‘In time’ – a poem

“In time”

“Everything in it’s time.” Old Saying

 

~

 

 

In time the Christmas cards will be marked with loving script.
In time we will watch a march move down the street and gaze up at proud flags moving in a tattered breeze.

In time the affairs had,
you sordid beast
will be lost among graying newspapers and leaflets fading.

Dry leaves in the letterbox.

 

In time
the suffering will fade and snuff out in the night
like streetlamps on dawns razor edge.

In time
the applause will be for you

and you will find yourself with your arms around another.

 

Sitting down
near the park
in the overcast
noon.

Watching couples move.

Linked arms, words said.

Pillowcases on the bed-head.

Below the clocks,
summer dresses in laundry baskets.
Underwear on the line.

In time
jasmine has found a moment to bloom
and through the dull glow of distant city lights,
romance, getting lucky, cleavage shots

a snog on Adelaide Street.

I’m at the station
with my head between my knees.

Second movement
After the cum has been spat into a wet loin
and the juice trickles from it.

 

After the cigarette stub smolders its last and the final crystal tear falls onto flesh and nothingness.

After the fireworks, the band stopped playing, the surgery successful, the chemotherapy over, the president elected, the game won, the final snore of wakefulness, the last ad before the movie, the corpse in the ground.

After I have finished here
the sadness comes
like a hunter’s moon, like a tomb,
like a runic shield on the chevron of dawn.

The sadness comes like sand in the air
whalesong in the sea,

The sadness sits in like a girl moving in nextdoor,
people in passing,
old bones.

My bones
feel old
like
Virgil
once treat on my ashes
and sat under a Birchwood tree
leaving only scribbled words which relate to long dead heroes.

I wake surrounded by capacitors, circuits and conductors
electric signs and dark streets that go for miles.

 

Sometimes in the distance
a dog takes up howling
at the moon
who is
his ancestral friend.

 

 

 

Third movement

 

I pull myself from the water, dry my hair, put on my glasses and look at the sea.Poet.

The waves say;

“

Yours is the final word or all foolish things left in the world.

To you, is given

Silence and shadows.

Substance and stuff.

And the things, that great men and womenfolk
are made of.”

 

We leave each other
ancient lovers – a poet and his shore,
the world of time beckons,
the world of wine,
of electricity,
of sex and skin and loafing around,
of lofty aspirations and fading stars.
of death and broken dreams.

Come swiftly,
O words that happen after the final watch extinguishes
the lantern on the street.
Come O darkened embrace
tell me all your secrets.

O steel and sound
and convertible cars.

O hungry eyed leaders of whom much is expected
O wronged and those who wrong-do
Come all, Come too,

And walk a line,
the last line
of defense
that this world has from madness.

 

 

 

Forth and final movement

 

In time
a hundred thousand words boils down to an atom
in space.

And DEATH
marks my face, our pack sealed by kisses.

O for that taste of honey-coloured sunlight
before the breath gives out.

And we’ll all say O
by each of all the cracked stones.

Moses came down from the mountain and forbade the worship of idols.

I say
bend to whatever breeze
blows you.

But sway
do not be blown
away.

Airy things are so difficult to seek and to find
but in time
everything comes to rest.

The heart in my chest.

Our constant sun and favorite star
the pain behind the scar,

The wound, the wanting,

The taking and the keeping,

This hiding places
our eyes and faces, come to rest, come to rest,
constellations, our faculties and sensations
Shakespeare said ‘sans everything’
and he was right.

In time
the strings are cut from the kites.

And a hundred thousand words is loosed to four winds
by words and songs the sing
for us, about us, like hot air rises,

The songs take us up, like hot air rises,
the music, in time, will rise up
and with it we too, we rise up.

And on morning we are floweth over
life’s great cup.

 

 

 

P.S

Yes,
everything, in its time. BTD 11/12/2008

 

 

~

 

For Milica.