No Pablo Neruda
Essays on life, work and literatureArchive for October, 2009
Bruises
I have to be a sentinel,
When I want an emotional row,
I have to protect myself against contingencies,
That didn’t happen then, but which happen now.
With the fading of youth, comes an empire of splendour,
During which I am no longer tender,
But when my hooks are untoothed,
I shiver the same as did when I knew
A touch that could please,
Could also render a bruise.
Lady K
In the night we are parted by a road
Down which she goes
And at its end, I wait aimlessly
With such proclivity
To receive, even where
In receiving,
I deceive all the things
That I believe in.
*
I am drinking whisky, and she
is annoyed by the smoke.
We agree to recede
And she leans in on me,
But under the shelter of a tree,
I long for the dark wood
Of a bar.
I think ‘it’s not too far’,
But far, is too far, you see.
*
I will make the bed
To which this bride is led,
And I will make the walls
For our roof,
But the truth is a legend
I lived, and then bended
To the wants that she had,
Which were needs,
And the needs which I had,
Which I ended,
To wait on the road,
With my character commended.
Kennedy Town
Her entropic gown
bows to the mountains
and weeps red sewage
into the now stagnant sea
while her population rises
and the heart of the soil
recoils, and the
absence of surprises
comes with human
commodity.
Her daughters are sold
for western pleasure
her oceans are dried to
hang in empty stalls
and the once magnificent
towers of
eastern opulence
crumble one into the
other
so much, but nothing there at all.
And waste is a friend of
the rising market,
of electric sunshine and
laser shows.
Where she secretes
the damage, the public
unknowing, not
here, they boast.
Love is an idol by wasted
ashes and a child
with eyes like pools
of brown silk,
while health is a
pyre for the fears
of the masses which
takes the aged and
the poor and their
ilk.
The goddess of kindness
comes from the
light show, when
the tourists, with
camera, cling to
her breast,
and cold tiles are
bought and placed where
a girl passes
but the streets are
too noisy for
rest.
King Leer
Catch a glance
You look askance
Your hands on someone’s breasts.
The winding down
Of cotton gowns
Are matrimonial tests.
Because I love you so
I forfeit words
And go unheard, but my heart is pumping hard.
This primal urge,
Purged in groups,
The last dichotomous card.
But how I love you so
And wish the flesh
Was folded back in robes,
And you and those
Would disappear, and roses bloom
In the abandoned theatre’s gloom.
Love me so,
Like I do you,
And when midnight tempts your leer
Help close the door on
My insidious doubt
And reach for me, I’m here.
Letters to Lovers
All the letters I wrote to lovers
I wrote beneath my covers
and I hid them from the people they were for.
All the letters I wrote to lovers
Were like letters penned by others
and they waxed the lyric praise of an adored.
But she never knew the moment
Of each delicious comment
and she never knew the beauty of the score.
So for each lost word I lament
And my anguished heart’s in torment
because the letters to my lovers go ignored.
