you are a strange melody
following, following me
a puppy without a leash
down and down the
ladder
through the streets and the window
sills
you wag your tail
and graze my legs
settling like a stash of rags.

and oh my bones
how they yearn
for your song to take its turn
haunt me haunt me incessantly
to the grave of creativity
where i rise where i rise
oh you are relentless spies
picking out my hair, my clothes
old torchons and dictionaries
begging for attention.

a siren call in the snow
underneath the stone cold
so sad the passage of time
a tragedy engraved in rhyme.

so i wander through the streets
cobblestone, the scent of meat
postcards
peeling skins of history
tattered flags
my heart remains a mystery.

but you, my love, have never left
waiting for me on baited breath
a saint, a swami on the corner
with each return we greet
another.

please stay please stay
you do say
come back again another day.

and yet i part and yet i
part
and leave you with a broken heart.

my mind runs bloody along
the river and bleeds into
the muddy stones
gravity snatching it to drink
and licking all like an icecream cone.

and yet i go and yet i go
oh how cannot you love me so?
a phantom on the borderline
a wretch twisted reverse
through time

down the docks and between the
stairs
turned on their lovely hairs
speckled with the flesh of geese
left alone the world does cease.

and yeats and eliot comfort me now
left along the lonely plough
surrounded by a hulk of solitude
i do smile, and lie to you
and you
and you.

crowded among the lonely books
backs breaking, death with looks
aging, aging ever younger
above the bed, over the clutter
in this silent room with music
the beams of wood above
abuse it.

and yet i go, and yet i go...
torn between the world so.

a poem.

I have sat by the Buddha’s trees

And waited for the depths of night

In the engine room of reality

To come and save my soul.

Shall we go then, shall we go then

I do say

To attempt and sway

You to come along with me. 

On the streets and in the alleys

I have waited for your shadow

Been crushed by the weight of silence

with the fleeting echos turn. 

Along the seine, along the seine

i walk and wander, wine in hand

speaking of my fantasies

my artist heart to beat again. 

But you are coy--oh how you are coy! 

You tease and tempt with all your might

and i am left with none but air

and broken glass and fickle clocks. 

in the nooks and through the crannies

i hunt for you, ephemeral

but labrythine you ever taunt me

creep and crawl up through my spine. 

shall we go then, shall we go then

i do say

to attempt and sway

you to come along with me. 

i sing of love and a girl at war

on the picnic blankets of the shore

in dentist's chairs and libraries

in the musky scent of old book stacks

on the steps of the bridges 

under the rain of hallowed months

with bending, breaking umbrella backs. 

up the mountain, in the plane

over to the sea again

i flit and flicker through my days

searching for the endless ways

to stitch and sew you to my brain. 

but i am but a clockwork orange

ticking ticking ticking still

oscillating between high and low

between the segments of split personalities

do i stay or do i go? 

shall we go then, shall we go then

i do say.