St. Georges Arcade

Grand accents fall, I know.
  Its cold, very. I know, for you
among the laurel leaves and crumbling flowers.

Wet lash, falling about the ears snow,
  sticky and virgin
and nothing to be eaten
and nothing to be done.

And I know, love above the laughter,
                    queen of thieves, we're not winking
not smiling, nor shrinking in the plashing street ice nor shouting 'Ha!'.

Set me opposite in painted plaster.
We will leer at the larks down below, cry when it rains,
frown when it is cold and lie
all
summer
long.

cool wet glass
  cold glass is wet and creeping
heat weeps at the hanging-in-space plate
       glass, drips
                       I want
                                I
    want you all
                       here, dreaming with me
(and not those overheated dreams, full of mist and blood and rendezvous)
            breathing sweetly, sobbing with me. here. lick
laughter. quick and navy.
 steamed in coffee, stealing light. hail
 melts on tongues, between purple toes. 

I’m leaving. I’m leaving. Come with me please, please come with me. Its rain in the night, its not there, its full, full of anything.  There are spying stars.  There in the motorway there are people in the cars.  I’m leaving hobs turned off and heated, and coffee, stilling and black in the pot and if you come with me or not, I am leaving. This house is crowded, there are ghosts on the stairs, hair in the sink, arsenic in all my ink. We can go to Dover and from there who knows? This ship is sinking. The storm is wet, deaf and warm in our eyes and nostrils, and at the edge of day, light breeds with shade and fumes orange in the dawn.  Every time I light a flame and crackle the leaves in the tubes I am calling up a hunger. Every time I look at you your eyes are smaller, dryer. That point in the air where we marry our gazes is a clearing in the woods. Somewhere. Lets go, lets be going and then lets be gone.  Come away, come with me.

Quite disproportionately gone is the last evening.
Smoke. Long. Basic.

Quite utterly here
are the miscarriages of my imagination. dim   little   notes.
Guitar breath white
                           windows with a muddle of fingerprints
all   quite   quiet
   a radio
speaks to no one in particular.
no papers. must be sorted soon.

in sartorial brinks and swoops some food
below gathered in the great arcadian hall of the thick-aired kitchen.

James Child, stems and screwtops
                              parts of picked apart black cabs.
Fermentations of the mind, distilations of time.
   Thin lucid blood, fine tapestries of fire breathing nightshade operations
operating on angels, crystal eaters, wormholes and sea water-salty hair blandishments, skullandcrossbones
  purple fumes, sicilian deep, lefthand cuthroats
    sugar brown rocks, whirlpools and skyflashes
                           Running from you!
                                Running from you!

P.B.H.