A Thousand Leagues Away

Why can I never find the words to say,
as you hold my dreams and them defend,
I feel you a thousand leagues away?

The thought of you is many-hued ray,
and your warmth floods my own dark blood.
Why can I never find the words to say?

I can find you in the green and grey
of moss and slate; I know my friend,
and I feel you a thousand leagues away.

That's where I left you anyway.
It broke my heart to tear these continents apart.
Why can I never find the words to say

that, though we frolicked in a meadow and were gay,
to build a castle, my left slipped your right hand,
and now I feel you a thousand leagues away?

I made the night time to separate the days,
and, seeing how I do not sleep, you somehow understand
why I can never find the words to say
that I feel you a thousand leagues away.

Looking for My Name

I'm looking for my name.
Have you seen it?

It cannot be
a sound invented
by someone else
before I could speak
because your name is invented 

only by you.

Nor can it be
a sound copied
from man to child
across so many centuries
nobody really knows
where it came from
because I know
where my name comes from.

It comes from
the deepest part of me,
deep and dark and wet,
where muscles pound
and light is myth.

It comes from
the tenderest part of me,
which I'm afraid to touch
in case I feel
the flickering of eyelashes
magnified by a million.

It comes from
the youngest part of me,
as young as the unborn future,
so young
it is coming into being
forever.

So I know where my name comes from,
but that doesn't help me know
where it is.

It's in an unnamed place
as layered as road
as hidden as hurt
as alive as magma.

And when I find it,
I will carry it to the Sun
in the East,
hold it up
in my two hands
and blow.

I Prefer Not To

My last eleven e-mails
were from a string of corps
requesting valuation of
how they do their work.

At first it was amusing

to dish out random scores
but now they've got me wondering,
"What is this all for?"

First of all I paid them.
I assumed that was enough,
but now they've come abegging
for written notes of love.

I fear they won't be happy
until I've scored them all,
but how'd it come to me
to fill the vacuum in their souls?

As I look upon the world
and fail to place the blame,
I return to one solution
to which I'm hooked like crack cocaine.

I will write a poem,
a lovely little poem,
and fill it with my 'wisdom',
and hope it keeps me going.

But this one really means it,
so you'd better pay attention.
I can't be held responsible
for your personal redemption.

Listen up and listen good
'cos I will not say this twice.
The thing you did or stuff you sent,
basically sufficed.

It must have been acceptable,
arriving timely and intact.
If your product had been terrible,
I would've sent it back.

As to excellence or greatness,

thereof I cannot speak.
It seems to be a lofty goal
unless, of course, you've peaked.

Yet I guess your need is shallower
than I have yet supposed.
What you really want is evidence
that you've outperformed your foes.

But I will not play enabler
to your increased market share
so kindly gather up your e-mails,
and GET THE F*CK OUT OF HERE!

The Thirty-First of December

Usually, when we celebrate,
we remember:

a child leaving its mother's womb,
the formalisation of love,
the departure of a loved one.

Tonight, we celebrate endings,
but we have no endings to remember
because nothing ever really ends.

In truth,
life flows into life
as year flows into year.

However,
I have no doubt
that the vast puzzle of existence
is gradually solving itself

moment by moment,
with each dawning of truth,
with each feeling of love.

I have faith
that we are gathered
in the midst of a perfection
being made
quite simply
for the pleasure of doing so.

And that one day,
everything will end.

And so all our celebrations of endings
are being held
in the name of that one ending
still to come
when all that was ever made or dreamed
is finally complete.

Soul Bridge

Meet me here on the soul bridge
Meet me here tonight
Leave your body on the physical plane
Let your soul take flight

This is where the souls dance
Chest on soulful chest
My ears can hear what you're telling me
My soul can feel the rest

Way up here at the height of soul
We can watch the flow
The stuff and things of the physical
How they come and go

And when the body needs the body,
How do two be one?
Then hips touch hips on the plane of soul
As they've always done

Meet me here on the soul bridge
Meet me here tonight
Leave your body on the physical plane
Let your soul take flight

Water

You may think that water is just
the primary moving part
in the machine 
of the world.

But when it rains,
it calls out to us
from gutters, drainpipes, 
rivers and ditches.

And so it is a communicator
of the secret and forgotten passages
by which it passes through
the human layer.

And when it rains,
the roads and pavements shine
and street lights live again
in the darkness of puddles.

It is a renewer
more honest than snow,
and it gives second chances to those
who have burned theirs away.

Water does so many things
and does them so many times.
Perhaps its power of revival stems
from making each its first.

No Prior Experience

Do you realise 
that babies 
are being born 
every second
with no
prior 
experience? 

That's why you get all this crying 
and digestive malfunction 
going on for 
years!

Just think
if we could find a way
to get babies born 
with a reasonable grounding 
in the mechanics 
and philosophy 
of being a person. 

Wouldn't that be 
fantastic?!

Just think of it!

Executive babies!!!

This Is Not About You

Go and look at the waves
See how they crash on the shore
Again and again and again
No newspaper reports them
You saw them with your own eyes
No billionaire chose for you to see them
You went of your own accord
No authority gave you permission
You did that yourself
But this isn't about you
It's about the waves
And how they do what they do
Without the slightest human intervention
And it's about more than the waves
It's about the dripping in limestone caves
It's about the creatures in the Mariana Trench
It's about the formation of rain drops at two and a half thousand feet
And how none of them depend on humans
They do not require photographers in order to exist
No commissioning editor controls their existence
They just are
And they just do
Whether you know it or not
And that's not just true on Earth
But in the great red spot on Jupiter
And the soft gyres of the atmosphere of Neptune
And in the nuclear fusion of the sun
And in the elliptical paths of comets
And in the swallowed light of black holes
And in the slow but inexorable expansion of the universe
None of it is about humans
None of it is about you
None of it cares about you or has the capacity to do so
It has been happening
It is happening
And it will go on happening
Whether you know it or not
Whether it's in a big book of high resolution photographs or not
Whether any scientist anywhere has observed it or ever will
And this is true of almost the entire universe
Ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine percent of it
Everything except for the tiny lantern of cognition here on Earth
A theatre in which every audience member also sits upon the stage
Almost everything that has happened, is happening and will happen
Does so wholly one hundred percent regardless of humans or whatever they happen to think
And the crashing waves on the beach
Are just the beginning of a thread
That begins here
And wraps all the way around the universe
And you can go
And look at them
And remember
This is not about you
None of this is about you

Untitled Poem

Is it

that all your thoughts
belong 
to one mind 

or 

that all your minds 
belong 
to one hand?

River and Her Man

I, a witty human,
buzz at the surf.
It, a muscular river,
paws at the shale.

A mosquito and a hippopotamus,
we live up to the limit
of each other's worlds.

Applying tiny forces
in highly specific ways,
I call myself
sophisticated.

It roars in ascent
and in retreat,
ever outward facing.

It does not choose.
It is the most complete
embodiment of its own
possibilities.

In a boat, I row across it,
drawing a line
in the extended now
of my inner world.

It whispers
directly into my dreams,
from beneath,
at the softest part of my mind,

rolling against my
least-known shore
and doing what she
always does,

shaping me in ways
my clever brain
will never comprehend.

Half Man Feel Double

I came away from it all
Pulsing with seismic aftershocks

The feeling of having been open
Of having let my substance slip
From cracked hands

It left new marks, 
New scores and scuffs
On oak-hard skin
Added to a thousand,
No different to the casual observer
Than the last raindrop to smear the window,
But spelled out on me in pain
Like a word

I am scattered across oceans,
And the effort of holding myself together
Is so great
That the needle of time
Scratching out tunes on my surface
Pushes too hard, too deep
From the white and dead
Into the living tissue beneath

Painting a Statue of a Woman

Imagine:
the task of applying a coat of paint
to the statue of a woman; 
it would be to apply oneself 
to each and every aspect of her beauty, 
at once frail and human,
at once ethereal and undying; 
it would be a love letter to her, 
even if the statue represented 
no soul on Earth, 
and a love letter to the world; 

and yet all they would see is, 
oh, the statue is duck-egg blue now; 
yesterday, it was white; 
they would not understand the tenderness 
in each brushstroke, 
nor how it felt to take 
each aspect of her unworldly, 
worldly beauty in hand
and show that you understood it; 
understood its posture and geometry, 
understood its relationship with light 
and the human eye; 

the whole time, you would be whispering 
I know, I know, I know, 
I know; and she quietly, not looking up at you, 
would say: I love, I love, I love, 
I love; and you would ask - how could you not? 
You are made of love 
as all works of art are acts of love, 
love letters to the world 
written in self creation and self sacrifice, 
in genuine communication,
with the intention of being overheard; 

every second you would fear 
putting your brush in the pot of duck-egg blue paint 
only to find it dry, 
yet your brush would find it ever lubricious, 
new-smelling with the just-made odour of fresh paint, 
and as you completed the painting, 
you would find yourself wishing 
the gentle agony would never end;

once finished,
you would refrain from kissing her
still-wet duck-egg blue cheek,
and gather up your paints
and painting paraphernalia
as the brightness eased from the light, 
and you would go home, 
your bicycle wheels squealing,
and you sighing in the crepuscule, 
rejoicing that you're going home, 
lamenting that the day and all the work is done.

Solving the Surface

Just as the people could turn their heads in unison
and form a bold new republic,
the waters of the ocean could shift
and reveal the shale and rushes 
of a new continent,
a glistening child world,
knitted together
from corals and ancient whale song

And now knowing that,
you gaze entranced at the water's surface,
wondering what seashell charm
could compel it

Knowing it is possible because it can be seen
in the privacy of the mind's garden
and so also knowing:
the way exists

Shimmering footprints of moonlight hint at 
the great choreography that would enthrall 
the ocean's heart, 
so that it willingly surrendered:

brooding soil, 
swallowed islands, 
lost coins, 
monstrous skeletons,
surf,
mermaid-bearing delirium,
scatterings of stolen light,
fallen mountains, 

and all the other treasures
to which your hand is connect
when you but place it beneath the surface
of the gurgling, swaying, 
salt-crazed waters

And so you stand at the railing,
your eye stroking the soft blue-grey fabrics
and gently coaxing
the birth of a new world

Your Love

Your love is like a red, red knife
and a case of mortuary ice.

Your love is like a smoking pistol
known to the procurator fiscal*.

Your love is like a hangman's noose
just above some swinging boots.

Your love is like the ground up glass
concealed within a cooked breakfast.

Your love is more to me than life
and wholly worth the sacrifice.

*A Procurator Fiscal is a public prosecutor in Scotland with the responsibility, i.a., to investigate all sudden and suspicious deaths.

Never So Quiet

As I played the opening bars of my new composition
An old man stood in the darkness and began to dance
A curious dance in which he would spread out one hand
And then the other
And then there was a curious bowing routine
In which he would tilt forwards and backwards
And raise his hat to the young woman in the row behind him
It was mesmerising as a candle in a darkened room
It was profound as broken silence
It was tragic as a fugitive's fatal error
It was a dance none of whose steps or movements he would be able to recall
Though he stared at his polished shoes
And gazed at his beautiful old man's hands
And when he realised at last
That he had not performed the dance
It had been the other way around
He smiled and bowed until his forehead touched the soil of a distant shore

Speak for Thyself!

I.

There in the drafty, darkened hall,
limbs and jaws and bones withal,
a row of bodies, nude as sin,
knee by hip, and jaw by chin.

Pale were they, and eyes asunken,
lips were puckered, and mouths were shrunken,
and there amid the mangy throng,
was one I knew, and knew him strong.

Yes, eyes; yes, ears; yes, flaxen hair;
the features that I knew were there.
But not the knowledge of his parts,
what gave him to me was his heart.

His heart, that is to say his whole,
his composite, his living soul,
but sight thereof led not to sigh
of cheer, for he - that ghoul - was I.

But I were me, then who were him?
And how had mind been stripped from limb?
Once one is rent in pieces two,
How can the wit be threaded through?

I have been told 'Speak for thyself!'
by those who witness not this gulf
between the wick that flicks and flits
and the combe that keeps the wits.

II.

A moaning and a twitching gave me start,
And shiftingly those figures broke apart.
Sight of self was lost amid the throng,
trespassed by their eerie, keening song.

Worse yet, their shrouded eyes began to peel,
the sight of all those sightless eyes unreal.
And worser still within that song of bone,
the voice I heard the loudest was my own.

Whence from, this voice that issued from my lips?
Who would to mind perform such censorship?
Oh, clamour and the blabbing of the horde!
I tried to think and could not, so I roared!

"Be silent, beasts; allow me to conjecture!"
and, in response to efforts at prefecture,
my own white face began to twist and gurn,
and spit and scream, and that was how I learned,

as all the fiends took up their cries anew,
my bruit was my articulation true,
that when I turned my thoughts toward my tongue,
resultant din was how my words were sung.

So what, my friends, is poet made to do,
when all their words are rendered cry and hue?
Should I above my brawl try to be heard,
or beauty that I shape be e'er deferred?

The Spoiling of Beauty

Have you wished
for beauty,
that loveliness kissed
with lips of ruby
your brow?

Let us imagine
it happened,
and all with passion
were maddened
by you.

You could go nowhere
to breathe.
You were the flower
to bees
in the field.

When you were present
you gratified
and acquiescent
you catalysed
their need.

Your charm defrayed
those charges
that were raised
through largess
by want.

Now show your face,
its flaws and boons.
Does it pay
to grace a room?
No, it doesn't.

We could be free
not once but doubly
Let's make a plea
to be ugly
as sin.

We'd walk this land
tall as giants
with faces bland
in defiance
of man.

Toilet Sitting

Don’t toilets glow in the middle of the night?

I know it’s really because they’re white,

but aren’t they such places of solitude?

I mean it—not simply being crude.

There’s a touch of the confessional

despite the lack of religious professional.

One can think

next to the sink

and sort things out

and shift their thoughts about,

without worrying about approvement.

It is a place of spiritual movement.

Some pour it out at the tomb.

My preference is the little room.

Flower Rocket

You can listen to me reading this poem here.

A rocket went up
Into the sky today,
And from its thrusters
There came
A great unbroken stream
Of potpourri,
And inside the rocket,
Every room
And every bay
And every locker
Was full of flowers:
Red ones,
Blue ones,
Flowers whose petals
Were shaped like bottles,
Flowers whose odours
Evoked memories
Of grandmothers.
Flying the rocket
Were flower-people in uniforms
With big flower-shaped heads,
And the two lieutenant flowers
Saluted to the captain flower
And smiled,
And the captain flower
Saluted back
And smiled,
And the rocket went up and up
And around and around.
And when it reached
Its apogee,
One of the lieutenant flowers
Wrote down
Their exact distance
From the directrix:
An imaginary line
Above their heads
That went out into space
And touched the edges
Of the universe.
And the lieutenant flowers
And the captain flower
All looked at each other,
And they smiled.
And then the rocket
began to fall,
And the potpourri
That came streaming
From its thrusters
Now sprayed upwards
Like the water sprinkler
In Piccadilly Gardens.
And it continued
To fall;
It plunged,
It plummeted,
It dropped like
A plump peach.
And at twelve minutes
Past four
On Tuesday, the 23rd
Of May,
One hour
And thirty-seven minutes
After it was launched,
It entered the waters
Of the Pacific Ocean
At Point Nemo.
But now,
Instead of falling,
It was passed from palm
To palm
By the great watery hands
That lie in the ocean,
And wait
For the signal
To applaud.
The ship tumbled
And spun,
And bubbles went up
To the surface
As it sank.
Finally,
Its nose hit
The bottom
Of the Ocean
And slowly,
As though bruised,
It lowered itself
And lay down
On the Ocean bed.
All the flowers
Were dead.
The flower-people had taken
Revolvers
Out of their holsters
And blown their heads off
Ten minutes previously.
And when the metal
Of the rocket
was no longer
Too hot,
Fish would come up
And look through the windows
And mouth words
That are not
In any dictionary
And will never be
Spoken.

Unsupervised One Saturday

At ten o'clock, one Saturday, 
I sellotaped razor blades all over my body 
and wondered why I did not become 
sharp. 

At twenty past ten, I wrote myself in 
as the recipient on all my cheques 
and wondered why I did not become 
rich. 

At quarter past eleven, I cracked all the eggs, 
hundreds of them, into one vast bowl 
and mixed them all together 
in an effort to understand 
the questions of life and motherhood, but 
the vast gluey mixture 
just sat there and shone in the morning sunlight, froth like 

spit. 

It was neither water nor air. 
It was bodyful and knowing. 
I thought I could hear it laughing. 
I tossed in all the egg shells, 
but it did not make it better. 
In fact, it made it 

worse. 

At five to twelve, I broke a living room window 
and wondered why my home did not fill with 

air.

At half past one, I threw all the books on the floor 
and wondered why the words did not mingle and mate and make more 

books.

At five to two, I looked in the mirror 
and saw that I bled from the razor blades and the broken glass 

and had bits of dried egg yolk on my glasses. 
I took my glasses off, rubbed my eyes 
and wished that I hadn't done 

any of it. 

Then I went and I filled every container with water 
and put each one on the floor. 
I made a museum of water. 

I made a regiment of a water army. 
I kept doing it. 
I couldn't remember if I'd done it before. 
The water vessels looked noble and various. 
It looked like a forest. 

I felt like 

a giant. 

Soon, the water rose up like a tide and carried me 
and my sellotape and razors and my books and my eggs, 
and we all flowed through the hole in the window 
and down the hill and into the river and 

away.