The Saxophone Bouquet

Within these walls, I can be your anything
Screaming midnight verses,
Or whispering from a bottle
My blood stained sonnets, endlessly
Until you reach out loving hands
To silence these orphaned songs
Kissing their life away
Colder than a blue morning's breath
Then, with a sigh
Laying bare the secret geography of your body
Its Mediterranean skin
Concealing all those ancient passions
Which fill you, like a fever
Whenever I speak of love

Fan Mail

I can't properly describe
What it means to be here-
She told me to write a happy poem
And I told her I would
But she will read it and say
"You've done it again"

This moment is perfect
It shines like a star, like a birth-
I reach out in my mind
And find a jewel in every memory
But still she frowns
And calls me "sad poet"

The Harvester

Out of sleep and beyond my window
The old maple is upset today-
It sways restlessly, like a dreamer
Reminding the wind to behave itself
In the company of an elder-
I've spent my days beneath that majesty,
Planting Autumn questions among ancient roots
And waiting patiently
For Spring's emerald sutras to unroll themselves in the sun
Swaying gently over hungry fields
As dawn rises
To collect her precious toll of dew-

Leaves And Leaving

I wasn't trying to make things simple
I know you don't believe in that-
The way an afternoon becomes an evening
And how we could see it together
Laughing long or in silent ease,
Is what made me stay-

Maybe that was unfashionable
And maybe it was just bad timing-
My karma isn't as flexible
As your convenient theories-
Though in this August heat, I'm liable to believe anything
Except that it was a mistake to love you-

A Quiet Universe

You were here again last night,
Sliding through my mind
Like some ancient ocean current-
And I might have held you, but like your element,
Flowing on ceaselessly under the moon,
Your body obeyed its nature-

I was looking out for you, as though it were my purpose,
Like following a ghost across the surface of the sun-
And it seemed to me a hopeless mythology,
These midnight journeys
Undertaken, not for Helen,
But for the beauty of the sea-