The Silhouettes Of Memory's Pirouettes

looking through some photographs
of a time when I was in love
I felt this urge to race away
towards when the past was enough

because I've become reliant
on the moment feeding my lust
for life and living and feeling
but now the future beckons to trust

and it does so with a soft
touch of a lover's hand in dark
with their look that pierces
and the searing ways their gifts mark

is it truly the feeling of then
that I remember in these photos
or is it what I wished I'd felt
and maybe not again's knowing so

sometimes I think they write
with their eyes upon my heart
and what I feel is the etching
but can't read it til we're apart

and that's what this feeling is
being so close you cannot see
until shadows lift and move
and their figure shows complete

imagination lets your dreams
wonder away with silhouettes
before you know it you're dancing
and your memory remains in pirouettes

all I do is turn and over
many times the ways we'd come
together as lovers and the leaving
with which I never can feel done

Creeping As Dreams Let Seep

I grew to sleeping beside you,
sheathed, a couple of times a week
now as I try to close my eyes
your arms I can't help but seek
I think of your meek fingers
and how they mingle with mine
and the silence that arrives
with your breathing in no time
I try to remember when you weren't
my final thought before sleep
but it seems since our knowing,
through my dreams you perpetually seep
so you keep with me through nights
even if apart we have to be
and though distance some hinderance
each dream's nearer eventually

A Diamond For Trying

you gave me a ring
and asked we be wed
but something wasn't right

you slipped the diamond on
and I saw its weight shone
but could barely stand its sight

it didn't fit and as I looked at it,
I wondered out loud
what did it imply

and silence lingered a moment
and you hadn't spoken,
so I answered with a sigh

maybe love's like that,
you think it's perfect
and you're sure the ring will go

but sometimes you can't force it,
that's just the course of it
that you have to try to know

Loves' Letting

to a lover, once, I mentioned
that I'll never be one to settle
I don't need feel grounded or surrounded
by company to be in fine fettle
well love's not for rent ferocious they said
and I retorted well you make it your mortgage
I'd not want to try own what can't be aquired
love's not a home it's only a voyage
well some time passed and I heard news of them
they're going to their grave in debt
and I'm not far off myself but I'm sure of all I felt
and know it was letting for lack of regret.

Love Is Nothing

do you remember love started with nothing
in that way we'd say so at those glances
we'd spy with big eyes the little somethings
that lead to leaps and taking chances

I recall how love seemed out of our grasp
when neither of us could reach out a hand
but how falling slowly is a rewarding task
it's surer than stamping out ground to stand

I recollect the etched memory of our first kiss
in the way it was mutual the future from there
the trepidation and levitation of is this
going to turn tears of whether worth it to share

did I ever tell you how your bite stung
the second time we locked lips and you pulled
I think I hid it beneath what we'd done
under the throne of responsibility and rules

like all great histories there was a war
ours fought not on hallowed but fallowed ground
then in the night desire's white flags we saw
and realised the Grail never lost to be found

so it occurs me when you reach your eyes
out to mine through what seems to be a mist
that there's still nothing's truthful lies
calling out what you can't help but insist

and it keeps me then with the feeling
of having never ceased to be falling for you
'cause in so many nothings something's revealing
there's so much concealed for us to ensue

Always Watching, Often Waiting

it's hard to get around or over your brown eyes
the way they find and surround mine in photos
it's hard to know that you're somewhere else
and remember the way you once felt so close

in those moments just before we'd go to sleep
when love seemed to keep you through the night
and I'd wake up to see you softly watching me
with so much adoration contained in your sight

in my mind I race through these conversations
where I say to you, certain, how much you mean
to me and the way I still feel plenty for you
but they always end with I wish I'd foreseen

I have these dreams every now and then of those
hopeful, wide open, deep ocean seeking eyes
meeting with mine as the beginning and last
thing I'd see each day and contemplate the size

of our involvement had it been perhaps easier
to maintain than we'd maybe made to believe
I wonder if to me they'll always look the same
if I'll never forget everything they'd seen

sometimes I look confronted to new come lovers
and try well to pretend there's more there
than I know's the truth but it doesn't long last
it seems eventually they see in mine the despair

my restless glances back and forth between time
trying to handle its unbearable lightness
evidence of wonder of whether greatness is extant
or still to come and my uncertainty's rifeness

and though many brown eyes there are to be seen
it's less their traits that I need to be shown
rather more it's the stories that they can tell
and the affection in them accessible to know

so in those photos I guess the truth of your eyes
that I peruse and in them find time to reflect
upon's traveling down memory's waning clarity lane
awaiting it's ardence once again let intersect

and a worthy question it is whether to forget
you can or should try to a once love's eyes
is it best remember what you kept as happy
or pursue the ephemeral with better yet's surmise?

The Time We Married

I had this dream that you and I got married. We'd been together for some time, exactly how long wasn't clear, though it didn't seem to matter. We were young. It seemed apparent what love was and it felt as though it reached all the way around us, wrapped us within it. It was an overcast day, we were walking along a road, it was snowing, but the snow was just cherry blossom petals falling. They were soft pink, almost white and cold and they tasted sweet as we opened our mouths and put our tongues out into the crisp air and caught them. We laughed and I ran my fingers carefully through your hair, brushing out the petals caught upon your head. We'd stopped a second and you were looking at me and I realised so as my hand reached the bottom of the shoulder lengths of your hair. Our eyes met in this moment and I took your hands in mine and began to turn with you, slowly at first, picking up speed until we were at arms lengths from each other, spinning faster and faster. As we slowed down, and took in our surroundings, we were no longer along the cherry blossom, snowing road. We were standing in an empty church that was a forest inside. It was a dome and the trees, thin and tall all around us curved inwards as they reached upwards and only a small circle at the top where they all couldn't reach each other let the sunlight in. The sunlight was soft and it was directly upon us as we stood in the middle of this very natural, comfortable feeling place. There were no pews in the church, just neatly cut-down, thick, many rings of age tree stump seats. There was no one else but you and I in the green, brown, amber, soft pastel mist but we could feel the eyes of an impossible-to-count number of people upon us. We could feel the eyes waiting. Watching and waiting. It seemed that there were voices, softly whispering and chattering, they brushed past our necks and ears like a breeze, which you couldn't tell where it was coming from. We were still holding each others hands. We looked at each other, not grinning, not smiling exactly, but just the corners of our mouths creeping out and up, arching in understanding, perhaps just less than half way to a closed lip smile. We kept looking at each other, locked eyes, unable to move them, not needing to, not wanting to see anything else. We kept our gaze for the time it would take for vows to be said but there was only silence. Just long, deep, concentrating silence. There were no rings brought forth and we knew that we would never wear any. I put my hand into my pocket and you traced my movements with your eyes as I felt around and pulled a watch from inside. The band was not solid, though it was bright and shining gold. It was formed of letters, words, joined together in lower case cursive all the way round. It was a perfect fit for your wrist without any adjustment. The band read, 'innocent when you dream'. It slid over your hand onto your wrist with complete ease and as it came to rest a small wisp of smoke appeared to rise up from where it met your skin. It was searing you, but you did not feel any pain. With your right hand you reached inside your jacket, to the inside breast pocket and you pulled out a watch also. It was identical on the face, and the band the same colour and font but it read different. It read, 'this is all I'll ever have'. As you slipped it on my wrist, just the same as upon yours, it seared my skin and I felt nothing, but thin wisps of smoke arose from around my wrist and I felt my wrist get noticebly heavier. So, with our watches on we both looked at the time and when we looked up from their faces to each others we were then upon a bed in a moonlit room, where the white light pushed through an open window. We were on our sides and naked except for the watches, on top of the sheets, our heads on pillows and music began to play. The music grew louder as we faced each other and I could see your lips moving and knew mine were doing so also, but there were no words coming out, there were no sounds to our voices. We were speaking calmly, at a conversational speed, not hastened or rushed and not exacerbated. As we mouthed words and the music got louder, the sound became more and more like that of a ticking clock. It was slowing and slowing and getting heavier and our mouths started to slow down until our lips were simply pursed. The rhythmic tick-tocking was all we could hear and we began to kiss, soft and gentle and we closed our eyes. Then, every sense seemed to disappear except for the sound of time, almost like a chisel being hit with a hammer into rock, and it continued growing louder and louder. I opened my eyes and I was awake and it was dawn and the clock beside my bed was making it's constant, normal, supposed to, sound. I looked to my right and under the covers swept my hand across to the other side and felt the entire absence of you from the bed. I turned my sleepy gaze from the plush pillow to straight ahead of the bed, where a full length mirror stood and reflected my now half upright position. And looking at myself, I realised that I wasn't frowning, I didn't have tears in my eyes, and I seemed to lack any completely descriptive expression but I could see clearly that my mouth was a curve of wistful, melancholy, slightly turned up at the corners, never smiling, closed lipped and tired.