‘I hear your heart, forget to breathe, and glow’

THE HEDGEROW ROSE

I lead you here to pluck this florid rose
still tethered to its post, a dreary mass	
propped up to stiff attention, winsome-thorned
(what hand was ever daunted less to touch
such flame, in blatant disregard of all
but atavistic beauty)? Does this rose
not symbolise our love? But as I place
its emblem to your breast, how can this poem,
long centuries deflowered, not debase
all art, if merely genuine, but not
“original”? Love, how can reused words
though frailer than all petals, bent by air
to lovelier contortions, still persist,
defying even gravity? For here
beat Monarch’s wings: they rise on emptiness!


MINGLED AIR

for Beth

Ephemeral as breath, still words consume
the substance of our hearts; the very air
that fuels us is subsumed; sometimes the hair
that veils your eyes is lifted and the room

seems hackles-raised: a spring all tension wound
upon a word. At night I feel the care
evaporate—a vapour everywhere
more enervate than sighs: a mournful sound

grown blissful. In the silences between
I hear your heart, forget to breathe, and glow
somehow. And though the words subside, we know
the hearth light and the comfort embers gleam

upon our dreaming consciousness. We share
so much so common: sighs, breath, mingled air.


ROUNDS
 
Solitude surrounds me
though nearby laughter sounds;
around me mingle men who think
to drink their demons down,
in rounds.
 
Now agony still hounds me
though elsewhere mirth abounds;
hidebound I stand and try to think,
not sink still further down,
spellbound.
 
Their ecstasy astounds me,
though drunkenness compounds
resounding laughter into joy;
alloy such glee with beer and see
bliss found.