THE HANGED MAN
i saw our ending in your jolt from cloud to earth/
your suspended body beyond my reaching/ with just
enough rope to hang yourself/ the quick jerk of your
pale cheeks/ & flying spit from curved white lips/
the snap crack of your breaking neck/ your weighted
absence in my life/
my heart is beating in your
shirt chest pocket/ swinging with your matches &
cigarettes/ my heartless body is dying beneath the
branches/ i'm too tired to bring you down/ your rope
strung tight between sun & land/ your silly socks
striking the air & faded brown shoes/
you climbed the
branches & stepped into the sky/ your eyes saw
blue & quietly swam there/ & birds came into your
hair to roost/ within your eyes was my own sad
ending/ the sky was despairing/ the grass was
despairing/ i hold onto gum bark which is living/
but it is slippery with black despair/
now slipping
through my fingers/ like daylight falling from the
branches/ when night comes you will obliterate stars/
your still & frosty blazer twinkling/ beneath the
creaking strain of rope on bark/ the sun's burnt glow
striking out my courage/ like a running flame along
a splinter of wood/
i saw the white orb of light
cradled in the branches of the hanging tree/ & the
grey gum bark struck golden on its sunward side/
insects swarming across its wood & its fiery pupil
shaking/ the daylight moving from its branches to
between your thighs/
peeping out from your crotch
as you swing/ hiding shyly behind your limbs
before emerging to blind me again/ darling you are
an obscenity/ your presence shadows me/ your shaky
dying heat/ the last warm glow of tangerine sunlight
is denied me/ & every day ending between us is the
last day/
you hang across my forehead like a long
shadow of a dying afternoon/ by 6 p.m. the fading
light upon your skin is turning twilight blue/
your promise of daylight is left hanging on air/
& i am left needing your body which blocks the
sun/ your dying which eats my warmth/
you will reject
me as you rot/ flaking through my fingers like black
tree bark/ you will fall down to nourish this grass/
this grass of sighing reflecting stars/ grass of my
desolation turning dark/ topple down onto me darling/
as daylight retreats from this park/ i will beat the
moonlight into you/
i want your shoulder pads to glow
& my dusk lit by your presence/ before this dark can
whisper me to sleep/ before this icy night can hang
me on the pinpricks of its galaxy/ i'm left hanging
onto daylight/ do not abandon me to the soft bullet
fire of crickets/ shake down the gum branches/ drop
down like bad seed & rot on me/
love me strangely
from within your cold & silent chest/ i can hold you
close but cannot touch this darkness/ i see white
moonlight glitter on your teeth/ but cannot face the
huge moon itself/ its gigantic depth without contact/
you have heard my despairing moving out across the
landscapes/
you have seen my living from behind your
death/ you have felt my forehead bumping against the
bark/ you have known my fear of dying daylight/ i
hold onto your distant hanging heart/ which sways
like a sun dying on its horizon/ can you make the
morning of tomorrow my breath?/ can you love me
warmly/ with me coldly viewing you? | 
