Roz Kaveney's Blog, page 11

A friend asked for something to hold in their heart

FIGHTING WORDS

Hopeless we need to hope. It is absurd
and so we need to laugh, although we cry.
They tell us to despair, and that's a lie.
Despair is where we live, it's what occurred
as children. But they do not have the right.
We break hearts bones minds lives. But we resist.
Not to be broken numbers on the list
of their possessions. Living in the night
they cannot see us. There's a sort of grin
teeth tear our lips with smiling. We go on
life age death cheats us. Yet when we are done
they bleed. We leave a mark that we have been.
For dreams loves joys they try to charge us rent,
or kill. So fight. For this - we don't consent.

I went to the exhibit at the Wellcome about the Sexology institute...

OpernPlatz May 1933

Most of them are so young as they march by.
Each takes a book and throws it on the fire.
They think this purifies them of desire
no more to lie in bed alone and cry
or worse to cry with with some soft blonde to hear
perhaps to hold them close which would be worst
not knowing why they weep. At least at first.
Sooner or later things become quite clear
Or would, but there are no more books to read
to tell them who they are. And so they burn
and do not know for whom it is they yearn.
Perhaps they meet him. Shoot him in the head.
A thin-lipped man is there to supervise,
no lust or pleasure in his pebble eyes.

But this one is for the news

KHALEED AL ASAAD

For they were not his gods. His god was one.
He knew the difference. His fingers smash
one at a time they hammered. And the lash.
He hoped his heart would fail. When they were done
they took his head and hanged him. And the sky
was brass above him. Centuries of dust
blow round at night. He did not break his trust
to broken lovely stone. A single horse's eye,
a lion tail, a god's titanic stare
Held in his mind and buried in the sand
for aeons more again. The scholar's hand
could write no more. He did not tell them where.
Duty submission worship. Final knife,
no harm to learning honour. Just his life.

I think these are variations on Romanticism

SEIZED

Far glimmers silver web mist maybe cloud
You see it there but water in your eye
tears or the rain. Suspect it is a lie
expected hoped for never wished aloud.
Walk slowly there are chasms in the ground
could swallow. Or there's ice that makes you fall
break bone perhaps. Sometimes it is a call
unseen in darkness. Followed. And the sound
could be an echo. Somewhere else. The light
a mirage. Mirrored. Many miles away.
Never attained pursued. So best to say
you never found it. If you did, you might
cry out Verweile doch! du bist so schon.
those are the words would damn you. Then you burn.

I have been looking at tigers

ENERGY

There is a striding slowness to her speed
energy tight contrained in every limb.
Beside her brightness even light is dim.
She comes to kill us, mostly though to feed
her teeth are engineered to bring fierce death
then carve us meat that sizzles with our blood
if she could bite a skull in two she would
to eat our brain. If she could eat the breath
out of our lungs, she'd relish the warm air.
Each run each leap is appetite unbound.
But it's not us, an antelope she's found.
Its throat blood glistens second in her hair.
She stretches yawns. Gods stroke her like a toy.
That if she could, she'd pull down, eat, destroy.

For Laurie

AFTER APPOLLINAIRE'S Les Attentives

It's fine. I do not use it anyway.
We all have elbows. These things sometimes break
at just a touch. Don't worry for my sake.
These things don't hurt as much as people say.

Do not be silly – it is not your fault.
Your work is touching, sweet and elegant
and its effect on me irrelevant.
I'm fine. Don't give the matter any thought.

You've an appointment and I have a brush.
Once you have gone, I'll sweep up every shard.
And glue them back together. It's not hard.
I've time, not even slightly in a rush.

Such a small thing, I'll laugh, you'll make me start
You knocked it over, but it's just my heart.

First in ages

TRICK

Worst trick of memory is to conflate
what happened with what should have might have been.
Mind edits – were her eyes that shade of green
or hazel, dark? She burned. It's far too late

to check these things. Run finger through the sweat
upon her arm in fever. Was I there?
The ash of Gauloise flaking in her hair
or was that merely time. Invent, forget,

and misremember – my mind does all three
and yet I know we loved. That is still true
dates brown and fall as leaves.Then they burn too.
If at the last she woke and thought of me

I cannot know. Our hot limbs intertwined
in sunlight in the past and in my mind.

A request

It's my birthday and people ask what I'd like...

I'd like those of you who know any part of my work to write about it. Here and elsewhere.

Another

DECODED

Don't talk to me. We have no more to say.
Turning your back means showing me your bum.
It's tight and pert. Once you could make me come
raising an eyebrow, but you stalked away

and I recovered, mostly. Went on dates
that did not tease my limits or my rule.
I like to play, but not played for a fool.
Flirting's more fun than one anticipates.

Getting off not. Abandon hurts old knees.
Old hearts have calluses. So turn your back
And turn your face. I have not felt your lack.
So very much. Things will be as you please.

I'll say it clear and make it mostly true.
You never loved me and I don't love you.

Yes more of the damn things

CODED

I cannot read a glance coded and fleet
She cannot see my eyes behind dark glass.
First time as tragedy, the next as farce.
Love never dies. It's all rinse and repeat.

Rain washed our kissing tango in the mud
Silence maintained since silence had been sworn.
So long ago – before this one was born -
although same itch same hectic in the blood.

I shall sit still nor speak, there is no way
I'll crack my face. I did not start this war,
I hope I do not love her anymore.
I fear that we can keep this up all day.

Hatred ill-acted- love behind a mask.
I care perhaps, but not enough to ask