Wednesday, November 26, 2008

IF YOU WANT TO LIE APART

IF YOU WANT TO LIE APART


If you want to lie apart from your lover

like the Red Sea in bed

there’s no need to thrash the water with a sword

when the tone of one word will do it.

If you’re angry and dispossessed as the full moon

and you’re holding your lover like a viper to your breast

because he appeals to you like death

and no one could guess how good it feels

to slough off his mortal coil like skin

no need to cauterize your constellations like tatoos

and vex the moonlight with the ashes of doves

rising from the smoke of the angelic X

you painted on your door

to text you away from contagion

because no one lives there anymore

and the hex of a whore

is a stronger medicine

than the exlixir of virgins

that come running with a cure.

Time to wash the watercolours out of your eyes

that run like blood in the rain.

Time to realize even the universe

can’t keep it together

and everything is flying off into space

like a fifteen billion year old tantrum

and no one knows why.

Maybe God was a hidden secret in his solitude

who wished to be known

and committed suicide

just to see his own life

flashing before his eyes

in the company of you and me

before he returned to himself like death

on the last breath he let go of like creation.

Point is: it’s time to stop looking for a suicide note

he might have left you like a sacred text

of his hidden gospel by the Dead Sea

and realize that just being here

is enough of a cosmology

to get you through the night

and the only direction

you should heed in the light

are your own eyes. It’s time

to stop thinking you showed up in the world

like some kind of unlooked-for surprise

and that your life is a bonus

that puts the onus on the lucky to be grateful

because you know better than I do

how hard it is to love the unlucky

when sad luck turns into the hateful

and the falling stars of scar-crossed lovers

pit and pummel the moon

until it swells over the horizon

like a palatte of black and blue

to smudge the bruises on its face

in the mirrors of the lakes and the dew

with ontological cosmetics

that indelibly paint the view

over the broken window

that murders the birds with lies and illusions.

Those aren’t lovemaps on your cheek.

They’re contusions.


PATRICK WHITE