LOVE  AND  OTHER  RISKS:

COSMETICS

Planets and magnets move gracefully when
they're at just the right distance to spin and spin

But once let them stray from reciprocal pen
their powers are gone

or let them fall in-
wards they clutch each other their dances end

For only when spinning have they forces to spend
and at just the right distance are humans akin

LOVE'S WHISPERINGS

You that have experience of
the subtle whisperings of love
surely by now you understand
each is a command

"Oh what rapture, oh what bliss
that you are that and you are this!"
speaks the message, rightly read:
Be just what I said.

Each spontaneous cry of passion
hides an anxious supplication
every hyperbolic trope
a desperate hope:

Be careful. If you'd keep my lust
aflame, remember to be just
exactly, every waking hour
what I say you are.

SMALL TALK

It's what you aim
at when you start
small talk's a game
when you're both smart

When you first meet
you probe, you play
small talk is neat
on the first day

On second dates
topics expand:
No subject grates
nothing is banned

You talk of mus-
ic or a book
and how amus-
ing things look

You invent exquis-
ite sorts of mixes
of talk of sex with
metaphysics

you touch on inti-
mate things a bit
(always with plenty
of biting wit)

and in such harmony
you flirt and tease
you can say any-
thing you please

Nothing can tax
you no taboo
you can relax
you can be you

Then in the middle
of perfect bliss
opens a little
precipice

One day her wit
sets her a trap
He says That hit
me like a slap

It's far too late
when you say Sorry
and from that date
your fate is Worry

Thereafter tact
must irrevok-
ably contract
the scope of talk

It's one, you'll find
of Nature's laws
the field is mined
with ancient scars

How soon that lofty
freedom was cut
now you'll tread softly
in your rut

A love affair
soon censors out
topics Unfair
to Talk About

They give you blisters
now, those vast crypt-
ic lovers' vistas
where you tripped

Small talk's returning
in different roles
no longer burning
guts or souls

Have I been up
this way before?
Tell me to stop
Am I a bore?

How was your day?
Something is missing
Though they both say
it, they don't listen

What we alread-
y understand
what has been said
now seems bland

Soon they will part
Nothing's the same
Small talk is tame
now, a lost art.
 

PENDULUM

each time the pendulum
completes its course
the lead gathers up weight~
less and
pretends to pause

how many futures lie
in that still force
which some call equi~
librium
and some remorse
 

ANARCHY AT RISK
 

When those who recognize no gods
Chance into one another's eyes
They think themselves in love, because,
Perhaps, of sheer surprise

In their abandon they forget
the usual irony of fate
and by the crack of their joy they let
the gods resuscitate.

We can never relax, it seems:
bright certainties are bound to rise
from our most anarchic dreams
to blind our sceptic eyes.
 

REGULATIONS
 

When I was a child I
had no use for flowers.
I was innocent of
committee meetings.
Now I sit through them
as time thickens like treacle
dreaming up regulations:

That every member shall
come with a fresh bouquet
of roses, honeysuckle,
or carnations fragrant
enough to overwhelm all thought
of regulations and just large
enough to hide their face.

DETERRENCE
 

In old fashioned wars of sex
All contestants showed their best
flashing smiles and bright eyes, lest
anybody should detect
a jarring note in subtext.

The war seems to be played
differently now. Filled with
solicitude they burst
to reveal just how bad
they can be at their worst.

Oh, how they reassure
each other: You are so
hard on yourself. Of course
you're not unloving, weak,
you could never be coarse.

She didn't understand.
I do. Wait, you will see.
We love each other. That's
the difference. You were not
yourself. He was a rat.

And Oh, how longingly
though you protest each yearns
to be convinced! it's taken
self knowledge so very
little to be shaken.

Snakes stalking in the grass,
your armours of good-will
blind you. You've come to grief
before. The price of trust
is mutual disbelief.

It's not too high. Ignore
those warnings if you must:
But some day they will flood
back, to startle and score
when the first one draws blood.

REFLECTIONS ON COPROPHILIA

            Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope....
                        Shakespeare
 

Sometimes you meet someone whose range
Is out of yours. One whose desires
are for things you can barely imagine
enduring. Others there are that glide
through worlds billions of parsecs away
to dwell on the first second of universal time.

You're threatened with envy. But nothing
distracts like ultimate questions:

Would your wish be the sweeter if it played
for you a rhythm to which you could not dance? Or
might even the beat you step to fade
away if only all questions were answered?

Omniscience were paltry stuff
Where bursts no star's fire
But Ah! more enviable than love
Unthinkable desire.
 

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (1984)

They say people nowadays
Live in a convenient daze.
Our ancestors were Aware--
Uncomfortable as they were.

Hunger, grief, and exercise
Jolt the mind into surprise:
A cold shower, a little hurt
Help to keep the mind alert.

Come, discomfort! come back in:
Give us back our daily sin
With its ration of regret
That we may no more forget

Cold, in blizzard, wind, or sleet
Not to do what we are told.
 

ICE

That piece of ice
wet
cool

It will not melt
in your
mouth
warmth

will not smooth
it
is broken glass

over
and over
this
must be learned

beauty
is there to watch
not touch
 

AFTERFORETASTES

New love is a threat to peace

Though second morning images
dispel responsibility
the morning after love has caught
me once more the first
waking thought

is of the terror and pity.
 

FISH

How still
desire can hover
hanging, throbbing, like a kestrel-shark
till

the instant of the plungestreak down
to darker deep
where glows
the glitter of

her
chosen
prey

ANGOSTURA

Not the Italian word for Angst
but also known as Bitters. A secret maceration
of dark Tuscan roots. The English take
it by the drop
in leisured summer drinks
where it spreads in layered stains
like threads of purple ink. No one
has ever tried it straight.
O Angostura
Angostura.
 
 

SCIENCE:

I BROWNIAN MOVEMENT

There's Brownian Movement in the Mind
And there's a macro-level too
Though moments are of many kinds
As constant is my love for you
As are the waters of the dew
 

II CATALYST

A catalyst is briefly changed
while other substances are born
But soon the atoms rearranged
resume the old familiar form.
 

THE SQUID
 

"SQUID IN THEIR INK", the Menu boasts.

But it was serious business for the squid,
a sober argument of self-defense,
this clouded ink;
in which a Pamphleteer might once
have dipped his pen to conjure light from dark.

The author starved, no doubt,
pamphlets unread, while we were fed.
We ate the lot:
squid, ink, and all, and avidly we soaked
our garlic bread to savour every bite.

Farewell, fair squid:
Thus, dark to dark.
 

THOSE WHO ARE NOT QUITE HUMAN

                Subjected thus,
                How can you say to me, I am a King?
                            (Richard II)

                As I am mine, their sweating selves: but worse.
                            (G.M. Hopkins)
 

But don't you ever feel... They stare in awe
and disapproval. And you feel, perhaps,
vaguely superior, or just relieved
that you are Not Quite Human. One more folly
escaped. (Of course you feel: not to the point
of folly though, such as they seem so pleased with
in themselves.) This they resent in you. But
what do they know, by what authority
do you find solace in incomprehension?
You slink away. The comfort never lasts.
Their puzzled disapproval does no more
for you than flattery: it makes you feel
unseen. This they forget: you too must live on
tiptoe, forever falling, on the tooth of Time.
 
 

THE DOORS
 

Nothing
we used to think
could be more lovely than
a door
ajar

But now
we've burrowed
this intricate
laced
corridor

Long ago
we sought as
much knowledge
as fire in igorant
caress

we thought
that to be
free we must
invent each
moment's core
 

Now there is
coral all
around and we
call it
experience

So why
then do
we never tire
of wanting
soundlessly to press

on every door that
we can see to
rooms
we never shall
explore?
 

GLASS

In the heat
of blowtorches
even glass
melts

but water
smoothes it
more
slow
 

ON ARISTOTLE ON WISDOM

O
sensation
seeker
after
knowledge

Between
says Aristotle
knowledge
and sensation
there is
memory
experience

(and after
O you
seekers after
death)

Yet is
between the seeking
and sensation
knowledge
and between memories
experience

lost?
 

HIGH WATERSHEDS

It is hardest to be human
after any consummation
when an orgasm is ended
it annuls anticipation

And there's no hope of release
once the weeping has begun
no bursting into tears
when it's already done

In such watersheds of feeling
can emotion be entire
that is so rarely without hope
and without desire

Yet warily we must defend
it from the subtle threat of sleep
and resignation must attend
experience without natural end.

WORDS AND THE WORLD HISTORICAL
 

            Unity is division overcome
                            G.F. Hegel

big words
striving to lift
the mountainous world historical mass

big words
would lengthen into levers
or narrow to pin point of fulcrum

big words:
freedom, objective
ground of being, necessity, encounter

nothing
sticks together
nothing coheres, adheres, no particle

will take
another with it
as we stir the cold fragments of old

big words
are dry crumbs
of forgotten fervour now, loose and useless

are moles,
burrowing in
shifting detritus, dusty slow sifting slag.
 

Imago

Parabole Indoue

(Suivant une légende hindoue, la larve promet, lorsqu'elle
quitte l'étang, de revenir raconter à ses soeurs la vérité sur
la vie de l'au-delà. Mais une fois éclose, la libellule n'est
plus capable de pénétrer dans l'eau.)

Ele a oublié la nage
les ailes sont un nouveau langage
la chrysalide éclate le miroir
et se connaît en gloire et pure image

Les pattes glissent sur la mare
sans entamer la vitre close
--ménisque étanche même au regard--
que perça jadis la métamorphose

Parfois pourtant la libellule
croit deviner le soir
une ombre somnambule
obscure et qui bouge au fond du miroir

et l'ange aux ailes de moire
se voit alors en cauchemar
être la larve gluante et noire
qui rampe en l'étang glauque de sa propre mémoire.
 

Les Artichauranges
 

Dans un mythique désert
A l'autre bout de la terre
Tout triste et tout solitaire
Vivait un petit Artichaut

C'est bien beau d'être au grand air
Mais à vivre à découvert
Ah! qu'il faisait froid l'hiver!
Et l'été, Dieu! qu'il faisait chaud!

Alors, rebelle au sort injuste
Notre artichaut se fit arbuste
Et s'étirant de tout son corps
Il poussa des branches robustes

Puis, dans un immense effort
Dans la plaine déserte et fruste
Ses branches prirent leur essor
Et se couvrirent de fruits d'or.

Maintenant le paysage
Est ombragé par son feuillage
Et s'il a soif, l'Artichaut mange
Ses propres Artichauranges

Ainsi l'Artichaut se protège
Et du soleil et de la neige

(Et moi, que ne donnerais-je
Pour un semblable sortilège!)
 

EPITAPH FOR A FOOL
 

He played the Fool of classic school
Hiding with effervescent art
The bitter knowledge in his heart
But deep within, he was the fool
And bitter heart was just his part

 clip art from Microsoft Office 97  regratefully acknowledged
 

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