In recession,
when thoughts are mush
and being melts,
senses shiver
in the splendid moment.

Then sudden uncalled stars
caught up in the turning,
every sense and fibre
set in the world
with chills filling every pore,
eyes dancing. ears ringing,
the whole chorus of senses
fluttering in the ecstasy of being
a joy beyond material.

Sometimes,
years after,
a sensual memory
of such a moment
can flicker
and my body will still respond
with tremors
howling like earthquakes.

I give you a word
And press it to your ear like kisses.
This is the nature of poems
That they tremble in the flesh
Like fireflies fading too soon.

I give you a word
And press it to your eyes like laughter
After the nature of sun-glow
Dazzling Damascus wonders
Like the meridian at noon

I give you a word
And press it to your heart like honey
Funny the nature of speaking
That can frazzle the nerves and sparkle
Like skyrockets chasing the Moon.

I will give you a word
And press it to your tongue like thunder
Under the nature of breathing
That flutters in your registers
Like an old song without a tune

I give you these words
Will you give me your ears
And your eyes
And your heart
And your voice

Sometimes I wait
on the edge of sound
like a mumble against heaven

Then I stumble
in the fumbled voice
to blurt my words
like fresh water in a stale shower

All the blistered spats of phrase
one awkward drench
in the scurried seconds of my speech
as if to utter
is peculiar
and my mouth
a foreign flag
waved discretely
against a field of opposition

Then silence returns
throbbing intensely
at my ears
like almost sounds
denying everything I’ve said

(on Tavistock Square Gardens)

Julian, Awake!
rise up out of the rock
of those who would not ****
to collect the bewildered dead
from the blasted bus

Then lay them here in their morality
beneath the Hiroshima tree

“Hello”

The sudden garland of a voice
like mild rain on a searing day;
refreshing invigorating.

It is a calm mercurial accent
Bolivia or Macedonia?

But there were so many
and “how they do vary.”
Distinct and irregular voices.

I took their lips for my mask
And played their words
like new dances for my breath.
Their garlands rooted in my throat
spoke a whispering cadence of euphoria

So when I speak
the graffiti of their lives
is scrawled across my tongue.
In all the rounding sound of my scattered vocabulary
each and every relationship utters it words

From the cradling of my mother
to the last beady threads of goodbye
not one word belongs to me.
I speak with the tongues of men
And of angels

Sometimes,
it will be like this
a stranger’s eyes
will meet your gaze
and your world tips sideways
as you lurch
in the dark galaxy of their stare
and in that tumbling dive
the unwinding of every sacred vow
and every promised virtue
as you give yourself willingly
to the brooding ocean of their eyes.

Whether there will be ecstasies
is of no consequence.
The undoing is its own reward.
You long for the licking leaves
of flame about your feet
and bless the unknown fire
for consuming all the ****** dullness
of your prosaic life.

ECG

They showed the broken rhythm of my heart
With inky ripples traced in peaks and troughs
The night when sudden life was torn apart
Left echoes like a dry persistant cough
This paper trail more signature of self
Than any scribbled scrawl of given names
More indication of my vital health
Than any poet’s talk of light or flames
My quick survival charted there as fact.
“And here, you see a murmured aftershock”
The remnant spider scribe of heart attack
My ailing pulse, my brittle ticking tock
Once took a moment’s beat to catch its breath
And left me reeling at the edge of death.