70 – Shopping

I think of you whenever I go shopping
We bump into each other up the aisles
Amongst the breakfast cereals in piles
Of Special K, and tubes of magic topping.

And how I wish instead I could be dropping
Into my basket one of your dear smiles,
A twist or two of the electric dials,
Some nipple tweaks, and half an hour of cropping.

You sell yourself to me, in little pieces,
So accurately weighed, and finely wrapped:
And every time I buy my need increases
(Like a burning well that won’t be capped)
You are the only place I know where peace is:
Could I be more absolutely trapped?

YOu sell yourself to me in little pieces
Carefully weighed out and wrapped
And every time I buy, my need increases
Like a burning well that won’t be capped:
You are the only place I know where peace is:
How dangerously now you’ve got me trap

69 – Monster

I am your monster now. Not what you meant
But what I have become: an almost man -
A golem made of clay, or Caliban,
Your shapeless, misconceived experiment.

And I both bless and curse the day you sent
Your current through me first, when I began
To twitch with this existence. And I ran
With rivers of desire and discontent.

How should I live this life? What can I do
With what you’ve made me – jagged, incomplete?
Your creature, only fit to savage you -
And your mad, brittle pride -  in shared defeat:
Unless I can, somehow, myself renew
Turn all this sharpness into something sweet.

68 – Heroin

My heroin you are, my hit of choice:
Your needles need no juice to get me high
Your looks inject themselves into my eye
One sniff of you and all my cells rejoice:
And you’re not cut with rubbish – pure Rolls Royce -
And I’m addicted to you: months go by
With just one thought, which is: how soon can I
See you again, suck on you, taste your voice?

You keep on pushing. Every time I need
A bit more pain to knock me off my face
Your lush plush limo keeps on adding speed
Until my spirit finds itself in space:
And you are such a drug – your rushes feed
A gap I’ll never fill, though I still chase.

67 – Limits

Such cold, hard limits to the things we do.
You help me to so much, and then no more.
Show me fantastic things I never knew
Then massive silence, when I shut the door.

This must be how it works – so well – for you:
You fold me up and tuck me in a drawer
Marked neatly with a label, out of view -
Back in the dark, not knowing what’s in store.

But in my head my thoughts are always leaping
Out of their boxes, throwing themselves like fish
Over the rush of water, always keeping
Their eye upon the source – and I just wish
That one day you could come and swim with me,
Shake off your suit and dive into this sea.

66 – Lake (2)

Down at the lake, they cackle, hoot & jeer,
They crack the air with laughter – duck and swan -
“Well what the fuck d’you think was going on?”
May not be what they say, but what I hear.

That message now is suddenly so clear,
How soon your bright reflection will be gone
And I will sit here, by myself, alone
My lips stuck round the fag-end of the year.

The birds escape the lake – like you, they fly -
The leaves come down like promises unkept.
I’ve lost my grip again, my focus, my
Belief in what we’ve shared. As if I’ve stepped
Out of the frame which gave me my reply
Not knowing if I woke or if I slept.

65 – Marked

I trace Your initials, watch them extend
Into almost anything not Your name:
Burst into tears of grief, and leaf and flame
Go curling like a kite, or river bend.
They map a journey, loop me up, and mend
Become a maze I’m lost in or a frame
That I can jump through – never quite the same
Your letters always have more news to send.

So many ways You touch me, turn into:
How can I choose out of them all one sign
To keep forever as a mark of You
Or squeeze Your richness into one brief line?
I sit and trace my very first tattoo
Upon this surface now, next week on mine.

64 – Unique

So I can say: You are like this, or that:
You are the most amazing megastar
Touching my skin across a gap so far
That I can only gaze in wonder at:
You are the chill that kills my thermostat
You boil me up inside Your samovar
Then strap me up and zap me in Your car
From 0 to 60 in one second flat:

Or not. For none of that is strictly true.
You are like nothing else, Yourself, unique-
Untouchable, not winnable, for You
Keep disappearing everywhere I seek
And this is joy, more than I ever knew,
Sung in a language I can hardly speak.

63 – Cages

These cages that I build. These words I twist
Into an antique shape – as if I could
Coax you inside, and keep you here for good,
Closing myself around you like a fist.

These ends I run to, hardly can resist -
Torn fragments not quite meeting as they should.
There is so much I haven’t understood.

Shut up in my own mind, how much I’ve missed

The secret of your beauty – learned so slowly
To let you be yourself, and set you free,
To offer you the keys to my whole city:

And now you have them, who knows what will happen -
Where you will take your steps, or if I can
Both when you come, and when you go, stay open?

62 – Merlin

My Nimue, my Lady of the lake,
The traps you have in store I can foretell
But not escape. You have me in your spell -
The secrets of my soul are yours to take.

I know that one day soon I will awake
A prisoner locked inside your liquid cell -
Your falcon, too, that sports a silver bell
And perches, blind and hooded on your stake.

No matter what I do, it ends the same:
Your element of water drowns my fire -
Turns back upon myself my twisted flame -
How could I ever hurt my heart’s desire?

This is a tale that haunted all my youth
And now your magic turns it into truth.

61 – Missing

My arrows fall too short or overshoot -
They fly away distracted by your stare
Or bounce right off that armour which you wear,
Wrapped up in lipstick, rubber dress and boot:

None of my darts have ever taken root
Inside your breast, or planted flowers there:
But spill themselves into the empty air
Get crushed or splintered underneath your foot:

And not one word has found the perfect length
That flightpath that would take me to your heart,
They drift aside and suddenly lose strength
Where is that brilliant, bullseye-hitting dart?

And then, I sometimes wonder, what I’d do
If one of them did find a pathway through…

My arrows fall too short or overshoot -
They fly away distracted by your stare
Or bounce right off that armour which you wear,
Wrapped up in lipstick, rubber dress and boot:

None of my darts have ever taken root
Inside your breast, or planted flowers there:
But spill themselves into the empty air
Get crushed or splintered underneath your foot:

And not one word has found the perfect length
That flightpath that would take me to your heart,
They drift aside and suddenly lose strength
Where is that brilliant, bullseye-hitting dart?
And then, I sometimes wonder, what I’d do
If one of them did find a pathway through…