Category: aside

it's when i think of the upsides i come alive: 
where i can now go
whom i can now show new things to do
just be myself you see 
instead of someone else
a man who was never taken 
except for a ride ...
oh, it's from him now 
i successfully begin to hide

and i think of all the beautiful people 
at last i can begin to love 
inside and out and round about: 
the kinds of things
that make your heart sing
as always it should have done from birth 
because fun it is true 
is clearly a part of you
and it was only marriage and lover 

that drove it like mid-west pioneers
calvinistically out of all our near and far 
as it made out to the whole wide world 
that i was a man who knew nothing of life
and only knew how to diminish a wife
as if diminishing things
was what floated my yacht
when clearly it was not:
clearly it was anything but that 

because in truth
i still remain
the little boy of healthy mischief 
who uses laughter to remain as sane as he can
without stumbling across the land of no-man
or at least without doing so too much at all
for love is everything 
when the life i feel
and the life you surely manifest 

are engines of flight 
so high as to become the mighty 
as soaring together 
our love becomes us fine
and walking that line for each other 
only goes to show
we are meant to be 
whatever the rest of the world 
fiercely chooses to see

that is how grand 
and that is how strong 
my love for my darling of dares 
shows itself to be
as the hand she outstretches 
*this* tenderly and slenderly
begins finally to wish to hold onto 
the only thing that matters in *any* history:
what two people who've suffered their love

now realise they can do 
free for the other 
and open to everything 
that life may bring kindly 
as dancing 
like enchanting doors to mysterious gardens:
the clocks of true love 
that cloak the passage of time
as suddenly they make both of us perfectly rhyme

this is my life  
as i have observed it
over the years 
and certainly since nineteen eighty-eight

but other years also 
just as specifically as that 
succeeded in pointedly making it clear
that profound disagreements were near  

and that such observations 
and critiques of similar 
unsolicited advice were just never going 
to make anyone happy again my friends 

and so to the nub of the issue today:
women and men will always fight it out
like creatures of the dark
pretending to illuminate the sarcasm

they hurl like lightning rods 
of bitter resentments buried like poisons
remaining after war or radioactive conflicts
or something or other like that or this we see

but the main difference i can sense 
between women and men 
and ever so tense 
is that whilst men hurt and destroy you 

until nothing is left to breathe or retrieve 
women on the other hand 
always disappoint you 
because they choose to step back

from the final step of love 
that means that in some finer way
clearly unexplored 
their practical sides and rightful fears of disaster 

prevent them from ever making the final leap
which only the venturing across the abyss 
that leads to him and his 
would one day ever enable 

in some haunting and primitive way
when the final kiss of love and splendour 
that might even so
engender a truth of some far better sort 

and not a question of should or ought 
but much much more 
of tracing the lips 
that resisted the bliss 

for such a long time 
that even gorgeous rhymes 
failed to convince 
quite as easily as they could have

and so when two people like that 
who should easily have run the victory lap
over and over 
and over again 

finally may one day find themselves triaging deeply
like medics of the human condition 
the hidden joys and hesitations 
from other infirmities of that way-back-when ...

the time and day 
i say sincerely 
when we realised so utterly obvious
that love we felt with manifest truth

being a hug and a peck on the cheek of the other 
that evening 
where this in its slightness ends up meaning
more than nights of a thousand and one 

where nothing ever ends my love 
and nothing ever has to fend for its life again
because that is why 
precisely why

we invented wife of him 
and devised this thing 
we call husband of her 
and then ultimately freed of all gender notions

a fabulous and stronger potion 
on an ocean of calm
because what you and i bring to this world 
cannot be compared with anything anywhere 

that ever existed 
before or after 
we went and approached each other 
as part of that common humanity ... of us 

you judge me because i don't have an emotional life
because yours is full of tragedy

and that in your eyes 
makes you real

where i am just 
unkindly and without your maddening passions 

mine however is just empty of feelings 
because my experiences have shown me 

that only when money is present in the dynamic 
do people want ever to be with me 

and so this emptiness 
which you see as flaw and absence 

is to my mind precisely why 
my work is so beautiful 

where you still are determined to claim
my life is non-existent 

because for me if it's a choice between sex and thought 
then thought every time 

and if it's a choice 
between fleeting touch 

out of financial transaction 
and a coke-ridden cash

or alternatively the imagineering of a new day
where a brand-new whirled arises out of nothing 

then a brand-new whirled every single time 
is what i will always choose 

and if it's between living a life badly 
as you all do 

because if not 
how come the world be like this ... 

and so rhyming it fabulously as i do 
and as i am clearly able to 

there is really 
no contest here 

no contest whatsoever 
dear friends 

no contest ever 
at all ... at all 

no contest 
remaining to this day 

so please do not prevent me any more 
(on condition of learning first 

how to finally fuck 
and perform as you demand i must)

from working in these things 
that much more float my boat 

for i have every right to be productive
without love 

as indeed you show yourselves 
so often to be 

with what you blithely call 
this thing you break into splintering pieces 

and call sex and existence 
without iota of kindliness or final utility 

i was either ill at the time 
and she knew it and didn't care
what's more knew what she was doing 
when she told me to embrace the lie as she did
what's more perhaps put up to it by her state 
(not mine ... not any more)

or i wasn't ill and i knew what i was doing 
and both of us 
were radically in the wrong 
but either way 
the state did know 
and it either used her to deepen my sense of failure 
or it used me to embed a sense of distress 

i can't be schizophrenic 
for the purposes of national security 
and responsible for my actions 
when faced with a monster like her

she had no diagnosis at the time
and yet she was literally rapacious as they come: 
she told me she'd done the same to her husband
and relished the coincidence in front of me 
and she had already informed me 
how my brother was rough in that department 
and did i mind he'd had the opportunity to be
before i'd had the chance myself 

and so curiously i said 
all i minded in this
was only that when someone was with me
it was me that someone was with
but in the event she'd never been with me
always been put up to it by a labour party 
awfully labouring the point:
a man as i was, cogently against the stupidity of iraq
in order that his witness be undermined deliberately
by a security state she formed a clear and seamless part of
in a northern ireland of aggressions multiple
and multiple and various 

so no: when i said i didn't mind 
if she'd been with my brother 
i didn't mind it at all
but when she affirmed she'd be being with me all that time --
the four days in belfast in her marital bed --
she lied brazenly because paid brazenly
by a state she preferred to be with,
more than a lover she cared to lie next to,
in order to destroy all future capacity of mine
to fight back and tell my truth as it was
and still is
and will always remain 

so listen up
and listen clear
because this is what i have to do 
because when stupid men
threaten me with their stupid dogs
on public transports for all
it's time i firmed up my opposition 
to all the evil state managed to do 
and still delivers on all sides of politics 
and still delivers on all sides 

and this is why 
because this is the key 
because it's possible to criminalise a state 
when its free and easy agents like her
are the focus of the process you make happen 
out of two decades of pain 

and so never truer or unkinder 
were the actions cruel she committed on my person
to the extent she even sacrificed her son
in full public view 
at john lennon airport 
just to make sure that my disgrace was complete

you were wrong when you said guilt
that evening in dublin, c
wrong about your mother and my witness:
it wasn't guilt i felt around all of this
but astonishment she felt absolutely none 
herself at all 
 
at any time i say
any time ever 
for so casually doing the state's bidding 
as she did