Orange Night

The orange night,
a solitary fruit
clinging to the boughs
of a black, dying tree-

what I remember
of you and the way
you clung to me.

Somewhere in the dark
a cello throbs in arrows
flung through sky

as if to slay

what is left of night
when its heart

burns out.

Questions of Flesh

All bindings released
beneath the intimacy of skin,
questions flesh asks itself...

the same query of dusk-

(hacking, breaking, burning
from severed cage of sky)

what form eternity
assumes when it has

no memory.

The Foolishness of Mature Skin

Did you really think
that your old bones,
leather skin, waning desires

would offend me as much

as the gnashing teeth

of your charred heart?

Separation of Humour

We had a laugh today, each
in our separate rooms,

the ivy grown
so thick between
the walls...

no one heard us.

Alibi of Silence

It is far more noble to leave
the silence when given
the opportunity, than

to disfigure its smooth,
porcelain exterior

with graffiti of word.

Wounds

I do not believe
that great, empty holes
are ever healed completely...

you can fill them
with what you like-

solid ground, death's confusion,
memories of pearly maidens,
the furry skeins of eternity,

even handfuls of darkness

will inevitably settle,
reveals the circumference

of original sin-

moist earth sunken

over disposed desire.

Today (mourns the sun)

Today the sun is older, yet
mourns the darkness
from which it rose...

a rose, with a nasty temperament
to delight and bite,

feeds upon itself

if no other flesh wounds
are opened by the thorns

of its fickle, wonderous tongue.

The Debt of Man

The descent of angel to man,
demon to the maternal arms of his pride,

began between the parted legs

of a woman, even God
clung to thighs, to womb

as if falling from heaven.

Transformation (from winter to flower)

What we have been this winter,
cold nights of raw bones, blue fingers,
whiteness of lips pressed to snow...

became hoary frost greying
on the crooked windows
of our abandoned house,

whose crumbling walls
set heavy now, over hidden designs

of a wakening slumber-

fragile shoots of marigold and lily.