Though of it, not entirely of it

None as much
as you’ve ever been

& seen:
how it:

snapped
your spleen:

Intervened upon
your fake serene:

In as much
as it impacted you

undid you
metamorphosed you:

You started American
and then switched to

a British timber, even
though, technically,

you are not British,
you’ve been known

to hug
London trees:

Ok,
if anything

could have
changed you

it was those
three

and a half years
in the UK

Oh yeah:
Roses of public parks

Multicolored & photogenic
Oh so timely fragrant!

I miss the flowers!

Pov: how to look at the inevitability of pre-destiny as a glass that is not half empty, but half full

the world
            travelers
were
                        astonished
they always
                                                ended up
where they
                        started:
no matter
            how far they traveled
no matter
                        how they
                                                integrated themselves
                        into
            future societies:
no matter
            how their
                                    skin perfectly
                                                became camouflage
                                    They always
            inevitably ended up
exactly

where
they
started

but that did not
            stop them
                        from travelling
            no;
if anything
            the predestined
                        ending
            gave them reason
to risk it

The Excellent e

each to each
every to every
and alas
to alas

scratch your secret life
on to shards of glass

so that those words
may only be read
not by the undead

but the
immortal:

this is an exchange
this is deciphered

this is classified
this is coded:

language invisible
yanked directly: from the soul

without emptying the soul
and safely ferried across the divide

on no map can it (the divide) be found
confound

the beasts
and the twisted freaks
the terribleness is unoriginal
it is all the same

and carry it (beauty) directly
to the instantaneous almighty library

from whence it came:
bloom there
blossom

upside down trees
the birds

were once human
and they will be human

once againe:
elan to elan

Earth’s sky really a bluish violet, but because our eyes we see pale blue

Redeem me
was my central euphonious request
and was made at the behest
of all the rest
of the mellifluous requests
nonetheless languishing like silenced mouths
a violet sky with no clouds:
a prayer cannot get too loud
if it is to reach
if it is to breach
if it is to succeed, in its beseeching

Across the wayward roads
the treachery of toads
holy holes that goad
that ring
at the heart-strings
of the most invisible of Gods
hot, burning rods
did nothing to persuade us
otherwise
Likewise
drugs and alcohol and other nonsense

Take me to the total arena

Take me, majestic and stern, virgin Goddess Athena

To the king of Kings

Bring

me to the holiness
of the iridescently plumaged bird within the word
The word rarely heard
But always intuited

Ravish me with laws of desire
So lawless
is the fire
That fuses a mortal to an immortal

Run the other way
if you must
This is love
Not a weakling’s lust
This is love
And it is entire
And it strips me
Of my attire
Of my wires
And their subsequent dire
liars
Attempting to wedge
between us
but failing

Catch me if I am flailing?
Pull me back into your teeth
For a brief
Relief
That lasts a lifetime

I am this
This is what I am
A tiny bird, like a chickadee
Gleefully in the small of your hand

Arthur

Even a  man as
articulate  as
Schopenhauer, could  not

turn  me, into a
pessimist. The
notion that we

have all been  put
on earth to suffer,
to  secretly resent

and barely tolerate
each  other is
preposterously half glass empty!

But Arthur is not  only
eloquent, he is
also beautiful

Beautiful  in that
he should be
expressing all of life’s

consistently  paradoxical,
harmoniously  venomous,
deliberately  twisted

brutality? Beautiful because
he not  only stares
unflinchingly at

the violence, he
choreo
graphs it

‘I died’
Arthur says (to God)
‘And knowing I one day

‘would
(tbh)
was ceaselessly

‘motivating’

You ordered a Homeric epic?

This isn’t
a Homeric epic:

They’ll be no
narrations of the deeds

and adventures
of a heroic or legendary figure

or the past
of a Hellenic nation. I wish

but mine was a different
more esoteric

kind of era. Apparently
when I died

I administered an
enormous portion

of the afterlife
trying to seduce Schopenhauer. Have

you seen the pictures? Also,
he was not into guys

Being on the other side
of the glass

hammering against
the pane

while all your lovers
dance in rose gardens

is a Sisyphus state:
if you think

you are
the only one

who love
makes a fool

think again:
the flowers you all

gave me
were dead:

Wait now
to be reborn

Wait now
to be unbound

into a new life of hope,
full of fortune

and lacking of scorn

I stepped through / an open door

I stepped through an open door
Because it was open
I was not anxious
Curiosity kills the cat
What was within
existed in
a world apart

The components were
familiar
but everything was not
quite constructed as anything
I’d seen before

I sensed in me resistance
as I was being pulled
by the new

In strange places
we fall in love
like I felt in love
with the character sitting
in a modern chair
circa 2021

Sit down
he said
or was it a she?
and I was offered tea
and spongy, creamy, red velvet cake

We spoke
that is
I listened
and I was heard:
I love you
The words just tumbled out

But I am not just for you
I am for everyone

Did it break my heart?
A book is transformative
and just opening the book
is a good place
to start

Witness:

I wonder how he is
Your friend gave me a belt
You two ran away together
To Oxford? To Cambridge? To the Cotswolds?
I sit here writing as usual, imagining the roses
surrounding you, English, the most
luxuriant and beautiful the world has known:
Do I picture them, because I cannot picture
their love, and are the roses presumably,
to me, a symbol of their union? Absolutely

As I sit, on this side of things, the bright, the brilliant,
the brimming with ecstasy, I do so because so much of the world
is lamenting, and I cannot bear it. The waves lamenting
to the shore, and exploding in a loud sighing sadness. The
silent trees swaying in a lamenting wind
Self-sacrificing, benevolent, miraculous God, died
whilst creating the world for his children, only to
succumb to centuries of opprobrium: I admit that
my poems are not all just odes to you
but quiet, subtle, and un-arrogant attempts, to bring you back to life

The heart wants what the heart wants
meaning we do not choose who we love
We love who we love, but meaning is instituted
if the one we love loves us back, and flora
You did not love me, it was him you loved, and love:
I hope you aren’t screaming at each other
but I am sure you are, because that is all you did,
when we all lived together. Meanwhile I kneel,
suddenly halo’d, in front of icons, centuries years old, the old
gold upholding holiness that so many deny

but nonetheless
does not lose its sacramental power
You are not supposed to
touch the art,
and yet my finger sinks in it
when I touch it, and gold sticks to my finger,
like honey. Wake up, immortal God,
the only one left
who can save this planet on fire, in crisis:
Please wake up

Pruning the infinite

The tree of knowledge
                continues to flower
                                & its fruit continue to blossom
                                                In the Garden of Good & Evil

Where the Tigris & Euphrates
                run into the sea
                                On the threshold
                                                Between visible & invisible
                                                                Between harp string & bird song
                                                                                Between cloud & horizon

Meanwhile across the earth
                every living tree
                                Eucalyptus, palm, olive,
                                                continues to communicate
                                                                                with each other
                                                                                                via their roots
                                                                in a complicated network
                                                of words not so much uttered
                                but issued
within the soil

My brothers, my sisters, it is
                necessary to forgive, & to let go of
                                one’s unbridled rage, & to disseminate
                                the pettiness, & zoom in instead
                on the telling detail, the detail
that tells the miracle

All is fair
                in love & war
                                but if we trace our lives
                                                back to their very beginnings
                                It is mostly war
                We discover
we’ve obliged

Between tree bough & hollow bird bone
                Between human & person
                                We do everything to overlook
                The simple power of hope

                Meanwhile the poetry of words
Tugs between us, noticed or unnoticed, like rope

When everything Sublime has been said (or not said)

One finds oneself
in certain places, unaware how
one got there, and yet
discovering so much pleasure
and clarity from the accidental
moment that it appears
that it was fate
to get to
where one got to

You stand
opposite a painting
captivated by beauty
and then submerged
in the sublime. Even if it is
a small painting, it makes
you feel steeped in
bigness

How long
would a Rooibos tea bag take
to make the whole sea red?

My dear love, carved out of the
sky, and I myself forever
vacillating between the things you did not say

(and the things you said)