Evan Davies
The first On a whalebone... is from 1985
On a whalebone sliver seashore lining
we walked in wake of winds in rapture pining
while overhead a sun lay shining
at smiles that drowned in the sea.
The whole beach our presence swept
to look was to fly where the lost spray leapt
that you were with me mattered less
in the spiralled air our spirits met.
If, during that walk I kissed you for a while
I kissed you for an elvish year.
We printed our eternity on that beach.
Our footprints lie now far beyond our reach.
---
---
A drifting predator... from just the other day.
When love’s unfocussed fuzzy glance was close
and pulsing life cast pollen at the clearing between nights and days,
our tails thumped upon the floor.
A drifting predator, darkening my sky,
froze the currents of my face
till I could not smile.
A lugubrious jellyfish I think,
it drew me in, stole the flow,
each limply toxic frond a little death,
one after the other,
each stealing things I had and darkly hinting at its black hole mouth of Death.
I’d flown for years through changing seas
and ridden many dark coelenterate clouds
but this one fed me to its needless need
and I did time in its soft cold wrap.
Little death upon little death killed the smile seeds.
And all was gone, devoured dark silent wreck.
Will-less, drifting on, I thought I’d died.
But I was wrong: I lived still –
I felt pain, you see, and life is pain
and then came clearness to my mind:-
I’d only left my heart behind.
I’d sell my soul to get it back,
for I feel its flame still burns
within the monster.
I hope it finds abundant fuel
in its long quiet wait.
Or perhaps I’ll grow another one, for the shadow’s moved along,
and helped to stand by shining friends,
lights and loves are seen again,
in brief glimpses into other lives.
Yes its body’s passed though still a lagging frond distorts my smile
and bends my face aside the fresh cold onrush of the new.
--
--
This sullen parting rolls the waiting days along
and you in me as foetal angel flawless grow
As the hills, in aging, beautify.
Between the days comes each new darkness
strobed by lights of memory slaked in ghostly pleasantry,
And neural fibres rip residual pain when I awake
to slanting sunlight and new horrendous day.
You will not see me via these tiredly questing probes
their wavelength is too low and vacuous to resound in crystal
or in any sense you own.
I dream alone and maybe so do you;
But neither one of us shall ever know,
Nor ever feel, what both of us shall ever feel.
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