Wishing

Have a happy birthday now my dear
And know I wish somehow I could be there
But if my body's not, my soul is near
Bringing you warm and love to show I care.
I hope you love your presents, and you spend
The hours, every one of twenty-four
Enjoying, dancing, laughing without end
Doing all the things that you adore
And reveling in doing so, without
A single worry in your joyous head
No sadness, no discomfort, and no doubt
But only mirth and happiness instead.
And when you think of me (I hope you will)
Remember only that I love you still.

Halfs

The fall comes late to London nowadays.
No more the frozen Thames, the whiteclad streets
All is a mist of brown and blues and grays
While reds and yellows tell of the retreats
Of summer, but remind that winter's far;
For we are in the middle, still half-changed,
Not sure of how or who we really are
But certain that we have been rearranged.
There is a prickle coming in the air
A promise something more will come, and yet
The fact that it is not already there
Is something we cannot with ease forget.
It feels the winter will not come at all
And we will live forever in this fall.

Fall

The berries grow to nothing on the bush
The flowers and the trees have lost their leaves
Seeming as though the most minutest push
Would blow them over, while the cedar grieves
Its fallen friends, and promises to wait
The deadened snow time through 'til they arise
Unfolding once again their robes of state
And thrust their crownéd heads into the skies.
But for the moment all is gray and brown
Save for some hardy ferns and evergreens;
The turning season put their glories down
Matting all their iridescent sheens
Reminding us the dark is rising still
And has not yet begun to wane his will.

Scale

I do not worry all that much
About how worlds or peoples end
I do not think that that is such
A thing as such as I can mend.
Instead I think on smaller scales
Of happiness and single men
Or women, and how that joy pales
When bad things happen to them, when
The wishes that they had are strewn
About like tattered paper dolls
Or how they howl to the moon
When all their forward progress stalls
And I try, in my little way,
To help them have a better day.

ENGL

The city's great
The program's swell
It should all sate
My wants, but, well
There are some wishes
It can't provide
Even fried fishes
On my inside
Are not enough
To make me fail
To find it tough
To not avail
Myself of you
Until it's through.

Construction Site

A city's never built, it's always half
Until the ruin fills with tumbleweeds
It's held together by scaffold and gaff
With cranes to place the crossbars that it needs.
I can't imagine one that's fully done
Without more patches coming in due time
There's always something new to be begun
Some new skyscraper just starting to climb.
And so it must have cracks, from stretching skin
As growing pain will always come with growing
But that won't mean that new things won't begin
Just that they'll come without a planner knowing
Like grass in sidewalks, new things come to be
Grow old and are replaced perpetually.

Explore

Let us get on a random city bus
And find a stop that we won't find again
Allow us to experiment on us
Discovering what we will see and when
And how we will react to what we see
What foods we'll eat, what distances we'll run
Whether we'll window shop or buy, if we
Will wonder at the absence of the sun
Between tall buildings, or expand our view
And find the cracks between them like a maze.
I'm ready for adventure; how 'bout you?
Let's grab a bus and not be seen for days
Except each by the other and we spin
Merrily around this world we're in.

CCTV

Why's there so much CCTV around?
Why not live life unseen, and privately?
How often in a perpetrator found
Who could not have been sans CCTV?
How often by contrast are all our lives
Made worse by being watched forevermore?
The mad brilliant detective whose mind dives
Into the images the cameras store
And finds the magic moment is a myth.
A life of privacy unbroken was
A treasure we have lost, and there's the pith:
We threw that life away simply because
Someone suggested fear could be controlled
And so the wonder out of life is sold.

Goes

The waiting is always hardest, though.
It doesn't matter what you're waiting for
The hours just don't seem inclined to go
But linger and annoy you more and more.
Each minute seems an hour, or, what's worse,
Time seems immobile, or turned retrograde
So that the seconds tick out in reverse
Unraveling what was already made.
The simple thought "I wait" is bad enough;
The act of it, once self-aware, is sour.
Time's passage should be smooth, but becomes rough
When you are trapped within its massive power.
And so I wait, and cannot patiently;
But I'll continue, 'til my time is free.

Mehs

Times go slowly when you are alone

But time is not quite regular. Don't trust
The trickle or the flood, until they're shown
Even then, trust only if you must.
Ignore it else. That's safest. Be
Sure in yourself of what has passed
And do not let eternity
Pretend to what is not amassed
Or feign what has to not be so
Weaving the lies perception brings.
Time itself will come and go
And falsehood to its passing clings.
Wait, live, and be, and don't forget
The inner sense that says "not yet."

When

The dark is here
It's rather bleak
'Twill disappear
But I am weak
And so I lie
And let it come
And simply sigh
Awaiting some
External change
That will put out
This feeling. Strange.
I do not doubt
That it will go
When, I don't know.

Sport

Perhaps it's abnormality
In me to think of you so much
But if so, I'll not wish to see
Myself if I were normal. Such
Is how I am, I'll remain
The same, if I can manage so,
Until it drives my mind insane
Or my frail body lets me go.
But if I'm still in frame and mind
I will not stop to think of you
For whether I was once designed
Or just evolved from proto-stew
I find my purpose very clear
To think of you, and wish you here.

Delusions

Imagining that you were here

Is useless, yet I do it still;

It will erupt against my will

And yet I hold the notion dear

For should those thoughts now disappear

Although I claim to have my fill

Of them, I think that it might kill

My only pleasure. It is queer

To see a fault and know, once fixed,

A greater fault will feel revealed;

So wish and pain are intermixed

And in their mixture jointly sealed

So that should either one be nixed

The other would then have no shield.

Public Art in the British Library

"Homage to Michelangelo"
But as it were at once remove
For since "the women" "come and go"
It is not difficult to prove
That Eliot must stand between
The artist and the one he claims;
Perhaps as a transparent screen
And maybe not - for as he names
The prior artists as his king
He passes over poetry
And makes it a transmissive thing
Forgetting it has history
And changes what it would transmit
And so, an homage, too, to it.

Seasonal Allergy

Green grass grows under banks of snow
Water under ice is liquid yet
The willow bends before the blow
So when it stops it can reset
Trees without leaves are living still
Certain frogs have antifreeze
A fish possessing lung and gill
Outlasts the drying of the seas
A bear in winter goes to sleep
An owl sleeps both day and night
Until crepuscles slowly creep
And it can wake to dim twilight
From nature I this thought amass
We'll live because this too shall pass.

Take This

It's boring all alone. That's not enough
To say she should be with me, or demand
She give up her own life; that's silly stuff,
Created by delusions of what's grand.
No, it's just one of oh so many things
That makes me think of her, and wish she were
Here with me, because her presence brings
Something I never have except with her
A sense that all is right; that calm is not
The same as boredom, and that things to do
Are never chores. With her, I always spot
The good in all the things I have to do
Or just why they should still be borne. Boredom
Is the least reason why I wish she'd come.

Khayyam

A cup of tea
A loaf of bread
Some poetry
And I am fed
Body and mind
But not yet soul
Until I find
What makes me whole;
Which by tradition
(Which is true)
By definition
Should be you
And so you feed
My deepest need.

Wishes For Fishes

I wish that I were still beside you there
Going where you go, seeing the same,
Breathing adjacent, if not selfsame, air,
Erecting my existence on the frame
That yours lies on; I wish I were.
But since I am not, I must simply say
I want all things to be as you prefer;
I wish the situation, as it may,
Since I cannot affect it, to be turned
To what you would, and be remade by you.
I wish that gone which you would have be spurned,
And that increased which you by choice renew;
And so I wish you worlds of your desire
Because to make them I cannot aspire.

Foundling

What doesn't go in the bin
Causes delay on the track
Please keep on shoving it in
'Til it comes out of the back;
Turn it around then and thrust
All of it back through once more.
Filling the bins is a must;
Emptying them is chore.
All that we ask is you try
As we are trying, to keep
Tube stations clean so that I
Don't have to come through and sweep.
Heap all the trash in that pile
I've been on break for a while.

.......

The day seems pointless, in a constant pause
Unmoving and unreal. The light is grey
Streaked with an orange that from some obscure cause
Sucks meaning from the air and makes the way
Surreal and alien. I walk in blurs
Finding myself only in little spurts
Otherwise unsure. The river stirs
And calls to me, but whatever it blurts
Is lost in my distraction, and I go
Beyond the hearing. Even as I do
I realize that I no longer know
Where to go. Then I remember you
And that we were to meet; and with this known
I know myself. The day's again my own.

Wish

I look around
And wish you were
Still to be found.
I would prefer
To find you'd been
Obscurely hidden
And could come in
If you were bidden
Than to believe
As is but true
You had to leave
For I love you
And always miss
Your sight - and kiss.

Overground

The overground works by the underpass
Not quite in the bowels of the town
But hanging out in lower-middle-class
Perhaps not out of view, but still pushed down
So it can be both out of sight and mind
If not ignored, still rarely thought about
Out of the way, where only search will find
And speech cannot be heard without a shout.
Yet in those byways there is still more space
Than in the deep dark tunnels Underground;
Enough to see the sun's reflected face
Against the brickwork tiled all around
And to imagine sky. We're not inside
We're simply somewhere easy to still hide.

Reversed

I had a post that disappeared
Into the aether. It was weird.
And did I find that post again?
You should not doubt that I did not.
Data does not come back when
The internet has dropped. I got
A few small pieces in my mind
A little here, a little there
Just enough for me to find
It frustrating that it would hare
Off to the distance, gone away
But not enough that I could make
A copy of it. Anyway
It's gone, and that just takes the cake.

Midday

Closed curtains seem

To cut off day

And keep the dream

Of sleep; to say

I am not here

Am not awake

Please just steer clear

For goodness' sake

I will not come

If you should knock

I'm distant from

The tick of clock

Still sleeping. Lies.

I've open eyes.

Eke

The idle days can sometimes be the worst
The days when there is nothing else to do
But wander aimlessly through things rehearsed
A thousand times before, when nothing new
Seems to exist beneath the boring sun
When all TV is reruns, and the books
You have around have all been read, each one
Still well-enough remembered that brief looks
Reveal the plot straight off, and make it hum
With dull predictability. In those
Long-stretching times of leaden tedium
Still something in my soul more hopeful grows
For when the hours pass, however they
Creep in their path, we're closer by a day.

Morning

Do not imagine I would rather be
Anywhere but by your side right now;
I want to sit and hold you quietly
And watch the moon behind a dark tree-bough
Slide out of sight; and in the waxing east
See the soft tendrils of the pre-dawn light
Stir up, beginning at their weakest least
But soon and quickly banishing the night
Revealing all around us in its glory,
Nature, effulgent in the warming sun;
And yet that would not best our own glad story
Of finally sitting beside the one
We want to spend our lives with; no new day
Could ever rival that in any way.

Newspost

Tell me your news, and I will be made glad
By simply hearing what you have to say;
That will, of course, be tempered if it's bad
Merely a gleam, should it be (in its way)
Horrific. But no matter what I hear
Part of me (sometimes a tiny part)
Will still be happy you saw your way clear
To tell me what is new with you. I start
Each day that I'm without you wishing to
Hear what you're up to, what you've done and seen
And when I get an update or review
It puts a superordinary sheen
Upon my day, and makes me joyfully
Await the next thing you will say to me.

Coffee Sunday

Today is certainly a coffee day
Not as the mass of ordinary days
When coffee is a drink, of course, that may
For pleasure be consumed, but as a haze
Requires sunlight to put burnt asunder
So coffee on a day like this must serve
To scorch the mind before it can go under
And make it choose to be awake, and swerve
Away from drowsiness. Coffee can do
Miracles that other drinks cannot;
Energize the body through and through
When it is served up strong and piping hot.
Today was made by coffee at its best
Even though it was a day of rest.

Roaches

The lights approach
The track is clear
A lone cockroach
Is scuttling here
Away from that
Oncoming train
Lest he be flat
But we all strain
To be first on
By pressing in
And when it's gone
With such a din
The roach is sole
Among the whole.

Sidereal

Half a moon is just enough to make
Me see the beauty we once saw together;
Shining high above me, through a break
In London's so notorious bad weather
It promises to wane and wax again
And in the interval to let me roam
Back to the place where I began, and when
At last I have returned to my own home
It will shine just as it has shined tonight.
But then I will be with the one I love,
And we can share the brightly glowing sight
Joined in our hearts in admiration of
The way the moon connects our days between
Past joys and those that yet are to be seen.

Rather

It would be rather silly to pretend
I don't want to be with you every night
And show you everything past which I wend,
As if you were a second to my sight.
It would be foolish to imagine I
Do not desire to be close to you
And hold you close as we both scan the sky
Bringing the latest full moon into view.
It would be wrong (and very wrong) to say
I would not wish for you to share my life
Never to abandon me or stay
(Although I cannot promise zero strife)
And as I wish you to hold faith with me
So will I hold with you, and happily.

Are

Were you here
I would be
(Let's be clear)
Happily
By your side
Holding you
Now I bide
Waiting to
Chat online
So that we
Can combine
Psychically
Over space
Sans embrace.

Listen

The way you speak is comforting, by now,
But don't imagine that by that I mean
Your words or manners have forgotten how
To make me listen to you. I am keen
To hear you speak forever, nor am I
Lulled into inattention by the sound.
Rather, I drink it in as it goes by
Wishing they had no terminus or bound,
Watching your face, your hands, your eyes express
Your meaning as your voice and they combine;
Loving your altogether loveliness
Of which they are but a beloved sign
And thinking as I listen and observe
How much more is your love than I deserve.

Commercial Zoning

The sudden bustle of a little hub
Only serves to emphasize the space
Between, just as the dirt beside a shrub
Attains no special or distinctive grace
From such juxtaposition, but instead
Shows all the more dull brown beside the bloom.
So these small zones of industry that shed
Their light upon the black asphalt don't loom
Larger than the gaps, the empty streets
That seem but more deserted by compare;
For where the cheering light at last retreats
There is no comfort left us anywhere
And no one cares, or dares, to walk the city
Except in little pockets. It's a pity.

Real

When I'm with you I know just who I am
And when I'm not, I still am certain. Yet
There is a part of me I'd wish to dam
When I'm alone, and let myself forget.
For when you leave me, then I miss you so
That everything I see reminds me of
The happiness that we together know
And I am saddened by your absent love.
But now that I imagine losing that -
Being without your face before my eyes
When they are closed - the world would be but flat
The sights all dull, the sunset and moonrise
Insignificant did I not feel
My love for you to make their presence real.

Curfew

The glow of neon on stone storefronts seems
A false enchantment promising void heat
And every shut shop shows unfinished dreams
Barred from completion by the steady beat
Of unimpressed and all too concrete time.
The night implies what it cannot deliver
Catching imagination in quicklime
Only to watch it struggle there, and quiver
Unable to escape, to move, to breathe
Caught in the bare reality of dark
In which the terrors of the city seethe.
No wonder shops are shuttered like the park;
The day has left, and in the harsh half-light
Dusk's promise turns to lies by bleak midnight.

Exploration

The streets are empty and the night is cold
My breath fogs up my glasses as it goes
I have known many nights that fit this mold
But something in the air this evening slows
The passage of the time. I cannot walk.
Each step seems stuck in amber. As I try
I stop. I think of how we used to talk
On streets like this, filling each other's eye
So that they seemed to fill, warming with smiles
The frigid air until our coats seemed wasted
Compressing into single strides whole miles
Savoring the joy that we had tasted
In sharing time. But now we are apart
And memory has stopped me by the heart.

Again

When I think back upon the time before
We were together, I can hardly say
That I would wish it any other way
Than how it was, because to ask for more
Would be to risk what happened, and therefore
Despite the times of definite dismay
Despite the hours when I used to pray
For easing of my heart, so bruised and sore,
Despite the sorrows, which were true and deep,
The weariness, the pining, and the stares,
And all those longing chats pre-empting sleep
Full of unspoken wishes, hopes, and cares,
I would repeat it all, instinctively
Because in time it all brought you to me.

Sights

The simple sight of your infectious smile
Makes me delirious with happiness.
I keep your image in a mental file
And when I am oppressed, I feel it less
By thinking of your face. I know I stare,
But can you blame me, when the empty days
In which I cannot see you anywhere
Spread out before me in an endless haze?
I take advantage of the chances I
Am given, and I memorize your face
So that why I am predisposed to sigh
I can just close my eyes, and think to trace
Your loving smile and your eyes that gleam;
Relieving my misfortunes with your dream.