it’s white but not
dotted with hooks for coats in crazy ways
and photos of beautiful faces
and legs and bodies
stretching out to embrace something
as embodying a better time
with those eyes that try to meet
and gaze languidly
as the street outside walks past
casting a glance inside
and wondering what gin would best go
with a night’s slow movements
as the man holds on
and the woman smiles gently
as if expectantly too
and maybe it’s true
and maybe it’s not
but the vibe between them is kindly
and yet kinda hot
in a way that doesn’t threaten
but promises so much
because the art of life
lies not in the delving
nor in the delivery
but rather in showing you really do care
by ensuring like this
you’re never in the clear
in respect of how far
you might go or maybe not
in order to be like this
and so it’s like this again
and then again you’re doing
what you do best
as the rest attempt to get onboard
with your occasional lording over them all
and that’s when you realise
you’ve overstepped a line
that signals the sign that ain’t very right
and so you retreat
as in when you keep appearances up
and pretend the night ain’t hurting
and the loneliness ain’t biting
and all this writing ain’t a substitute
for living life itself
as all this time you’re sitting here
in the calm of the white
that is white as white
and white as not
and in this city you’d lost for twenty-two years
and now can hear so sharply around
as the sounds and voices
and the toying of choices
and then this is true too
as so finely once more
you are in what’s becoming home to you once more
and this you do feel now so firmly
whilst waiting to leave fiercely on the morrow
and when relieving this life
you wanted to regain
in ways that felt alike
and then exactly the same
as before all that terror which collapsed you so bad
and poleaxed you so madly
and broke your ability to cope at all at all
and so all that happened after
were the fires that they stoked
so you’d burn in the hell they’d made for you at home
meaning they’d be able
to tell the real bad you were
for the rest of the time
they cared to make others hear
as the signal that signs just as before
on terrifying dotted lines
and yet in truth
even where terrifying is the intention quite hard
it’s turning out differently now (i’ll suggest)
and it’s now much easier and how (i’ll suggest)
and much more like leisure is your lace
and much more like pleasure is your place
and much more like someone loves you
as earlier they couldn’t
or wouldn’t
or weren’t allowed to ever
and so that’s then what wraps it up
like a cup or goblet
of grandiose kingly measure
as we come to the end of yet another time
and as we choose to attempt to avoid the crime
which we wanted to embrace all this time
as we avoided the chase
of the deletions of hate
remembering that it’s never to late
and remembering there’s always time
to make into any life
the tidings of the seasons
that arch over our reasons
until we sense fundamentally
like a benchmark of tech
the (touch)stone of love’s deck
distributed like the cards
we tried desperately not to play
as we say let’s make hay
and then sometimes we did
but mostly we didn’t
and so i guess since we didn’t
now it’s full time we did
and that’s the end and beginning
of all our beings
because life is this
and love is all
and even when the funeral pall
surely someone will remember me well
and want to tell a story
where people saw
that this someone did love me true
and utterly
and actually
and doing and seeing
and saying and won
and when finally it’s all done
and dusted so deep
like our lives were chores
not treasures to keep
because if truth be told
i so wish that people loved me enough
to want me not
to take that trigger
and fire that shot
as my beloved ernest did
in the year i now live
out of the despair i now feel
and am obviously being dealt
whilst the final call
brings me close to seeing
that humans are anything but good
and even though all i’ve said is true
still we beat on mercilessly
and pitilessly
and gracefully
and fearfully
into the incandescence
as if we really should
because it really would it really would
be nice to feel i could have been good
copyright mil williams, 16th march 2024, zagreb croatia
in memoriam of #bloomsday2016
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