The day is clear, but for a low bank of cloud on the horizon, hovering unobtrusively above the roofs of the town and the medieval spire of its cathedral. I am reminded of a painting I adored when I was young.
The foreground (of this particular painting) is a rounded hillside in northern Europe, an airy, [...]
Archive for the ‘Love’ Category
Figures in a landscape
Posted in Love on July 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Once upon a time in the 18th century
Posted in Love on July 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
A hawk hangs high above the sun
on wide wings gliding.
Whispers, mutterings below.
Leaves in the forest like green tongues.
The rustle of soft fabric
and the pale blue ache of dawn.
Hoofbeats. The song of morning birds.
A finger to her lips, a sigh.
Stained windows bled through by dim light.
Dark hair. Salt beads of sweat like pearls.
The thundering of iron [...]
Fragments of a lost opera
Posted in Love on July 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
She has a thousand faces, each one different
each one eerily the same
there are flames around her, and a lake
she is emerging ghostly from
trailing behind her waterweeds
and little shells and gobs of muck
and goop and gunk and rotting fish
and then she starts to scream
Act I : The Stillness and the Hush
1
Enchanted silence, like a clap
of unheard [...]
Hard Rocking Love!
Posted in Love on July 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
(two, three, four)
I’ve been standing at your door all day
knocking and knocking till my knuckles ache
but you never answer and the door’s still locked
so I’m going home because I’m so upset
I’ll drink a beer or two I’ll watch the box a bit
if there’s anything on that’s even halfway decent
but I know there won’t be, there [...]
Claudio
Posted in Love on December 29, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
When Claudio Mordlust began to suspect that his wife was having an affair he killed her with his bare hands, strangling the life out of her in a fit of jealous rage.
Did I overreact? he asked himself afterwards. Was I just being paranoid? Was she innocent? After all, nothing was proved. But it was too [...]
Green Thumbs
Posted in Love on December 16, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
Emphatico Muleforte was a land fisherman. He fished in meadows and on the side of roads and in public gardens, uncompromisingly avoiding the use of water at all times. His failure rate was perfect, and his heart was pure.
At the age of 27, penniless and on the brink of starvation, he was fishing in the [...]
Missing Lucy Gamelan
Posted in Love on December 14, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
Scent of a thigh, dark pubic thatch. Long hair streams out behind her as she glides. She’s walking naked on a cloud through an empty house carved out of marble on a clifftop leaning out over the sea. Surf roar sounds soft on the rocks below. Silence enfolds her as she goes, her small pale [...]
A Scene From Life
Posted in Love on December 11, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
– What’s the new poem about, honey?
– It’s about a pregnant woman . . .
– Does she look like me?
– Who goes on a killing spree.
– Oh, great.
– No, she doesn’t look like you.
– Thank God for that. Is she insane?
– No, not insane as such, just tense. Very much on edge. A bit high [...]
Big waves on an endless open sea
Posted in Love on December 7, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
Beside a river in the maple forests of what will become southern Ontario a young woman sits with her knees pulled up, braiding her hair, as a young man watches from behind a tree. It is 1492. Far to the south, out beyond the blue Gulf of Mexico, far out on the deep Atlantic, three [...]
