Black Princess
Walk, she walks
As breeze through reeds stalks.
Slide, she slides
As swans on ripples bob.
Glide, she glides
As bluebirds by airtide rise.
Drift, she drifts
As some through others walk.
Talks, she talks
And all through masses cut,
Hunt, she does.
to flight clinging, hips swinging,
A winged river cat
making me pray
today
I am not mere prey,
like on the days
that I don't care
to mention
On Richard H.
He drank
first to luxuriate in,
then to hold off life,
followed by slowly
shoving the whole show
up his arse
and
die
Monday
I waited for Monday
as seldom I seem to wait
forgetting how quickly
black'n white days alternate,
after
someone stole soft Sunday's air
with me going round in circles
and sometimes in a square
Icarus Accused
It’s nice to be shameless. It comes in handy when finding oneself, formal as always, highly dressed before judge or committee set up to inquire about one’s ways. It gives one the opportunity to lie through distinguished teeth, faking how one cares while dodging real truth brilliantly through vain brain nimble and memory for utility drilled
To be looked upon as sincere when in reality one's a devious, pin-striped whore
Such honourable voice, deep only at its shallowest, and, success justifying the means, being real or authentic never having held one back. One's acquisitions, profits and gain furthermore, incidental only to one’s need for much esteem, seeing as at the end of each day the one for oneself is so profoundly... thin
But still, attacked, outrage and denial one's best friends. For skimming not outright stealing and self-reward not robbing, one convinced oneself long ago. And never mind if one leaves the disadvantaged scrambling in one’s wake, it’s not killing is it, as in tyranny and violent crime? Much obliged in other words, small murders not murders at all
It’s nice to be shameless. It comes in handy when flying high and forging ahead
But remember the sun and wings of wax
And Icarus neither victim nor hero,
but ignoble,
greedy fool!
A Wet Day
Poor rain!
Circular water
lowered into
the river into
the sea,
rubbing oozing salt off wings unseen,
float to float upward unperceived,
drift to drift back and
hang over barren earth
and thirsting souls
ready to moisten and caress again
All
with
fluid
loneliness...
Poor Rain!
Her Face
A rich
and angular
ondulating field
graced with two flowers,
two eyes
unfolding slowly
each day, each moment
lit by warmth from deep within.
Heat oft hidden, yet never quite gone, nor dark,
even when imperiled by fogs
of doubts or fears.
Doubts if yesterday's hurt
will come again;
Fears only disappearing
when kissed by
Heart's fresh outcry,
suddenly nearing.
Her face,
a celebration
once more
now clouds swept 'way,
Unfearful after
love's tender thirst
and dawn's new dew
rose
first.
THEM
What's them
is all talk
and marry well
and travel far
and talk some more
and talk
and talk
and take
and take
and never give,
especially
a damn
HER
Sometimes I embrace her body
Sometimes I embrace her mind
And when I embrace them both
it tends to be divine
OF TOMORROW
Evening,
lace of moments
round my neck still beating
from your interrupted embrace!
Darkness,
awaiting
the dawn of your touch!
Nearness,
only night-defeating light inconquerable,
it seems,
without inflicting
Hurt all are known to hate!
Morning,
prelude of tomorrow
and the final certainty
that while embrace unwillingly sometimes,
Darkness also breaks!
EVER MORE
A profile hewn from light and shadow
under umbrella-rounded hair
so fine,
I tremble before my hand outstretched,
awe nearly causing I withdraw,
except now her eyes burst open
and her mouth curls sweet
and her teeth speak bright
'What are you doing? What are you thinking?'
Irony! How is one to keep melodious
innocent breath from knowing
it has through its own mouth divine
to an enthralled ear traversed,
giving life twice, thrice...
and ever more?
MOMENT
I want to keep it!
It is not dirt!
She said,
refusing my hasty kerchief,
placing her hands protectively
against the upper insides of her legs, wanting this part of her
moist and warm and fertile
a good spell longer,
while
the other shook;
weak, weaker slow spasms
ebbing, way below layers
of clothes in disarray,
deep inside the dusk
of my car,
now
speeding off.
How utterly loving! I thought,
touching her hand;
but too stupid
to slow down
and
stop
that monstrous vehicle!
A FUNERAL FOR IMMORTALITY
(Subtitle: Sodomy and Velvet Hats)
There is no sweeter contingency
Yet consider the promise of endlessness and finding all things good, become all hell
So that the possibility of immortality's own death sneaking up, to this deception we should not over-react,
cuddled as we were
when still in need
of all her nurturing
Indeed, if immortality were a woman who had a certain way with us, holding herself out, making us go and go on, when otherwise and long ago we would have given up: yes, such is the power of suggestion and the degree to which our fears and at once the self-preservation behind our beliefs, do stimulate
The terrible power of fantasy, as it is called
For as it turns out her generosity always exactly mirrors our generosity towards ourselves
Now one day such a lady surely deserves a warm-hearted obituary, seeing how so very suddenly she grew so very old, and cold, before our very eyes. Or was it slowly, but nobody paid attention? The cause of death, since you ask, usually ignored in as formal an outpouring as an obituary, futile bringing the matter up, except perhaps for the benefit of those themselves blindly moribund. And having loads of time coming up with a suitable epitaph, there rarely existing need for impatience or thrusts of other sorts
For it is nearly impossible to write a well-reasoned prose treatise on something that isn't quite real, something like a real enough obituary for immortality and the reason lady-embodiment serves us well. For in defense of things it must be given a try as life only valued as a constant 'raging against the dying of the light' so often leads to the de facto denial of one. Like the stating, as so many do, that wisdom is 'accepting life's limitations' and from there swiftly going on to suggest how terrific and infinite and unlimitated the next one is. Commencing the search for the holy grail of this immortality, even when there is not the faintest hope of finding it, the real, organic universe unable to function in this manner
But let us return to the task of burying a lady: it is not easy celebrating someone who never was and could not be, someone comforting and fanciful, alive superbly in our desires, one we only recently and to our great shock learned no longer lives among us. Gone, defunct, dead and needing to be buried with great pomp, out of respect for what we perceived were her extraordinary accomplishments: dishing out limitless, beguiling reward as recompense for our own perceived victories and qualities. A spell-binding, an overly generous lady, deserving an elaborate grave, a solid grave, for she was uncommonly elusive and thought to be extremely tall, with all of us knowing her but none of us ever really seeing her, even though, incredibly, we would kill for her if we had to, chips down and seemingly in the service of some deep need
An obituary then that could say a lot or not so much, because she meant a lot or not so much, depending on to whom one spoke. In fact there could be more than one obituary, the irony that she knew so many and survived a long, long time in so many minds. Longer, and get this, than all her admirers, adherents and good friends put together. With The Daily Telegraph probably celebrating her service to King and Country. The Times her estates. The Guardian her fellow man and Radio Four her forceful voice. And that is because we are all so very much inspired by anything or anyone confirming what we already stand for, making every obituary rich... because... in fact... our own
Though strangely, dead or simply disappeared, she keeps on popping up, sighted by those who can't give up, wanting to have a fresh go at her. When the only thing the poor dear wanted was to be remembered, not be seduced again or in the other extreme driven to exhaustion. Or ridiculed by some, because that's the way we are: sometimes good, sometimes nasty, just don't push and as long as either way we bag some rich redemption. But seriously and swiftly removing tongue from cheek, is it not the premise of promise of such another life, the one after the one we know to be so short, precarious and cruel, the sole element of change that possibly makes sense? For what is the point of extending life with one just as fraught with uncertainty? And therefore making the dreaming up of one that is neither, such a perfectly natural endeavour? Putting to good use the one faculty making us differ from all other living creatures: Need something you cannot have, thus badly want? Why, of course, invent it!
Then buy it! And need itself then, so very facultative. And artificiality on the surface so very beneficiary. For it certainly seems to work in other parts of our existence, like matters economic: half the world lives decently by the fabrication of products that are useless or invisible. Goods and services based on fear and contingency. On mere impression and suggestion, with them crazy or smart enough to provide the stuff and us daft enough to buy it. Yes, along broad lines it works, just like the cold war. The economic catalyst without which we would all have been eating dirt and for decades fostering industry upon industry keeping us directly or indirectly in a job. Though nothing ever happened, no shots fired, only those empty, angry menaces and threats. And what did Yves Saint Laurent ever do for Joe Pizza? Sodomy and velvet hats? Just what everyman was pining for? Of course not, but let the poor designer be, you do get the point: he successfully employed thousands of us in hundreds of stores in a dozen countries, or more. But in the end, both Yves and the Cold War tired and went. Yet fatuous immortality, despite all funerals, ever so kept her allures
For on a further level it seems self-evident that there can be no life without death. So why then eliminate death? It is like trying to steal the horizon: it cannot be done and to begin with does not make sense. But by insisting on doing so, by trampling on others in the act, by being blind to every breath-taking landscape on our way, what are we achieving, anyway? To a growing number of us the secret lying in staying away from this sort of thing, by overcoming existential fears and silly ambition. Not craving immortality and reward the answer, ignoring that innate vulnerability to incentives of the kind. For it may be that in this ignoring and the human dignity it engenders lies the only timelessness that matters. Additionally and as a by-product, a delightful element of discovery left to our children, a stretch of road truly their own, nothing handed down or for much longer. The case before. Yes, not having their existence cut and dried after the ignoring... no longer ignored
Is this not the very least we can do, bequeathing them life's magnificent sense of adventure, the one that we are busy claiming on the late side? Therefore, besides her obituary, the funeral for immortality, our lovely but somewhat sly and once ancient lady, should be an extremely joyous and even repetitive one. Itself an unending New Orleans jazz funeral with laughter and dance flowing through the streets of five continents. Listen! Listen to the sway of that music, slow drums rolling, brash brass and soft reeds blowing, all feet moving, all man's skins aglow
What a way to live
As live we must,
with this load of time
the party
far from over?
(conceived just prior to FairyTales, the essay)
IMPUNITY LOST
There is
every chance
a body
buried illicitly,
meeting its end
less than fortuitously,
encountered
the kind of justice
it once dished out
If not,
a new crime's master
likely
bequeathing
impunity's second,
much more mortal
toss
Paris Streets
Pas de Deux says one affiche
Pas de Chiens says another
Pas du Tout said I
Quebec
O, glorious autumn
of red, burnt falling crowns
What more
can one ask for
but to lie
among
its Indian spirits quivering
below
its eloquent winds, wings!
Among
black tender tree trunks
and near
the gathering squirrel of the wary glance
Just
as long as
it protects
from
rushing polar frost
and leads towards
another rebirth
another shared exhilaration
another un-anguished confrontation
with God: ourselves;
another Spring
Loneliness
and
a moment of
inspiration
In the breeze of her,
across the ocean,
in my hotel's room,
washed my hair
and wrote it dry,
through my pen
finding her,
and with its flow
all this
peace
on
paper
MOTHER
My mother
likes blossom on a tree
much better than
apples,
growing later,
usurp,
disturb,
she says,
like some of us
steal spring,
spoil
everything