money time
so far as I can know the only debt I owe,
an overdraft from you and one I cannot pay,
was my spring`s first honey and electric wave,
a street-light`s cunning and a harbour inn
( in a port that became a horse of a different colour
when we put up the Great Wall
of China, from which I watched you off to bliss
from the tumbrel I was carried on),
asking more than I could give to be as free
as I had to be to be me, and for you
to be you, a languorous Renoir nude,
hair uncoiled in pendant fronds of sun
not yet fully risen but already with a moon
under your feet setting in a ring of silver sea.
so far as I can know the only debt I owe,
an overdraft from you and one I cannot pay,
was my spring`s first honey and electric wave,
a street-light`s cunning and a harbour inn
( in a port that became a horse of a different colour
when we put up the Great Wall
of China, from which I watched you off to bliss
from the tumbrel I was carried on),
asking more than I could give to be as free
as I had to be to be me, and for you
to be you, a languorous Renoir nude,
hair uncoiled in pendant fronds of sun
not yet fully risen but already with a moon
under your feet setting in a ring of silver sea.
Should I have tried to make this icon of you then,
I, flat on that sea bed scuttling
in graffiti with the ragged claws, young
and off my head and dumb and blind?
We had held each other up and dressed each other down
for two years`tides slinging in and out, so didn`t need
to plead, or move to seek dominion,
and since then we`ve both had stranger crows
to pluck than when harangued by gulls on Main Street
half-starving on the way back after their skirmishes
with the street litter we were white taut notes plucked
from green water, the sky`s black flames erupting,
the shells of our worlds still splintering in our mouths.
But anyway, now the money-time has come
and gone, and I can eat out any time I want,
fattening and forgetful and famished for my love.
I, flat on that sea bed scuttling
in graffiti with the ragged claws, young
and off my head and dumb and blind?
We had held each other up and dressed each other down
for two years`tides slinging in and out, so didn`t need
to plead, or move to seek dominion,
and since then we`ve both had stranger crows
to pluck than when harangued by gulls on Main Street
half-starving on the way back after their skirmishes
with the street litter we were white taut notes plucked
from green water, the sky`s black flames erupting,
the shells of our worlds still splintering in our mouths.
But anyway, now the money-time has come
and gone, and I can eat out any time I want,
fattening and forgetful and famished for my love.