40. The Joys and Tears of Love and Passion (2)

This is the second posting of three or four sets of my poems.

The poems in The Joys and Tears of Love and Passion span many years and have been organised thematically rather than chronologically. The three themes are:

1. Love and Passion (posted 4 January 2012)
[Blog 22, the third most viewed of my blogs to date]

2. Separation and Loss

3. Reconciliation and Renewal

[Blog 51, posted 30th June 2012]

2. Separation and Loss

Contents

East-West Romance

when we meet again

such little things kill love

The Thread

A Golden Sadness

Oyster Song

In Anticipation of Redundant Love

Guy Fawkes’ Night

The Scorpion

email

Postscript

Requiem

Catechism

Lunar Modules

Face to Face

When the Shadow Calls

so we drank

Cold Feet

Must I die so

a rotten trick

Titoki

Memorabilia


EAST-WEST ROMANCE

Now my body that gave so gladly

is silent.

The hum of the fan

the wind through the hallways of Hale Manoa

distant shouts of Rainbow supporters

Rhapsody in Blue practised on a far-off piano

accompany my solitude.

Passion is distanced, emotion dulled.

I fear to call you

lest the cruel nearness of your nextdoor voice

belying oceans of distance

a hemispheric separateness

whispering unconsummatable intimacies

remind me of past pleasures

of friends’ café laughter

and long despairing tearful farewells.



when we meet again

when we meet again

let it not be as strangers

facing prohibitions

on the intimacies of friendship

fearing to scratch emotional surfaces

lest old scars are revealed

let not every act

be fraught and betrayed

by hidden agendas

and unspoken meanings

nor spontaneity be lost -

the touch the warm hug

the gentle caress -

inhibited by memories

and resonances of the past

friendship, love, intimacy

these are creative acts

that need confidence

in the natural rightness

of the brush strokes



such little things kill love

such little things kill love

it was as though you

went out of my life in

the middle of a sentence

a pause

a misplaced glance

a coolness

a sudden shift of pace

an angle of the shoulder

modulating indifference



THE THREAD

lying in your arms

the wild dogs in the cellar

turn to birds

sparkling with laughter

and when we withdraw

the silkiest of threads

woven in love

links us together

now my life

my love

hang by such a thread

full of swimming riddles

harbouring sportive monsters

lying still

in the bottom of my sea.



A GOLDEN SADNESS

can so much

hinge on so little

did you not entertain me to dinner

bread enough and wine enough

and corkscrew riddles to be cracked

did I feed you speeches alone

and long silences searching wisdom

the world was mended then

just for a fleeting moment

touching me inwardly with caressing hands

my soul stretched out for trampling

drinking a drop of happiness

stung in the heart

yet eager for war and festivals

still still

she has still my strange soul

earthed with the softest of threads

tired of long voyages and uncertain seas

having tasted too much that is good

resting in a still cove

in a golden sadness.



OYSTER SONG

have you stuffed your ears with rabbit’s fur

lest you hear words that waken you

is my hand a fool’s hand

bruising itself on stony boundaries

am I scribbling graffiti on tables and walls

in an indecipherable moonman’s script

is my foot a cloven foot

that you so fear each step it takes

much that is inside is like an oyster

floating slippery and hard to grasp

yet oysters harbour growing pearls

though the shells may pinch your fingers

if you pry and pluck before they’re ripe

of all the treasures it is our own

that we dig at last from the sheeny husk

so I will still sing my song

from the peace of my still house

and must sing it for my own ears

until my throat is made mellow

my hands talk and my feet dance

and I can awaken your heart

from its shrewd protective blindness

to fly with mine again.



IN ANTICIPATION OF REDUNDANT LOVE

Come on now crab

Stand tall and proud

You climbed a giddy height

From the safety of your shoreline pools

Walked the edge of the precipice

Once again

Bravely and with courage

Gave it your all

All on the line

Head, heart, guts and groin

But now

The time for retreat is near

No need for idle heroics

No breathless plunge

From cliff top to rocks below

In consumptive self-pity

Your shell is not that hard

And blood and guts enough have been spilt

Now is the time

To find a safe way down

To take care of yourself

Survival modes in lunar modules

And no recriminations

You are shoreline crab

Not mountaintop

And shorelines are fine places

To fossick in the sun

So let go gently crab

Lest your claws tear what you most love

Pluck up your heartroots tenderly

Protect them with your shell

For one day

You will need them again.



GUY FAWKES’ NIGHT

In the storms of the night

When past shadows call

And the black moon

Lies heavily on my soul

Lightning bolts blood my eyes

Illuminating the lashing rain

That sweeps the landscape of my troubled mind.

Then I fear

Illusion’s fragile dam will burst

The floodgates must open

Freeing the army of wicked dwarfs

Marshaling on my tongue

To rampage

Beyond the conversations we dared not have.

And you should fear it too

Letting loose the demons

My devil and my three of swords

Lest in the howling pains of rage

The crab turns scorpion

And stings and stings and stings us both

To cold oblivion.



THE SCORPION

walled in flames

his passion for life shrivelling in the heat of treachery and betrayal

the proud-backed scorpion

heavenly conqueror of the vain Orion

smoke-gutted, heart-burned, hollowed-out by pain

with no avenues of retreat

except to self-destruction

in one last despairing act

a final choice, a leap for freedom

plunges his poisonous tail into his poisoned heart

knowing knowing knowing

like Phoenix keening on the funeral pyre

he must kill himself to preserve himself



email

wiped your email

with a click of the mouse

would it were so easy

to trash you from my heart



POSTSCRIPT

When you remember me

(As I trust you will, as I know you will)

I hope it will be

Forgiving of my frailties

Physical, mental, sexual

I hope there will be some joy there

In the memories of what we were

What we had of love, romance, passion, friendship

As I too remember all the good things

To blot out the sad bad ending of it all

To stay the tears

The fears of life without you

You were so much to me

And are

Perhaps too much for both our goods

Yet for myself

I would not have wished it other

Than it was

(“Lov’d not wisely but too well”)

So total an immersion

Like a baptism of life, of love

A rebirth in the fresh deep pool of passion

That stripped off pretence and reserve

And revealed to myself

Below the surface of myself

Another self I’m proud to call my own

(greedy for life, greedy for love)

That will forever bind me

In fond and bitter memories

Of a happiness unlike any other I have known

Or will know

Yet would wish to know again.



REQUIEM

then there was silence

my silence

and a large black hole

where my heart had been

melodramatic and fanciful

conversations

full of unanswered accusations

memories of her assassin’s eyes

and the overriding wish

to be done with her

without forgiveness

finally and forever.



CATECHISM

now the lovelocks are broken

angry spiders are loose

and we taste the bitterness

that lies in wait

for even the best of loves

let us not

allow poisonous worms

to eat out our hearts

nor throw pearls of great price

on the rubbish pile of pain

let us not

treat what we most valued

carelessly as nothing

let us not

be chained by past memories

paralysed by future fears

and let us not

load simple joyful acts

acts of tenderness

acts of friendship

acts of love

with all our souls’ burdens

all our souls’ secrets.



LUNAR MODULES

vengeful cats

set among emotional pigeons

scatter them

old debris clears away

and I nearly go too

in the Mogal man’s bin

dreams shatter

yours then mine

mourned in lonely nights

tear-stained fragments

fuse fragile bonds

uncertain friendship

and sometimes

tentatively

intimate pieces

for love’s jigsaw

and now

back to basic shapes

eat well

sleep well

fresh air

exercise

hanging in there

one day at a time

survival modes

in lunar modules



FACE TO FACE

Face to face

With the anaesthetising society

Why fear to shout and scream

When there is joy or grief within

Who does it protect

This anaesthetic

Me or you

Us or them?

Curse tranquillity

There’s time enough for that

Celebrate awareness

Where my joy is my joy

And my pain is my pain

Rather than the prevailing dullness

Of everyday routine

Of paths with no heart

Of tasks to be done

Lonely clamberings to achievement’s pinnacled despair

Night sea swimmings to the sirens of success.

Music

Love

Poetry

And the sunshine

Is there more

Worth having

More

Needed

Than this

Kiss?



WHEN THE SHADOW CALLS

When the shadow calls

Remember the magic moments

The whispering sands

The abortive hot pool frolics

The joyful abandon of Bastion Point

On a moonlit summer night.

Remember the quiet calm

Of a Maraetai picnic

The peace together

Beneath Long Bay’s rocking firs

The dark threat of thunder

Beyond Pakatoa’s rainbow sunset

Our warm embrace

Above Te Kotuku’s surging wash.

Remember a tender rib-eye fillet

Bathed in candlelight

And Chateauneuf-du-Pape

And the lover’s knot

In the two of cups.

And remind yourself in your remembering

That the shadow will pass

And once again

We will dance through the dawn.



so we drank

so we drank

the last bottle of claret

to celebrate

having

a last bottle of claret.



COLD FEET

Dead, visibly dying
On the void of time
But keep the toes warm
So that death cannot enter there
From the bottom of the bed
And drain me out
Through cold feet.



Must I die so

Must I die so

All washed up

            Move my arm, move my leg

Beached on the bed

Stranded by my body
            Move my leg, move my leg

God why can’t I die

Please let me die

Before I crap myself again

  Move my leg, move my arm

            Move my arm, move my hand

            Move my hand, hold my head

I don’t want to die

Hold me tight

            Hold my head, hold my head.



a rotten trick

a rotten trick

to die

just then

just when

we had

our act

together

had learnt

how to live

what to value

what to discard

had found

some time

to spend

as one

after all those years

of struggle

and effort

where are you
now

now that love’s fruits

ripe at last

are lap-ready fallers

I dropped my rose

on your coffin

and cursed you

for dying

so soon

just then

just when.



TITOKI

I planted two trees

Titoki for you

English oak for me

Hoping to see

As the years fell by

Their canopies merge

And intertwine

To give the two of us

Some autumn shade

The exotic flourished

In Sugar Mountain’s air

But the titoki

Struggled for a year or two

And died

So I pulled it out

And planted another

Which I nurture

Tenderly

As I did the last

It thrives now

In memory of you

And of what

You

Were to me.



MEMORABILIA

Fragments of lyrics and melodies

A collection of frogs

Packed in a cardboard box

A ribboned cluster of cards

Much-read letters

Newspaper cuttings

Pale transparencies

Held to the light

To catch a misty image

And revive fond memories

As though a spirit so free

Could be caught that way

Confined to the photo album

The attic treasury

Catalogued and classified

Like a mounted butterfly

In a glass case

Rather am I reminded of you

In the curves of the land

The sequoias’ gentle sway

The flickering city lights

And the sunset colours

I see you in the rainbow

Hear you in the wind

Smell you in the flowers

And hold your heart alive

In the Sugar Mountain air.

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