If motion is a paradox of stills,
explain the tendency of one and one
to become two, as lovers steeped in want,
or as the wind sweeps trees in leafy trills.
If attraction is but gravity, then plant
and sunlight would not seek each other; chills
would shiver people less in winter ills.
And as the night goes silently unsunned
enlighten all about the stars that glow
so wonderfully in the lake, below
the surface of which fly fishes as the birds
swim in the morning air – such frigid words
cannot fail to deconstruct the summer, nor
explain the magic of an opening door.

small raindrops dance a smoky waltz outside
the windowpane, leaving their trails within
an autumn wind. leaves fall; it’s cold, come in –
and the wooden floors yield for bare feet, slide
creakily against each other. thunder, unseen,
rolls in the sky, an ailing heartbeat green
with dreams of summer. hours spent close beside
the crackling tease of popsicles in springs
are only times that winters can recall –
old vinyls spin people into dances – light
curves through these memories, falls on ruby rings –
the furry snuggle of a dog – the hall
where paint is peeling, aged, that softly sings
of one two three one two three… come in, it’s night.

Tonight the worlds breathe slowly, sinking low,
and in the cold of darkening stars unfold.

Tonight, if bough should think only of root,
and water of rude leaves, two flowers unfold:

tonight, the stars are close and in repose.
Caress them. Touch them as their heavens unfold.

Tonight there is one single bird in flight.
If loneliness is light, hear its song unfold.

Tonight the wind is music in berceuse;
and how few are the windows that unfold.

Tonight all laws are broken. Sadness calls,
writes on a carpet poetry unretold.

Tonight if I should think of only you
let me be like the world that winds unfold

to slight the day and blossom into all
you ever wished these lilies could enfold.

Tonight the sky is patchwork melancholy.
A sparrow cries. Allow me to unfold.

sometimes the stars are so close i could blow
at one and move it, as if it were ice
cubes in a plate; but then they twinkle, eyes
as full of warmth as only you could hold
within your arms. slowly i hear the cold,
wet, frozen raindrops languidly entice
my fingertips into the rich reprise
within your hands, to thaw me. lie below
the midnight sky nude. feel the grass
along our touching skins, as if your hair
had suddenly spread to make our bed, and kiss
me like the moon is deep and all will pass
if you let go. your shadow everywhere,
and i the ground, bathing in your bliss.

ganz leise
siebzehn sonetten im petrarkischen stil
für mich und dich

I: tendrils
shyly our hands grow fingers to entwine
within each other in a furious dream
that in perhaps our creeping to the seam
of palmistry like seeds we sow in line
half dread to hope that with a slow resign
the twentyfold relief of touch redeem
a ginger nervousness by which to seem
like chance and maybe if to when consign –
and if this crop of hands holds greater fruit
within our grasp, let it be so that in
some when by time caressèd, we may feel
the coy rotation of some deepening root;
the space between our fingers is too thin
to keep our hands apart. so quietly steal

II: seasons
perhaps if; and by what whose so denies
the everything from which a flower springs
unbid into the consciousness of things,
and if perhaps the maybe asks all whys
to summer breezing warmth with flower lies;
so forth believes that where, who sweetly brings
long patience to a tender missing’s ring
will once surrender when. to catalyse
an autumn’s worth of laughter kiss the sky
whose million eyes in shining brood of peace
are always slyly watching here and there
and slowly learn to if perhaps then sigh
again if place were better there the tease
would winter not the great white everywhere

III: lessons
to learn is how to forget to forget
and take a newer step into a past
that lies instead ahead, not better last,
to breathe as well again in stories yet
untold: if history iterates then let
time take a hold on all and tie them fast
to sweep away the memories of dust
such recollection possibly could unset –
to learn to forget is to remember how
the moments gone long by will come again,
and inescapable the loops of long always
will pierce these minds, and then forever bow
to each and every twinge of cold refrain
remembering to forget a memory’s trace.

IV: regard
Your silent gaze when you are near to me
I think is like the moon, whose dreamy light
is newly fallen rain upon my sight;
but sometimes it is cold, and then I see
something like frost upon the barren tree
whose leaves, deserting butterflies in flight,
are not yet touched upon the ground in spite
of all the time this winter longs to be –
and so within your gaze I shall have drowned:
in sleet or snow I lose myself. Perhaps
when back into your warmth I am received
the moon will shine again upon the ground
of my eyes; till then my endless sinking saps
the dreams I, dreaming, have conceived.

V: icarus
So secretly love steals to us: behold,
how like the spring warming the winter ice
you melted me, and how in turn your eyes
alight with flame and laughter when we fold
our hands together. Love me, then, be bold
and carefree; fly with me into the skies
where each new day is another sure surprise
and watch the seasons pass or earth unfold…
Yet also hold me tight, for always am
I fearing that the sun will melt our wings
and that we fall – if this should come to pass,
hold on to me, in passion to condemn
our hearts into each other’s everything –
now look: so secretly love steals to us.

VI: morphosis
this is a moment that we set apart
from others – what is said is said and so
it is – the memory will stay, although
details will change – within each tiny part
the edges fade, and even if the heart
remains, the crystal of a thought will grow –
thus we embrace – the neverending flow
of time around us freezes – so to start
remembering a past that reaches out
so feebly to our minds, abandon time
and let a rising moon separate our breath –
forget the shifting sanity of doubt –
within the flood of such a tender crime
we seem to touch the kind contour of death

VII: extempore
we are but improvisations of (think
how much is chance: if everything and word
were one, or poetry a flapping bird)
unreasoning, a melancholy sink
in which a charybdis sweeps (how in drink
with secrets to forever stay unheard
ebriation against the night preferred)
all sign of calm within its hissing brink.
if improvising, cue the mind to stop
its thinking; feel the way time passes by
(while only using the heart) and then (again)
to feel the tugs of nervousness on top
of unpredictable emotions. try
to feel my heart. follow its beating pain.

VIII: embers
The candle burns: look how it flickers, light
in jumping all around the room, its steps
like music of an ancient era. Hear the claps
of swaying flame within whose heated flight
lies seeds of shadows shrunken black from white
walls dodging chiaroscuro. A smoky lapse
and wax flows, charting melting maps
descending from the wick’s bright height.
Yet such a light is sacrifice refined:
made to become entirely flame, a tongue
suicidal in its immolation. Burn,
then, safe in knowing that all ends in kind.
The flame flits waving at the smoke so hung
within the air. The shadows hide in turn.

IX: asymptote
this is the height of yearning: how the moon
would sooner rise to catch the sun, or rain
to tend to higher skies, the pure terrain
of which is never near – then ever soon
a coming close frustrating night and noon
for even when such time and space are here
they are too close for time, too far to hear
the springtime showers bathing summer June;
this is the height of yearning, that hummingbirds
can never reach alone to higher fruit,
nor tendrilled melons be as stars – instead
eternity as bound upon the ground has words
to feed the thirst of each slow reaching root
and tie two hearts with some intangible thread.

X: idiolect
the sheer immediate syntax of a speech
such far cry from the vowels serpentine
which flowing through a tongue may sooner glean
a glimpse of the infinite Grammar which
is threaded through all being – so to reach
the higher language stubbornly unseen
in noun adjective particle has been
that even nature never deigns to teach –
if i am poetry you are the pen:
please write me well and lucid like the birds
of Paradise that fly eternally;
perhaps if maybe shall then somehow can
then you and i will become less like words
and more like unrelenting verbs To Be.

XI: tapestry
the watercolour passage spreads its canvas wide
and stretches out upon the summer air –
each cotton cloud the mark of brushes where
the sky is blank and bristles with the stride
of sunlight, and the creatures that abide
by flowing stream or shady grove can spare
the colours of a glorious morning, there
a shepherd with his pastured flock beside…
relentless laxing of a mood to calm,
the stubborn mists of hues commingle, stain,
diffuse into each other as the land
onto the picture bleeds. and so, a balm
to soothe a tired eye, and cheer again
the tired master of a worked and weary hand.

XII: opposition
if heart to heart a battle does in fact
begin, be quickly less to tie unknot
for what is kind in same and name in not
annihilates; whereas like cataphract
and janissary warring, stop, inspect
the motive’s tender strategy where thought
is only less infinite than the spot
of desert where sky and earth both intersect:
what’s same in species may unnamed, disdain,
and pulses so confused may break the threat
of harmony; if so, leave it be cut,
for carelessly can too much heed constrain
a true surrender. take a deep breath. let
the fighting quickly end. if then, so what?

XIII: psyche
her diaries read like clocks slowly unwound:
delirium tugging bit by bit into
the far beyond confusion – what is true
and which is not unravelled to confound;
across the months a sanity unbound
is left to roam among the worlds and through
her body leave its scattered paths anew,
the way an ivy creeps along the ground –
but hear her speak. everything she says
is strong and sure, a sheer reserve behind
the myriad tortures of her thinking. ask
a question, and the books of all her days
will scream her lives throughout her tattered mind,
and yet her face is steady as a mask.

XIV: quiescence
When I’m with you I ask the world to speak
for me, because the speed the winds can blow
is faster than my speech, and what I know
much less than sunlight at its daily peak.
I ask the river and the gurgling creek
to be my flood of thoughts, and I too owe
the earth my thanks to hold your feet below,
and how the stars within your eyes may seek
your sighs. When you’re with me my words run dry,
never enough and far too weak to say
the desperate prayer of my affection. And
regardless of my muted tongue, you try
to make our silence luminous, the way
you put your arm in mine, and take my hand.

XV: elements
should one fine day with what an autumn’s breeze
upon the cooling air can continue,
my dreams would fly upon the winds to you
and thinking, cause the leaves of trees to sneeze
their red and gold, inflaming summer’s peace
with hints of time to come, as if their hue
of fire could chase the sun, causing a new
recall of burning passion – and I miss
you as the river always strains to reach
the ocean’s great wide compass; take me by
the turbulent offence of rapid flow,
and I will never mind if death should teach
solemnity within the grave I lie
if you would be the last great love I know.

XVI: coldsnap
the endless winter of insanity
within the blossoming of icy streams
has sheer command of sleep, and waking dreams
can turn the cries of nascent infancy;
in wintering such season dazedly
contained by white and snow and frosted seam,
run out all naked that the raw chills seem
to have no power over such carelessly
uncautioned daring: learn to be the same
as falling snow, as the icicles that drape
themselves down from the roofs, and only then
can winter lose its grasp upon its name
when all is scattered by a mind whose shape
ais nothingness and not a dot more than

XVII: refrain
my songs are yours as such a language is
the only gift within my self to give,
and if the melody is sweet reprieve
then all I wish is nothing left to miss;
my songs are yours: I am too weak to kiss
these words with loving. take them – sooner leave
or helplessness will steal me, and I grieve
for they are yours and sadly only these;
my songs are yours just as I am, and if
with age they should transform my meagre voice
into a dumbness threaded through with wrong,
they will be always yours. will you believe,
and help me sing again? the eternal poise
upon my lips, still flowing with your song?

you i miss: and this is like the sweetly voice
of tree which speaks to wind (that in a spring
as deep as rain what speech could better bring
such please) in quietly the flight and joys –
and missing leaves for a which bolder noise
(a spider stealing through its webs a ring
or some of dreaming kisses linger): sing,
though happiness be always – be as boys
and blooming misses young in and & or
or maybe that perhaps because why for;
what heart in voicing sweet a tune unwind
curiosity (a springing with its breath and green
chanson) plus minus times divided: find
an unknown for ever possibly to mean

In celebrating my comic's 50th strip, I did an illustration of one of my own poems (from seventeen waltzes, below).

Please support!

the quiet lethal cataract of an
attraction coming to its rest; with hard
arrogance never shutting its eyes (the shards
of glances piercing myriad times) and when
the requisite repatriation can
at last be called complete – observe the cuts
within the cloths that rip themselves apart –
and in relief a clearing of all eyes;
the truth will never be as clear as then
again…
                (and where an epic tale is done
another starts; around the tables wine
and yarn flow freely; in worlds of fire and ice
to drown a self in ever stronger ones;
the bitterness is infinite like mine

the noxious (breaths of) those we cannot touch
tinnitus raping seed melancholy;
in time and tide the throes of them (who such
with fire fear first fight identity)
when coupling shriek sure ecstasy begrudge,
(how pollen fails the bumblebee to see)
and smell the melting breeze caressing much
our turning back (the I You so can wE
unwarm ingenious webs of weakly soft
fioritura) the Winter holding high deceive
a spring well Sprung throughout aloft
an air which trembles chillingly (what if
a flowering frees a face in fatal clutch)
and noxious you of us i cannot touch

the past has places memory can’t reach,
where time’s own passing draws a veil across
unfolding scenes: in time, each quiet loss
leaves stains that even age can’t bleach –
the past has places memory can’t reach,
and in recalling times long past the gloss
on time is like a stone’s long-gathered moss…
yet there are things imaginations teach;
where memory obfuscates the truth, the mind
will grow a little younger in the calling
of a purer age once sadly left behind,
and in the slow refilling of the space
with memories, the volatile rephrase
of madness and a fatal skyward falling

I.
in the city of your heart
let me be only a side street
decorating the edges of you
& lying outside your home
i will cradle your feet as you walk
and in the night as you sleep
i will whisper softly to the wind

II.
in the heart of your city
let me only be a street-side
tree decorating the gardens
of your home & i will
keep you cool as you work
and in the night as you sleep
i will sway with the wind’s whispering

Let me take my memories of you and shape them into a dandelion. On this stalk then, I shall place each and every moment we have shared, as a feathered bud waiting for the wind. One is for when you are lying on my shoulder snoozing gently; one is for when I am sleeping and I wake to know you are watching over me; one is for the entwined hands under the table.

These I place into the core, and many others besides; for the times we have spent together are long and the words we have said, many. But there are more: this is a rose I did not give, this is a word I did not say. This is a me I dared not set free.

I will let the wind tear apart the dandelion of our moments, take each and every seed and plant them as buds in others’ hearts. Perhaps they will be touched by the times we have shared, and be comforted. Perhaps they may laugh; perhaps they may sigh.

Yet with these seeds goes my wish that you will be happy no matter what you choose. I hold the delicate stalk of the dandelion, watch it sway in the air, where the joyful abandon of the winds will take all my memories to better places and I will listen to the whispering of the wind just like my fingers have whispered my words into the silk of your skin.

two loves the flighty flower has in hand,
to warm her leaves and tease her with their light:
the morning husband is the soul whose wend
across her sky is one of her two delights;
her lover in the night is cooler still:
softly watching from the darker world
he haunts, she basks within his glow, until
the petals of her buds slowly uncurl…
but morning comes, and then her naked heart
is spread for all to see – like day and night
divided into half – and in each part
a selfish joy that swallows up the gaze
each love throws her – and splits to left and right
the kisses that they plant upon her face.

the greater part of us is in our heart,
and it is said the heart is such a spring
that draws us close – or pushes us apart;

stretched tight to span an ocean, heartbeats sing,
(your memories will take you back to me
like voices through a tautly spun silk string)

and in the night your dreams will let you see
the happiness that is because of you –
a blooming Spring that sweeps me out to sea –

the cold despair of distance births anew
a lasting hope that springs to seize a heart
and guide it home where love is waiting true.

how innocent (the way a rose is shy)
the one that slowly bids a sun to smile
and linger in the rising (just a while)
to keep its light for one; and that is why
their only secret is the silence (no reply
or parlance will defy that bond) whose wiles
are just the beads of dew (just like a child
whose morning-nascent tears have yet to dry)
and oh how innocent the shy unfold
of an embrace (the mother is the sun;
the child just one small flower) whose dying cold
is just the birth of youthful warmth; so must
the innocence be fragile and the run
of time will break all innocence to dust.

so it is war – the slings and arrows hurl
themselves haphazardly – the cacophone
of voices thrown about – the gates that were
once open now are barred in fear – a moan
of sieges – and two cities fight, alone
together in a treason none bestirred –
and stone for stone for reasons best unknown
destruction creeps – a moonlit curl
of smoke in passionate decline – of which
a broken love in times unfurled has swept
throughout the people, an early breach
of walls – and on one side a willing course
to fall – for another’s smile that tears be wept –
the knowing entry of a Trojan horse

for sherm

i. (the perfume)
the perfume of the music purifies
the ballroom air. she takes his proffered hand;
and in the glowing dance ensuing, eyes

are locked upon them. seated people stand
to get a better look. the buzzing tone
of strings pulsating and the fairly grand

character of the dance are left alone.
she knows their steps are sacred and the light
they make immortal. he, too, knows they shone:

within their crystal waltz they set alight
a fire blazing cold as arctic ice.
they are the dance. her breath, like his, so white. 

ii. (three seasons)
there comes a time in which a flower dies.
within each autumn, when the leaves decide
their deaths will feed the tree anew – a price

never too large – their willing suicide
in red and gold of fire burns. their fall
an autumn of the self, as if trees cried

their bloods into the ground to flower more,
again, another year apart. but he,
in love, denies the year; and evermore

for him the year’s four seasons will be three,
because the winter, with his sadness, lies
in the grave. always, his happiness will be… 

iii. (so he believes)
so he believes. the music blooms beneath
the silent sleep of night, a nervous young
thing shivering, shining in the moonbeams’ wreath,

a melody in waiting, to be sung;
and pair by pair the feet that fly upon
the lilting, triple rhythms will be hung

in frames, as frozen moments, pictures torn
between the keeping of those precious times
and life that brims into the too-forlorn

maps dance steps are. and buried in the rhymes
of a steady beat: the words the wind will breathe
into the ring of a girl’s light-hearted chimes.

iv. (a flutter)
there is a flutter in her heart: she feels
the first soft pulsings of a strange recall
that thrums through her and sweetly fills

her every bone with doubt. her musings fall
like snow upon her mind, spreading a calm
upon her actions. quietly she pours

a cup of tea, and in its soothing balm
she sinks, her heart yet floating on the air
through which a shiver trips along her arm,

pausing her thoughts. and as she ties her hair
her spirits are set free, over the fields
and forests and the great wide everywhere.

v. (the flower)
the flower hides her shy visage: the sun,
too bright for her, has singed her with his rays,
and now she droops her head, no longer one

so bold to catch his heart within her face;
he searches still for her, scouring the land
throughout the day while trees and grasses laze.

she wants to feel again the waters wend
throughout her veins without his heated glow
so strangely pulling up her heart’s consent:

instead of wanting water she did grow
to thirst for him – but now she keeps her wants
buried beneath her roots, deep down below.

vi. (the ship)
the ship sets sail. it seeks out lands anew,
the way a breeze disturbs a leafless tree,
and swaying on the waves it bids adieu

to a homeland, as the wind rebelling free
from fetters laid in stiller air. and just
as winds are free to scour the earth, the quay

does naught to tame the ship. the slightest gust
would be excuse enough to sail, and for
the lightest breath the wind takes forth, as must

the ephemeral; and the soft encore
of breaking surf upon the sands are true
in always yearning, ceaseless, ever more.

vii. (tastes)
naïvely bitter in the breath of morn
the trees sway slowly in the wind. the blue
spreads slowly, eating at the black, the dawn

encroaching on the sourness of true
delight hiding in wait for sunrise; hear
the earth’s appeal for wings – once, when it flew

through heavens scattered with the gods’ own tears,
the salty streams through which still flow the seeds
of now: and now, as rooted as the fears

from which it grew, the world’s deep river bleeds
a sweetly tingling wine in which is born
the insane love to satisfy our needs.

viii. (he laughs)
he laughs, and thus the world turns green: the blooms
regain their sprightliness and breathe the scent
like gods that watch their many weaving looms,

the warp and weft of which, in weaving, bent
around the infinite, and it was bound:
he laughs, and thus the world turns green: the scant

tempestuous grace that greets the time unwound
throws shadows through the years: and when the world
divides, cementing life and like, around

the steep: delicacy that slowly twirled
the laughter in the green of him has rooms
to spare for flowering scarcities unfurled

ix. (the path of spring)
unfolding is the path of spring, a song
laid gently at a maiden’s feet to hold
her in her stride, and (fancy) she along

with time in passing (by a breeze so bold
remaking) then begins her daily rites,
in earnest spreading warmth into the cold

(and slightly damp from winter) fireflights
so coyly peeking out (a pretty thing)
among the flowers that decorate her sights

and there is harmony within the ring
of fairy stools (not so un)like the throng
who dance (unfolding) in the path of spring

x. (reminiscence)
look: in the slowly turning, steady-beat
reflection of a time long past, one may
realise a thing or two, as if the heat

those dances held would seep into – and stay
within – the mysteries of the heart; a style
of calm and passion, yearning to betray

the pulsing blood within the little while
these hands are fused into a fist and held
so tightly in each other – like the smile

she secretly allows herself. compelled
to move, the music binds him – and their feet
retrace with care an age long since dispelled.

xi. (they dance)
they dance with grace; they dance with fire. they hold
each other cautiously and then they fly
while holding on with all they can. the cold

of midnight wind bestirs the couple. by
and by they warm up to each other’s step;
the world is trying hard to fade, its why

and how and what all answered by the trap
laid slyly by the dancing. three by three
they lilt in circles, drawing on the map

that once before was black. curiosity
and a burning waltz beckon them: it is told
they dance with time; they dance eternally.

xii. (a hand)
a hand slowly unfolds, revealing deep-
set crevices; a fist evaporates,
and through the parting fingers seeps

a nascent thought, a palmistry too late
to shade the eggshell of the breaking hand.
a bud slowly unfurls, in yearning state

another hand too slow to comprehend
the way a flower sparkling is; resigned,
it blooms a shy repentant rose, the strand

of green towards its roots a string to wind
the perfume of its core into a grip
on minds, as how a soft hand leads the blind.

xiii. (the flood)
he feels a flood of words impending: so
he runs toward the nearest desk, perhaps
to get a piece of paper, a ready flow

of ink beside the quill. as thunder claps
so does he set a torrent flurrying through
the vowels and consonants in collapse;

it seems the wind is meant to misconstrue
his inspiration – papers fly just when
all meaning hits, and he is left to rue

the words escaping from his waiting pen.
the waters, killing, wash his way, although
they spare a million other willing men.

xiv. (a jealous moon)
this is despair: a waning dance throughout
a night whose moon gleams cold. the windowpane
allows a greenly-tinted light. without

the melodies the dance is static, lain
over the floor like plants that never grow.
but there will always be a pair in pain

and there is hope: they never want to slow
or stop, and dance they will, for music is
no complement to her as him; below

their hearts their bodies twine in courtship’s bliss,
so sweetened by a jealous moon. the cloud
which hides the light has made her truly his.

xv. (the candle-sun)
they have the sun caressing them: do close
the window. now the light is trapped within,
be careful; shape it neatly in a rose

and place it on a candle wick. and in
its burning feel its worth; now in the night
the darkness stays outside, unseen,

invisible in waiting. and the light
swaying so brightly on the candle-wick
beckons to them, stretching and lazing tight

against each other. this is no magic trick:
the windows must be closed; if moonshine knows,
the sun escapes. for now it dances on the stick.

xvi. (a time for tears)
there will be time for tears: and so she weeps,
the sadness like a spring flood in her eyes
whose glacial flows melt slowly on her lips;

in summer as the sunlight gladly flies
above her, she is stung, reminded of
a happier time when days were free of sighs

and nights would pass, the way an autumn cough
would make the leaves turn frail, and twirl
into her dreams where time slowly dissolved…

but now her heart is cold; the cruel unfurl
of winter holds her tight, and sadness keeps
her crystallised into a mournful pearl.

xvii. (the fire (finale))
their dancing spreads like fire throughout the night
and makes the stars shine brighter. watch their turns
and twirls over the land, while holding tight

onto each other – as a candle burns
to die, evaporating in its flame,
they give up everything they have: their yearns,

their wishes. in the blaze they are the same –
two people still – and they are different, one
in self and time. and as the world grows tame

they are the wild: they are the two who want
the heavens live in them and make them bright,
their dance as blinding to the eye as the sun.