THE WANT OF PERFECTION
You never think about the cold
of the green fields outside
when you're uncomfortably hot
in your grey, walled-in castle.
When I was younger
I thought I was afraid
that I wasn't good enough.
Now that I've grown older
and I can't do anything anymore,
I know that I always was,
and that all I feared
was bumping into you in the street.
It is all too human
to wish to be cold
when you're hot.
I can't scale the walls
of the castle anymore,
but I can still yearn
for the times I feared
I wasn't good enough.
COMMENTARY: THE WANT OF PERFECTION
I can't even smoke a cigarette anymore without seeming to want to commit suicide by sitting dangerously far in the windowsill
THE PUNCHLINE POET
My thoughts are so fragmented.
Yesterday, just when I thought
I was in the middle
of a great work of poetry,
I dubbed myself 'Punchline Poet'
and had to organise my life
all over again.
WOULD THESE BE THE LAST LINES
I thought they said Paradise.
How was I supposed to know
that they meant Parade?
What gruesome illumination
was part of their history
that they cannot act
to consider me anymore?
Would these be the last lines
I would ever write,
I'd leave them until tomorrow
and have a cup of coffee instead.
ON SEEING M. DANCE
I've always liked
the way you dance.
The small delicacy
of your elbows
in the sky.
I don't know
if you're aware
of this yourself,
but you often
close your eyes
when you dance
like this.
And sometimes
I do, too.
THERE ARE PEOPLE
Whose rhythmic solitude
And patterns of guided loss
Fill your glass to the rim
And then summon the dragons
To come and drink it,
While your parrot
Cannot whistle anymore
Because it has eaten
Too many biscuits.
If you feel out of place
Within the offerings
Of the faraway Greek,
Then you can always
Come to me
To let your parrot drink
And cast away the dragons
Of your solitude.
I WATCHED YOU SLEEP
I watched you sleep,
And the slow articulation
Of your mesmerising lips
Made me tremble with
The beauty of the words
You didn't speak.
Resting in this
Furious claustrophobia.
Our legs taped together
With waves of red fire which,
Like our heads,
Will never recover
From the rubber imagery
The two of us so yearned for.
COMMENTARY: I WATCHED YOU SLEEP
I'm still trying to catch on to who she is. If there was a time when I thought I could make her mine it's long gone. I probably made some wrong choices and her pupils never widened.
THE KIND OF MAN YOU LIKE
I know the kind of man you like.
I came in the disguise of one last week
And you took me in.
I know your generosity and hospitality,
They are beyond compare,
And I have learned the ways in which you speak
To all your different guests.
The broken glow of tulip-light
Suspended from your ceiling
Falls upon your expecting face
In the hope of what I am.
I wore a disguise when I came to you
And you took me in.
I'll be wearing a disguise when I come to you
For the time you'll take me in.
WHEN I WORE A DISGUISE
For some time in your history I tried to be what you thought me to be. This enterprise was doomed to fail from the start, but I sincerely believed I could win you over and we could listen to music together. I thought that you looking over my shoulder was a sign of your feminine ability to look straight into my heart. You always were listening to a different drum and I was forced to spend some time in solitude for seeing your face in the reflection of the kettle.
THE BARBER
I came upon a barber.
He said: "You have good hair.
I would like to cut it this way here,
And leave it longer there."
I said he had the freedom
To do just as he pleased.
He worked away with knife and comb.
I sat until he ceased.
So he stopped hours later,
A little after midnight,
His sweat looked like a halo
With the fraction of the light.
He then said: "I am through, son,
Your hair has reached perfection."
And I could not stop looking
At my own reflection.
I hadn't looked this good,
Not in a long, long time.
I knew I had the power
To make all women mine.
As I went to pay the barber
For achieving such a goal
He said that I had paid him,
And then he took my soul.
My morals and my conscience
Have turned from good to bad.
But that's alright for now I have
A very well-groomed head.
WORD FROM A FAN
Although you never loitered
Through the streets of Mysteries,
Or other places of faith
Where you can linger.
You have found your own part
In my Book of Mythologies.
Don't you know I've taken to you,
theaudience's cute little singer?
COMMENTARY: WORD FROM A FAN
I first encountered her during a concert in the winter of early 1998. I wrote an early draft of the poem on the spot with the intention of handing it to her. She then would invite me onto the stage, but I would refuse and ask her to step down, or sit on the edge of the stage, which she would do. Then I would proceed to rip open the side of one of her stockings at the height of her calf and write down my phone-number. In real life, I never even left the table I was sitting at.
THERE YOU ARE AGAIN
There you are again.
Of all these people
I keep running into you.
Is this coincidence?
Is this divine intervention?
Is this fate forcing itself upon us?
Or is this just a cheap chat-up line?