SEQUENCE AFTER CATULLUS

& now I work loose the fetters’

clink, in mollusk-time of diminu-

tive observance, to distend into

latent-pools, & to know one’s

own well of distillation, or to sense

another’s crux, at having erred

in a vicious-circle…  Slow dissemi-

nation through psychic drive, &

to lift oneself from the salt-fires,

the greenish flames that line the

cypress, in our memory of dark

pulsing.  So tenebrous lakes float

in the cache you’ve saved with 

her patience, & blips dating from

before your orphic-mind, sem-

antic-drift, I see snake through

catacombs in elemental-engines. 

So she had urged you to ener-

gize your life-journeys, her mere

presence enough to raise the

lax-phantoms that fed on nil &

shadow…  Press then the swo

llen cusp, the rake-soldier,

who folds his paper fringed in

lilac & ash, a bleed of wax

columns, O light & sound whist-

ling in the distances of time… 

A brief expansiveness of halls

that sink, in the bogs of desti-

tution.  Lift from the waters 

that drip from your feet, &

clasp the glass-fountain that

shifts from its stasis.  I see

her now in commodious

caverns, & a quiet-buzz at

the jingling of her

words…  

WE SPOKE THE SAME LANGUAGE

Suddenly cognizant of the

silence that surrounds,

& the echoes of her voice, after she had left
the room.  Saying little things to her at which she would react  

perhaps later on, in subtle ways, allowing me a window
into her world.  Those slow Sundays spooling from the mist, the grey-silences,

& the erroneous world brought to a halt by our love,
that spoke so intimate between us
interlocutors.  Always a question that begs
consent, or to push

the borders that lie between us. 

& the malleability of language that seemed to

suggest some deeper-intimacies, in time-distant, in tomorrows we may never reach.

Feeling our way as if by intuition, the intimations that lead us through

corridors that quivered with glints, & shadows the

shape of leaves, in a situation the

world had not fully accepted, in a trust that had forgiven

what society had not.

We the actors amidst law that bound us to a higher order,

cards bursting from our grasps-of-wax, & a word

balanced on the fringe, those midway-points at which we intersect.

Slow-sequences into which we may find a foothold in our own chance-circumstance.

The subtle pains we caused each other

in our uncertainty, or perhaps an unspoken-forgiveness

in the tone of her voice,

the mirth welcomed into hands

that hummed with sadness, a cognizance that the

world had not-yet-realized, our love which was perhaps older

than we ourselves, & younger than the world

that worked to womb us in its silence.  A quiet-lull that slipped from shadows.

The silken-dream from which we had awoke.  I spoke to her

almost in a whisper, & her eyes widened with a hope that night  

had brought before us, a choice we ushered    

into life, knowing full well

there was no need for speech.  

FINDING THE WORDS

In a slow uncertain spiraling away, the day closes

into itself, & the fragrance of orange-blossoms

lifts from her skin as she skims against his sleeve in secret-empathies

time had linked them together       

a subtle warmth from his hands, & she

knowing full well that they were children of the future

& that today was coming to a close

so the city-lights filtered down

& in her silent-knowledge, she would glance at

him, as if with a question

& he too, patient as the times

required…

Long hours in the café waiting for that moment

slow-trials in glass-halls, & then at last the separation

already having taken place   

when love had vanished, as dragonflies 

against-the-waves, & we remained, with our own intimate-language

in which we’d act within-the-world, she hadn’t

graduated yet, it seemed 

but he, waiting for her always     

though never quite sure of how late         

it really was…

Autumn-lifts again, but the people

had forgotten the seasons, & it seemed at last his

estrangement was to fade

with the pulse-of-love, that welled

within him, at a glimpse of her dark-features, remembering the last

days in the city, the overhang, where people

filtered past, but he had never grown

accustomed to the others

who appeared to him as lost

in a sea-of-delusion, & yet, it was then he came

upon a quietude that sunk into

his bones…    

EVENING FACE

The clink of cut-glass disturbs
a silence I held by the tip of a 

string, & beads of distillation

form at the fringes we had

captured in a prismic-cage, I’m  

led through corridors darken-

ed with a flicker
                          of intimation... 

Yes, we had taken part in that

vast remembrance, spanning

over the course of some immeas-

urable gap, flashing in a pulse

of light across waves…  Evening   

spins, I see coins drop in dusk,
& my life, a show of absurdism
at last-light...  Green of moss,

glaze of daydreams fading in the

evening...  Time ellipses, a  

lengthening road spirals from

the stones.  & so we take in

the astringent air...
                            I see sparks

burst on the pavement, & im-

merse myself in churning-waves,

the silences we found behind

our lives...  I think of all that

had transpired, the cityscape 

flashing, as I return to myself...