Yesterday's Flowers

She threw them away at last,

Those last withering flowers on her desk.

They were cluttering up her desk so!

It is impractical, she tells herself,

To hold on to things that will die;

And the flowers were so old!

December's cold had brought them

With warmth, with a lover's sigh

Frosted on the windowpane

Of last year's winter.

I'd slipped, she spends

Another breath in saying,

And now winter's come again.

Now winter's come around again,

And she's kissed enough summers to know

That the flowers are rotting,

Turning black, and old;

And goodness knows,

They were plain enough

To begin with.

To G.P. Of Hearts And Their Hiding Places

Your big heart wouldn't have fit

Inside a smaller chest.

Lips were moths fluttering around

The lighthouse of all our secrets,

As if desperate to suck dry

Every last entertaining drop

Of your goodness.

These days I wash away the memories

Of my lips sinning against yours

With my head nestled repentant

In the smaller breasts of smaller women.

I Dream Of Trains

I dream of trains, and the impending emptiness

Of the hearts and eyes watching the railroad

Being calm, and quiet, and cruel.

I dream of trains, of empty compartments,

Rooms that don't remember you, blitzing away

To towns you'll forget the names of, anyway.

I dream of trains, and things that whistle away

With your someones and somethings, and return

With someones and somethings else, and sometimes, nothings.

I dream of trains; I put my ear to the metal tracks

Anticipating the coming of them that I remember,

Until the weight of rememberance's wheel crushes my head.

To, An Old Protector.

You were strong. Stronger

Than three big men and a hammer,

A hammer you broke with your fortitude.

As my comrades and I struck again,

Blow by blow, your armour dented.

But your will held stubborn, firm.

My Kashmiri neighbour stopped hammering.

Took a deep breath, muttered expletives,

And commented that a will like yours

Could rid his region of her woes.

But that's just his Kashmiriness talking.

I'd rather you sat at Arthur's round table,

Going on missions to save fair maidens,

Or to slay dragons, evil sorcerers,

And National Debt.

Vipin, on my right, also a romantic,

On asking, said that he wished

He had a storeroom large enough

To hold everything he'd ever loved

And have you keep them in,

To never let them go.

The corridor light is out.

Tired, in the dark, I stare

At my open door, and you

Lying at my feet, noble; broken.

Lighting a hard-earned cigarette,

I muse over the naivety

Of my neighbour's thought:

Locks aren't for keeping things in,

They're for keeping them out.

December, or Monique and Paris 2005.

(1)

Winter, at her worst, is asleep.

She is not a fiery, raging goddess;

Rather, she stretches across the fields

Dreaming of a time when she wasn't as cold.

Her remembering tears are caught by blades of grass,

Her breath misting in the cold of a winter night.

Sitting alone at my dying bonfire,

A warmth I'd built with my own bare hands,

I dream of other hands, in another land;

Hands that had held mine, fire to my cold.

The embers glow on for a while,

Fighting against the unremembering of a cold winter's night.

(2)

Those other hands were naked, small;

Those hands that now belong to other lands,

To other, other hands.

Looking into the dying embers,

Before the gnawing dark, I remember

Another far-away December,

When those naked hands were with mine,

With false hopes and fingers, entwined.

Those fingers holding my ancient camera,

She'd caught me with my back to the Seine.

And we'd made love on the dark room's floor,

While photographs and negative thoughts developed.

Her eyes had caught desperately mine,

She'd cried out with tears that once had mattered.

She said, it was snowing, and you'd smiled,

And it was the smile that froze.

Ostriches.

Your eyes were wider, before.

But more was imminent

The death of those short Aprils,

The more your eyelids

Came closer, and closer

Until there were no eyes

But sheltered by velvety skin.

But more was imminent

The death of that Orpheus,

The death of Spring, of us

That you shut your eyes,

For ostriches believe

What can't be seen

Can't see.

Only you

Came closer, and closer

To me,

Until you narrowed into me

And I into you.

Then the ostriches in you

Awoke and said, run, and hide,

And seek not it.

For what cannot be sought for,

Cannot seek.

Your sandy eyelids,

Your purple eyelids covered

With topsoil, and wisdom's droop.

Like magnets they

Came closer, and closer

Until I was narrowed to me,

And you were narrowed to you.

I Have the Whole Sky to Myself Tonight.

(1) One.

December's taken quite the turn.

The trees revel in their pornography,

And leave me a tad baffled,

To see them shed their leafy cloaks.

How odd! As the weather gets colder,

We men pile on layers of clothes,

While they are at comfort to leave theirs,

To stand in solitude, proud and naked.

Ah! For that in itself is Lady Winter

In all her mystery, and charm,

And glory.

(2) Two.

Another winter's night on the rooftop for me;

The bitter frost envelopes the green of the grass,

As Night envelopes me in her arms.

Bitter trials, and even bitter tribulations,

Allow a bitter sigh to escape a bitter man as me,

As I, slowly but surely, open my cold embrace

To make cold love to the dusk, beautiful;

Hating her through every cold moment of it.

Yes, pick up the shards of the broken

Moonlight, and take it away.

I don't want it, but

I have the whole sky to myself tonight.