Shadows

What can I tell you

the bric-a-brac of life

does not mention

in the harsh grating of day and

the liquid melancholia outside your balcony

a thousand islands and a few stars pass

on the river between your brow and the long dead night

the stream takes the faintly smelling flowers

the scraps of blotched paper, callused cells and mortified faces

out in the drain pipes

I watch the dogs drink our stories like ash on derelict walls.

the moon sings a soft song - a place beyond stillborn children,

crying in our soiled shoes,

lying in our coats,

carving runes on our sheets -

the moon is awash in storms Rain, Puddles, and Mud -

distant, beautiful death-ships collide and melt -

the moon is a lesion silently drowning in your eye;

What can they tell you

that we haven't buried already,

only the chalices

only the silt

only the evening rain

the immense cloud in the bowels of the evening raga

only the peeling lips at the underside of the glass

only the amber that drinks it all,

only the lovers - not you and I -

only crisp shadows from spent summers and coffee pot -

only the inevitable avalanche of cloying decay, trapped in the curls of your hair-brush.

29 lines