THEN I SAID

His room was low,
all of it, low
nothing on the walls
the bed, just above
the floor
his clothes
books
on the floor
stuff along the walls
in the middle
of the room
To bend
down
to pick up
a magazine
I crouched
to reach a lamp switch
Too low
I thought
And went to sleep
and fell asleep
and woke up
standing up
I moved the curtain aside
looked down
on a morning street

I wish you could love me a bit more
she said
and I heard the car
ignite
her mother driving
as I leant against
a whitewashed wall
in the shady side of this place
and thought I wish I could
but that wasn’t the problem

I do however want to say that the world,
as such, can be said to be the subject
of much literature,
and that the novel, maybe,
in some way, adequately enough,
let’s not be megalomaniacs,
carries the littleness of life.
I realize you are thinking
that this is just another effort to differentiate,
to select, but as the good Australian band,
The Go-Betweens say:
You can’t say no forever.
Life, in my humble view, is choice.
The mere essence of existence
is to choose, and to sometimes say:
Yes I like this, I want to keep that,
to remind me of now.
And then at the same time
to grant the slippery poodle-dropping
on the sidewalk
its true place in the Pantheon of reality,
by trying to step over it.

The shed in Kent still free?
Yours
Simon Robertson

where you were
the cemetery steps
sealed our hands
and where you
bumped
into my affection
the hip still
stands

the way you
pulled my new
composure to
and left it
with a wet kiss
to dry
made a sweet
smell
where the bitterness
used to lie

she was running around
the house that morning
jumping off stools and tables
trying not to touch the floor
as it was water

when she slipped and tumbled
into the deep unknown
her parents dreamt of
Spotted Eagle Rays lit
by St. Elmo’s Fire
she cried to wake them
from their age
the covers lay
like explosion mats
sheltering the world
from occasional blasts of ignorance

their daughter lay drowning
in the living room ocean

I wrote a poem once
that got mistaken by some builders
for the blueprint of a house
and they set about constructing
this poem as a prefab
adding adjectives to the foundation
of nouns and verbs
and fitting it with commas
to see through

I happened upon them as they
lay a question mark down as
roof, slowly lowering it
from a considerable height

I wondered what they thought
they had built
and wandered off
one poem poorer

he rose like a swarm of locusts
a wind of flowers and tube tickets blowing
straight through his shirt
he felt worse than that
he remembered drinks
he had had and fags he had smoked wanting to
look for notes
hired tuxedos party tents inflatable fences
the raw pulsating liquid
strumming through a satin sewer
his sick and tired solution
no longer a soldier of ebb and flow
his jacket of felt and beeswax
the blinding watchful
jumpy morning
smoking
straight out of something
forming clouds disappearing
as they appeared

under a spell of two guitars
my IKEA duvet
lay flowering
in November

the time of life that
should find us all
untuned mostly
greeted with death’s
sigh

the bricks contracted
from shame and coldness
thinking of this

print print
press
for time
is on Tokyo’s side
and New York
stalks the likes
of Sydney
drop off,
but stay calm

My lament’s only
7 inches high

As executioners go
the one who did Charles I inn
must have been a tormented soul
even at his own funeral
he is said to have wept
in regret
the angry mob
in the Whitechapel churchyard
didn’t care

but he had wanted it badly
to begin with
claiming his hereditary
right
to end lives
by the law
30 pounds in
half crowns
burned their way
through his pockets
“the dearest money I’ve ever earned”

Only the dead will dance with you now
marooned on the fifth floor
a waltz across the boards under the light of one lamp
to layers upon layers of dust from drying clothes
only the dead will tell you to keep it up
though you doubt their sincerity

you shouldn’t

we emerge from our rooms
in our late twenties
and early thirties
misty eyed and puffy cheeked
we ask: how did you sleep?
how did you get here anyway?

then we listen for some call of inspiration
while making cheap tea or coffee
go out for the paper
that ridiculous thing
and see it unfold
over many pages

take a look at our robes
of shrunken cotton
touch our greasy hair
kiss our eyes
that see much further
and look much better
now than ever

Maybe I should go out
again tonight?

I have spent too long
digging a reasonable grave
for you and your memory
to toss and turn in

I should go out again
tomorrow morning maybe
to slowly walk the beach
that held our promise

I might see driftwood and
you there
and move no further
stand and watch
the clear waves of
innocence
declining the shore

look at the way
these shoes lie
in the grass

look at the way
they seem to want
to wander off on their own

look at how they seem to want to be alone

look at the grass
where they lie
the brown of August

look at the shoes
off my feet
they look good

What moves the myriad hopes
away from introspection
into slumbering cells?
What releases these at intervals
and carries on as normal?
This is the scene we’re interested in:

she elegantly undoes whatever comes to mind
and many many many neurons cry HURRAH
flooding the cervix with that
MOST evasive of things
I have mentioned it before

Just something that came to mind
ON two reasonably warm and pleasant
days AT midnight
waking up before the alarm
hating it with a burning gut
standing it on its head

The things I need
to hurry doing
before I die
As if
I will feel
better afterwards
for having done them

It was Sideways on the couch
It was Saturday
It was New Orleans

took all our smiles
and my memory was beat
Someone jacked an amp up

and everything got worse
She used to wear the
things in season
I took two Vicodin and kicked the door in
I could sleep there
on a broken shoulder
the rationale was
how off season I was
then
the dry river-bed
waited for a let-down
in the reservoir
and the dam
up-stream
waiting for the rain
to pour
another year

I prefer to be
one
who haven’t
made the
big
decisions yet

I shall miss you she said
when you’re dead to me
no more thinking of me
wherever you are

I shall miss you too he said
like I always did not knowing
where you were thinking
you might have fallen ill

But I think I’ll grow less sentimental
and more forgetful soon

I was bored again
with what I did
during the day

but my nights were alright
my nights were alright

I took a ride
on the apostles’ horses
to where I drank
the city silent

I had the chemicals turning
in tune with my spine
the chords made my fingers find
the air where my heart lay

so
I scampered on
down the dark park
to where I reclined and beheld
the night with stars on

how different we were in many ways
the time allotted to us

but towards the city again
when I had seen Orion
the unclaimed God of lamp-posts
cars and laymen

When the snow was coming in sideways
I was out on the hill in my gear
up and down the little hill of my infancy
taking in the bumps and knocks
an absorption artist
a Houdini in reverse

When the snow lay meters thick
I was at home and wouldn’t leave
the fire and the warmth
looking into toys’ souls
a psychoanalyst of inanimate matter

The fun and the summer came
and made me cry
from knowing what made
the days turn long and the river overflow
a barometer of blood
knocked on by a breeze and the shining stars

After checking in
I passed security
which went well
and then I strolled around for ten
minutes looking at sun-glasses
Eau-de-Cologne
bags and other luxury items
and soon a pretty someone asked:

Are you looking for something in particular?

But I was walking towards the big windows
and sat down
to watch the planes
take off
and they did all
the time
I had a large
Cappuccino
with a toasted panini
took some photographs with my
mobile cellular phone
and
It became time
to find the gate
but first I went
to the toilet

Where do all these jerks come from? Seriously
the hail bounced like plastic pellets
on the asphalted will, I got scared
of the light for once

My city is quiet when I come home
I’m the only one walking this way
on an empty Finchley Road at 2 am
I ask the buss driver how much the
nightly fare is and he murmurs
something and I say can you please
just let me off at Camden town
I only have a tenner?
and when I come home my door is locked
and I scale the façade to smuggle myself into
the place where I can sleep
and it’s quiet here and the blossoms around our door
breath the quiet air

I’ve come from Germany tonight on a plane
I’ve read about the novel tonight on the M25
I’ve landed with a 737 tonight
but the novel’s in a dire way
and the city of London’s in a bad way
and I’m not doing too hot myself
to be honest

but what I’m struggling with is more than this
the honesty of this account
the what to say and how to feel

It was literature that saved the day and alcohol
will ruin tomorrow

Young girl singing stops what I’m doing
makes me pull the curtains apart
and think that there stands my sister
her daughter humming quietly

the way singing a melody can make her sad
she seems to enjoy her melancholy
the same tone over and over
leaves me standing thinking
there’s my daughter

and that is her life
humming by

On account of a new breeze in the air
the rain has evaporated
my hearing has left the right ear

ask a basic question
fail to notice when
a star turns into
trees outside my window
that rattle me from this irritating slumber

I’m right here I say
lying waiting
I always do

In her hair appeared ol’ Henry
and couldn’t help
that summer’s
downpour
equals any embrace
when hunting is fun
but killing is over

The time came and it let go
and it went!
out like a flush
the scalpneedles dropping

into silly thoughts

My moments
are alone
on early Saturday morns
The Heart one o six point two
undulates in a local café
over salty chips and beans and eggs
a headache and buses pushing by

From just behind the eye
swells a moment
of happiness
and circles for a while

I once overheard someone saying
write about what happens every day
and it seemed like good advice
and turned out to be
but only if the heart is in

then I heard someone say
try to be as obvious as you can
and I did
but it only made me
sad about the things that
are more

until one day I heard
nothing
and that’s when things
started to
work well
and I knew that
and it knew too

so I thought
what’s the matter with you?
and I picked up a book
and sat down and read
till I got tired
and went to bed

I dreamt I heard you and you
had a different name
although the same soreness
washed over the bed where I lay

Today while stretching
leaning over the flowers
five bumble bees were gathering
nectar I guess
these will surely fly into a dream
as well

The lamp behind the window
lights the glass
The trees that line
the street with hushing leaves
around me sat on a chair
waiting for a voice
to tick
like alarm-clocks
cheap and reliable

a movement in the air
makes the window rattle
sucks the curtain
out
and lets go again
to draw air
inside
again

The coat hangers dressed with shirts
form a queue in the closet
the coins in the jar
unpractical
but memorable
each with a year
on its side

The bed with a lump
of clean laundry
on
the only thing
apart from we
lately

One hundred cranes are lifting
a dozen bunnies out of a clearing
humps
the girls on the phones
are interruptive of life as a float
a stream of posts outside the train
why can’t they ignore other realities
for this
is what’s important
to slumber off by the humming
of the engine
and be carried symbolically
as well as physically closer
to the station

She doesn’t know her hair
falls into my dreams
she doesn’t know
the way it forces me to wake
from a falling crawl and the
Pantene whiffs of real life
and broken ideas it brings

Another fire tonight
produces ashlike verisimilitude
strewn over the lining of my back
a dull blasé doll
reclines endlessly
in the unmade bed of my head

What do I do looking at you
I’m wondering who’s who
looking at you knew
The breeze of yeast rising was
Overwhelming the spring in me
Tearing up control and planting
Your hips firmly either side of
A license to feel up.
The dead of May, not a single Thai
On the street or the agenda or
The arena or those things that
Resemble stages, either preliminary
Or permanent. Fed up with
Women’s stockings and their
Infinite dreariness. They are very dreary
F$$ing stockings of synthesis, the
Desire and F∞∞ing bore of getting
It. And really not wanting it.

Things to buy
Beer. Rain about to fall
Scissors flying round the head
Hand steadied at the temple. Mirror the
new air. Things to buy most definite
a hand rested on the head. Careful and
firm. A new square rain in the air

logic to keep and things to do. A hit
for sure
. This stop sells chandeliers and without
A hint of shame. Hair to colour. A drink mixed,
Busses off duty, a hand brow, resting
Most definite. Close eyes. The things to buy
Still rain in the air, but
No rain

There’s no point coming in here Yellowjacket
Your world is outside
The summer holds you
For you, a tramp among insects
From flower to flower
Hardheaded meeter of windowpanes
Buzzer
Conjurer up of memories
bzzzzzzzzz bzzzz follows a little
walk on the sill
You seem aimless to me
ziggetyzagging here and there
First a buzz then maybe a sting
another windowpane or shield

But if the window’s open
And you enter at
will
Chances are the morning paper
might fold into a sword of sorts
and end the buzzing
here and there

An atom pushed around
in queues, typing words that are meaningless
Wait and wait for something
an atom shoved along, a cup of tea offered to
stave off a cynical hunger

A cloud formed at dusk, hardly seen
and blown to see-through air again
someone asking someone to meet them
a bathroom radio sounding like: old harmonicas
steps up steps from the underground

Thunder at night and flickering lightning: on the wall
through a curtain. The beginning of a film that’s good
and alters the rhythm of breathing, for almost all
the morning book handled with skill and keys in the pocket
to work is work

A need to take
serious the days
that evaporate in minds that are ahead, the days are
not ahead, not a head at all. A strap that hums from speed
Close the book.

With so many things impossible, the ground will be
under snow again, and from the window of this airplane
I remember so many things, that are important
and will forget them when I nod off, soon enough
Even that, and that’s where it’s at

I’ll never say
I’ll see you again
My one day love
lasted me a year

I’ll never see you again
I’ll say and know
it’s probably true

It doesn’t mean
I’ll never think of you
again
My one day love
lasted me another year

You’ll hover
close
for as long as I have
Just behind my weakening steps

You’ll never say
you wanted it differently
and it’s probably true

Hi my name is Jason Galax
I escape from time to time
I have a friend or two
They’re from here around too

This is my story for you
Yeah it has to have a start
Sit down and ready for this poem
Maybe till the dawn of morning

The road took hold, its light source was the ocean
So there was then but the wheel and steel
The animals inside to the right the fish in the sea
Free to think and ponder
and rushing to without cease at cry wolf
Like Herr Buddenbrook I had an epiphany
Somethingseeping into me, the saltwater dips
In early morns. It broke all I need
Yellow LargeTowel, DisposableCamerA,
A road falling off the cliff.
I’m ready to know now, and see

I won’t go to Brighton
I won’t go tomorrow
I will be sick in bed
With someone

This elicits a deep sigh
In all
Marching bands
Are on the move
She married again
It was good and they took planes
Far
To visit and go home
A diet and
Sun cream on the sheets
The morning and a new
Terrace brings hope
Petunias birds fresh waves
Of Adriatic sun
A friend introduces
New enigmas
A fish is a bear

My deepest thanks
Although they’re
Not necessary

I Live in London
with a computer to boot
the one’s I know are in my heart

I believe
it’s a start
the music will prove tomorrow is just another

Banjo of hope
I lay myself down to see
take a look and see the part where

In dreams at night
busses travel roads
in a countryside away and

every other thought
of wolverines and buds
in May. The duvet embarrasses me

it comes down to
being nice
and shouting loud: the family is harmony

The month of April
is mine to steal
this year
last one was yours
by default

She came with her hair
cut short at the brow
and flowing softly
around her tiny
exposed shoulders

The fact of the matter
still amazes
a sensitive heart
the nights and daytimes
in your service

Never was there to be
and in all naivety
the castle stood
and the castle fell
with me

We’ll know each other
for 60 years

Four maybe five frames
of reference walking

Physics of separation
chemistry of reciprocity

Words like you
she said them
and bubbles rose
in still sparkling water

The tendency is yours
for drinks and walks
and the gravel you avoid
in heels of some season

The familiar anecdotes appear
as disillusion now
and the will has left
the speaker in thoughts

He approaches you and
then me with his story
and the language eludes
the speaker of righteous truth

Have I ever described
one day like today?
And the socks shifted
easily across the wooden floorboards

You weigh the tide
with inadequate equipment
and the years of flow
and ebb make no sense

To expect fair treatment
To treat oneself, you now
and not us others
you expected what?

With your tears I saw
What I saw
and I saw myself
disappear, like you

I have to hang up
It’s been a hard year
and I’m getting old
please call me in the morning

If you want to live
You have got to keep
Me awake
For the rest of the night
Because these drugs are tearing
me off to bed
to bed

where sometimes teeth fall out
and things happen
that are dreamt of only in dreams

to fight such things
is to know such things
as can be too much
tonight

these are aching arms that will dissolve
and muscles in the neck that crack
shut it off
turn it off
go out
please

and nothing seems
just is
very simple
and I don’t know how
to face
this simplicity

It comes
On hard
Hell fast shackle
Big guy I dreamt
That tall
Thanks for assuming
I don’t know
The onlyest time
I’m so alone

What keeps it from stopping?
Tank in me on
A ticking path
I abhor
From the lovely summer island
Two degrees phone
On 14th street
Monika and Nico heard
It close in my cage
On its own
On and on
My metronome

The real is concrete
The fast-road between
Images on a cork-board
Is incompletely unspeakable
I am boring I am
Boring I am boring
and concrete concrete hard
1 chord 2 chords
Away ahead
Ha ha
Ha ha
Take a look at
Things again
Not so solid
2nd time
3rd chord washes over
And it’s over and it’s good

I said goodbye to my youth
Today
He sat there on a bench
At the train station
And didn’t even look up
When I presented a hand for shakes
Ignoring me
or just not seeing
I got on the train
And thought:
corduroy trousers, ISA’s
and dental insurance
before the fields started crashing the windows

In the river he floated away
He sang very badly, some snow in the air
and swirls of water cut through reality
no matter how good he turned around
and the things he whispered in math-class
pass the ball up-field
the trees in dead winter looked on and saw
the struggle and the end and the body bumps against
stones like lukewarm lead
and giggles and living
those pieces of homework and tests
and walks home in soggy socks
for this winter water bed of rest

I would have wanted to meet us again
to see us chuckle over again over
things we had forgotten
Long ago, strangers now
Well I’m doing it, now
A year late and far away again
Those snowflakes had no idea
And you gave them no clue
Did you?

A dog ran towards me
and put his paws on my thigh
I got angry
Then I laughed
cause he was just a dog
and he made my trousers dirty
when he came to me
when he ran towards me
and put his paws on me
What a great thing for a dog
to do

Look Animals of the forest
Winter is over
Rotten flowers unveiled
On the casket of last year
Patchy snow, still cold wind
Dry broken branches
By the roadside

Plastic bags in mud
Wet asphalt with sand on it
Marie, the queen of waking early
Look at acorns on the ground

Making it again

When he died he was buried
with a eulogy read from the altar in the church
When she died they buried her
from the chapel at the
back

They got married in that chapel
and the same priest
who sealed them together
presided over his burial
at her request

We carried him out
into the pouring rain
and left her in there
opening our umbrellas
as we stepped out deciding who was riding with who

She bought and wrapped our presents
and she wrote the cards
She made him supper
sipping a little Dry Martini
she’d stirred with just the right amount of Vermouth, ice and Gin

This is an image of a city
seen at dusk from my window
I hope I can hold this thought
a little longer than usual

Why was I born with
so many colourful possibilities
to create stories based
on snippets of words and emotions?

Her head lies on a blanket
in the back of my car
We are driving down a very
dark and snow-clad road, she sleeps

An American image gleaned
from years of observance
You see already the image of the city
has receded and I am forever scurrying on

Impulse by thought, tear and laughter
I am the only one who is me
but I want it
differently

Keep out the bugs
that migrate in springminds
I don’t want them in your life
Crack up the blue tiles
little by way of one by one
Tiptoe this way in time
the chase of tangents in mind

Vancouver the Cold over
London the Old
don’t tell me, show me your home
and I’ll clear to enter my conscience
for a while
little dear love to be undone
like yeast exploding slowly
in loaves of bread
at the back of your mind

I don’t know what to write about
there is so little time and drinking Coke
she has a boyfriend in Poland
Never Never Land
Maybe I should try mixing Port and Coke
No What Has Happened to Love?
Take this as a chorus
In small glasses from Ikea
Today comes unbreakable,
a Jeff Tweedy riff already scathing itself
electric leads coil around solo
lumps of dust
telegraphic messengers of neglect
I don’t have nothing to write about
And time is short
Like me

All rationality to the wind
It’s good to be a poem
In mid-air
To be read and read and read
Or left and left
Forgotten Forgotten Forgotten

You wake up
It’s morning
thinking a sigh as
the heart sinks the sun
you know what
it does
as you don’t
share the brightness of your room
look at you under cover
with some heat of the night still
a fuzzy head the pillow keeps

This is what happens:
pull back the duvet
raise up your upper body
move the feet out
and put them on the floor
apply pressure and lean forward
stand up straight
walk to the bathroom
where you can shower

Later sit down
at your desk
and write about it
better than I can

A series of shouts
morning night
just after before sleep
must wake the neighbors wondering
the clapping sound and thumps

the rashes I felt from lack of a mineral
on your ass
some element like Selenium
why in this day and age carry a rash around
that doesn’t need scratching or even seeing to?

Hell Fire sometimes they call it
or Shingles
such a base and pedestrian name for
such a hard-fought condition
Listen, I let my immune system down for you

I don’t give up eating for strangers

He’s called Bells after the prostitute’s whisky
he comes as the world falls and he sees it fall
but he does not care
all his seamen shot into Fruit of the Loom
to dry and be washed away with biodegradable detergent
in this room he says, the dust heaps up faster
than ever before in his life
sometimes he thinks he could vacuum it up
when his bed shakes from the washer next door
smoke sometimes seeps under the door and the girl
who smokes is smoking again
it is annoying he thinks. Smoke in rooms
it piles on top of dust as sure as damn dawn.

Who are his heroes?
He asks me: was I wasting my serious youth, laughing when
I should have been crying?
My bank account my shoes my piles of paper, are his
as real as ice, my life is a simple song, like his
Hum it! (goddamit)
That’s his hope I think
A strong simile like mirrors spat on with toothpaste
A lifetime of work to represent
thoughts
A futile endeavor if there ever was one
A man sucked into seconds
Like a man sucked into seconds

Another tea-candle gave in
the silent way favored by their like and tallowy smoke
rose up from the table. I suppose these things go mostly unnoticed
and without much struggle. It’s just over
in a very mundane and
matter of factly way. No more matter to burn, end of burning
Like this poem, no more to say, no more saying

there is whisky in the beauty full
of condensate liquid sugar coloring
there’s nothing left of my love for you
It went this way:
I saw you come into the yard with a backpack
I was smoking and drinking together with Paul
No notice made then, suck suck the cigarette
Clink clink the ice cubes around and around in Gin
My shirtsleeves rolled up like a man from 1950
Oh, and the hair flowing, tanned, drunk, soon going to America
I made my table laugh and went for some more wine
On my way back, hey I saw you
Oh dear
So the sun took farewell with sun soaked warm leaves
The neighborhood dogs let in
Certainly moisture was coming from the ground
Coal sizzling away
My plate was full of Waldorf salad
Gaby got married had a child and Tom was fat
Oh the time it had flown
“I’ll write this dissertation on Habermas”. No you won’t
It’s Ken from the army, he wants to talk to you
The dark
Wine the cigarettes and the lust not wanting sleep never
Your arm came to the chair next to
“you have no concept of the public sphere”
And piercing eyes you had, that’s clear
“No censorship necessary do you hear me, not necessary”
Let’s go to the other side oh
Of the house where they’re eating Marshmallows
Promise made and promise promise
You’re so thin
In the gravel do you want to lay me down
yes goodbye
heavy burden of mine that I never carried

I go down and try to think, I go down and
from there I look out onto the street and wait. Then I go to the park
and look at the city and I see and believe that the city is as good as a painting.
The hum of busses and leaves rustling accompany that
and when it’s over I, who was standing and watching
go back into the grid below
that’s where I belong
and so it be, chemists, florists and me were never acquainted
but drugs and flowers are everywhere. How can it be the broad day and still feel
like the predawn?

it started at the time my grandmother and I
went on holiday. I met a nice young girl
11 like me and we walked to the mall in the little
tourist-trap and got food poisoned by some
ice cubes in a glass of coke or seven-up
and was left to eat soup and boiled chicken for
a few days. A car stopped next to us and pretended they
wanted to take us away that night
coming back from the mall
I was afraid to my bones then
maybe that’s what gave me the fever and the vomiting
not the ice cubes in the glass of coke or seven-up
That little shit of a white car!

I broke my arm some weeks after that, skating in front of our house
It must have been a kick-flip, or a varial

it felt good when the plaster came on
it felt much better when the plaster came off
I nearly fainted and felt sick
as hell
as if I’d eaten something bad or was ill
but it felt real good as well

I don’t know why I’m telling you this
at all, it’s water under some bridge with moss on it
and my grandmother’s dead

But I remember her soft skin
from applying all that lotion
we two could just sit and say something
and feel really good just
A few years later we were having dinner at a
Chinese restaurant
We liked that food us two
but when I left and walked to the train, and she
walked back
her way
I stopped and looked back
and looked back
at my grandmother
and I thought I’d never see her again

this lady who liked me so much

I was talking to someone on the phone
today of all days
and we decided, or rather she said
it might be good
for the soul to get out a little
you know
She hung up and the mailman dropped
something through the door
while the water boiled and some toast
was burning
like a candle in both ends the way someone
refers to the act of giving it all you got
but that doesn’t matter much
in the greater scheme of things
I mean the way certain “souls” talk about the world

It’s Monday and it was cold through the night
of little more than 5 hours sleep
and a friend calls and says: the extension of people into
what is known as culture is little more than
everyone having their reasons and reasons butting against
meaninglessness
I think he’s right, I don’t tell him. I don’t want him to think
he’s clever, it might make him cocky
I put on the old sweater and pass the razor across my
face once more revealing the lost youth-like features
and the dry skin from hard water

pretty little ditty grins back from the mirror
I take out the coins in my pocket and look at them
then I go out the door
for the hundredth time this week just to buy coffee
I bet it looks insignificant from a plane
it sure does from here
A teacher once told me: I find lying more civil and forgiving than being honest
I think I know what he meant
but then again you never know
with all the agendas
that keep replacing themselves
I had a long and hard look at the wall
some hours passed
thinking about the only car I ever owned and the rays of light
I caught last September
What is this thing that’s calling? he acts as if he runs on a motor
for all you know

Some forms of rain come invited
the light drizzle on Highgate cemetery
from a quilt of clouds

She said sorry
so honest
all she did was brush my plastic bag with her hand

and it killed me, it really did
I wanted to grab her arm and talk to her
like my sister

I wanted to know her just as people know each other well
and feel tender and responsible and glad for
strings of incredible strength

there in the tunnel at Goodge Street station
oh brother
fine wet moss on Karl Marx’s grave

and the day
was well under way
and had started with serious error

When I was told that I should be suspicious
of ‘we’, I became more anxious about me and I
and it became difficult to say:

when can we please not be interrupted

or forced upon by and easy idea
It kept on swirling and I kept on being
embarrassed because we were gone

It was no longer a question of we, or us

and the whole meaningful thought of saying
something for us, that would stand, and represent any
little piece of memory

coming back many years from now

it was gone and I stopped looking immediately
and the anger was going out like a rip current
leaving books and stories to be conceived

but no we, no we, and absolutely no us and I

And I do, I do, I do much like a weeping convict, regret
the focus is wrong and the friends are wrong but the light is strong
like an afternoon apocalypse in the slow movie inside the carriage without
a captain inside the bloodstream diluted with the starch of oblivion

promising nothing to the hum of the cabbie’s wheels in the Ska of the moment
my thoughts are not of Michael Jackson but Ginsberg, Larkin, Koch and Bukowski
to believe in the most absurd of hopes likely to shiver away the minute
the page is turned and the coffee is swallowed with the yolk of ambition

showering shaving and crying laughing angry and ecstatic Toledo
Tobago, Tijuana tamales tomorrow today howl to the nothingness
of lifetime, entities of bribe, the seconds convincing each other to keep on appearing
listen to the pigeon and listen to its nothingness, a heart in a bottle cap ticking and

keeping time, holding score sheets, ignoring beautiful pedestrians, because keeping
time and its like happy, is no concern of mine, they can remove all the lamp posts
with the signs of speedy modernity, underground maps, hours and hours
ordering kebabs, asking what kind of sauce you would like

and frankly tossing it away, in the time, in the time it takes to reset
the stopwatch, the scream has died out in the lonely passage on
a little day, on my flat chest, off my slanted shoulder into the gutter
where the bottles and the hob caps lie waiting for later

Her recovering her steps
and him not taking notice, smiling (stupidly)
and me slouched, beat out
taking it in through bypassing norms
and caring not like Orwell
but, like, well
if I time the detail
the A train and the Skytrain
pushing shivering, scared air
in blocks invisible (inaudible too)
to the lint on my coat
losing my attention
now that the horizon
was burning (yearning more, like the last greedy temptation of the night)
and my glasses were broken
and my heart was left
behind
and the cold was striking (the snow coming)
and the planes were
taking
and the girl was (laughing beautifully)
excusing
and telling simple lies like directions
way out to get home and
hopefully forget, but of course
never
that (it) is the state of things

By the entrance to the tunnel
they gave him the choice of
orange juice and something I couldn’t
hear. From a large blue bag
they pulled a sandwich and
something other I couldn’t see

He sat covered in a flimsy dirty
blanket and these men looked
sinister but they must have been good men
spending their evening helping
and comforting the less fortunate
one of them sporting a moustache like a naval officer

I picked up a bottle of Rioja and doubted
the choice, its label like a letter from the bank
Then the night passed without helping or
advancing any cause
and surely today would be no
different

This poem lets you wonder
as I wander through the pageless dusted light
I don’t want anything to do with any of it at all
Please understand
this song takes my will away
this journey takes my will away
I only have one
And without it?

America stop calling my name in the morning
all the gallons of water in the sea
stop looking for me

I pick up my cup from the table and walk over
to the windowsill where I listen to this song

Please song, don’t stop without me
I’ll do what it takes
I know what it takes

Daylight is 500 times stronger than strip light
that’s correct needing no correction
when waking up and feeling the need to readjust
and doing so with the aid of certain well-tested
chemicals, taking away the pain, but not getting at
the heart

That’s when a stanza or a page stands like a man
next to reality, juxtaposed, arguing, but friends
amicable lovers of the truth that’s out there
and I know, on corners, in nooks, pretty much
everywhere, reality and fiction, lovers and
friends

It takes, it seems, something so unfathomable
as four seats on a full Boing 747 perched over
Jan Mayen, in relative standstill, I suppose
to shake me into a dream I’m certain I’ll leave
turbulently, and then, for what
is very very unclear

No matter how many times you ran
across that lawn
they didn’t see you
I’m in town to see you
lifting those concrete laurels
rushing past cathedral heavens
poking your brush over and over
again alone
well worth the effort
and the time
here there is much to be excited about
and I am
my name in ink wherever
I go

She used to have a coffee
and then a burger
reading the International Herald Tribune
before taking off her bath-robe
and slipping back to bed again

I don’t know what was on her
mind those days
I mean what might have
made her do the things she did
I never asked

and didn’t really know her that
well. but she kept
braking into my thoughts
surely not aware
but nonetheless

she was there a lot
leaving the house at five
in the afternoon
or like once on the subway
listening to headphones and wearing a cowboy hat

me and my friend too shy
and arrested by her tough
and all too real demeanor
off Broadway or somewhere
special that night

Today I realized by drilling
the well-kept bowels
I only sear closer
to somewhere bearable lying you
to where I think naught
I liken it to driving
alone playing
choice and chance against
what I know I must
find life simple
enough

Where have you daydreamt to now?
earphones and cigarettes
brake pads leaf through the moon roof
and the one and all staring at me now
know this:
puzzle or not, don’t solve it
sing me vowels and bring me tarmac
I feel hole with the bitterest sweetheart
“when this puzzle’s figured out”
will I still be around
erased and
accurately named

Manufacturing centuries
measurements entire
fictitious entities in real-time at
half-time he asked for corrosives and sedatives
without shaded doubtful brows
how can you expect any kind
of faith on my part

The ticking of blood pumps
echoes amputationalist thoughts
fates of human Societies and involuntary
meetings for coffee
mostly lunchtime at undescript
places
I’m taking up running again.

It’s your right she insisted
I knew all along that if
a spider crawled my shelf for
the roof. The best thing would
be to let it
But we never got along
that well

Bottle in hand Life in hand
egg and bacon on whole wheat
ridiculous thoughts in head
the day doesn’t start at twelve
it starts at twelve the next day
You see, I had to kill my darling
a rotten poem of a stinking
situation embarrassing I’m sort
of waiting for a train of
thought to arrive
here
Do I have a grip on this vice?
I’ve been taking way to many cabs
and the tones up and go vibrating
free of a major coil
I’ll be walking down Prince
Catch me if you tincan

We trudged down
to the water
to the whole
we’d made
in the ice
as thick as an elephant leg

this nothing as
real
as anything
made for us
to enter

sickness
and tense muscles
wash off
in the wind in the
dark of the mountain
lake

Toddy in my 28th
year holding the
centre, sitting well
as the thermometer
froze to the edge
making us snap
the white thin string

When I come back to this room
There’s a part of me thinking
I’ll soon live by a great lake
It comes from something I read
Five or six years ago
When things held together

There were men in cars circling lakes
Picket fences and wispy trees
And they drove forever
That felt pretty real I thought
Although by the great lake
I’m sure the winds would tear me to shreds

There were no forests or deserts
No daffodils or jilts left behind
Just another voice in the car
And a flat land opening up
It’s good to feel the lake
And the drive, now more than ever

By Craig Beaumont

When I’m leaving you
what do you want
to be
left behind with?
are there memories we shared
that are
worth more than
others
I think there must be some sounds
that will
provoke
even though you think
they don’t serve
a purpose
they do you know
even if
you don’t know

It’s slow sugar releasing
eloquence into my
bloodstream
once in a life tones
taking to the air
dark and voicelike
words
tumbling down my arm
away from little
pulsing genetic
false heart

Tapping index
waking thumb
treating this pen
as my namesake
would
hardening a have time
seeing the eyes
above the suited
shirt
La la la
La la la
La
What holds a meaning
To?
La la
La la la
13000 years of careful blindness

Hey starlight
I’m slipping in Chelsea boots
on the 24th of
December
just past 12 at night
I slip fall snow
High Star Sight
this ain’t Tribeca
and it sure as hell
ain’t Sunset
but it’s me and
you know what
I’m slipping in Chelsea boots
on the 24th of December

Very black sleep
dark
curtain on the light
restless breathless
snow on
my resolve
cold crystal
muting clear
shoot eyes ahead
into next
weak

It’s not the bare run of soft breezy grass
or the tea-cup tittle of hurried mid-morning
or the languid smoke in the dour chill of sleaze.
It’s not the nearness of sex shops and flats
the pulsing yearning-work of time,
the coquettes on whom we waste our words.

It’s the sharp chiseled words on this tombstone
The fancy loved and the fight lost.
A choice few words of yours perhaps;
Buckle, lake, lamp, mariner, garden, glass,
Spring, sun, pale, smooth, soft, stamped.
Where are you taking me; what kept me?

You said it was the pleasure of hating,
knowing all our fights can be complete things,
and that the jilts are the deadly nightshade
of our common wealth.
We both hear the duns at the door
brow-hanging, contemplative, strange.

By Craig Beaumont

Leaning back car
into desert sunset
rip jeans or
wear converse green
no one tells it
like it was how
I remember it
All of them stylish
polkadotted elvisqueens
no nothing of tires
pressure, level
here looking into
what must be back
me was it
doing that u-turn
was it, my friend
Martin High, keep it
reality, we know
both of us
that it isn’t

It’s that time
he’s here now
doing whatever he does
looking through windows
walking in snow kneehigh
“these shoes are made for
pavemements” he says
leave me alone
arrange icons for expiration
say 50 years

This plane is hanging in
a storm
half a meter high when I hit
the ground
I avoid the wing
and fall
my lip cracked open

A recurring thought
no irony surrealism posturing
no time for that
in a hurry like mine

This winter I’m becoming
my own
and every day has the whole
baked in
no day without a worry
what a dream that was

Like I said
I don’t have time
for faces dinner parties discussions
this hurry
is pushing

Don’t expect cohesion
weak and strong
every day hits
the iceberg
and pulls us under

The things I see
in this life
on the one hand
reactions to a culture
on the other
living in that culture
getting very angry and afraid
I know who I am
I love you
but I’m afraid
my fashion is my
culture but not really
I’m angry and I love you
very much
is the object of poetry
to have an idea? To be
understood. Is meant to
make you feel
I’m angry I am, careless
honestly, ironic beyond
historically detached
I only care about creating
emotions
I only care about creating poems
I only care about these poems
I want them to be good
I only care about them

What strange atmosphere
in here
like military canteen
with great exotic cuisine
served with scorn
and speed and leaves
These are sounds I just heard:
ooh, honk, Chinese talking
slurping, two glasses clanking
many plates stashed
a pot of tea put down
and myself coughing
too much chilly oil at once

(and by the way I know about
politics economics culture
philosophy technology science
the public the private
the sacred the profane
sex gender
race racism
then now
wrong right
immigration genocide
soft hard
fusion tribal
LA New York
nationalism NATO
doping docudrama
the internet irony
good bad
entrepreneurialism new left
Converse Nike
Vietnamese cuisine
Pre-Raphaelites
white sharks otters
Napoleon Bonaparte)

I’m sitting in an art gallery/museum
it’s nice and quiet in the
19th century
whereas over the court
there is so much frantic
effort to understand the world

I’m tempted to say, stop and
take a look. Some ideas should
not become art. They are ideas, they
entertain you for ten minutes
then they become ideas
and no art again

The brain is powerful but
I couldn’t will myself to
love someone now could I
intellectual contemporary art
I’m tempted to ask
but I refrain

Just sit and watch Turner
“Spithead”(1807-09) and think
about those ships and your
own life, or don’t. Just
look at it and walk out
after a while into December

It’s not yours to grapple with
I hate these times and I enjoy
these times, I don’t know
tell your kid that you think he or she is great
and that you love him or her

I stopped at the great-looking wind-swept farm
that sold fruit and vegetables
and went in to see if I could find
something for the road

Over the strawberries I saw a cloud
of flies and the apples were covered in them too
but the girl by the till was smiling
at me

It was us two, the smiling girl and me
inside this shack by the road over
which one fell into the pacific
without too much care

I picked up two nectarines
she put in a paper bag and she smiled
alone as I gave her something like a dollar
to keep

I had seen humpback whales that day
and now I was staring over the bay
the strong wind in my face
the horizon a golden woolen promise

I’m local, she said, like a bumper sticker, I said
A hand grenade under the snow, more like
Good day will there be anything, perhaps
as I can combine urge, he argued
with anything substantial
that something’s on, I heard
I know, you said
how beautiful you were
when five million speckles of dust
shaved my retina
those who sit with their head in their hands are
out, OK?
What kind of a man was I?
don’t be sad the crystals of snow, I know
only care about skin that makes them melt away, anyway
you kept an artery up to the light, how street
The breeze went from warm to
nobody gets home (nobody), I said
tonight a minor explosion is all we can hope for

In winter its warm in California
In winter its cold in New York
In winter its winter
at the American Museum of Natural History

I’m looking for someone with a bare chest
who paddles in eternity

Guggenheim around again
listen, is that Frank

I hate you sky
I love you sky

Can you pour hours over me

My first drink was probably milk. I’ve put it aside by now
with my ice skates and arrows. Now the first drink is more prosaic
and leads me to think I’m oh so strong. I know the feeling
In new shoes I can do anything. Drift away like a wet dog
before the bed tosses and turns me out. It always does that
and it’s one of those things you just accept. On my way to the shop
I remember my dream. I’ll have the paper please
and no looking at meteors. Here’s looking at the pavement
and seeing a patent. I don’t always know what I’m feeling
yesterday at the party and today the temperature is fine
I’ll have two eggs on toast and no bacon

Hey, won’t you stay
a few minutes
before we part
there’s something
I’d like to say
forever is what it seems
I’m caught in this
forever is what it seems

She stayed and we both looked into the distant July
This was the second act
I think she took my hand I can’t remember now
What for
I don’t know. The slanted palms were quiet
She turned towards me I believe, leaning back against the door
That’s when I looked at her the last time

there’s something
forever is what it seems
there’s something
forever is what it seems
and slowly it started to wean

She’s looking good for work in my heart
and there is no describing the time or the place to meet
I’m walking the streets of perfume
over to your house. I wanna laugh
and maybe read you a little somethin’
maybe sit down in the deeper chair, close to the stereo
where someone’s sun is setting the agenda
a red moment arrives
your carpet has been cleaned
Is somebody calling?
Touch my shoulder and talk to me
like a slide guitar

try assemble parts in a room that doesn’t lock
attaching one to another
in a maze of potential solutions
history might say: don’t count on me to do the right thing
It should cheer up. It really should

A bear walks into the hospital
The valley is on fire
New all KNew everywhere
Try to find. And then try to settle
I’m unsatisfied. I travel back

My clothes are not like yours, but I used
to take yours before, a little you
a little me walking down the road

Your hands used to smell of soap
and your ring had soap on it sometimes
I remember well those strong hands

And your clothes had holes you didn’t care
about that, your hair in curls like mine
dropping your bags on the platform

holding me up, swirling me around
putting me down
and holding my hand

I have trouble understanding why
you came to see me and didn’t look at me
not even once with the same eyes
and those lies you told to lighten my heart

It’s not that I miss you, no
but I see you all the time, shuffling in your office
smiling at my ghost behind the curtain
you don’t know

But it is me alright, silent and stupid
watching you pull your duvet aside
sitting at your dresser, not in love
but sleepy

and yawning as you switch the TV
to news, what’s that on your shoulder
do you have to sleep with clothes on?
I know, it’s none of my business

One sentimental anecdote. Codeine
Phosphate leave stones unturned
and the taste of tangerine

to fight it out. All I remember is nodding off
and nodding off ad infinitum
and no taste of saccharine

can remove the salty afterglow. The dead seal
seemed so misplaced and still I
got in

to a fight with you. No, not a real
one, but the kind that
lingers like amphetamine

What feelings can’t remain?
the life I choose, oh
some say: There is a home
others say: how was your weekend?
none of these start to bridge
running and writing, reading the entire day

What feelings remain?
For you I could lie more truthfully
about these things, you believe to readily
that liking and liking too much are antagonistic
we all know you’re wrong
I like way over my head and look at me

What feelings?
really none of your business except
listen carefully when you’re supposed to be sleeping
one eye on and one eye alone
You should see my way more often
It would do you good
no, really

I wonder what songs I’ll be capable of singing
who’s to say when it’ll even happen
musically speaking it’s a stretch but
today the powers are uninspired and
the dopamine of time
pours it’s hours over me
still, flat, receiving, languid like a dental dream

Looking at the situation my hands
they want what’s theirs
and so do I, smilingly
I read about you and I dreamt about you
watching you from my vanishing point at the edge of thirteen
that’s when I new
some time ago now
that what I saw and what I took for granted
was rapidly receding

I called my good friend up, trying to avoid the
scorching sun, the phone booth by the air and water
This is it, I told him, and he understood
I knew he would. How’s your daughter?

The Gold Bluffs, I don’t know how to say this
and we didn’t, me going north and he staying north
please Eureka
I need new tires
around the bend in imagination
I can’t match anyone’s name
to the sound of deer grazing

The door slammed shut followed by a cloud of strong blue smoke, standing up
into the branches of pines above keeping the shade
like a cloth to my eyes this morning
why so serious I felt
the question was appropriate

There was no keeping from going and no reason to leave
so grave and weighed
for no apparent purpose
there were three things keeping hope
alive and well, friendly
one red hat and one red pair of shorts and time
on my hand

Little by little or bit by bit, either or
It dawned in a dreamless fashion covering nothing substantial to
don’t mind
and you now what it was easy

Where I grew up there was little in the way of
distraction. The Birch trees, stubborn and boring
I never liked them, reminded me of nothing
Only small ragged leaves, brushing
against each other. Out there in the cold mountain air
and when they fell, covering the ground, that’s when they where
most beautiful
between blueberries
but they left the trees more sullen than before

Not far from the house someone I didn’t know
was breeding fish in large tanks of water
and behind the house containing the tanks
stood great flowers, I never knew what they were called
what a smell inside
We walked up the hill behind and lay in the long grass
split-peas from the kitchen in our pockets
dismantled coat hangers in our hands
Phling Phling
The split-peas singing against
windshields

London seems to be growing or at least
It’s pretty clear
the tube gets better
the buses run better
The tourists look better
even the weather seems better
No fog rubbing up against windowpanes
as if that ever happened
No smoke against them either
Not that I can see

The rudeboys are better
rubbing up against whatever they find
Rudegirls are more
informed?
I don’t know
Tv still reassuringly shit
some videos still left
Pints are flat
somewhere in North London
tires are flat
you’re a molecule fat

The top of the roof
of course, Wild Turkey and the sun
a distant likable fellow
like the people on the street below
the day that the music died
No, the day that we saw the Empire State
and talked about people in prison
honky tonk
where are we going? To town you fool
but first over Washington Bridge
in our minds
hand in hand with beautiful ladies
and then returning
boisterous and proud
too cocky for everyone else
but us
hello cab you orison
of transportation
take us everywhere and here

I’m tired of trying not to be
sincere
Or was it the other way
anyway
there’s no back to back anymore
that’s for certain

somewhere it slipped
out of reach
Or mixed itself into
everything
I would like some categories
established

suggestion: a map
of obstacles
some generous flavours
good hours slept
cups of coffee
sipped and left

The sky wanted to have its say
it decided grey, covering, no letter
who was I to discuss
barely two feet out of the tube
no I didn’t have the power

so the library, they let me in
“take a look and reminisce”
five emails one year old:
“I wanna run down the line”
she told me and see
you every time
I put down the receiver

My old friend would agree
you’re nothing new to me
and your emails ring like
sectrets on the wire
zeros and ones
they move me
little beyond
the stench of my own
bathing shorts kept too long in a plastic bag

My soul on a ticket
to present me
at a conference

I’m not with it

I’m at the table
leaving tomorrow

It’s such a mystery
so short
the sauce melts
into the fat
and we toast the chef
Do all you want to do
make your own tomatoes
grow them

one and a half year
hiatus
London bloody London
you look right
when I look left

No one has the same voice
did you know?
no one with the same nose either
it’s a fact (you might have known)
the sounds we make as we speak

Dear America
I know two of you
so don’t be disheartened
long soft shore
don’t

There are certain things
I must deal with
I’m not sure at all
but there’s a nagging
constantly

There’s someone
I want to see
I’m not sure I should
But it keeps this
stream of words from drying up

They were sitting on a makeshift raft
bloody and hypothermic
father and son, the uncle still in the water
the father fat and the son skinny
shaking afraid
only two miles from shore
one man short

there is much love in such a sight
but note
that there isn’t enough
going around

What was their ending like?
I saw them hoisted into the helicopter
the son first followed by his father
this was the middle of the day
sun shining endlessly still
the breeze was up and augmenting

The first Mammals walked or crawled the earth, small, at night
over 206 million years ago.
This was the end of Trias, hundred million years before
Dinosaurs

Cetaceans Mysticeti: Balaenoptra musculus
Giant Sequoia
Lady Bird Johnson Grove
underneath the canopy of burned and hollow
keepers of faith:
Rhododendron petals

The diversity of marine mammals
how many leaves to a pint of breath?
Cars with CD players, engines turned off
in the afternoon glow of the parking lot

The Northern Right-whale Dolphin has no dorsal fin
I wonder who’s lurking in the shadows now
too scared to be taxonomized

Hey, do you want this picture?
your grandfather painted it
it’s the Haymarket
seen from the south
sometime in the fifties
yes
it’s good
and here are some photos
none after 73
that’s when your grandmother died

What do you think?
It’s a nice sound
made in1829
I’ll have to put my name on it now
It feels different doesn’t it?
very different

Let’s have lunch
I bought this yesterday
it’s good
I’ll have to hang this here
We’ll see
I might change it around
What do you think?

Hold on this might be too heavy
on the one hand you’re alive
in the other lies the burden of forgiving
I got taken
someone took me
by surprise
And now that I think about it
will it ever be part of the real life
I guess something must occupy
Space
so why not this

1. If you’re only going out for a little while, don’t wear too many layers.
2. Spend some time thinking about how you would do if someone asked you to ………….
3. What if you had to work as a ………….
4. some say life is like a dream, discuss.
5. doing research on the nature of identity, I discovered
6. Someone told me to forget your number
7. the jokes
8. Your ass against my thigh
9. and my jacket, last night, some beer was
10. I really should think about setting this straight
11. then again
12. I can’t seem to get worked up about
13. The Election
14. The Game
15. In between now and 5 o’clock
16. I’ll be on my bike
17. The traffic won’t be too bad/mad
18. I will make dinner
19. About what time
20. computers hum
21. I wasn’t able to knock him out

Let’s put it this way
from Eagle Rock to Echo Park
is fully abstract on the face of it
21 degrees Celcius
70 something Farenheit
the paper tells me

I pace myself

no point overdoing
anything when you’re
wearing woollen socks
and a pair of shorts
commando
It’s pouring down outside
The wind
you should have seen it
hurrying along in a car
leaves trampled underwheel

What was that on the stereo?
The Decline of British Sea Power

Marina Beach Motel
Today we’ve seen the winter come
and it seems strange
to me as well

Tomorrow our hearts
will breathe with ease
Tomorrow our hearts

It’s a fragile business
making happy people
reading about safety
hearing about safety
out of words and gestures
some planes are delayed
their crew sent somewhere else
the luggage lies
in the dark
learning about
the little mistakes
hearing them or seing them
you seem frozen in unfamiliar thoughts

Last night at the table
holding my knife
I saw the roast do the rounds
and the neigbours were drinking Tecate
enjoying accordion harmonies
peppered with soliloquies of laughter
This late afternoon
the month of June
I passed my feet over cold tiles
tugging my napkin of rough cotton
asking myself: would you be my wife
forever in the here and after?

We climbed Paul Revere’s narrow stair
and laughed at the attendant’s flippant hum
of affirmation, on a charred December day.
I’d have looked, I think, saddened
at the lines under your deep slumberous eyes
thinking first of a warehouse, then an oak tree
then a line from Hazlitt
about Cobbett butting at all obstacles
as unicorns are attracted to oak trees.
A few months earlier, a gammy afternoon uptown
unable to connect that pilfered courtyard
and vast tapestries, with not wanting
to wrestle, as you loved, on bedroom floors

This poem is written by Craig Beaumont