The Earth Like Tea
She wears her hair
Like a lifetime
And speaks like a silent rhyme
A moment of emotion
A romance is taking place
Here on the beaches
A heartache in the
Slippage of your time
Fearless in your rage
At the musicians’ table
It speaks again
In tongues of ghosting
Your empty reflex
In all your energy
Your winding
Sighing moments
Peace and moonlight
In your garden
Snow in patterns
Inside your silence
Another life begun
In the fading light
A new style
And time of day
It moves across
The Earth like tea
It moves across
The sea like dying data
Your smile riots
Like a highway sphinx
An open pyramid
That’s lost within us
The world afresh
In Hollywood
I never ventured out
I kept my diary empty
Lost career of independence
As she comes to me directly
I miss out badly
And she’s too busy now
Her kids and schedules
A silent train
A dance to see
Your journey naked in time
More work and poems
I am busy writing plenty
And you spoke to me
As if you meant it
I remember her so clearly
And still imagine
New York nights
Of movie premieres
As I headed west and east
And broke her spell
And in that house
Time did pause for everything
It moves across
The Earth like tea
It moves across
The sea like dying data
Your smile riots
Like a highway sphinx
An open pyramid
That’s lost within us
I called her time and true
But I never had an answer
I called from Paris
Where broken English haunts me
The child’s guitar is upside down
And all of those still lost
Are lonely artists
Their exhibitions still exploring
She read me magazines
And took my pulse
She told me she was dying
A face in smoke is melting
To the track that crossed
The dewy fields of glasses
Speeding empty carcasses
Of motorbikes and servants
And I am still looking back
When I should be looking forward
It’s truly broken passive failure
A prayer of progress in the light
Canals of smiles on your focus
That night and ever after
It grew and grew a monster
And it’s never over