11.08.2002

It is the ravening wind that tears
through my shallow skin, blackening
the withering hollow thing
that sin has made me become;
too much rejoicing has left
this husk: silence, before you brings.

It is the harrowing edifice of forgotten love,
a holiday putting you too long away.
It is the noon back from work, from toil,
when we set our minds at ease, leaving this –
this? - all that we have left.

I do not want to remain in darkness,
a fable to tell another lover, spurned
by your predilection for perfection.

Perfection? Rather,
a quest to find obedience, bowing low
subjugating themselves, to simple whimsy,
retarding their chances of 'forever': and
the finding fails them.

FIRE 22, p 36; Gavin Mark Lewis