Beyond your concern & Two old heads
by Ian Seed
[ poetry - november 06 ]
Beyond your concern
Perhaps I travel from body to body
simply to postpone the moment we must meet.
I read the story but never come across your face.
She invites me in with a
smile both anxious and pleased.
Will I fit in? Will any of her coterie want to sleep with me?
The sun creates ruby from rock. Our attention is turned
as if through a veil or a
kindled flame.
There are many texts but which will you handle first?
The point is surely to begin, nothing else.
While she cuts my hair,
she leans her belt buckle into my shoulder.
Coming to this means another possibility altogether:
feeling dizzy and closing my eyes.
Perhaps it's as much as
anyone can offer.
She had supper with us that night and her son came to the table.
We don't know if they'll return.
The play is not without
risk or love. 'The good which I want to do
I fail to do.' When you brush against me.
The story breaks and heal us at the same time.
You have a double face.
It's no use thinking they will save us.
The boy on the corner holds out his hand.
If you were to ask, it
would be more than you can think of:
I without myself, you without yourself.
Who will bring us home?
Two old heads
So, nothing: this, the view shifted,
my mother swimming away,
and the gift of you bending over
in a scene I dreamt of once before,
sudden formlessness raised around you,
too high for you to climb, a voice
lost as I enter the city without you.
But why these houses, the sadness of them?
I won't tell you of the impression your shout
makes in the dark. E poi basta -
it's enough for you to have knelt down
in the place where you did, only a few moments
ago. To stay upright is tiring -
you should know a few things about that.
Meanwhile the days pass. It's snowy
and foggy. If your father is an executioner,
his face all lit up, how do you translate this
into family terms? I reach out to you
from forgotten wounds, I tell myself words
I have never understood. At times
some dead thing overcomes me. You
or who? The surprise at finding myself
uncomposed in front of an open window,
your promise to close your eyes next time.
No one can tear you away. Did you know
I would grow tired of waiting before you
grew tired of watching? I've tried to understand
what you're telling me and even to tell it
to others who have no objection
to this gift from a lost one. The things
you dream up to make yourself interesting:
'My wife, Anna, is very blond and knows how to dress.'
E poi basta - I'm locking the
house and leaving.
The sky is no different from the colour of stone.
What makes me love you makes me want to run.
