Cold your face

There is no rose of such virtue
There is no rose of such virtue
There is no rose

Dancing

I am done
With 'being-always-outward'.
Books line the shelves like a reproach
And all I can see is dancing, dancing.

There were memories, once
Of things now forgotten
And of birds
And of nothing at all

There were memories
Of light in a child's bedroom
Of a hand on my mottled cheek
Of you, dancing,
Dancing.

Now all the books are trying to say one thing
To be one book
Because something must replace the loss.
Dance, dance.

Broken Swans

One bright morning, as
The last flicker of Winter yielded
To the glimmering of Spring
Before me on the pavement lay
A broken swan
Offering me her last sigh

I looked up through impotent tears
To see my path and the world littered
With broken swans
As the last flicker of Winter yielded
To the glimmering of Spring.

A Prayer

Explain the world to me in my dreams
That knowing may guide my night
Though when I wake the knowledge may be gone
The having known forever remains

Know the world for me in my waking
That it may be hers through my eyes
And let this little thing forever be
A sign for those to come

Let thought the tiger abide
There is no peace here

Listen (W.I.P.)

Listen:
When this is ended, you will remember three things.

The first will come by accident
On a summer's day
You will be eating an orange in the shade
And the breeze will bring you
Memories of dancers
Of the heavy smells
And solemn mysteries.

I dreamt a world of cranes.
I flew among and over them
And though I could not see
To what purpose they swung and dipped,
I knew their work would never end
That what was to come
Could not surpass.

The fruit in your hands
Will become a sphere of my flesh,
And you will eat.

Cheap Wine

She's tall, taller than me,

With that little stoop that so many tall women have –

A little stoop, and one knee brought up slightly,

Allowing the foot to rest on its toes,

The hips swung to accommodate –

That makes her height seem almost attainable.

Her sweet, open face

Is prone to a look of happy shock,

Like a teenager in a first flirtation;

Her hands are slender and nimble.

We played backgammon

Over cheap wine,

Her fingers sliding graceful and quick across the board,

Counters clicking to some eternal rhythm,

Mine counting moves

Step by step.

Later, in the slip of orange light

Breaking from a streetlight through the curtains,

Those hands were such slight weight.