On surnames

Let it be an ode to distance,
to lightness,
to a surface of bravery.

Let us vehemently shake hands,
introducing but one face
and one name to each party,

and deem ourselves efficient.

For it takes just such a flimsy of information
and artifical, if enthused, contact
to encourage our muscles to soar up
to the sides of our faces.

We smile uncontrollably, glued
to the necessity for companionship,

and no amount of speculation could seperate us
from this basic human need:
not the heaviest hard-back nor
the weightiest argument.

We are in it only to get inside it,
inside each other - however you may take that -
anyway, it means we take up less room.

Merrily we roll along,
forcing ourselves in and out
of each other's lives,
wiping away any residue
to save ourselves
from the undignified vulnerabilty of forever
wiping eyes.

Beneath pleasantries, tucked away inside silken breast pockets, folded over and stored in the credit-card compartments of over-used wallets, hearts
are
still beating
mechanically - if not manically -
along their little green lines in the dark.

So let us toast to budget airlines,
for easing up the drag of stale lifelines,
and for allowing us this freedom,
without consequence, of belonging
nowhere
and to no-one
at all.

on breathing out

like hitting a tennis ball with a heavy racket,
like walking backwards,
like wanting to hold someone
just because they don't want to hold you anymore;

like the lost elasticity of skin,
and speeding trains pulling
breaths out; lost airs
idling at stations,
where everything is
not quite there;

like putting miles and miles between yourself
and everything -
taking cities like aspirins;
like running and running,
diminutive sobbing,
like turning your other cheek
forcefully toward a plethora of open mouths;

like a wind-forced smile,
like morning stretches,
like talking in one's sleep,
like dreaming in answers;

like finding a pit,
a small hollow that will collect your weepings,
knitting blankets from the anagrams of your tears;

like a dead end you are happy to die in,
like the mouth of a river closing around yours,
like the one hole you can feel whole inside of;

like the driest night,
with arid eyes,
like turning to pupa in another's pupils
and sliding on into that receding black hole
you have been avoiding for all of your life.