Category: poems

My wife lies naked in the dark
She glows like snow in a clear winter night
She waves sand dunes the wind brings to our bed,
hills and valleys in a moonlit landscape
with fire in her depths and ice in her peaks
as the night pokes her breezy hand
through the half open window
to caress her body.

I stare fascinated
perfectly lonely by her side
She has no eyes for me.
She sleeps. She is gone
I receive her with overwhelming gratitude
when she returns to wrap her legs around mine
I love her most when she makes me hate myself

For in order to ask
I would need to speak,
I stay sealed in silence
by pain and fear
You don’t see me alone
or realize I am lonely
My silence grows heavy,
an anchor tied to my lips

the sentinel in the dark
talks to me of things he felt but never saw
of voices the wind brought and scattered
of phosphorescent dials in the right hands of passers-by
of cigarettes alighting small areas in hidden faces
of car lights ploughing the night along the way
but mostly he speaks of the darkness itself
and the things he sees in the darkness of my heart
the sentinel speaks scarce and softly
but his eyes know no silence
his voice flows from lips that do not move
curled up in a frozen smile
without irony, judgement or humour
his eyes carry all of that – and the cold of the nigh as well
the sentinel in the dark reports about my love
he speaks of how she is doomed to be the only one
that cannot ever know what really feels to love her
because of this, he explains without malice or empathy,
she’ll never know the nature of my hurt
the sentinel in the dark looks at the sky above us
he read the stars as I would read my watch
I follow his gaze and when I look again he is gone
the sentinel has once again deserted me
and took the night away with him – day breaks

July 28th of 2012
Victoria, BC

Climb astride, gallop
I will be your stallion tonight
Ride me without fear
We are joined steadfast
by mortise and tenon
We are joined forever
As gulf and ocean
We are one
As waves and water
Water and waves
Earth and hoof
Horse and rider

Loneliness is not the broken violin,
it is not the worn strings
or the useless bow.
Loneliness is the missing musician.

***

1 –
“Sometimes it feels that your life is a game you play to make me feel more and more lonely” He said with his eyes fixed on something outside the window.
She took a long time to ponder this and then she said simply: “We need more milk…” and then, when he turn to look at her she added: “and butter…”
He stood up, grab the car keys and his wallet from the table, and pick up a couple of fabric market-bags from a hook by the entrance and left the house to never come back.

2 –
His body was found two hundred and seventy three thousand years too late, in a sedimentary layer corresponding to the twenty and twenty first centuries of the first cycle.