Yesterday, I died slowly. I lived and I died.
I felt the blood back up in my veins
as if it had taken a thousand years
to circle between heartbeat and heartbeat.
I was thinking of you,
and of a few ragged caresses,
each one more futile than the last.
Yesterday, I died so slowly. But I died.

And in the most delicate, most hurtful place of all
I tried to hide, and to take shelter.
But there was no shelter, and I couldn't hide:
it was you. It was my own voice, calling,
exposing with each word
our skin and the darkness, nude and vulnerable as flowers,
raying our gaze
which asks for pity but which has no pity
but is simple, and sheer, and cold.
And the darkness, we lit with what we had,
a little Venus and a little Bethlehem;
a little Bethlehem, a long time and a road.

White light of a white star – and maybe a little Damascus –
last night, we burned so slowly.
I felt the poem back up in my throat
as if I would take a thousand years to speak it,
as if my flesh had turned to sugar
and would melt and crumble on a warm tongue
as if we would kiss again
and one of us, at least, might mean it.
It was me, lightly: it was you:
it was between us – and it was pitiless.
And in the most secure, most inviolable place,
scented with carbon and the wind,
we could find no peace at all
under a sky that could not love us,
by a sea only we could love:
last night, we burned so slowly. But we burned.

Last night – a thousand silences ago –
we really spoke: we broke down, and we spoke.
We kissed, and the world flowed to it.
And I remembered all the beauty that had died away.
I remembered what I came to say.
We don't want to lead small lives.
We don't want to be mean-hearted.
We're not consumers, and we won't be consumed.
We are not things. We are not slaves.
We wanted to light the night with what we had,
maybe a few ragged words and a few plum blossoms,
to be generous, to be kind, to die.
We didn't want to live so watchfully,
or to stare through bitter, subservient eyes
which have seen too much and seen nothing.
We didn't want to lead small, mean-hearted lives.
We wanted to be great, like our poems.
We wanted to give, not to take, our time.

I've carried the summer a long way.
It's hot, I'm tired and I'm in love.
And today, I'll write so slowly – I'll write: I'll burn.
I'll burn away all the impure things,
white light of a white star,
and that bug at the heart of a lotus, metal cocoa,
will crawl out of the dew –
I'll burn away all the impure things,
the dirty smuts of my memories, chars, the little one,
I'll burn down the hatred and the sticky lies,
burn away the foolishness,
erase it with heat the way
a wind smooths the surface of a frowning lake –
black light of a white star,
today I'll burn so slowly. I'll burn, and I'll write.

I remembered what I came to say.
And if I fill you with loathing, still
you fill me with tenderness.
I'm going to write the beautiful, I'm going to write you,
the things we are
in the black light of this white, harsh summer.
I'm going to contradict this world,
and then it will break me down
until, at last, I agree with it again.
A black star shines over us,
you're a thousand silences deep, I want to burn away
every mountain silence between us, love.
And you know that, sometimes, I just want to let the silence burn.
And that, sometimes, I never want to be unkind again.

I've carried this summer a long way,
dust on the bonnet, the skylark above the Norfolk dunes,
and wrestling with you in my mind, making every endeavour
not to hurt, when breathing is hurting.
Now autumn will carry us a little way,
a little Sol, a little Venus in the morning,
I can do nothing but wrong,
I can't right you.
You throw me down with our struggling, pitiful flesh
down on the bed with knuckles and elbows and knees
bone to bone, with a reeling universe between us,
blow upon blow, tenderness
upon tenderness: we carried the summer the whole way,
and I remembered, for a moment, what I came to say,
the one worthy thing to say –
the final, the essential.

Today, fire is not enough for me, violence is not enough,
though I must go through them, and be them,
where hurting is breathing.
Sometimes, I want to burn the flames themselves,
burn the purities down,
to speak again, to be filthy, intact, emerging –
I want to open like a few ragged words,
a few sparse, China plum blossoms,
I want to break and to break open
above the snowline,
to be so tired I can't stop the summer pouring in,
to step aside, to be swept aside, be forced aside,
to be tender, dispensible, unneeded:
today, I want to be given and to give –
I want to write so slowly, to burn down and to burn away,
to erase and to be erased.

And when nothing is left, when all the small life
has been given away,
you will be left.
And when you are left, these poems will be left.
Because these are the poems I couldn't bear to leave behind.
These are the poems I wrote for you.
These are the only poems I will ever love.

I love them because they're true,
and because nothing can ever take them away from me.
I love them because you are in them,
because they're stupid,
and because they are so quiet.
Even the way I try to hold you,
the caress we built with so few ragged places,
the sound of your voice stirring me when you say
Carry me down the stairs –
even this is unharmed, and perfect.
And I want to break it, but I can't: it's you.
It's you, it's beautiful, and it's full of lies.

Last night, the white heart of a dead star, scarface, face of the moon,
the furious, pumping heat of a white flower, last night
we were out on the water
and I seemed to have left my blood behind.
I was a thousand words away from you,
a green, deer silence, white breath in the mist,
the glamour and silver gelatine of Apollo shots.
Last night, I was alone like the people of the world,
I was so alone, and my brother said
'these waters are some of the deepest on Earth' –
and when I looked in your eyes
I believed him. Last night,
the raw, opened lotus of a coming kiss,
I seemed to have left every sound behind –
every wave, every kiss, every dawn.

Last night, we laughed and we kissed. We kissed, and we hurt.
And dawn wasn't a revelation at all.
Last night, the last night before all other nights –
and it was a King tide –
in the green, Asian quiet
I formed English words like 'lunar' and 'phosphor' and 'chilled',
and I could hear the sea rolling as if it had existed
for a million years, or for a moment –
last night, we said little. We lived little.
Last night, we hurt so slowly. We hurt and we burned.

Honesty, those small dun seeds, white, deer mist,
my own shadow is stronger than me,
armed against me in the brilliant light,
I'll shoe Achilles, failsafe,
I'll shield Hector, failsafe, sure – sure.
It was a thousand summers, a thousand mouths ago.
Dead heart of a white star, last night
the train had liquidised my journey,
the door opened straight onto the beach,
and I was a hemisphere and a darkness away,
the smell of turds floating on the sea
mixed with the scent of pineapples and sandalwood,
and rats nibbled the offerings
of white rice grains from a small dish of green leaf.

And we were what beauty began. We weren't ashamed.
We were so human, it was work, but we weren't slaves, only
the work didn't belong to us –
and your mouth was a river, that summer,
we wrote like a river.
The room was empty, and motionless, but for the tv
left on, flickering with the cool, affectless face
of Le Samouraï, Alain Delon,
and the space of the room was smooth, constant, clear,
like the steady gaze of a child.
But there was no child, and I had no daughter.
And in the most futile, most brutal place of all
she was harmed. Last night,
we opened so slowly. And we died.

It wasn't the rain or the years –
they weren't the danger.
They meant no harm.
It wasn't the lead or the steel,
the frail swords of marram grass,
the invisible thoughts of the wind:
it wasn't the moon or the snow –
they couldn't hurt us, and they meant no harm.
It wasn't Polaris, or any of the ravaged stars of heaven –
it wasn't the night. It wasn't the storm.
It was just love.

It wasn't fate or chance.
It wasn't the stillness of Mirror Lake at evening, so suspended
I felt a sound might stir the water into life
or the mist disturb the perfect surface, bruise it.
It wasn't the whir of the fire, or the coldness of the evening.
These things meant no harm.
But the words – yes. They were dangerous.
And we – we were the source of danger.
And love.

And still, I go towards it.
It's night on the road, a little Sirius and a little Damascus,
and the headlights, naked and amoral as flowers.
I run from you, return, I'm meteoric and lazy,
itinerant, I'm no Saul, no Paul, I'm Western, a son of a gun.
And you – you're constant, like salt, like a star.
You're the truth that watches over me –
you won't believe me, but I'm showing you –
the way you look at me,
and I stare back at you, coolly, utterly uncompromised,
in the black light of poems and a few, ragged plum blossoms,
where you give a home –
for one moment alone – for my glance.
It's you: it's absence. It's my word.

Break it for me – I can't do it myself.
Break my word with your presence, with your magic,
with your star which is white
and brilliant, and intolerable, and with your glance
which is still dangerous, and which gives a direction to light.
Break my word for me,
I'll keep you safe from harm,
I'll show you the tenderness of ephemeral things,
rapid like cedars, giant like mayflies,
and in this least, most tenable place of all,
my eyes will gently push you away, back a little,
into a space where the truth is not watching,
into this truth which is not true.

Today, I learned so much. I learned, and I forgot.
I was thinking of our house – the maritime prow of the ironing board,
laundry done, the neatly folded handkerchiefs
and their sailboat nautical white.
I learned of the stillness of objects – kettle, iron, plate –
and of the creamlike afternoon sunlight
which seemed to back up in the room
as if it had almost stopped flowing
and curdled on the lemon walls
like a filmy Vermeer.
I forgot so much today. I learned, and I forgot.

I remembered, a long time ago,
we took 36mm shelter,
and my eye was as big as the shore.
I looked through the shutter, held you in my fingers
like a stunned Kong,
so much was the past.
Last night – a long time ago –
I touched you, and I couldn't touch you,
and last night, in the most fragile, ruthless place of all –
in those fluid, Inca caresses –
I learned that the way of the samurai is death,
and that after the first love
there will be no other.

Today, I lived so slowly.
I lived at the speed of willow trees –
they were so admirable –
I lived where nothing was sheltered or hidden
and where even death was unharmed.
Today, I lived so slowly,
and, in between the willow trees,
time knocked off work early,
grew aimless and stupid,
unable to cut even one tiger from the backs
of the golden, black-striped dragonflies,
or to shave one flake of diamond from their flight:
today, I lived so slowly. And I died.

Black light of a black star – today, we loved so slowly.
We loved and we died.
Light must flow outwards from a star –
shining is like this.
Diamond must flow out from diamond,
tiger roar out from tiger –
diamonds and tigers are like this –
what else could they be?
Today, we lived so slowly, so calmly,
as if we were sheltered,
and I opened my dying eyes
our life shone out from, unsheltered, alone,
and dazzling with harm.

Black light, black star – today, we loved so slowly.
Blinding with harm, sight leaves the sky,
and in the most ruthless, gentle place of all
falls on faces that were once our own.
Unseen, underfoot, carbon trickles to diamond.
Quietly, through the forest, the tiger moves,
its life is its own,
and nothing moves through the forest more quietly
except – and with his eyes only – the samurai.
Today, I lived so slowly. And I died.

Shining is like this.
I must flow out from you – it's in my nature –
green and lethal – and very quiet.
A star can't give its own light shelter.
Stars are like this.
And they move very quietly.
Tonight, you will move so quietly.
And I will leave you.