Eros and the Traffic* 

Console it and unpeel and sink

for all that can remain is love

-        beneath the spiralling story of pain or joy

lessons of experience: futile –

only the impressive nudge to tear open

to trade through a pink rose petal

to envision a self glowing in someone else

standing whole and solemnly

beneath a warm midday light 

 

Now all of his arrows fly in the same

time – a dose of touch beside a clocktower

and a giant advertising TV screen encased

in a half-eaten bag of mixed popcorn –

that stuck boy has loosened grip and blindfolded

he flies above a train they had missed

and seven skies of empty airplanes

piercing the heart – a flesh – humans

who wait in bed for another wave of Teatree

sharpness sucked out from a lemon skin and spilt

over from a daytime jar of honey dreaming

where was that place where it all felt so moving?

they want it both and ask though they do know

that it points there – inline

that arrow that passes too sudden 

 

 A pebble is picked up and turned anew

skimmed across the surface of a mirror

to reflect the colour of a crimson sea 

a lighter rock – she imagines

unclothed by itself

shedding a lining of stagnant blood  

it is dry now but clean

it is older now but can see a fountain

of requited love in the foreground 

 

 

* You can find my EP based on this poem by clicking here