Gaijin Weekend

In the cool dark of the bar
Schoolgirl wannabe dancing:
My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds
And round and round as the room starts spinning,
And finally I feel at home again

Then lost out on the city grid
With no orientation programme:
All the streets look the same
And I'm going nowhere

Making deals with my conscience when I get
To smoke another cigarette
Dragging out the old vices
To remind myself of where I've been

And back in my box again
Cracking open a beer
Hiding the kitchen knife
And punching the walls

Lay my head on the pillow to listen to the voices:
It's just me and the whiskey
Against the ghosts in the night
And tomorrow morning it's all genki genki genki
With the sun in my eyes
So I can't see the red lights.

Spend the day dehydrated
And muzaked to death
'Til I'd kill for a chance
Just to be less extraneous

But there's no second chance
For a deer in the headlights
Watch the blue sky turn to grey
As I waste another year

Runaway

A door closed behind
And their voices are fading.
Tired of being
Their little girl

You followed the horizon
And found it to be blue:
An embrace of surf and sky
At the edge of your world.

So close your eyes,
Throw your thoughts to the winds
In armfuls as the waves kiss your knees

This is
The perfect way
To run away to sea.

The sun sets for you
And the moon watches over;
The wind is a lullaby
To smooth out your dreams.

Fall asleep in the sand, dreaming
Of icecream for breakfast
And fishes for tea
And never having
To say you're sorry

And wake up in a cold-fingered bundle
To watch the tide come stealing in:

Watch the waves spill out their strength
And suck your feet into the sand;
Watch the waves that break too early
Fall back into line.

The light's still on in your old room.
Some waves will never break at all.
So put a ribbon in your hair
And walk yourself back home.

Beside the river

The breeze is cool
Beside the river
Relentless blue sky
Breaks the first crust of moon.

A heron looks me over,
Glassy-eyed gaijin stare,
Then flies away across the water
As the cicadas start up again.

The rocks are warm
Beside the river
I lie back and
Let my thoughts rest on you.

The tide and its takers

Silent now as I find my balance. A moment of calm, standing barefoot in the sand. Then the tide comes in again in one long rush, taking me by surprise and sucking the ground out from under me, and suddenly I am swimming again, gasping, struggling just to keep my head above water, and at the same time smiling, embracing, wondering where it will take me this time…

Everyone knew, of course. That was how it started: a shared holding of breath as you entered the room. I was in business mode, capable and determined to remain so, but even so you caught me off balance. It was like I’d never looked at you before or realised or allowed myself to realise how beautiful you are, all the things I shouldn’t, couldn’t help wanting to think about rushing in with just your briefest of smiles.

Someone told me they’d told you: the old game of guessing if you knew that I knew, wondering if the next move was yours or mine. Then flickers, hints: comparing eye colours, or the moment when you walked in, an angel in white shirt and blue jeans, to take my breath away and leave me jealous all evening of anyone else who got a smile from you, drinking so as not to notice the blonde you stood next to at the bar. I'd expected a slow sort of intrigue, but you blew away all my subtleties, daring me to up my game. Your honesty caught us all off guard that night, laid itself bare, unimpeachable, and left a tantalising silence in the room as you took yourself off to bed. Dramatic exit at just the perfect moment. I didn’t have a clue what to say.

Touchdown for a while. Feel the silt at the bottom, accumulated layers of dead things and sand, bits of rock that the tide rubbed away. It is soft underfoot, almost solid in places, but soft, and when your feet sink in it’s hard to kick free. I always come back here sooner or later, when I get tired of swimming and need somewhere to rest, something to sink to, to let myself down. The tide stirs the mud, and I think I see faces, old sea-ghosts drifting in to tell me their tales. But now is not the time to sit and listen to mouths full of water making their mawkish laments for a sun that doesn’t reach them any more. Now is time to struggle and surface, find the sun for myself and write my own stories. This grey world will be here, dependable as the rain, however hard I try to forget and however many times I leave it behind. But its hold on me is broken, the rope of a shipwreck frayed by time. To think I spent so much of my life here, before I learnt to swim.

And then everything sharpened into intensity. Every hour had its little revelations and conclusions and indecisions. Every moment could bring something to send me flying or bring me toppling down again, muttering ghost-words of a thousand endeavours that failed before they were even begun. Hardly daring to breathe I kept an eye on your every move, waiting my turn and playing by inches, praying for patience and trying not to give the game away.

Another wave: that bruise on your arm and how much I wanted to kiss it; trading philosophies and drinking tea til 3am; going to bed dazzled, talking to you in my sleep and waking up eager to see you at breakfast. And then that smile as you walked away, that backward glance that read like a confession, a concession, something precious now in my memory locked. It was a gift, all in that moment: the best gift you could have given me.

Respite at last, just as I was thinking I would never find it. Amidst the waves I see you there, looking out over the water, standing still. You hold out a hand, catch an arm worn out with swimming, and smile at me as my feet find solid ground. A shelf of rock hidden just under the surface. Somewhere just to pause and be. It is small, narrow, difficult to share. Easy to lose your footing. But there, indisputably, and not so hard to find again once you know about it. Trusting myself to it, and you, I stand at your side and listen as you tell me the tale of your own swimming, of all the times you thought you would drown, all the things you saw at the bottom and where you drew the strength from to surface again. I listen, humbled, holding your hand, and wish for more wishes, more time to listen to the tale of you.

One weekend made to count for so many. Kissing you was like a breath of fresh air. Fragments of poetry spring to mind.

This ecstasy doth unperplex…

Absent from thee I languish still…

And aphorism too: philosophy for the rainy days spent hiding under blankets on your sofa. The clouds will disperse just as surely as they will gather. Sometimes life can be blue skies. We will not always have to swim just to stay above water. Sometimes our feet will touch the ground.

Poetry again, breathed in a whisper.

Come live with me, and be my love

Safe word

A warning shot
As stormclouds gather
Rain on the windows
Time to play

Take my time
To rip you open
No time for comfort
Not today

There is no love here
No love to lose
Just skin to scar
And hearts to bruise
So pretty boy lay down
Way to screw my karma
I'm waiting for the dark to cover me

Cold in here
Alone together
I taste your sweat
And smell your terror

Kiss your neck
And feel you shudder
Feel you offer up
Good little boy

There is no safe word
Here in my head
I hold you down
You hold your breath
So pretty boy cry for me
Way to rouse my demons
I'm waiting for them to take over me

There is no beauty
Now passion is gone
You find the door
I sleep alone
So pretty boy run away
Way to waste an evening
I'm waiting for the earth to swallow me

And this is not the way it should have been...

Tiptoeing

Fingers crossed
You keep leaving me breathless
Falling over myself
Just to follow your light

Tiptoe in
And testing the water
Waiting for the honour
To kiss you goodnight

Belongings

(for T.S. Eliot)

Faustus: Stay Mephastophilis! and tell me what good
Will my soul do thy lord?
Mephastophilis: Enlarge his kingdom
Faustus: Is that the reason why he tempts us thus?
Mephastophilis: Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris

Let us go then, you and I,
Where the adverts are writ large across the sky
(The gospel truth to tell us what to buy)
Let us go to fill the hole
To find the things we never knew we needed
(Pour découvrir comment combler
La troue que ce matin j’ai trouvé
Quand, à côté de toi, je me suis reveillé)
Oh, do not ask ‘What is it?’
Let us go and make our visit.

Let us go
Before it gets to closing time
‘Tis not too late to seek a better world.

In the street the people come and go
Basking in the afterglow

The yellow sun that spills in through the window,
The yellow sun that paws his way in through the window,
Busy old fool, he shows up every crease
In this flawed landscape of skin and sin and sheets
(Ainsi qu’un débauché pauvre qui baise et mange
Le sein martyrisé d’une antique catin)
And comes around again to break our peace.
Let us go then, with no talk of what has been:
There will be time tonight to falter and begin.

In the street the people come and go
Basking in the afterglow

The shops serve up their promises
To restless eyes, where everything’s for sale.
Reverent steps shuffle past stocked windows,
Dream from the same stock of dreams,
The same branded fantasies, carefully spun
From common denominators; content to be contained.

And all the girls come out to play
To spread their wares on a Saturday night
Make their special offers
(Two for one if you get lucky)
And come with a good will or come not at all

And all the boys go body shopping
Pick up their partners on sale-or-return
Take a zero-tolerance line on attachment
(Statutory masculinity never affected)
And everything’s alright.

And indeed there will be time
To make a narrative out of it all
To anatomise each near miss
Each kiss
That ended the fairytale
And time yet to make all the same mistakes again.

There will be time, there will be time
To sing the bitter song of my experience;
To watch revelations spark and falter in your eyes
And wonder do I dare, and do I dare
To share the trudge and sweat and ache of days
Spent edging round an overwhelming question,
And learning to forget the sting of years
Spent wondering what the years are for
And losing faith with every revolution
Blunt to the purpose, my resolution wearing thin?

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

For I have known them all already, known them all
I have seen the tourists on the Berlin wall
I have measured out my life in ballot slips
And watched the poison spill from power’s lips.
I have self-medicated with the rest
‘Til memory itself became a fume.
So how shall I presume?

And I have known the words already, known them all
The chants that falter with a dying fall
Before the promise of a pay-rise; stall
Beside the longing for an easy life
And turn to groans as comfort twists the knife
Stuck deep in now, integral to the flesh
That forms and ripens in a lover’s womb.
And how should I presume?

And I have known the pain already, known it all,
I have seen the trail of losses left behind
To mark my passing; chewed the bitter rind
For the last savour of the fruit, and drunk
The backwash of my pleasures,
And counted myself lucky to have been so blessed.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

Should I tell you that this brave new world
Is new only to thee?

Besides, the afternoon, the evening comes on so peacefully.
Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy:
We’ll take this as our motto. You and me
Could make a virtue of necessity;
Keep our heads down safe beneath the watchful eyes.
For I have seen them crack the whip
From Genoa to the Gaza strip.
I have seen what I have left to lose
And in short I am afraid.

And what would it mean, this common man’s dream
(To mortgage himself somewhere out in suburbia,
Sign his pact with normalcy,
Start a family)
If one were to say
“That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it at all”

And where could it lead, in this common-denominated world
Of serialised monogamy,
Fiscal responsibility,
If one, resting her chin on her hands
With her eyes full of other places,
Reaching out across the space between us
Were to say
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all”.

No! Orpheus, I will not follow you.
I ‘gin to grow aweary of the sun!

Let us go then, you and I,
Through crowds who never look up at the sky,
Until, consumer-chosen
And carefully customer serviced,
We have acquired a taste for modern life
Completed our course of retail therapy
(Faisons les courses, ma chèrie)
And done our duty for queen and economy.

Possessed of our possessions
And occupied by our occupations
(La sottise, l’erreur, le péché, la lésine,
Occupent nos ésprits et travaillent nos corps)
We will be taken in the day’s takings
And belong through our belongings.

We’ll smile and wave in our 15 minutes of fame
And realise in the end perhaps we were
Not waving but drowning.

Thus comfort doth make cowards of us all.

http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html