Stop rooting around
and gazing at the finery.
Stop staring at the bottom
of the bin they’ve put you in.
You’re worth so much more
than those wailing sighs,
and blodshot nights,
that bruise your heart
in awkward fight.
Don’t you understand?
There is noble majesty
in the darkest maggot bowl -
burning bright and lighting
rusted scrape and tin,
and meaning so much more
than other unkind souls
will ever mean to me.
I saw them.
Kissing in the whispered breeze,
Like tandem bulrush reeds knocked
And fervent in lover’s wind.
The careful stoop of him meeting rise
And hope of her, leaning, bowing, bending -
Brushstroking the air in abandoned pose.
In tender togetherness they moved
Like star-twinned vapour trails,
The ones that fade through necklaced night
Before ascent of heated azure days.
So strange, I thought to see them here
To see such delightful intimacy.
And then, I realised.
These were
memories.
Can you run faster than the truth?
Can you catch it in your hands,
And throw it back to us?
Strike the bullseye!
Split the apple!
Storm the ramparts!
We all have targets
in our hearts.