A POINTLESS LAMENT FOR CHILDREN ABANDONED

It is well past four,
Ante meridiem,
And Insomnus, old friend,
You visit after long.

On this wet wet night
Ringing with rain,
Chorus of crickets,
And distant rolls of thunder,
My ears miss your soft soft heaving,
My boy, and the twitching
In your dreams,
And the warmth
Of your coat.

Somewhere by the night
In a cove or cornice
Two sisters keep watch...
Or huddle half wet,
While my girl walks the night,
While my girl prowls the night,
And two spots wait,
And two spots yawn.

It is well past four,
And a wet wet night
For even the worst
Of fathers
Have known the best
Of love.

A THOUSAND SPLENDID DYSTOPIAS

I write the symbols
Trying to smell them
In memory: that mistress
Of deception, who resides in
And spawns my being
I rummage the smells
In metaphors and processes
The air I breathe
Cat pee, and gardenias
I walk down the corridor
Past room after room
Camphor, sandal, soap
Inscribe the otherness of
Dog-coat, musk, mouldy fish
Transposed in dream
Salty loveless touch
Of bare skin to skin
The unpleasant odour
Of post-coital sweat
Coffee, stale, and rain
Smouldering tobacco
Cat scratches and pustules
With the sticky smell of blood
I write the symbols
For the mistress to note
And reflect in nostalgia
At some future dystopia
On the thousand splendid ones
One has lived through, before.

RDD

Unannounced, like a winter shower,
You come to my arbour
The skies are grey,
The birdsongs lost
How long shall this affair
Last, this time around?