How Would I Love Thee

How would I love thee?
Well, my love is a kind of natural science,
the physics of perpetual motion.
An atomic birth,
explosions of movement and mathematics.
The piercing dance of a primitive god.

I would love you like sun-spots,
burning licks that kiss your naked legs.
I would love you like rain on your neck,
like thunder in your sleep.
I would love you with precision,
with jet-like courage, warring and relentless.
I would love you like Krishna,
with a horrifying honesty,
with a truth that swallows centuries.

How would I love thee?
With the ocean’s vengeance,
the gentleness of clashing clouds,
the music of jungle shadows.
My love is a kind of poison,
a brutal cure for your starvation.

What's The Fucking Point?

I know whatever I say
You’ll just dismiss
With that stubborn
And piteous grin.
You’ll talk through my
Angry but crafted words,
You’ll deny my distraught
Confessions
By simple appeal to the facts.
You’ll counteract and scoff
At the boyish energies of my heart
And crush any chance I have
Of forgetting you
By unravelling these ragged knots.
You’ll have some jagged logic ready
Some intransigent stance
Some chameleon philosophy
With which you will whip me
Until the awkwardness has passed.

To Anne - Remembering An Afternoon in Copenhagen

The church-like ghosts listened in the unraveled cold,
While we shared random laughs and random hopes.

We walked until the coffee-coloured dusk
Under a winter sun through a winter glass.

The streets of the city were stoned still and quiet
But alive with the mutterings of history.

Behind us you could hear horses on the cobbles
And the passing dresses of dead ladies.

Before us was the North Wind carrying with it snows
And all sorts of chaos in its white crisis.

New Year Haiku

Red clouds in the sky
The ground slips below my cold,
Careful New Year feet.

How I think of You

Think of your most sacred song.
Think now your most cherished thoughts,
Your most closely dreamed dreams about who you are.
Think of that which you would bleed and kill for.
Think of whatever it is
That would make you happy to face death.
Think about how it makes you lose your breath.
About how you become impatiently inspired,
Waking up smiling in utter darkness.
Think about how it makes your skin turn to flames,
And your tongue twitch with the possibilities of taste.
Think about how this feels,
And how it cannot be expressed.
Think of this, because this is how I think of you.

Give to Me Your Hurts

Give to me your hurts.
Give to me the fragilities
And the rejections,
The hostilities
And the disappointments that have
Drenched your heart all these years.

Give to me any reservations
You have about opening up your chest like the sun,
And letting your honesty pour
Like heaven’s laughter.
Give to me any remains of your damaged skin,
Unclothe yourself of the uniforms
And the fashions you have hidden yourself in.

Give to me anything
That has become precious but useless,
Your superstitions and your attachments.
Give to me your shameful secrets,
Those wordless terrors
That cripple the purity of your voice.

Give to me anything
Which convinces you
That you need me.
And I will show you
Nothing else
But your own feathered beauty.

Your Beauty Is Built Into This City

I could not pick you out from this city’s beauty.
From its galleries, its history and its churches.
I could not tell you apart from the classicism
Bold, triumphant and glorious.

I could not tell you apart from the sandstone
From morning’s knife-like light
I could not pick you out from the rush
From the symphonies of money, drama and art.

I could not tell you apart from these autumn streets
From pavements paved in flaming leaves.
I could not tell you apart from the winds
Whose moisture cleans your reddened face.

I could not tell you apart from the laughter
From the traffic and its clockwork thunder
I could not tell you apart from the winter
Alive and lit with a fiery theatre.

I could not pick you apart from the ghosts
And the echoes of their whispers.
Your are up there with the angry sun
As it burns out in a desperate furnace.

Your beauty is built into this city.
And so, for me, is your memory.