While You Were Sleeping, I Was Writing This Song

Angel of the quietest light,
Only star in another wise silent night.
I love you.
And that's the truth.
And the truth shall never set me free.
For being here, imprisoned by your arms,
Is where this Wanderer wants to be.
Around you even falling
seems to feel like flying,
at least for a little while.
I heard that in a story
About a man named Bad.
Who played a sad song,
Every night, down every country mile.
Every night you crash into me
with the sound of a thousand
thunderclaps muffled tightly
in the hollows of my chest.
You are the reason I write poetry,
and sing out loud to an empty room.
You are my Sunday morning,
You are my day of sacred rest.
The dancer and the dance.
The lover and the beloved.
The drunkard and the wine.
The Sufi in his whirlwind trance.
You are my music, you are my song,
You are the sound that moves me along.
You are mine, in this world
and all the others that may come.
You are my destination,
Whichever way I may choose to run.
You are. So I am.
Here in the shade of all these
crumbling things is where we'll stand.
In a growing pool of liquid regret.
They say all things must end.
But we're not done loving each other.
At least, not quite just yet.

For Yeats and For You

I'm glad that you are frightened.
And that my words pierce into your core.
I feel like I've been dancing around you.
And you have just let me into the door.
I never wanted to scare you,
Or to ever cause you that pain.
But it's better you know me as I am.
And help me be someone worthy again.
You are a white Lily in the nighttime,
Wearing starlight in your hair.
I am a seeker seeking no more,
Now that you're standing there.
Maybe you're right to be frightened,
Of all the hurt that may lie between.
Maybe I am not worthy of this,
And I should pass by silent and unseen.
But poem in hand, here I shall stand,
And think of you breathless and shy.
And we'll defeat this loveless land
With a tango under a blueberry sky.

Apology Arpeggio

It's getting dark,
Too dark to see.
I'm adrift and alone
A million miles from shore.
Open up your locks,
And set me free.
Dear darling, I promise I’ll
Be better than I was before.
I want you to know
It wasn’t me.
It was the man in the mirror
I smashed into the floor.
All the shit I put you through.
All the lies I said with a smile.
And here I stand knocking.
Saying it's you I adore.
Am I a monster hoping
Just to get a peek?
Of the sight of you standing there
Unclothed, afraid, unsure.
You told me once
Love's not a game.
So why'd you always let me win,
No matter what the score?
The wind storms in
Falling harshly on me.
It punished me some, but I
Keep begging for some more.
My love went on and on.
Until she locked herself in a room.
I can hear her crying through
The holes I made in the door.
All through that night
I sit outside in the dark,
Playing an apology arpeggio,
Hoping to be let in for the encore.

My Beautiful Love

Run into the darkness,
Run into the cold,
Into the arms of my
Beautiful love.
It tries to reach
you over every ocean
you run across.
Beautiful, for it comes
from the core of
my ugly heart.
It comes from all
that remains of Heaven
in the dust you
call my name.
I raise no shining cities,
Nor temples cast in gold.
I raise cracked palms
to the butter of your
weathered and weary soul.
I sing no ballads
Nor pen great poems.
I stutter and gasp,
and hum love songs,
badly, but you smile
all the same.
My Beautiful Love.
Come to me across
the boundaries of my
idiosyncratic idiocy,
Through the walls
I regret I built.
Come to me.
Here is where
I wait.
On a one tree hill,
underneath a sky
with no moon at all.
Come to me like
winter rain
in sheets of cold.
I deserve twice the pain
I etch across your face.
I'll bear thrice
the weight I press
upon your shoulders.
Run to your ocean.
Run to your sea.
Run across the city baby.
Towards whatever
version of me
you've chosen to see.
I'm waiting on the shores
of my beautiful love.
Where the ocean
soaks you in sorrow
every time you swim.
But we care not a bit,
not for the sorrow
nor the pain.
We care only that
in some other life
we were together. Now
Finding our way
towards each other
again.

Beautiful

I'm wondering why
I keep pushing you away.
Be patient, love.
It could be love.
You found the key
To the vault in my chest.
You freed all the doves
I caged and oppressed.
You made yourself at home
in the quiet heart of me.
I was unprepared for the
Miracle you turned out to be.
That's why you're beautiful.

I offer nothing but tears,
And a laugh now and then.
I use you as nothing more
than ink to fill in my pen.
I beguile you with moments
wrapped in silver and promises
chased with gold. Even then
With permanent tenderness,
Working quiet as a gardener
You ignore every one.
You bring the wood of my soul
Out into the morning sun.
That's why you're beautiful.

There's magic that remains,
On the dark side of the moon,
It's just that you're a symphony
And I can't seem to hold a tune.
Tie this wanderer down, love,
Just lift your hair away from your neck.
Take my faithless fingers,
In pilgrimage across your flesh.
I won't exchange the gift
You want to give me.
I never wanted to hurt you. But I did
and I will. And still you'll forgive me
That's why you're beautiful.

You were out walking the day
My legs gave way and I sat,
By the bench near the bay.
You didn't have to smile
when I looked up to pray.
But you did.
And that's why you're beautiful.

Writing Poetry to Disco Music is Good for the Soul

I got that Monster Love
Vibrating through the bones
of my home. Coming closer
to the dream of you, dancing,
getting more naked by the turn.
Fling away your clothes
and your darkness, baby.
Light my fire, make me burn.
Spin round and round
Like a trip hop pixie under
My disco ball fan.
Bombay nights are starless
because all of them dance
in the flashes of your smile.
I got that Monster Love
growling for your touch.
Scared the shit out of Dracula.
Had King Kong singing a song.
While I was waiting for you
to hear the beat in my soul
and come dance along.
You are the reason
God made fireflies.
Sweet sugar dream,
Technicolor surprise.
Shimmy shake shimmy shake
Let all our problems wait
outside the door tonight.
I'm alcoholic for your skin,
Girl. Come here. Got
Monstrous thirst to slake.
Drink this wine then
Redecorate my world.
Take me on a magic carpet ride
through the pyrotechnics
of your soul.
Shake me loose from this
Rhythm less little world.
Shake me through the night
I'm your man, you're my girl.
Only atheists don't dance.
Take my hand, let's go
Walk out into Velvet,
This night was made for disco.

Two Words

You cry
I cry
You ask
I lie
You love
I pretend
You begin
I end
You give
I take
a little
some more
You shimmy
I shake
Why not?
What for?
You push
I choke
You breathe
I smoke
Angel angel
Ugly bloke
Run away
my baby
Run away
Get in
Get on
Get gone
Temper thin
Pain prolonged
Shuffling along
My face
Your smile
Your inch
My mile
Your heart
My sleeve
You start
I leave
True love
true lies
One moon
Two skies
One poem
Two knives
Now hush
No more
Be still
Be pure
Maybe she'll
remember you
as you
were before.

Lonely Saturday Night Love Song

The night came to me
like my father.
Tall and quiet and wise.
It scolded me
much like he would.
Then hushed away my cries.
The night reminded me
of the promises I made
under damp sheets and
your ceiling fan.
While you lay there
on your stomach, your cheek
pressed happily
into the palm of my open hand.
It told me to make you smile
saying only that could bring me
back, from the edge of despair.
The light in the corner
showed me the harsher poetry
of the ugly grey lack, of you
upon your favorite chair.
I am less than I was
hoping to be.
I was less than
you need.
I am what remains
when lightning strikes
a tree.
You became the only priest
that could listen to my sins.
You became my last port of call,
and I hated you ever since.
I wanted to be the wings
you used to touch the sky.
But all that's left of me
are the tears in your eye.
I had put on all the masks
of the men I wanted to be.
You saw through everything
and loved the man
I never wanted to be.

And now you're gone.

And I'm sitting here
with four lamps of
darkness all around.
Ink frothing at my lips,
Poetry choking me from
making a sound.

I'm in Trouble

------x------

She smiles when I speak.
I speak because she smiles.
Does it matter which came first?

She pours cool spring water
into my mind. And yet, still I
look at her, and feel thirst.

My heart beats in rhythm
to the sound of her speech.
Even her breath to me is versed.

Here I sit, with my words, alone
trying to write something good enough
to free her from mortality's curse.

This isn't love. Not even close.
This is me punching Love in the chest.
Damn em all. Do your worst.

A Perfect New Year's Eve

We ended the year in the cold, by a fire, pouring our regrets into the flame. A little family and a group of friends, happy people all. Growing happier sharing the warmth of each other on a winter's night. We looked for answers in the embers, knowing nothing much would change. But we hadn't lost hope thus far, and were so very glad we came. All the dregs of the year we consecrated to the fire, and all our hopes as well. Down to ash it went to make room for something new. I sat there. You sat there too. We lit firecrackers full of joy, and scattered our own luminance across a glittering sky. We added soft creases around our smiles and returned that hunger to our eyes. We became beloved of the Moon and it's laughing sisters, the Stars. We sipped wine and told stories, refined laughter into a three-act play. There was so much we kept hidden, so much that made us afraid. But that night we became who we were meant to be, and so the Joy came to our souls, and there it stayed. We watched the Sun rise over a forest meadow, and saw the dawn deer quench their thirst with the morning dew. We saw the leaves of the grandfather trees, stern and tall and wise, with all that morning light shining through. We saw the ghost of Kipling walk across and get into the jeep. No sounds of traffic or crowds, just the swish of the mosquito net, as we lay down to sleep. We found what we were looking for. Momentarily, in each other. We looked at stranger's faces and saw nothing but a sister and a brother. We ended the year happy, full of all the things we really need. True friendship, love, and a perfect meal, every time. Our New Year began like a prayer. The way it's meant to be.