tetrarchangel

How long O Lord, how long? How much more can we take, O God? David’s seen his son lost to rebellious death, And we ache with our hopes run aground. We ache and see a bay of ashes Tear-sea, waves and no calming rhythm, No loving silence, no furious spray which tastes of life. We bend and crumple beneath the many weights. How long O Lord, how long? Will we dwell inside ourselves, See unlucky omens, Not able to speak Or meet each others’ gazes? How much more can we take? How much more of this, And whatever more comes tomorrow, Each new gap in mercy, Or so it seems? We sob upon the bay of ashes, Grey sand and greyer skie

Giddy with luck, I am dancing and discover that I can dance. How rare the delight, To find a touch where I do not tense, A person to share all, My hand on your waist, I cannot believe your eyes. Maybe ascribe it not to luck but to blessing, A river falling, A sea of love added to By newly found tributaries, Little gifts, An outpouring [Two souls, one night by the river’s run, The old mill, Telling all]. Or perhaps destiny, To reconnect two threads ever so close but never yet overlapping, Taken each far from home, But meant to be entwined. I could say only love, Not deserved, nor wilfully won by I, Unexpectedly born, I can scarce b

( Give me a sign of if I have chosen A right way For these years, Or if I am not worthy. Give me some sense if this is the beginning or the end, When it feels like endless middle. Adjudge me to be ready, Or leave me behind, All I say is let me know – and while I ask this Off-guard, In an unequal pattern, overstretched and underused, I say too much, too soon: (( It makes sense I identified as a traitor for so long, And then by self Self-focus, selfishness To firmly betray For the sake of avoiding feared outcomes, It makes sense. Does it matter if It is true? But we seem to live in a world Where there is nothing in the present, o

One thorn reminds of being wrapped in brambles The old pain, the old wounds, That felt inescapable – that held me fast, And kept me from moving with any swiftness, Wound me down to gasping, uncomprehending exhaustion. And memory erupts with the belief that Once again, I am trapped, Even as I ease the thorn from my palm, Rise lionlike once again. Fear insists that one step back means all is lost, And what I have lost is a vision Of where I am now, of how different A single thorn is from many, A single setback is from total blockage, A single mistake is from the ill-chosen path. My body burns with flames and I think I am lost to t

They might say, in the end, that we saved each other Sure, only God saves, As with all things, we’re talking some way down the line, The secondary, the tertiary, the helicopter and the boat, At the moment all the stories Are notes in small journals, held by us, Some balladeers we make, telling each other Stories of only weeks ago. ‘What have you been doing for the last year or so?’ I was asked, and I said ‘growing up’ because Poetry is for adolescents and they’re eternal These days [they’ll die in the future, they died in the past, but In the now, they grow incrementally-eternally] “Time pr

Oh say nothing, And hold every word, In increasing internal hollow So no sound will ring In a room That encompasses all. Find connections in Some codex of restoration That tie up insufficiently With her, and her, and Experience incapability and inability Fear for fear But say nothing, and hold them closer. Realise femininity, that Sitting down is for rooms with chairs and couches And notepads, and that other sort of listening Listen to her as her movements touch the air, The raw, the burning, sings out Listen, say nothing, hold close.

To tell honestly, Of the reality of my heart, To speak and sing and use words, those fortunate words, How I come to know my love, How I come to understand: This stolen idea, to breathe only Secrets and secret names Forms that only we shall know, and answer only to When in the other’s voice. That we mark each other apart: you are my special one, You are the only one You are the one called… Oh! Darling That I cross this place To find you, [a wolf at your door; echoes years later] To find each snaring brier Passed, and passable, and past. And journeying On roads afar, After our journey begun, Saw your domain and its seams The s

I cannot see anything as it is. A mire Of expectation, that is nothing to do with the real Experience, of feeling All is lost When nothing was ventured. To feel the utmost tumult, despite The skin of the water unpierced by stones Oh to hurt like this again To love, as the only answer, To unbidden pain, To unworthy, undue suffering that comes from nothing. When you draw nothing from the well It will reveal the blackest poisoned water That every failure going before Has written a negativity beyond reason, beyond knowing, That rises now, from misty seafoam, A corrupt and false resonance that draws One’s heart onto the rocks –

Haphephobia – I forge relationships Of immense intensity With people I will never know, And can never meet, Who exist only in aether, and Are given flesh by a libidinous mind. No contact No contact, no touch, For I know that I’m compelling If all I have is the Page And my words To lead the way. Aphephobia – A monastic cell Whose door opens into A brothel where I’m the madam, An abbess of one and a Procuress of infinite possibility. There is a rule of no touching but it counts differently: Don’t touch my heart and don’t move me, Don’t caress a strand of sympathy. Haphophobia – I crafted

So it was about four years ago and I would call it a lifetime If that wasn't offensive And I know I don't mourn like a pagan But I miss you You're not a pressed flower You're not frozen You're a garden, and it's summer I had to come before I went Had to be honest I'm going where we were both going to be And you're with me A bit The dirt on my hands never washed Earth and the earthman And the heart and the hippocampus It's tranquil till it's not Nothing set in stone There's just a wooden cross Soldier We'd fought all sorts of things in that same corps On the same journey The same mission, royal commission So so long as I'm struggling I know