Poem 28

I found this in a folder at the bottom of a box and really don’t have any memory of writing it … but I enjoy the breathless momentum and high-revving ardor … 

( … some references to To His Coy Mistress and The Wasteland for the sharp-eyed … plus nice wordplay with me accommodating a motel rather than the other way round … )

This Minute

I need you now
                            tomorrow not good enough
yesterday worthless
                                     the big hand
of my desire
                       pointing at you
to mark this minute ours
you falling from a clock tower clothes
         flapping
like washing at midday me using the sun
to measure my need
                                      taller than trees
spastic hours and dribbling minutes
we can cure or kill
                                 in continents of love etc
                                 roll our love together
like hedgehogs under the leaves
beside an iron gate
                                   this is the breath
of our moment
showing its slippery blowholed back
in a spray of lust
                              then down to scrape some silted bottom
where lovers in dreams lie tangled strange wrecks
with shellfish eyes
                                 I need you now
here where I jack apart the sides
of a single day
     to accommodate the motel
     of all possibilities
                                    and now

before later sticks his oar in
or the greased balanced board of today
twists
           and throws us down into our lives