Fire and Water

I remember the crow's foot
guiding a rivulet of tears

And further down your cheek
there was a Dee or a Don

I knew the river
I launched boats on the river
I sailed on boats down the river
out onto an open ocean

I sailed to dry lands
scaled the sand dunes
built my house on the sun
and ate my daily bread.

When they found me
I was in love with your leaves
my skeleton hung from your branches
and chimed in the breeze
I imagined a drop of you landing on the grass
near to where we stood in a wind
blowing at a hundred kisses an hour

One day when we can't get any older
we'll build a rainbow
and at the end of it a garden
as still as a houseful of golden children
sleeping and dreaming and whispering
light and water are what I eat best
light and water are what I eat best.

Milkbottle

Her child is crying.

Out on the avenue
the syrupy glow
from a night bus passing lights up the hall. Open door.

There's a whole darkness to wander in.
And out of it
lying in bed are day owls
cranking out dreams
brittle to the touch.

The child is not a baby.
 
There's milk in the fridge for you when you can't sleep.
Open door lights up the hall.
There's a whole darkness to wander in.
A frost but no stars. The butter is hard.

Someone will invent a device
that will record the tinkle tinkle of little stars.

The child wants comfort.

Milk is a start but it needs warming.
There's a whole darkness to wander in.
A whole avenue to walk down.
Headphones. The moon.
A cosmic theme tune.

Where stars are miming
her baby is crying.

Echo

Wind whistles, the green leaves dance

August

Wind whistles, the leaves dance

September

Wind whistles, leaves dance 

October 

Wind whistles


Orange, red, yellow, gold

Blow
Wind
Blow

Dissolve the dark line of long nights and waiting 

The green minnow - by Robert Lax

the green minnow

bears a white &

black mark

at his tail


by which we

understand

what fish

he’ll be


(& all things

bear a mark

for the under-

standing)




your voice

in dark

is no

less, then,

your voice;


mine, from

behind you,

’s mine

as from

before



(whatever is

is mark’d first

as itself;


later, if ev-

er, as gener-

ic being.)


 

This poem was first published in the Robert Lax special issue of Voyages, vol. 2 no. 1 & 2, 1968


 

A Little Tooth - by Thomas Lux

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all

over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall. 

The Observatory

Day sheds it’s skin
no moon rises
nor stars shine

The sun that creeps
over my shoulder
is a cheat

I have waited
and waited
for leaves to fall

for earth’s appetite for light to stall
yet I am in autumn
you stranded in summer.

Above the observatory
geese are journeying
to the edge of the old night.

The Philosophical Tasseographer ..

.. questions his own game 

in a bedroom at the Eastern Hotel 

after the inaugural meeting of the Golden Triangle Magickal

Arts Society when he asks,

 

"Time is the strainer

that passes through me

 

Am I the tea leaves

or am I the tea?"