Fool for You

This April,
you told me
love sees all:

 east is west,
lightning strikes twice,
time doesn’t count.

 Rome can be built anyday,
you added.
There’s only one fish

 in this ocean,
your new eyes said.
By morning,

 I was hooked,
convinced that
all that glitters is gold,

 we should put
our eggs in one basket,
look after we leap.

We did,
forgetting that space
has no limits.

 

Prometheus

The gods don’t give much,

just dreams and heartache.

But here, for once,

was something we could trust:

a torch, passed on by generations,

consuming and preserving.

Watching time burn,

I think of your sacrifice:

deprived of warmth and laughter,

far from the sun you loved.

End Game

Planes on the tarmac spread 

like crosses on a chart.


Watching you go,

 

I sip my fate, and taste

the sourness of the grape:

one final glance,

arms raised

in crucifixion.

Buyuk Londra

for Piers

I see you still

in the Londra Hotel,

charming the parrots

with your polly-phonic skills,

conjuring times before travel was tamed,

when Stamboul trains disgorged magnates and spies,

poets and femmes fatales,

into Sirkeci Gari.

The crowd at the bar practise lines

for parrots to recite

among the fading prints: Old Pera

and the Bosphorus; gilt and Edwardiana.

Your laughter fills the space that language lacks;

gazing up from a glass at cocktail hour,

reflections intact, despite the years:

shaken not stirred.

Alias

I thought my life was my own

till I found you in it,

like a wasp in the jam.

I look in the mirror and see you.

I could almost be you,

if it weren’t for the hat

and the specs,

and that spot on your nose,

or is it mine?

Skype

For Eve

Today or not today, will you be there,

surfing the wilds of cyberspace?

Electrons can’t feel, yet somehow bring

you into the room, a pixelled Giaconda.

Your smile says more than any voice,

its prescience reminding me

that, somewhere beyond telemetry,

all true lines meet.

Camera Obscura

Whose idea was the skull?

Only a party mask,

put on for fun.

Still, you were dying

and we didn’t see:

hands clasped tight,

as I took your photo.

Travelling incognito,

you remain

wrapped in mystery,

leaving us fixed

in your gaze.