in the tenderness of morning,
no intoxication
of thoughts that open horizons
where rooms are low,
nor the sever of spring
under the grid of old words
that has set on our skin,
nor my favorite blue,
the cobalt
colour of silence.
No.
All I want
is your two hands
pulsing in mine,
the two of us
back in a circle
round our love.
Love Notes
Your clear shoulder
when the clothes have gone
seems so sure of us.
Gently, hands
caress and kindle
the glow, the skin
delights to know.
Your tongue,
a tiny peninsula
curves, stretches
longing to give way.
Currents swell, calm,
flow blue flamed
and sea sweat
beads flesh.
Scruples of hair
linger across your eyes,
order tossed to the wild.
Sounds entwine,
say our names,
the roar becomes
a whisper to
breathe clay open.
And the return
is from a distant kingdom,
where they were
neither mirrors
nor eyes.
Found
The flow of your voice
loosens the sand
that clings to my skin;
in a last rasp of whisper
the red salt stops its torment.
Soft and warm
you encircle me,
into the cave of my ear
your lips infuse a mantra,
over and over
to coax the well awake.
From the Womb Before the Dawn
This evening
everything rests
in clusters of light.
I can see you,
a woman who belongs
to the dawn.
Your hair is
innocent with dew.
With you
the night is shy,
it gathers itself
into the dark moons
of your eyes.
As you walk,
secrets repose
inside you.
When the anger
of the wind
rushes you,
be still,
remember
your primitive cradle.
Conamara in Our Mind
It gave us
the hungry landscapes,
resting upon
the unalleviated
bog-dream,
put us out
there, where
tenderness never settled,
except for the odd nest
of grouse mutterings
in the grieving rushes,
washed our eyes
in the glories of light.
In an instant
the whole place flares
in a glaze of pools,
as if a kind sun
let a red net
sink through the bog,
reach down to a forgotten
infancy of granite,
and dredge up
a haul of colours
that play and sparkle
through the smother of bog,
pinks, yellows,
amber and orange.
Your saffron scarf,
filled with wind,
rises over your head
like a halo,
then swings to catch
the back of your neck
like a sickle.
The next instant
the dark returns
this sweep of rotting land,
shrunken and vacant.
Listen,
you can almost hear
the hunger falling
back into itself.
This is no place
to be.
With the sun
withdrawn,
the bog wants to sink,
break
the anchor of rock
that holds it up.
We are left.
Arrival
I am gone, further out now
than the infant day I forsook
the feather water of the womb,
my wet skull snailing through
the skin tube, its elastic tight
blinds every feature of my face.
I fall over a sudden edge
into the open vacant light;
I dangle for a while from
the skin line like a bait
until gravity swallows me,
seals me in my skin shape.
Since then something within me
strains through the closed pores
of words to get its echo out,
but becomes dumb again
when it hears their foreign voices
mangle outside what is tender within.
But now …
I open like a swift breeze
over a meadow of clover
seamless, light and free;
helplessly, everything in me
rushes together towards
the dark life of your eyes.
First lines
I
Air Holds Echo
They are to be admired those survivors
What did you see (when you went out)
As it leaves (the sea inscribes)
You caught him out, (the one form)
On the day when (the weight deadens)
Where did you go (when your eyes closed)
Not (the blue light of his eyes)
I envy (the slow old)
No (don’t cry)
Was it evening in Barcelona, when
II
Hungers of Distance
Beneath me sleep
I am not sure you (live anywhere, no)
The Good Friday altar is bleak
Oh (the white utopia)
Receive the night
A thurible swings (longingly)
The moon (came down)
Too long stranded in the air, the land loves
This land would like to fold
Near me (scents of bath oil)
I wish for (swiftness)
I sit, alert (behind the small window)
Through this fester of bony earth, trying
The first breath of morning breaks the dark enough
It is an old habit to praise the light
Left unto itself, the earth is one field
The undertaker has a low, slow voice
In the beginning
III
Clay Holds Memory
November’s hunger strips the fields, its thin light
The clay (first breathed)
Night would not let me in
These stones in the wild
The dark inside us is sistered outside
From where she is (he seems singular)
Tight ground (grips you)
Concealed within daylight
She has become (a country woman)
Impaled in fright
In the sunday church
Under the frame (of their stubborn farm)
Since what is (gradual becomes less)
No blind hubris (did this to her)
IV
Icons of Love
Our love is (a sister of the light)
Before this line of shore was touched by tide
Pain can turn the heart’s cradle
Winter colours creep (towards you, cold)
After (all the words)
My love, (your questions)
I can no longer trust my voice, its white
I would send a raven
A circle of white wind
From you (I don’t want anything new)
Your clear shoulder (when the clothes have gone)
The flow of your voice
This evening (everything rests)
It gave us (the hungry landscapes)
I am gone, further out now
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