Relationships

Relationships survive,

some say,

on solid ground

where temperaments meet,

where values agree

and there’s balance

between order

and impulse.

Or

they’re simply the

acceptance of a love unable to die.

Sure, we may hope to survive our time together

on the bases of matching traits,

or we can live out

the insanity of love,

come what may.

It’s not like we’ve a choice

anyway.

The only thing

 

Your voices bounce softly off each other's insights

like music twirling on its own notes

as we lie on the sofas outside.

Our dog rests on a blind side

but we hear its breath

—automatic like the sun,

like a smile.

Inside,

the dishes could need doing.

Somewhere in the city,

reports are being written

and interviews conducted.

Thousands of miles away

stocks are chased on Wall Street.

We’re falling asleep, though,

together in the sun

by the foothills on Bakers Road.

“Isn’t this the best thing ever, just doing sweet fuck all,”

you whisper.

But I can’t help think

we’re doing the only thing

to be done. 

Back in April

Back in April

I left for Nepal then made my way to Europe

for I felt this could serve me somehow,

perhaps as an education.

But in leaving home,

I left you, too,

and have waited to be sentenced for committing

this greatest of betrayals.

September’s coming

and Europe will soon prepare for the cold.

I’ll fly back home and into spring

where a new love is birthing for you

—one I’ll be foreigner to;

one I’ll be punished by;

one that will pain me

and test me

on just how much I’ve really learned.

As I near the intersection

As I near the intersection,

the ghosts of love linger in

their heavy cloaks.

Here is where Mel and I pushed a dying car.

Here is where I snapped photos with Donna.

Here is where I tried to play the uke with Linda.

Mel, Donna, Linda

—the names are now just words

and distortions of something

deeper,

something good;

something

ultimately

doomed.

The failure of the words to represent the love

like the failure of my heart to cultivate the love;

it is a heart that’s tried to throw the sword down

but still meets with the ghosts

of dead intersections,

each of us cloaked

in our own

heavy

burden.

That morning rain

What was it about that morning rain

far from where the homeland lied,

far from where our tongue was spoken

and where I knew a face

in people passing by?

What was it about that rain

that fell through early mornings

in Kazakhstan

and Georgia?

That exotic morning rain…

If the sun appeared

it took its holy place before the lovers of the world.

If the fog came thick

it stalled the dying of the night.

But our partner in the dance

—that early morning rain

miles and miles from home:

it didn’t need to speak of love

nor think upon the night.

That exotic morning rain

came tender with the dawn

and with it washed away

all we’d known before.

Where is god?

Where is god?

I don’t know.

But at times there’s a certain stillness

and silence

within which 

such a question appears the wrong one to be asking

and what the right one might be

seems best left

to god.

I tried to write like you

I tried to write like you.

I never could.

I tried to speak for you

as if I should.

I tried to write like you.

I skipped on things

like rhythm, truth

and suffering.

I peered behind your words

and got a hint.

I peered behind the Word

to spot a glimpse.

I peered behind a page

and felt the shame

for who am I to know

the nakedness by name.

I tried to write like you

and woe is me.

So now I write to you

adoringly.