Recent Poems on the Past

Presents

I have yours in four books,
in a necklace with matching earrings, in some lost-and-forgotten things
in a small teddy bear, and in anklets I never wear,
in many, many, letters I re-read, and in wishes every night before bed.
You have mine in music,
in a handcrafted wood box that holds your name card
in a long, unusual letter that won back your heart (if only for a while).
in a picture of two pairs of interlocked hands.
in messages sent on phone between our desert lands.


Will

i will be reading a book when you arrive
i will be writing notes in my diary
i will be singing on overcoming
i will be tying the last knot
i will be occupied
i will be busy
i will be
i will
be
I.
Will I?


20 July 2010

Something to remember

Cascando

1

why not merely the despaired of
occasion of
wordshed

is it not better abort than be barren

the hours after you are gone are so leaden
they will always start dragging too soon
the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want
bringing up the bones the old loves
sockets filled once with eyes like yours
all always is it better too soon than never
the black want splashing their faces
saying again nine days never floated the loved
nor nine months
nor nine lives

2

saying again
if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begging
last times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times of saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterable
whey of words

terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending

I and all the others that will love you
if they love you

3

unless they love you



(Samuel Beckett, 1936)

maybe the same poem

My poem left me. She walked away.
I’m tracing the echoes of what she said.

Each day is a brief relief -
Breathing in the day that is lived,
Breathing out the day that is lived.