Too, River/
Writing Description
....From: "Too, River", poetry: http://stores.lulu.com/jahaye
...a man's life/romance, seen as a journey down the River Thames...duB-poetry - classical music rhythms...See: www.jah-aye.com
1. The River
Love story set in a
classical music tradition
River the beginnings
If the storms;
if the clothes wet and I
a rider in your storms:
if I a vehicle in my cruiser to your coast;
lightning bolt crashing to your heart:
shall you under me your umbrella;
shall I a shelter from the rain?
Landlocked the sailor from the shore;
land-sick
and swashbuckling to your door:
the suit wet and I
a thunder in your storms:
if I a passenger in your ship;
lightening into your deck of Queen of Hearts,
shall you suicide me at the rails,
haul me to your keel,
tie me to a knot in your ropes:
or whistle me onto board as Jack of your calling card?
If the storms;
if the sails wet and I
a rider in your storms:
shall I the spring clean and new,
shall night wrap me up in two wells,
shall we warm?
I a rider in your storms....
River at Oxford
Through day-shine waited
dead till dark shared my skin;
electric currents ran through my wire:
through oven waited:
for woman with spark to lend me fire...
I don’t lie in bare skin:
you can’t hide naked...
Love is church my sacred,
can lie truth love secret?
all through furnace of day I waited...
Day deserted sky,
the full moon crowned its shine,
night hitch-hiked in with traffic of stars;
crazy wondered why
woman-light won’t shadow my prison bars:
lover-mine, love must wine
nakedness won’t lie...
Let your flesh rescue me
censor celibacy:
all through drunkenness of night I waited...
My foundation tree
is nakedness and you;
flesh is delight bared naked skin to skin;
lover sharing she
it’s nakedness my soul wears deep within,
so lover come make two:
make naked free me...
woman-mine come to dine, please my desire
fashion feast from whine
my water make wine
holy in me shine: you would lend me fire!
River at Abingdon
I did dare your highways:
road way where the piston snap
to the wheel-rim crack
on the line where the aqueduct stops:
Did you drive me where the eagle was flying.
I conquered sleep,
who dared to brave the storms:
I came indoors from the rains...
Was I a passenger in her car:
she drove down my thoroughfares
trafficking down my highroads:
from Lands End to John O’Groats:
we coasted down to dreams,
lost in a countryside of sleep....
River at Reading
How to repeat the sweet surrender...
At the first stroke of midnight’s was she
rowing into my moorings with a broken dance:
shall my water wine the chance?
How to repeat the sweet surrender?
if river the fine summer shall I winter,
shall she winter shall be winter;
shall be spring if I winter, and
both fall if I to the autumn come...
But as she did spring
the nevers to the autumn fall,
or winter call,
and we took to cruising as the summer season...
River at Henley
Was her riverbanks high
and her waters deep;
she gathered to me the storms of passage;
was I ever landlocked on her course,
coasting to her coast...
Her chalk hills and downs
was garden for the rest upon;
she was rose clinging to the trunk of tree:
was I ever tasting the garden’s fruit,
a song on my magic flute...
Her highland fling and belly-dance
brought on the summer’s season;
fiddle to the climax of the jig;
was I a sailor’s to a sailor’s reel,
white flag to masthead.
River at Windsor
Dining on a kiss and dance:
feast for I and my lady,
sleep was breakfast,
lunch
a walk by the water,
river in the rain;
dinner-for-two:
ironing the mattress,
supper:
a cuddle before the fire:
hunger was separation:
work brought hunger-pains...
a meal of our bodies meeting
was food fit for the gods.
River at Kingston
When your clouds have silver lining,
never thunders and lightning,
and the rain is never wet;
and your sky is falling...
A little bird in your chest is dying:
the sky is falling....
when everything tastes of sugar,
arsenic isn’t the poison for you,
and gall is laced with gin;
everything tastes sweet...
Your tongue is tied-up in knots:
your senses are falling....
Sitting on a bridge at daybreak,
the tide at low ebb;
the night takes off her nightgown,
dawn strokes her hair...
morning sings in a chorus:
the sun is falling upside-down....
River at Richmond
All along the Riverbank at Richmond:
a high tide greets evening;
a dog walks his girl, and
the pretty preen and pride:
loud along the long walk lingering crowds gather and gawk...
the dog and girl walk back, and:
the doomed day jumps...
The dark night curtsied in and put on her nightdress...
Tender to this night the holding hands is day;
tender to night the returning day:
as all dogs the howl at moon:
bowls a high tide towards another night in gale...
River at Brentford
She’s become a crossroad
cross words coming into view:
her secret eyes
wet eyes,
dabbling with a handkerchief
at the nearest spring onion:
ordinary people can have
such ordinary pain....
ordinary pain has move in with me
and I’m a cardigan
back-to-front...
she’s become a crossroad
opening up to view:
my closed eyes are opening wider
every day...
I tell you:
“I love you,”:
and keep a frightened little bird
clenched to my chest....
River at Kew
Spoken of the green
an island in a child;
the running one river:
and all was nothings in that months of nine,
a shout to the silence in my mother’s milk
made “I”...
I spoke of the “me”;
declensions in my two fists
fought me up to my father’s size:
the world was an airy dale:
that was asleep...
At nineteen
“it” spoke in me between the he and she,
one world went before the small acts
of inner voices:
which awoke...
On a night when the full moon
howled “we” on my fathering bed,
One word saw You, the Other
saw They, mocking in their sleeping pines:
this was an active
man teaching all his moments:
the sounding clock was midnight’s:
this creature comfort’s was “the-It”
the-It was God’s interior silence:
a mirror of me was my two unraveled palms:
all past/future acts bespoken....
River at Chiswick
Where cords the spill electrics,
where the river runs deep,
where comes the metaphysics of the brain,
is the-It;
where moneys manna,
a lie in my sleep,
where spirits haunt the possession of my lids,
and contentment:
the storms of pain and God
breaks no light I like
but the-It gives:
the Ugly is fair,
and Order a beauty beyond the bliss
of this Life
this world,
this presentiment of my soul;
I speak of pressure-dropped,
and the toil of Ideas:
a walk by quiet waters;
a wonder has settled in my lap,
like a purring tiger,
a hawk hung on hot air;
if the release of hunger,
if passion relents,
if I dare to drop disease of work:
to live in Eternal time,
and know that Everything is One with
Everybody and Everyone,
all things come to a fair returns:
I am the living,
I am the-It.
River at Hammersmith
You were tank-top,
I was black and blue,
but no-one makes my size giant,
but you....
when we dance I go to sleep.
You were vanilla ice,
I was panned and tanned,
but no-one drives my car,
but you:
when we dance, I sleep...
You were tasted sweet,
I, incomplete,
I left you by the river:
I took the music for granted:
we fell out dancing....
River at Battersea
A sleep that gathers.
a kiss-me demon-like,
clings my kiting-to-sky back to cords:
same sleep my fathers,
same sleep savage-in-me looking backwards:
Eden snake in psyche:
war-in-me weathers.
It reins me down with rain
and reigns in me the rain:
drown my water sky such stormy weathers.
Dark star eats me: fire!
light as whole sun heavy,
a spot reduces the sun to centre,
gravity pyre:
turns top centripetal to this centre:
heats dungeon interns me:
no thing but desire...
And shall I ever dark?
shall I never spark?
To combust in nova with another’s?
To again the fire!
phoenix the fright of flames,
hot scorch with flint the crackling timber,
electric wire,
burn bridges behind such stormy weather,
put to pot-boil the rains:
to again the fire!
So are we hurricane, so prison,
so alive with fever,
so warry all-weather:
so does that sleep gather us out garden.
River at Lambeth
I’m become a cross word
crossroads coming into view:
her darling eyes
are wet eyes,
smooching with a handkerchief
at the merest touch of lips:
ordinary people
ordinary pain....
ordinary pain is with me again
and I’m a straitjacket
tied at the back...
I’ve become a cross word
opening up to you:
my open eyes are opening wider
every day...
I tell you:
“I need you,”:
and a frightened little bird
is dying in my fist....
River at Westminster
I’m skinned to bone;
was my brave bull:
can’t find a pound to put in the parcel:
wedding bells tolling the day:
that cash-and-carry religion
they sell it,
you can’t afford it;
love prouder than a heavyweight:
hawk! diva a rabbit to be his centrefold...
I’m dressed in rags;
was my dun suit:
can’t figure out the mathematics:
marriage vows sealing the can:
those questions reeling in your ears:
“what if?” and
“but if?”
love stiffer than a starched shirt:
hawk! diva a rabbit to be his centrefold...
River at Waterloo
Can you breed me with our baby?
summer’s a long ways behind and
winterwold is done,
comes a morning springtime should be
cuddlings with the sun;
y’know you haunt the bedroom,
I drink of the river in your eyes,
all night you’re jealous with
deep suspicion of the day:
I’m sitting still to woo you sometimes...
All along the hedgerows
toasters are singing you a song;
the wind coos with deep affection,
the sky doesn’t dare rain down:
should be party address your evergreens....
y’know you haunt the bedroom,
I’m spoke with the lovely in your eyes:
all day I’m jealous with
deep suspicion of the night:
I’m sitting still to woo you sometimes...
I’m not looking up to heaven to furnish me with signs,
I pray in joy and thank my blessings,
and hope you read in-between the lines:
should be like Wellington and Waterloo sometime...
River at Charing Cross
I can feel the breath of winter’s fall...
early
here in the summer’s leaf:
me, naked to my birthday suit...
walking by the river,
a tax on my speaking mouth: hurt by the choosing:
a love lost by her losing ways...
me,
naked to my birthday suit...
crossing the river,
all tides at a low ebb:
a love lost by her losing ways...
tax on my speaking mouth;
tax on my speaking mouth;
the sun waning by the river,
all tides at a low ebb:
walking by the river
watching couples holding hands...
me,
naked to my birthday suit:
wondering at the sun,
for,
there’s no rain....
a love lost by her losing ways...
walking by the river
watching
couples the holding hands...
walking
by the river;
watching...
and the ships sail by...
I naked to my birthday suit...
I return home:
and my woman the marry me to herself...
River at Blackfriars
It’s been clear
I’ve got to make it very clear
it’s been a day,
a day mountain to past year...
Anyway it hurts,
a child clinging to your skirts;
anyway it hurts,
a child crying for deserts:
let’s you and me divorce...
can I come to test the courts
marry, life a live-in death the course
what’s the wanting worse:
let’s you and me divorce...
River to a flood the need,
beggar to a banquet, greed,
fast to a famine, seed,
it’ll to a nuclear fall-out lead....
River at London Bridge
And,
all my tears have flowed;
there shall be no longer a longer distance into dark;
and, both my eyes have dried:
the dark has conquered me never;
and, if all my wasted years
a wasteland turned,
I shall make of myself a wilderness of grass,
the desert into oasis turned...
and,
all my tears have flown:
and,
both my eyes have dried:
the hand that paid the piper
is mine:
I boat the river of my fortunes, alone;
my life was mortgaged
to a house that wasn’t home:
I am a house that is my own...
River at West Ham
Heed fast the wounding of the heart,
those scar won’t heal,
Its walls will tear down.
Heed fast the knocking of the pump,
that water is blood,
the blood will clot.
The hear the winding watch
sound a toll about the years you
wasted in a chest of drawers:
“It’s heart dis-ease;
caused by the fat of wanting...”
“Wanting what?
“I was never wanting, but
my hands put by to mouth!”
Heed the warning knock!
Otherwise, be patient by the lack!
River at Greenwich
A knowing in the seed tells
time is clockwise to the birth of all seasons, and
a knowledge in the roots of man
is farmer to the bud
that harvests the sun and rain, and
reaches yonder towards the sky;
the sun and stars spirals out our fate,
which is to live destiny
to the far reaches of eternity:
and solace this:
the seed germinates;
man eats;
stars seek infinity:
the fire in each know
each its warm space,
and time, and each
grow to maturity:
a Big Love gives a time to each,
gives each a place in all this:
that Love knows a treason in each death.
River at Woolwich
A Greater Want shall close the door behind my back;
I shall to a greater home;
I shall to a farther sky.
No needs remonstrating behind my back,
and point the finger:
I wear Another’s marriage ring;
I shan’t be coming back.
And as I walk alone into the raving noon,
a shadow sits behind my back;
no needs for turning back:
I am rushing another River.
I gave, you gave me back,
but now no needs for giving back:
A loneliness waits for me lying where you are:
I go to a meeting beyond the river.
River at Gravesend
Would to kiss me sHe
with the petals of your mouth;
would wound me from the love of asking;
would meet me by my River’s mouth
and kiss the day up until
come morning roundabout my ears;
would keep my company in profit,
harvesting the riches of old age:
would show me a Love that is capital;
would take the garlands of my life,
and toss it in my outpourings out to sea:
my life has met Your Love, and that was all its undertaking.
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