voices
motorway voices
beyond the window
are premonitions
you lost teeth
trying to forget,
slow fucking the city
in its stolen blue sleep
motorway voices
beyond the window
are love-letters
covered with
bloody fingerprints,
supplicants faltering
in genuflection
to unknown saints.
©Michael P. Steven 2006
outcome
It is the variable distance, between
two fixed points, one as close
as the other removed.
A burden of unknowing
the known burden,
Laying back
in your cut, preparing some kind of demonstrative
resolve. The answer: always a lie, becomes the whisper
fed through thick-fingered hands—a question
self-guessing its origin.
©Michael P. Steven 2006
a journal entry on the subject of longing
(1)
the city is a maelstrom
of neon uncertainty
an evening
of false starts
an evening
falling short
(2)
moved (to tears)
by insomnia
I leave my room
alone
& wade thru pools
of midnight
luminol
searching tired streets
for places
to hide a million
daylight secrets
(3)
the Moon is a fleet-footed dancer,
her partners are parked cars
& sad iron roofs
she leaves them all
to follow me
I kiss her wrists
as she reaches for my face
©Michael P. Steven 2006
takaka to zero
Morning found us hung over & grimy
in a farmhouse attic, where
instead of sharing we fought each other
for the last cigarette.
In the soft alpenglow, I found my cue to split
leaving you alone at the gate
with your bad crank
your green pills
& your inadequacies.
I rested my head on a duffle bag
stuffed with books;
old clothes
& dirty memories,
in the passenger seat of a milk tanker;
the friendly driver stopping
out of fearful curiosity
to find me wild-eyed & thirsty
for ways to explain
the things I said I couldn‘t.
The palpable emptiness
of time & distance, our truck cabin silence
the endless black-top stretching
through mountains
& valleys
offering no plausible solution.
I thought only of McCahon's paintings
mapped across
your head & heart
as the sting of good-bye
settled upon my lip in Richmond.
©Michael P. Steven 2006
gold letters & flaming suns
A nameless face amongst many
it was easier
to walk the streets in suburbs
he had never known
than the one
he called home,
where he fell victim
to a particular brand of scrutiny—
the type only real money could ever buy
glaring out from behind
thick black sunglasses
embossed with gold letters &
flaming suns—worn by
those who rode in late-model
European cars
he would never own
& rested at night in palaces
in which he would probably never sleep.
© Michael Steven 2004
