Category: Poems (page 40 of 73)

A catalogue of tongues inside the Buddha’s room, that place it seemed impossible to leave, a space created by two dim machines under the tongue of a slippery moon. The tongue of a moon that licks the shore, that space where two melodies meet and form a zero, a name for the unwritten body floating just like a canoe through hanging air. The slippery heel of a canoe pushed out through the scruffy surf, that zone where two desires meet and form an equal pair, a sudden dare injected with fire. The mosquito’s pin-prick of a map, formal attacks instead of blood, the trust that lies inside a vein. Intricate as triage, bold as pain.A levitating loop ascends, hisses like the fleeting diagram. What sound the space elastic? Carrier of a broken dream. Clues like stars that disappear behind your head at dusk. The drunken bust. A plane on which it’s possible to sleep, my head inside your heart. The subtle hopes of minor chords disrupted, wound around a lamp post called delay. Sleep and gravity, guilt’s decay. A slipping canvas for a sail, red slashes of a pirate’s demonstration. Eons of bounty, plume flukes from the smallest tail. Rhyme a melody with silver paint. Two red lights in the dark an omen, or pin-pricks of light from a planet warm as wood or skin.

A gibbous moon’s trilogy of angles, quick as lino cuts. The story you drew there, using just your fist. A clock timed to miss the traffic’s surge. Sands. The illusory youth hostel, behind the warning signs, the smell of buffaloes. Eggs whose secrets crabs and horses mend. Dizzy heights. A mantra that never curls or gives off radiation. Puzzles. The cat’s purr like an engine in the mist. Rubbing against the ear. The mechanical shell I held. Photographs of hands. Line delays and free translation. Detox depots. Moon tongue. Silence, then the ever-ascending roar. Mesmerising trickles. The new freckle’s eclipse, predicted by a sonic blip.