For L.

Find Me - version 2

Tramping granite and misery,
gouging wind and fuming hail,
faces flit by, ungenerous, humourless,
and the streets are barren.
Home is uncertain and cruel;
life lived in achromatic, vivid grey.

Yet periodic bursts of your aurora,
iridescent in the dingy gloom,
show how life could be.
Infrequent but sublime,
as though one moment fumbling
and the next striding.

Arms are cast like nets
and I tangle in your exquisite web,
fashioned from the clouds and your desire;
the intangible and the consuming.
I become used to such beauty,
savouring the firing of my heart.

Yet the line is cut by an unseen hand,
and I drift.

I belong to the shadows,
owned by the half-light, dancing in the dusk.
I await the glare of your beam to find me,
and remind me that I’m yet alive.


Find Me - original version

Tramping granite and misery,
gouging wind and fuming hail,
faces flit by with ungenerous, humourless eyes,
and the streets are paved with bitterness.
Home is an uncertain, cruel place;
life lived in achromatic, vivid grey.

Yet periodic bursts of colour, your aurora
iridescent in the dingy gloom,
show how life could be.
Infrequent but sublime, as though one moment fumbling
and the next striding.

Arms are cast like nets and I am gladly entangled,
by the exquisite web you fashion
from the clouds and your desire:
the intangible and the consuming.
I become used to enmeshment in such beauty,
savouring the whirling and firing of my heart.

Yet the line is cut by an unseen hand,
and I drift.

I belong to the shadows, for now,
dancing in the half-light, sticking to the dusk.
I await the full glare of your beam to find me,
and remind me that I’m yet alive.