Sunday, March 06, 2016

Borrowed Love Poems

1.
What can I do, I have dreamed of you so much
What can I do, lost as I am in the sky
What can I do, now that all
the doors and windows are open
I will whisper this in your ear
as if it were a rough draft
something I scribbled on a napkin
I have dreamed of you so much
there is no time left to write
no time left on the sundial
for my shadow to fall back to earth
lost as I am in the sky

2.
What can I do, all the years that we talked
and I was afraid to want more
What can I do, now that these hours
belong to neither you nor me
Lost as I am in the sky
What can I do, now that I cannot find
the words I need
when your hair is mine
now that there is no time to sleep
now that your name is not enough

3.
What can I do, if a red meteor wakes the earth
and the color of robbery is in the air
Now that I dream of you so much
my lips are like clouds
drifting above the shadow of one who is asleep
Now that the moon is enthralled with a wall
What can I do, if one of us is lying on the earth
and the other is lost in the sky

4.
What can I do, lost as I am in the wind
and lightning that surrounds you
What can I do, now that my tears
are rising toward the sky
only to fall back
into the sea again
What can I do, now that this page is wet
now that this pen is empty

5.
What can I do, now that the sky
has shut its iron door
and bolted clouds
to the back of the moon
now that the wind
has diverted the ocean's attention
now that a red meteor
has plunged into the lake
now that I am awake
now that you have closed the book

6.
Now that the sky is green
and the air is red with rain
I never stood in
the shadow of pyramids
I never walked from village to village
in search of fragments
that had fallen to earth in another age
What can I do, now that we have collided
on a cloudless night
and sparks rise
from the bottom of a thousand lakes

7.
To some, the winter sky is a blue peach
teeming with worms
and the clouds are growing thick
with sour milk
What can I do, now that the fat black sea
is seething
now that I have refused to return
my borrowed dust to the butterflies
their wings full of yellow flour

8.
What can I do, I never believed happiness
could be premeditated
What can I do, having argued with the obedient world
that language will infiltrate its walls
What can I do, now that I have sent you
a necklace of dead dried bees
and now that I want to
be like the necklace
and turn flowers into red candles
pouring from the sun

9.
What can I do, now that I have spent my life
studying the physics of good-bye
every velocity and particle in all the waves
undulating through the relapse of a moment's fission
now that I must surrender this violin
to the sea's foaming black tongue
now that January is almost here
and I have started celebrating a completely different life

10.
Now that the seven wonders of the night
have been stolen by history
Now that the sky is lost and the stars
have slipped into a book
Now that the moon is boiling
like the blood where it swims
Now that there are no blossoms left
to glue to the sky
What can I do, I who never invented
anything
and who dreamed of you so much
I was amazed to discover
the claw marks of those
who preceded us across this burning floor
John Yau

1 comment:

Anna MR said...

This is what internet platforms – the lovely blogs we (I?) no longer really use like we (I?) used to, Facebook, all of it – should be about, don't you think? Communication, contact, sharing of things that affect us.