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Without you :
I have nothing to give others,
all my efforts only to survive,
in boys’ adventures, basic pleasures;

With you, sophistication:
the kingdom’s keys are in my hand,
as we live in matchless plenty,
from access to its academic halls;

Only you: could have done,
can do, this with me;
we had the confidence to try,
to breathe a different air….

So long ago and far away now,
in a different time and place,
as other people, half-formed, un-learned,
we built a bridge into this world,

From the nomadic edges, landless
drifting unsettling tribal raiders,
we dug and built, found and created:
Stability, traction, leverage!

Rescued from solitary heritage,
escaped from our ancestral bonds,
with opposite dissenting voices,
we went to build our lives together,

Found a platform, shared risk aversion,
and built upon it, maker and provider,
yin and yang with jagged edges,
handcraft and guild and industry;

From futile spilling seed,
through endless hot fertility,
to a family full of pride;
the line continues….

From which we spring, and fly,
like kites, our complicated lives;
we move on up, up,
upwards, side by side.

Joint Venture

Hai!
Gleeful thanks for my plaice,
Al Piscine- Oh you, do
Makest me moi.
Make me say miaow.
(I do.)
And if ever you’d like to ask,
You could make me go “moo” too.

Hey!
Pour toi, it is
The greatest pleasure
And reward,
To satisfy your needs;
Float upwards on the joy,
Before a miaow – or moo –
Is voiced,
Or even whispered;
Those sounds, so simple,
Softly spoken:
(I do too).

And then!! To dream,
To dare, to climb,
The stair, to share,
Some time, aloft,
With thee.

Shared credit HVH & ALF

Amplification

A thousand volunteers
Who did their best
Just as a sideshow

For the essential 30 men;
Voices felt and feelings sensed,
Senses unspoken, words unheard;

A cacophony of trying, effort
Never in time, not quite in tune;
A peal of bells, sounding

Echoes from the walls
Instead of ringing clear;
The noise we make

And steps we take,
Thinking to move forward
When instead we spiral round.

Who’d be human? Who’d be other!
Even as we live in dreamscapes
Structured against the fall.

(originally posted 23 March 2014)

She stole a march

– Such a foolish thing to do:
To help a brazen whore
And tend her damaged heart
Believing in the words she said;
To try and try and try again
To give her what she wanted,
Then work to pay her bills
And feel that kindness mattered.

– And worse. Forgetting that:
All giving flowed one way,
Fine words are gone once spoken,
And night still falls in spring;
The good guys don’t always win –
Her game, her rules, her referee –
Blinded eyes do not see straight
Nor penetrate the veil;

So we may never know the other
Nor shall ourselves be known.