You are the seven colours of my rainbow,
The seven days within my week,
The seven wonders of my world,
The only prime number I seek.
You are each of my seven continents
My seven deadly sins
You’re the seven seas I travel, the seven notes I sing.
I tried to reverse the other day.
I found looking backwards difficult,
The scratch on the surface
Cutting deeper than you’d imagine,
Leaving marks that won’t go away
For all your optimistic talk.
Even moving forwards, I have discovered,
Is fraught with complication
And kindly old men
Who perhaps see the scuffs
And damage already there,
Take pity and let me on
My way.
To where?
And sometimes I just get locked out,
Left to wait on my own
For someone who might pick me up and rescue me.
Fix the damage.
I like looking at the people:
Grey, gaping mouthed, headphones in, aimless in their hurry,
Disembarking strangers; embarking lovers…
I imagine I see two years ago us
As I stare from the window of my train.
We are shiny and new against the pallor of everybody else’s everyday dullness.
We stroll side by side down the platform.
I am on the wrong side, of course,
To truly picture the scene
But then I am always on the wrong side,
Wanting to step out into that remembered picture,
Hold the hand that wasn’t held,
Kiss you on the mouth, on the platform,
In full view of the me
Staring out from behind the glass,
On that other train
That idles here. Waiting.
My language of love speaks
In the words I give you
That fall in the tearing tears
Of separation and dissolve
Into nothing
My language of love speaks
In the holding of hands,
The smooth and soft against the rough
Of a storm that’s hard to navigate
In the dark.
My language of love speaks
In the wind
Howling around us lustily
Of longing as it breaks boughs
Caves in roofs
My language of love speaks
In every touch and taste
Every temptation
Of red apples given
By a coiled snake.
My language of love speaks,
Asks much, needs little
Words. Words
Of simple difficult feelings,
Impulsively given.
My language of love speaks
Only to you. Honest,
Simple, clear articulation
Of what you already know
But I still want you to hear.
An Easter Island poem for Easter time by a poet whose timeless poems are fascinating for their beauty and their power.
La Rosa Separada – a translation of poem 1
Easter Island and Pablo Neruda
I
Today is that day, the day that carried
a desperate light that since has died.
Don’t let the squatters know:
let’s keep it all between us,
day, between your bell
and my secret.
Today is dead winter in the forgotten land
that comes to visit me, with a cross on the map
and a volcano in the snow, to return to me,
to return again the water
fallen on the roof of my childhood.
Today when the sun began with its shafts
to tell the story, so clear, so old,
the slanting rain fell like a sword,
the rain my hard heart welcomes.
You, my love, still asleep in August,
my queen, my woman, my vastness, my geography
kiss of mud, the carbon-coated zither,
you, vestment of my persistent song,
today you are reborn again and with the sky’s
black water confuse me and compel me:
I must renew my bones in your kingdom,
I must still uncloud my earthly duties.
The next last time
I spoke to you
Was the next last time
I looked into your eyes
And for the next last time
Got lost in them again.
That next last time
Should have been longer
So that for the next last time
When you kissed me,
When you kissed me…
It could have turned into the next last time
You felt my hands searching
For the next last time
To Touch you,
For a next last time to
Take you in my mouth and
Make that next last time
Even harder.
I went for a walk this evening, trying to clear my head but life seemed to have other ideas because I found these poems, or maybe ramblings, folded up and forgotten in the pocket of the old coat I was wearing. Who knows how long they have been there or even why they ended up there and I can’t even remember when I wrote them but I know who they are about. Whilst they are not particularly good, I like the rawness and the truthfulness of them written up like this. It suits my mood.
There’s this solitary house,
Forever yours and mine
A dream, a life, a dinner burned,
A bottle of good wine.
It’s a world of games you lose; I win
We play into the night
With open hearts and mouths and bodies
We let each other in.
And in the morning sunshine
There’s tea with sugar side by side,
We smile and tidy house but
There’s sadness that I hide.
Soon you’ll leave
I’ll watch you as you go
Unsure of all the many things
I thought I used to know.
And I’ll stay, I’ll wait, as the day unwinds
Praying that you will be back,
Down that long and difficult track.
I could gasp
Loudly,
Breath taken away by how much I love you;
The way you love me.
But I’ll probably moan about it instead,
Reliving you as you
Come inside my head.
Even if I could wrap it up,
Paper, ribbon,
Tape
You’d not be surprised to find
That same gift I give you every day
Beating away like a ticking bomb,
Sweet as stained-red marzipan.
