GUILT
Three times today I’ve gone to the window
to see what’s happening outside.
I know I’m to blame
but I hope there might be someone else
who’ll look out at the same time,
searching for another
who accepts their share of the fault.
No one’s there and I feel like an astronomer
hunting a dim, misty star
with an out of focus telescope
that he swivels around endlessly
while the star grows steadily fainter.
I know I’m to blame, but I want somebody
to blot out my guilt for just a moment,
a cloud drifting across a mountain top
and then moving on. My heart’s been stolen
and replaced by a stone; I want to give it,
but the chunky block’s too heavy to lift.
I’ve hung a curtain over my bookshelves;
all those words have given us nothing
and rules and ethics drift away
even if we’ve ever read them.
I’ve unplugged the laptop
and shoved it far back under the sofa,
but I can’t lock out what’s already inside:
the guilt pours out from everything,
overflowing the table
and making my limbs into sodden branches.
Many times I’ve seen us falling through the floor,
tumbling and spinning over and over
while we try to hold on
and save ourselves from the gaping drop.
It’s not too late, I know, we have to make a start,
now it’s time to head back to the window.
TYRANT
I thought I would be safe inside,
but an anxious mind cannot be shut out
when you cross the deep trench and draw in the bridge.
I construct my circle of objects
to keep out the rest of the world,
investing them with all the power I can,
but sitting at the centre, always,
is me. All who loved me or whom I loved
I have pushed far away, never to return,
while those from whom I hide grow stronger
and more numerous every day.
At the moment, they can only peek through the cracks
in my defences, but one day soon they will end this siege
and send me where I sent so many. Till then,
my conscience and I uneasily share this space.
DESTINATIONS
You wake and turn to look at where I lie,
both of us propped on musing elbows;
it’s one of those many moments
when it seems right to say nothing.
I push away the tumbling hair
that shadows your face and wonder
where and who you’ve been in your dreams.
I want to go back with you next time
across the swaying bridge
but you turn away, nuzzling the sheets,
and just when I have the courage to ask,
you sleep, closing the perfect door behind you,
the one without a lock or key.
I lightly stroke your fleeing neck
and watch as you leave me once again,
flying past the endless things
on the way to where you were before. You drift
like a flight of geese arrowed at the moon,
far above the earthbound watcher
who would like more than anything to follow
but stands below muffled against the cold
and, kicking away the chance of flying
as he would a loose pebble, turns slowly for home.
Love can give space to the captive
and tightly bind the one who thinks he is free;
you have your worlds to roam in and I have mine,
and perhaps we just have to live in them.
I make to close my questing eyes and go
my own way when you stir and then you wake.