Calling wisdom to see through all the horse shit of your flimsy words Those jelly-limbed actions flailing so selfishly and blindly out in front of me I’m calling wisdom…
Calling wisdom to untangle all the wires of your dangling contradictions Cut through the paper masks of all your posturing that you’re completely lost in I’m calling wisdom…
Calling wisdom to cast a dim light on your thinking What train of thought you caught to get to here These decided sidings of this line’s end I’m calling wisdom
Calling wisdom… to map a human sense of things the fucked foundation you’ve been building on is cratered and crumbling in upon us and burning bricks and buried bones are all that I can know now I’m calling wisdom…
Calling wisdom… to put in place a forest of words between us brush blooming plants to hide the muddy path that we spun down senseless and scared-shitless and because you never did I’m calling wisdom…
We move slow in time with our slipping youth We don’t rush, no we were slow to go home
Passing the coffee shops and bars I would later make my home I couldn’t have ever known they passed by, a blur, unseen
Her hand held loose in the heat There’s no need to push things we’ve time…
Then one night on a sofa in the kitchen at my mother’s house She turned slow, smiling and said “we should”
I could have laughed I must have beamed and all at the same time I was cautious
We moved slow tip-toeing down to the car I didn’t know if I could take another one another person’s innocence away
So, I paused… and time slipped away…
In a daydream I had more recently in a bar, when I was feeling particularly old I thought back and couldn’t remember why I didn’t have her If I could do it now I would do it now
Then it hit me I was honest then I was decent O, I was a real man back then…
More and more my thoughts turn to you So aware I’m now the age that you were when the pair of you parted and you got that rented house on the edge of town
We’d stay at weekends watching winter’s tide sweep in stand in the falling snow garden and fields disappearing said ‘throw another log on the fire’ said ‘dad, your house is cold’
At fifteen, I was nothing lost in my own sea of nonsense I didn’t ask you anything I didn’t think to say a word Where was my empathy you let nothing show
Every other Saturday we’d gather at your house on the edge of town it all felt new to me felt so exciting a fresh world of fields to explore of walks to take and fires to light with or without you
So immature and lost in my own mythology I never really realised you could be hurting I didn’t stop to think When maybe your son could have been there for you
Living raw, living alone twelve days at a time the snow piling up around your house on the edge of town
While we still have some time let’s talk openly let’s talk now…
Down the endless garden to a hand-built shed of wonders and little me, sitting with my grandad listening to all the voices pushing through the static
What magic in those wires! The narrow band, the wide The squelch and the gain The whistle and the whine sounds I’ll never forget
The spectrum of a planet chattering Such wisdom in rough fingers so deft upon the dial gently they’d spin the roulette wheel and flip between tunings
I was constantly in awe at this window on the world My ear up against the glass of infinite possibility and my grandad’s gentle teaching explaining everything
We’d eavesdrop on conversations clattering fizzing through the airwaves speaking so quickly in strange new cadences We’d hear calls to prayer that sounded nothing like the tuneless church bells of home
‘Where’s the microphone’ I’d say ‘can we speak back?’ he’d remind me ‘the most important thing, sometimes is just to listen’ O, I was learning…
And when we were done he’d disconnect the aerial and gently warn me how lightning storms could blow up the receiver O, how powerful, how dangerous how exciting!
Click ‘play’ to hear me read this poem. Or right-click ‘save as’ to download an MP3.
Her fingers tracing mine Lily danced me out of the garden those green eyes brimming lively with purest abandon Then barefoot on the boardwalk her summer dress riding high she leapt onto the jetty and gestured to the sky
We let our tanned legs hang below as we bottomed up the bottle the air was hot and heavy the sea around us peaceful There was lust upon our minds as a veil upon a bride the deepest searing truths politely shot between our eyes
And no man could deny us loose and open all the time our hands and fingers; wanderers tongues locked in a rhyme By the spit between those kisses our burning lips were sewn her dress was barely there my body carved from stone
With each nail driven into skin I felt a clapping thunder the temple tapestry was tearing as she pierced my thin armour A melody sung upon her voice a lyric loudly grows I’d have gladly turned my back on all that I held close
We could have traveled every sea taking turns to lead the way if only if only she’d have asked me if only I’d thought to stay…
Dusk light falling on the harbour the day became a dream with toes curled round the boards she danced me to my feet in one movement I was shirtless in another she was naked a smiling glance was shared as we leapt with fingers knitted
Our kisses painted salty lungs burning between breaths the solution we had longed for as our bodies coalesced We swam until our limbs ached then floated side by side in the moonlit wideness of her eyes; another world, I spied
I was so thirsty for the moment and drank it all too quickly my mind got blurred and cloudy my greatest drunken folly Too naive to know the value of the treasure in my grip like sand through careless fingers I stood and watched it slip
There was water on three sides and only one path back to land but somewhere on that journey I somehow lost her hand Now, I wonder if she thinks of us a moment spared for all we shared does she ever sit upon that jetty singing of a parallel despair
We could have traveled every sea wild adventure every day if only if only she’d have asked me if only I’d thought to stay
If only I’d had the wisdom to stay…
[2020]
Extra special thanks for reading, I know it’s a long one. 🙂
Does this trip start with you or spring somewhere in me there is an urgency of need I can’t seem to abandon
My fingers on the button clawing at your door, heart thumping will you answer all this longing let me cross the line, trespassing
Calling by, I’m calling by that ancient question in my eye and you can tell, you can smell that I’ve been drinking you know me I don’t act without reason a song as old as time sung by my insides
You don’t close the door you don’t tell me to go back to her just study the mat for a full half-minute then shake your head, crack a smile ‘we’re trespassers’ you say and lead me up the stairs
I’ve been longing for this thing I’ve been looking for what’s been missing I’ve been down a few roads now you’re the only way that works you’re the only way I know
Sunday morning there’s no escaping it’s written every way I turn trespassing, this foreign skin how madly I wanted it
Trespassing the only road I know trespassing you’re the only road I know…
Let’s make a pact
let these shadows hold us
swaddled in secrecy
and breathing quickly
I see you draw in close to me
sense those lips loosening
my foundation questioning
the forcefield of your sly grin
and the delicacy of those fingers
upon me
exploring
Let’s make a pact
let this moment be our blueprint
to not accept a fading
or a softening of this urgency
I feel that magnetic pull strengthening
see the bond between us as pure light
drawing my every cell back into you
the atmosphere of your swelling heartbeat
and the longing in those murmurs
you’re whispering
expressing
Let’s make a pact as these shadows hold us close the night in around and bury us breathless breathless and beating hard…
The planets above wink down to me ‘It’s now or never’ they’re implying I feel her hand brush mine as we’re walking side by side her house is just around the corner I’m leaving town tomorrow it’s now or never…
A deep breath, I take I breathe deep stop my walking, suddenly she stops and turns to face me it’s now or never I tilt my head, crack a smile make a joke, stall a while and asking if I’m ‘okay?’ she steps one step toward me it’s now or never…
I take her warm hand in mine draw a breath deep down Think of all that could come of this she looks at our hands still holding then back up at me and for a moment we share a moment…
But I break our gaze walk her home hug her perfume divine and close as I walk away, alone again I concede, it’s never now; it’s never…
I’ve been remembering the garden we once tended I’ve been thinking of the petals that fell each autumn I’ve been working through the list of things we said but never did
And the rains that fell upon our garden and the snow that covered all
I’ve been remembering the garden we once enjoyed I’ve allowed myself some moments to reflect with clarity I’ve been feeling sadness for the trees that have since been felled
And the sun that fed our lawns and the snow that covered all and when it thawed you were ready to be gone
And all the seasons since… Now you’re with another’s child…
I’ve been remembering the garden the flowers but not the thorns I’ve been reminded of the feeling when spring was all we knew I’ve allowed myself some hours to wander through those flower beds once more
I can remember how that snow felt even now; I can smell the rain I accept that all things end that’s just the way of things that’s just the way of all things
And all the seasons since… I hope your new garden is blossoming now…
