show your sweet side

Poems from the underground of love

by

sarah brown

angelheart publications copyright 2007 London, United Kinddom

For andy And for Alistair Who made me write it all down

Foreword poets are always going on about things no one else cares about or notices. Lost love, the tenth power, little fragile pieces of glass The meaning of the universal shift of grace. They imagine a world where the imperfect will Thrive but what does it mean really, perfection? How else can you hope for some kind of sanity If you dont believe its existence within your own darkness? But its all illusionary. Nothing else. Nothing more. Nothing less. Romanticised versions of your own biggest fear The plying of a forgotten trade. The pheasant that flew over the Tay in your dreams To remind you of another life you created then left behind. Its not the things that make you strong, its the things that make you weak that are your allies in the end. The scent of something forlornly beautiful only through its absence. The absence of the one you left weeping and now its your tears that drown. What you did made the universe shift under your darling bird. its not like it was nothing, a mistake that could be white-ed out, just an error on a page. (Remember, if she gives up, dont forget: You are the one who taught her nothing can be depended on.) But these things only matter in poems. In real time, there is nothing you can do, the heart will break or mend as it chooses and you will be forgiven Or live on in remembered transgressions, there is nothing you can do about it now but write this. - sarah brown.

After I left Simon On the Street We were talking about love and The gift of singleness (whatever that is) The jaded and resigned woman who has Played at love and lost so many times, Her heart is lined with aluminum, talked rubbish. I sounded so sure, pleased with my sensible acceptance of the stoics dream, happy with my sagacity . but home is an empty bed, the ascetic single mattress on the floor in a room full of memories I carry with me like loaded mp3 Playing the one song in my head That reminds me of Who I loved and why. Tears expose for the fraud I am. For I am Waiting. I am waiting for Some soul shaking lightening to sizzle my universe The earth to rock beneath me The world to reverse its spin Just one more time. Sod the consequences, If there is no possibility of magic, even in these dim times, then Why fuck with anything at all?

Chance and Geometry There is a sense that all the magic has fled us. Weber says that intellectualisation and rationality mean that there are no mysterious, incalculable forces that come into play, but rather that one can- in principlemaster all things by calculation. How could we think that we prefer our own puny calculations (So devoid of real data, So luminously ignorant) to that lash of random, beautiful Chance, the sting of incalculable, mysterious forces that care so little about our outcomes except to spice up the narrative? I m sure i want more meaning than an equation of pros and cons, good and evil the right man at the wrong time the wrong man at the right time, but all my silly femininities and lost causes blast away at the foundations of my careful construction. Yes, I thought Id mastered all things by calculation, added and subtracted my failures and successes, weighed up the possible outcomes, come up with a sum I could live with... Tidy sums. isosoles triangles E=mc 2. This morning finds me once again on my knees in the floor laughing or crying for want of the mysterious that once guided my life so deftly. God or Love or Destiny. Ill admit it,

Im addicted to Chance. Fuck it I pray. Fervently. Unwilling to let the decisions make themselves or throw up my hands in the face of the undeniable truth that you dont love me anymore. Let the devil have his 10 minutes of fame where the consequences of my loving you fall fully across my back. 40 lashes save one isn't that the sentence that Jesus took on back when reason feared the incalculable mysterious? Whipped like a puppy because He loved us too much to accept our decisive Fuck off, Jesus, youre doing my head in (We say, I mean, Hes a lot of fun at parties, but Hes so intense We say, Its the way He finds a meaning in every little lie we tell We say, Hey, lighten up, God, would you?) And when He persistently, insistently continues to love us, mercilessly generous and not caring that we are complete shits; we kill Him. He takes about three days to decide Hes not having it, uses our brutality to secure us an eternal life we never asked for. Now we owe Him exactly what we previously refused to give Him freely. So much for calculation. This morning in my room I was empty after weeping, fine as an eggshell, you could have crushed me with a smile; remembering how God warned me that my life was about to come undone, asked me if I still wanted an answer to my last

prayer. (heal me or kill me, id prayed back then. Meaning every word of it) Boarding that trans-alantic flight was my Yes to Him. I bared my heart, allowed it to be sliced wide open with His sabre of Chance, He watched as the Mysterious ran me down with this freight train of desire. for you. slapped me with this holy stupid Love. Allowed me my useless hope founded on misinterpreted prophecies, left me here where the only deliverer possible is the One who let me fall. Left wondering if He will deliver me after all God knows, you arent going to. Well. Fair enough. I asked for it. You know as well as I what everything its cost me, just as I know how it cost you exactly what youd budgeted. Now comes the healing part: take this love back, God -which has neither killed nor healed me, shown me the light nor given me eternal life take it back along with Chance and Mystery. Use them for something bigger if You can. Because right at this moment -if You dont mindIm reconsidering the beauty of Geometry.

Cathys Lamentation ( for Heathcliff) What kind of stupidity is this thing that holds my heart in sado-masochistic rite, this keening at loves tomb and wishing it were alive instead of rotting in the violet night; when any fool can see its all so wrong. And what kind of brokenness is this? That invites the razor to her wrist and never hesitates to press the blade down ever deeper? You may be my Heathcliff in some twisted paradigm, I may be your Cathy if the choice were really mine, but how could we think it has a snowballs chance? Gothic romance makes good read, but not much of a dance. Our narrative was just as classic. I cant give you what you need you said. I suspected some duplicitous part. You said I was the deeper soul and had a heart, which lately you simply could not feel inside. most days, youd hide behind countless personae and scripted lies, the stage set by your hand and every scene blocked out just so. Drama, dont you know. You tell me its my thing. But honey, when it comes to Romantic Comedy youre the King, as maybe scripted by Edgar Allan Poe; Quoth the Raven, Nevermore. O Nevermore or evermore or whatever will work its magic, paving way for your next seduction, your next adventure or next reduction. Well, darling malcontent: Fuck. off. Evermore and Evermore. I love you from this day forth.. Nevermore, declares this Cathy to her Heathcliff stoically.

(Just as as she has at least a thousand times a moon, while suffering thwarted loves subliminal hiss.) we all know what a liar she is, still longing for his infernal kiss.

Gingerlove I fell in love with your gingerness The smile the blue eyed charm the slight Freckled and not so slight overwhelmingly scattering freckled Underneath your hands I was pliable and wanted Nothing more. That was my first mistake. To want nothing means you will most Certainly get what you want and then You will have all of what you wanted In this case, after the fall Nothing. You made excuses like a Kingpin Con and I who can taste duplicity from 40 pacesScalded my tongue on them and let my tasted Humiliation steep. I made tea of it. Your sun opens up a new vein in me every Second moon. I dont resist the over-casting shadow that results, causing all those who know me to mutter under their breaths that I have been bewitched and what If I have? I have always had a thing for magic. But watch this spell: As stage laughter gives way to staged fights. A predictable maneuver. Yes, You are as predictable as a monsoon, I may not be quite sure the direction from which you Will- relentless- plough over my landscape, I only know destruction is Unavoidable. The mixed metaphors of this poem are nothing Compared to half a decades mixed signals.. I bend twist divert jump over cower cover explain explode repent beg prostrate Laugh finagle giggle coo. make myself nauseous. But I always leave the choice to you. Thats what lovers who are losing do.

Seeing how the taste of leftover metallic cruelty- still unexpectedWont leave my mouth, how I wont let myself forget how good you used to smell on me. The sight of you on the platform at Waterloo How tightly you have held me every time Regardless of the official incantation. Bafta Boy. Applause. Standing ovation. Genius. And when the truth arrived, No mails. No calls No promise kept. No truth in your love No love in your lies. Nothing beautiful in your gingery eyes Or mouth or heart. So. No starting back. Burnt bullshit, burnt eros, burnt I said and You said. Burnt dreaming. Burnt wishing. Burnt kissing. Burnt gingerbread. Still locked in my soul, but youre rotting. and Gingerdead.

Avoiding Potholes The dark is defined. your face shadowed only your voice which tells me where to stand, and how to undress. suffused with some sexual power I respond to. I pose wordlessly naked by the bed, where you can have anything you want. Sex as power sex as the other sex as a drug that takes me straight into experience. I hear it in dreams sometimes. But its not about me, your passion. And Unnamed, I cant begin to Approach. Keep distance. Keep quiet. Archetypal consort, courtesan, A sophisticated porn star of your design, All deferment and surrender, a subliminal fantasy That walks into your door and asks nothing. Well, heres the deal: Its not nothing I want. The stuff of random lust mixed up with a strange identification. That oddity you wear on your chest like A medal. So, its Sunday and you have told me off. Told me to quit caring, quit anger, quit being there Keep a stiff upper lip and all that crap. A continuing Silence is your reminder: we said we wouldnt do this. Whatever this is. Ironically, I liked the avenue on which you lived. I liked the way the potholes were clearly marked. No surprises. This last one was hidden beneath a sign that read: Enter here. Flat on my ass in the middle of the Road, I wonder Who put that there?

International Relations I never wanted to come back here. Back to the eternal humourlessness that is American sex. Back to the measuring sticks of age, Of class, careers, of toys owned, of Thinness and a wrinkle free cheerful tolerance Of whatever a man will allow himself to give Even for one night. Which isnt much. I miss the arrogant British boys full of Cheek and compliments, Who dance badly but kiss like geniuses, Who are only afraid of women if they Marry them. Who ply you with drinks at the pub and bring you tea in the morning in bed. I miss the smooth Brasilian sensuality That pulls you close on the dance floor, Running hands in appreciation of mature curves and promising the ritual of erotic congress. Who whispers lies in your ears by mutual Agreement, Except the one where he promises to make you Cum . I miss the French men who argue long into the Night and think it foreplay, who assume you Would never let them win on purpose, Who, when you do win, know You will favour them with your secret name Whispered in the long darkwhose fingers Linger on the lines you earned living. American men, scientific in their amorous search, Claim openness and easygoing natures, Use words like motor oil to grease my parts For easier transmission action. I can hear them counting as they find my clit, my nipple, my cunt lips, my mouth visualizing the diagram of my body while Judging its density, skin tone and ampleness, making sure they tighten all the screws just right.

Sterile and perfection driven, they could grieve the soul Of Venus in me Who weeps for one real touch of grace, Some Other to see what she herself came late To know at the hands of foreign strangers; My beauty, my beauty, my impossible beauty.

Leave off the road the one they said would be gold, be straight, be true. they lied. instead, try diving or waltzing or skipping along the debris of your dreaming or crying. Even fear and forlornness or home-sicked aloneness (it's regretful delighted remorse and then strongness) brings freedom from gold and the illusionary road that was never a path just a rut called Go Here that they stuck in our way. Leave it. Dont grieve it. Try flying.

Lincoln Memorial (July 2003) Ive traveled a long way. Sacred ground and it is blistering my feet. I ran after Id fought long decades. After they knocked the pins from under. last time, I quit. Fuck off, said I and crossed the pond to Eeyore land, climbed the ivory tower sunk teeth into the abstract resolution of questions that had niggled. Dum de dum dum. Still. After all that. There are no answers in my head. I look around, my fellow citizens, notice just how we are still posturing, scared little sheep. Baa baa black sheep run after the loudest shepherd or the one with the biggest stick, forgetting that no shepherd worth his salt ever uses that stick on his own sheep. Yeah. that sheep thing really fits us. A month ago over coffee in a London caf, my renegade southern Baptist friend Ken called me a coward. If you wont show up, who will? him, still getting kicked for believing black and white folk should sit together in church..

can you believe that shit after all this time and conversation? Dont lay that one on me, says I. Ive paid my dues. But I am. Guilty. Call it MIA. Call it AWOL, Its some kind of treason by abandonment. Oh man. And now some voice Yanks me by the scruff, asks if I think my place of birth was coincidence. The first step homeward is here. To this Temple. This tomb. This light. This call. To you, this Man. Ecce Homo. Your belief in us cost everything worth losing; blood and spirit but never your soul. I buy a picture postcard and a copy of the Constitution which I hadnt read since 8th grade I look you in your marble eye And say, All right. Im back. Just tell me what to do now. Besides Keep walking Keep talking Keep believing Keep the faith Put up your dukes Put up your stake Put your money Where your mouth is. Keep your eye on the prize.

Open your eyes Open your hands Open your arms Open the door Come on Come out Come up Come here Come. Home. What besides that? Ok, says I. Ok.

Full Moon Wandering the moon is full tonight and glowing the moon which never lies to me is showing me the bloodstains in my heart from the blood on my hands i have here the love of another. So here we are , my dear , full of pain and fear and something indefinable. here is all our love held in hands so tight all we wanted was a way to do it right all we wanted was the sun. but theres an eclipse of the sun and the bright moon is rising on hearts so blind they never knew the cost of loving me , of loving you. If it hurts more than it frees can we think it meant to be can we justify the wreckage it will cause can we ever walk away? these are questions just under the surface of our deep the expedition i cannot avoid is the one that you cannot keep Ignoring. we dont know the meaning of our love we dont know just what its for i keep hoping it is a revelation of the good to come i keep hoping it will not be the tomb the monument in the graveyard or epitaph of hope. the hope that Love is right to come here after all.

Zoe at 16 I dont know what to say today except that you are so much light and that i hope the dark ive lived did not dim you. I dont know how to tell you now the rich, the texture and the grace I have, have had, since that first day I saw your face. I don't know what Id be if I had not been with you or what magic Id have missed. But i know this: you are my angel of truth and love. And when i think that life is not so kind you come to mind and i can feel like all of this hasnt been some waste of time and space, even if sometimes, it is.

Soul's Cathedral I keep wondering about perfection when we think we see it how it scares us I am inhabited by hope a hope that swims and sometimes floats a hope that rides the life-crested wave and believes in the underwater toe-holds so fragile that hope I am swimming swimming I am breaking waves as we round the corner and exchange the first glance of recognition, which- as we know can betray. On the other side of this shore, someday i want to construct some marvelous architecture of relationship one thats delicately engineered to avoid the pitfalls i know are inherent in any large undertaking like : dont dig any basements put locks on the bathroom doors who needs to know about all that shit anyway? waste matter. irrelavant to living. we dont need to watch. i want to be surprised and to surprise when you see my vaulted ceiling made of green glass, copper, when i see the marble and leather floors you laid in the dark. presentation is everything. visit the spaces of others. gasp in amazement. spend the night.

or two. wake up to sunrise through the picture window. be grateful. dont live there.

Travelogue When people ask me where Ive been and what I've seen and how it feels; I cant leave out Trafalgar Square, St Pauls Cathedral the mist over the Thames at mornings start but find myself prone to omit Waterloo station and my palpitating heart. I can describe Covent Gardens mystical pull, but your map of freckled skin still remains mysterious. The London Eye is an acceptable tourist attraction for their ears but what about yours, hovering there above me in our bed, in tears ice blue and molten. I can recall the freedom of the city street jostling my head and yes, so quietly, your kisss bitter blissfulness. When they ask about my education I explain Von Balthasar patiently, thinking of the way I struggled through Loves hard examination. I discourse on Wittgensteins theory of impossible language, but how do i speak of the impossible language of our own hearts teaching me all I know about that difficult dialectic and all its immutable parts. When they say to me ,Youve so much changed, there is that hesitated space where i want to reveal the whole story but change my mind, erase. Laughingly chalk it up to years abroad; I cannot tell them how ive returned from the complicated,

transient merger of your soul and mine , skinned down to my raw essentials, more authentic for the time spent. And then, I finish. In the awkward silences they smile and nod, blank faced where questions depart. That's whats wrong with attempted Travelogues; no matter how expertly relayed, ( oh such a complicated art) its just not public fare. Its true what they say, my love. you really had to be there.

You Moved You moved in the garden on the dance floor at the wedding. You moved in the kitchen in your bedroom at your mothers house. You moved on the train, on the tube, in the park on the street outside our hotel room. you moved my eyes my ear on the page on the telephone. you moved my soul in the breath of your mouth. you moved in love and out of love. over minutes and days over weeks and months over years. over countless hellos and too many goodbyes. this is the last one: Written so you will always know how much you moved me.

Song of the Bird (latin american music) for B dont wait til morning to ask yourself questions you should have been asking all night your smile and your anger are all mixed together in symbols too full of power and danger and youre pushing yourself up ahead of yourself up this hill that you call knowing God and yourself And you will and you will and you will. open your hand for the bird who is waiting to see if in passion youll free it or crush it that sings to you deep in the darkness of sorrow for the boy youve been the man that you will be the man that you are and the one I will never see and you will and you will and you will. Breathe in now deeply the amber and gold air the trust in a knowledge too deep for your soul here: yes, you at the center of love is a good thing however you call it however you name it Love is always the bringer of Light to the soul that is open to the sojourner here who is wholly remembering the song of the bird in his soul. open your hand for the bird who is waiting to see if in passion youll free it or crush it. she sings to you deep in the darkness of sorrow, for the boy that you were the man that you will be the man that you are

and the one I will never see. and you will and you will and you will. February 6, 2001

the moon behind her veil is blushing. when i dream of you i dream of something underneath the cool casualty of our words; the proper nouns and all the restrained adjectivesOh, I dream verbs: the -ing words the letting loose words the falling in words the words that prove to me Love is no prim daughter. no, shes the moontides fallen angel.

Glancing at Your Profile in the Dark Im wanting to say this very quickly so that you do not even hear it. Some thing in your face just now stirred me; yet not the sort of movement one thinks of as stirring, but a sort of reciprocal tremor to a glimpse of a hidden life flashing beneath your careful detachment, a passion, the darkness that is also a light you never put words to, only images, soul music , mad dancing. Having not said that, I lapse into silence. You havent heard it, this story about a mirror. Imaginations of vision, you might reply ( yes and that not always such a gift. He said, after all, If your eye offend thee...) I balance it all against that and the longer road singing out before you and the Way that calls us both into Being. and even, This flower fading in the glass. But listen here, brother and stamp for this moment, my voice

upon your heart, remember that I told you you were loved and a gift to me. believe it.

Camberwell Blues well, at last i live in london properly imprisoned in the slow-moving bus instead of hurtling underground, blind to the city. Crossing the thames on the long ride from Shepherds bush to Camberwell green , the one four eight glides over water. I see the london eye i have yet to ride, the Dali gallery which Zoe and i wandered through an afternoon, the Saatchi gallery which i think too dear. School children on their way home are chattering in the back of the bus like silly parakeets. We all ride up top, but i ride the very front, with a feeling of sailing , no driver in view the road a hazy sea through fogbreathed glass. this time of day, its always full. I went to the CD shop in Notting Hill to share my old CDs, but 14 gems only offered me 7 and even in my current state of poor, thats not enough. though i have most downloaded on computer brains available to ressurect again on anonymous silver discs, i think i like the clack clack clack the jewel cases make when i rifle through them and anyway my computer might crash or i might still have to sell it. I want music i can count on. now that i have changed neighborhoods i no longer have to walk by the Hilton , see the internal video of our best day together ever not wince at the Balzac, the park bench where i spoke to you daily. i loaded the boxes on the van. after id swept under the bed we shared and found the ring given so long ago when i believed in tokens that could bind us.

i dont know what i believe in now that i have so much time to think on the bus. I suppose i still believe in my love for you and the hole in my heart that refuses to even clot over, much less heal, leaving me with loves stigmata , the Sacred Heart forever bleeding for love of you as if that sacrifice will bring you back. I pity jesus who waits for the whole world to return. hip hop smashes. someones DVD, squeezes out from between their ears, pulses through the fragments of adolescent buzz and the squealing pakistani girls gossiped laughter. the sun is setting. suddenly. and i am very tired. suddenly. and i am so tired of longing for you and the scar that is coming soon that one day will tell me its finished but not yet. Traffic jam time doesnt seem as if kens congestion charge did much but move the congestion an hour earliertheres a line of red bus tops in front of me for a mile now. endless. i m close to home . i can tell because the tower blocks and shops are getting funkier, shabbier. i think i might like Camberwell, its real. Though i suppose i actually live in the limbo between that and brixton which is thought of as rough is rough but erotically so just that little bit of danger Ferhat, at the kebab shop outside my station, asks me if i get bothered in my new neighborhood. if i look surprised , its because i suddenly realise im past all fear of danger, real or otherwise. that i joke with the devil and dare him to send his henchmen

that i walk home in the dark past alleyways and drug lords and never even tremble. i am invincible in my recklessness. i mean, after you, what could anyone possibly do to me now?

Richard the Lion Hearted. He refers to our re-acquaintance as Popping into his life As if I am a kernel of dormant corn. I am not so gentle. Years ago, as he swash-buckled shyly through the newsroom door, I thought, hey. Now theres a sight worth getting up for in the morning. Meeting now across from the neon lettered building That spells out his name Was it the heat of him across the tabletop at lunch, The dinner conversation that sparked, An endless verbal ignition that continued In hours driving round the hills, Christmas lights blinking in the rearview mirror, Our New Years Eve spent in dramatic narrative, but no Midnight kiss Or just that chemical thing underworld-ing, That suddenly made me pop? Popping left the house With my last passionate Disappointment. Sadly, I know, Just as surely as I know my Own creviced soul, He is the Real Deal Well talk on the phone tonight His voice will butter down my thighs And I will miss the way he Never meets my eyes until he does. And I forget how breathing is so deliberate. We are both accused of being too intense. (Meaning what? Alive.Verbal, Feeling? Romantic? Stupidly Vain and Somewhat Reckless?)

If he needed booze to manage that intensity all these years, All I needed was oxygen. We are tribal-primal. Submerged in Once bitten twice shy fear.

But if there comes a day we remember to forget. It seems to me that Pop wont even begin To cover it.

In Snapshots I. We are at your house. You are happy I am there with two friends who are going to a wedding you are everywhere, asking for my raincoat, offering Drinks and food and a seat and something warm to wear. II. In spirit you still are chivalrous and polite to me we touch a lot, avoid kissing but not nakedness sleep in the same bed hands on bodies that yearn but keep their distance. the soul desires and the buzz of that wanting makes me giddy I am happy to simply tremble in it. III. You feed me little bites of something you made, you talk endlessly and Iwho am so used to center Stage, eat up your words like pomegranate seeds sucking the juice from each one, reluctant to spit out the kernels surely there is a succulent drop left lingering. IV. You think I have to leave with the others When you say, Can you stay here? I will drive you anywhere you like later. I smile, knowing there is no other place I want to go.

skinned sense i am skating on the long lined future aware the american dream is all about possibility. an ordered acquiescence. something perfect. i shed the remnants of a skin i never asked for, refusing to accept the fit or color, as my bystanders applaud. i shed them as well. Personality is not the person. mine was concocted out of so much steeled and jealous blood jesus blue eyes bearing down on me from the dinner table rednecked finishing schools for pleasing men and staying thin. To be smart was a curse that only having babies could erase in those wisewomans eyes. I had the babies. I was still smart. my partner in crime who saw the ember in me and fanned it has been shed along with all the family jewels. a necessity. he knew where the bodies were buried inside me. i moved continents, accents, bodies, lovers. degreed in luxury subjects designed only to allow unfettered thinking. how easy it was to lay down next to the stranger How easy it was to not return the phone calls. how easy it was to dig into the quick of my pain and discard the well worn story for a newer draft. now its open season. the unfamiliar terrain of this stripped down file deleted essence is everything face a truth-telling cynic disguised as something that does not correlate with my inner reality: middle aged bleached blonde

malcontent. rebel. i dont care if i am rude. i dont care if you love me i dont care if my mother gives me pictures of my dead father. i talk to him all the time anyway. The homeless old lady on the next street wordlessly tells me that i can join her. before its all over, i may. but for now. I wake up angry and sharp. or dull. i wake up alone. i wake up remembering some story i forgot. i wake up. thats the point.

seven columns of truth is there a way to find our way and make a way in the darkness is there a way to redefine the darkness to know the dark-ness is only a version of the light of the way we are and the way we are is unimagin-ably wonder-ous the simple complexi-ty of humanity is the one thing that keeps us all together in one place at one time in one way or the other. we do not have a book that tells us we do not have a handle on our pain we do not have the secret deep within us and we do not have a way to talk about it even when we most need to, somehow the way home was become the way we refuse and the way we refuse must be the way our secret longings and the longings are ingrained in us and made to fit our souls. if i tell you a secret it is not a secret any longer and we do not know how to treasure our secrets >the ones we keep between ourselves and god alone. He must feel so betrayed to never have a single secret with one of us >that we do not have published by that Random house place to make profit i ask him sometimes when we are napping together if i have hurt him somehow oh darling, he murmurs, you know that it cant hurt any deeper than the way Ive hurt you myself. i accept that as an apology..in his way. We go back so far that to hold it against him would be inconsistent with the forgiveness i know is there. now we dont talk about it much, but i think that he is a little disappointed in my lack of commitment. i think he has given up on the big plan we talked about when i was younger. he knows I am tired and knows that there is only one thing i really want these days. no great purpose, message or meaning to life. I just want a real person to fall into, LOVE, just want to remember how to kiss in the elevator.

to make love until all our bones melt with the sheer heat of this lovely physicality, this flesh I wanted more once. but im tired. And ive been alone so long I almost forgot that other humans are real. So he sends them sometimes, like you. and here we are, not so simple after all the wanting. But Im learning to live with it, just for the exchange. I take you as my one and true love she said onstage, knowing that the chances are just as good that you will leave me one day soon and have that wedding you think youll hate and the babies you claim you dont want to just to make me feel better. It only matters that i love you. just as god does love you and me and waits for the real to come shining through on us both on us all on the whole dam planet. he knows we will be melded with, swallowed up in, Joy. take that hell say laughing. take now out of time what you refused to take IN Time. take me, i am Love and i will Love and you will Love when you remember that you are in me too. this is the gospel according the Way Of Love. and it has many names and faces. one of them is yours.

I am an acquired taste since I have left off Adjusting my salt content to suit the individual diner. I come to the table As I am, no garnishes. I am the unusual delicacy whose juices you Let flow freely down your chin; savory, Succulent. Delicious, the deep red inner blood of my heart allowed all over the plate and Onto the tablecloth unstanched. They dont serve me up at five star restaurants Nor at truckstops. I am served at Fionas London cabaret bistro late at night with 3 bottles of wine And a series of candles that drip down the side of the chianti Bottle on the table. I am eaten in near darkness. To music. With your hands.

Souls Cathedral I keep wondering about perfection when we think we see it how it scares us I am inhabited by hope a hope that swims and sometimes floats a hope that rides the life-crested wave and believes in the underwater toe-holds so fragile that hope I am swimming swimming I am breaking waves as we round the corner and exchange the first glance of recognition, which- as we knowcan betray. On the other side of this shore, someday i want to construct some marvelous architecture of relationship one thats delicately engineered to avoid the pitfalls I know are inherent in any large undertaking like : dont dig any basements put locks on the bathroom doors who needs to know about all that shit anyway? waste matter. irrelevant to living. we dont need to watch. i want to be surprised and to surprise when you see my vaulted ceiling made of green glass, copper, when i see the marble and leather floors you laid in the dark. presentation is everything. visit the spaces of others. gasp in amazement. spend the night.

or two. wake up to sunrise through the picture window. be grateful. dont live there.

When it comes to sex, Im told I think like a man. The entire chemical instinctual primordial urge belying my need for something more real than just this moment. Ive trolled the river for sperm donors more often than I can tell you, men with destruction on their minds; either mine or some third world countrys. I like them arsey, full of cocksureness a steel wit stinging out at the world. I dont know if I should tell you about this. They come to me reluctantly, you know, drawn by the fact that I dont need them. Im not a raving beauty though by the time i am through with Them. theyll swear i was. They come from money or power or grace they come with a smirk or a smile on their face, they come so superiorly knowing in their guts How lucky I am. But its Lucky who leaves the money on the dresser slipping out the door, calling the cab when she hits the lobby, lighting her cigarette... if they dont fall in love with me its no fun, those particular ones who eat other womens hearts like steak, and mistake me for a victim. I dont love any of them. I only love you. How to tell you what I regret... the way I forced you to forget how you could just be happy. I had no more idea how to be happy than fly. But there is a body that hummed over mine you knew the way to me and no one showed you.

I was so astonished at this. The flavour of your mouth and your skin the way i was taken some place so deep even one moment could heal me so. I lusted after you like a beggar. wanting to cut through words to something i knew. something i was so sure of, something that cost me. Yes, I am someone you love. I paid the price for the luxurious privilege of loving you. and if i thought to pay ransom, no, there is no ransom for the heart I gave you the beloved. When i dare dream, i say let me come home and lay my sword at your feet. let me surrender to your terms. let me come to the cool tender circle of your wisdom. let me wash your underwear and pay the gas bill. let me be the woman you made me be when you took me in your arms on the dance floor. then i wake up, light a cigarette. learn to be content with the love i have. thats the only price i pay now.

Who really Killed the citizens of Haditha? What are we suppose to feel when we read about this "investigation"? Do we act shocked and indignant as if we had no idea these things happen when we send young people to fight wars?- Jeeni Crecsenzo I am not sure if I can read one more Line when I read the words: These are children they have sent to do a mans job. They cant even pick the color of the car they want to drive Or the girl they want to date, and You want them to distinguish between a war game and a War? They have watched their friends Blown to smithereens and you Want them to discern between The good guys and the bad? They dont recognize that There are only children in those streets How can they, who are merely Children themselves. No men here can Say otherwise. And you big bellied fat assed pigs With your soft Midwestern voices Who use euphemisms like collateral for Death and scapegoat this child you trained to be a killer, Who act as if there is any honor in making any person Kill another for any reason at all, You bloodsuckers of our best young lives(Every one but your sons, your daughters-) You standers on ceremony instead of principle Who think it character-building to Teach them to not gag at the sight of blood, You murderers and whores of Babylon, Hiding behind an image of a false god While the real God is wailing for, who is Weeping for The children you have sent to kill the children You have termed Expendable, You are the devils own. Give us back our sons and brothers. Give us back our sisters and daughters Give us back our strong fathers and mothers.

Give us back our dreamers You lied to them and to us You lied to the nations You lied To the God you say you serve. Its your head should be rolling Down the chute, Not that frightened man/childs. Not the one who you taught To kill in the dark.

July 10, 2006

Fool for love 1. After forwarding on the email about one word that Describes you I notice that most of my forwarded addresses are to all the men Ive loved since you. And loved as badly as one can, when looking for a replacement.. Each one sends back things they never told me when They could have. I am surprised to find that they have a certain surety of their place In my heart, as if I loved only them, as if the love we shared was Something above the normal disappointing sex and emotional Blackmail .,modern day romance being so easily Full of shit. . The ones that send the best bits are the ones I never even kissed. men do not want the real person in here But something they can wrap around their fantasy soul mate, or wife or sex kitten or intellectual companion Or platonic star-crossed lover. I am all of those things. 2. I took a picture personality quiz on face book the other day The results said I am cosmopolitan, fashionable and ambitious. Physically Passionate and need to take care of myself so I dont break. I think they mistook my taste for lobster as something I got in restaurants When the truth is, my penniless uncle and step dad used to fish them for free Off the coast of California. We ate dozens of them in my childhood, large and red and screaming in the pot I never wanted to free them, I wanted to drop them in. Would beg for my turn. The claws flailing about until they were ready to eat. Nothing ever tasted so succulent again. The choices of cars and dream houses, those fantasy places to live in the test were nothing remotely near what I really want. I want a volkswagen Bahia convertible. A hand built wooden yurt in the Oregon hills with two cats. A lunking intellectually fine tuned madman with dark eyes and an appetite for my body. I want to start singing again. In fact, I want to die singing onstage in front of ten best friends and a music critic who will declare posthumously that I am a lyrical genius.

But those arent listed and so I pick the closest choice. My whole life is that way, actually. Never having the thing I really desire within reach I will naturally gravitate for the next best option, After years of this, I have a metallic taste in my mouth. The only two things I ever got for real were The land in Texas which I paid for in blood marred by the dead fathers ashes And You. Of all of them. You were the one real thing that I never expected. 3. There was, of course, nothing real about you. You are a concocted figment of your own imagination, we know The best part of us was the drama you wrote between my thighs. You have trans-mutated so many times to fit the carnivorous dream of Yourself, I dont know how you breathe, Such language like silly putty Or that disappearing ink we used to get as kids. Nothing you ever said to me remains. But my love was real. And I suppose that is the deal. However, the innocence that gave it its incandescence is gone. 4. Juan writes that I am striking and in a postscript tells me he is still hot for me/ I remind him that the last time I was in town, he conveniently invented a girlfriend To avoid seeing me. He reminds me of the way his mouth and hands slide over my curves How wet I was when he came into me. I remind him that one night is not enough to decide about anything as important as Lust. He reminds me that we could never have topped perfection which is Probably true. The German priest refuses to participate and asks how he possible could use one word not in his native language and easily misinterpreted by me to describe the indescribable thing that we were and were not. We lived joined at the hip for three years, longing for something nameless A home, a connection that would last and not touching. He would never hug me, perhaps knowing alcohol and loneliness could ease us over An edge we would regret later. But How did I have the heart to tell him, I would have regretted

Nothing. His and Gods relationship was none of my doing And besides, my theology teaches me god lives between the spaces of our breath in the dark. The Irishman who charmed me by mail put me up for the night in Belfast, sends me the kinds of emails my brother might send. Anecdotes and information tidbits This game I have forwarded on. We started with the hum of curiosity and whimsy, drank and had monkey sex with little consciousness and numb joy. We stand here stuck at what now, neither wanting to give up freedom or options. He fishes for a word that will impress me. it does. I would be more impressed with naked desire. 5. Ah, the stupidity of desire, the foolishness of lust. The phone calls, the frantic meetings, the time running out against your last orgasm the hurried train ride back to the 1000th goodbye the tears and the making up And the lies. Oh god, dont forget the lies which drip down my cleavage rip out my heart make me aware of the blood pumping Through it.. Such aphrodisiacs are only forged by madmen and callow youth. 6. The poet I fell for as a girl still sends me little tokens of his esteem. I find each word delicious . I write him poems I never send. I dont want to see the dullness creep into his language in response. He trusts our asexual selves, fears the demands of love and women, especially one like me. He is probably right. He hovers in my heart like the falcon I always had a thing for birds of prey. He thinks his talons are dangerous. I keep looking at his unfurled wings myself. 7. I am alone in London, suffering from a too wide bed. For the first time in my life I wear pyjamas. The cool sheets on my naked body would remind me there is

no hard body next to mine to turn to. I have the steady drip of loss and love like a Chinese torture in my head.. So I refuse to forget or to hope. I refuse to settle down to middle aged respectability. I refuse to close the open window in my moonlit room that searches the World for one more fool for love. If I forget what it looks like -LoveI will dry up and shrink down and become the shadow Of the woman who turned to you on a dance floor at a wedding and said, lets get out of here. Whatever you took from me, its nothing in the face of that.

The Last Poem ever written. An exorcism of letters, the disposal of all the little Trinkets and the photographs The poems that burned indelible The sex that turned on and never turned off The Longing. Days go by and no ghost of you Darkens until I go Out to troll the stream for fresh fishing And a real baited hook I used too But no doing. The knowledge that you drove through the night to get to her Every day, Gave up all the stuff you never thought you would leave Moved your soul and life and made yourself Burn brightly lit from the inside to win her (When I couldnt make the spark in you ignite enough for any permanent Real fire..) Digs at the deep wounded parts. I was right all along, despite your protestation and all your Promises of love and love and love. I told you if you ever fell , it would be like this. You give up the World for the pearl of great price, the girl next door and normal living With the house the kid and the two car garage. Now think for a moment that all this joy you have in your hands one Day evaporates. Think about the depth and height of the canyon it might leave behind. Think how you might be tempted to jump. Thats life. Sadness where the sweet sex used to be, replaced by all the jaded Mysterious men think so fascinating. No mystery. You were the border I crossed from the familiar homeland to Something bigger than I was. And after such glory, such incandescent joy To face this pathetic groveling, begging god to rip you out of space where a heart used to be . You always feel sick and you cant keep a lover. You Dont always show your sweet side.

Lucinda sings . Sweet sucked from the marrow. Dry bones. Morning comes And I come twisted around to face that You. You once were here inside this hungry, fed me Pieces of your self let me in. and then out. The other guy you grew into can have her. I suppose on reflection, I wouldnt have looked at him Twice. Despite my best effort, I still have that other one I loved Who has chained me to ice. It looks like its going to be a long winter. Since apparently he has no intention of Leaving , nor of Giving me the key.

Loss is never easy. Incomprehensible. Awful and intrusive. Loss reminds us that we know nothing about anything. Plans upended, expectations drowned. Loss tells me that I hung on too tightly to what I thought Was Instead of taking what came as what Is. Loss is not about time but about place. The place your face shone out above me, The restaurant where we laughed love out The garden walkway joy The magical platform at Waterloo That wondrous expectancy of a kiss, a touch A melding in and the tearful, tenuous leaving. The half dozen final good-byes. Loss tells me that I am alive and vulnerable to change Loss tells me that you are never coming back to me. Loss tells me that everything I knew about this love was Fragile. Was illusion. Was self-protection. Was mistaken. Loss is pervasive, eternal. Not at all eased by The passing of months or days or hours. Loss is a part of my psyche, my psychology, my dreams My breath. Loss is the name of this ache in my gut, the sharp sting of tears When I see your face on a page, hear an old phone message, that song, the latest news of impending marriages and babies. Loss is the solidity of your moving on, The granite of my inability to do so. Loss is my love for you. Loss is my identity in the social universe Marked so clearly everyone who wants to love me can see It: Loss is who I am now. Better than never at all , they say to me. But what do They know? They who have never loved nor lost You.

Leave off the road the one they said would be gold, be straight, be true. they lied. instead, try diving or waltzing or skipping along the debris of your dreaming or crying, even fear and forlornness or home-sicked aloneness (it's regretful delighted remorse and then strongness) brings freedom from gold and the illusionary road that was never a path just a rut called Go Here that they stuck in our way. so Leave it. Dont grieve it. Try flying.

The wind is blowing a window in my heart Its saying dont be an idiot. Its saying dont be fragile in a strong time Its saying the still small voice of god is nothing To scoff at, its saying There is nothing to be afraid of But winds are like coins tossed in fountains.. Lucky ones are only lucky for the lucky All the rest of us have to wait. What exactly I am waiting for is beyond me really.. Some sign from heaven Some word written on stone Some parting of red water that will Tell me I am on my way home. If home is where the heart is, Mine is a wanderer. My heart which has Seen everything it sought beauteous and even pain is Settled into a rhythm of rhyme and reason rhythm and blues. Bluest but best times Snaking in and out of the fast-laned highway Of memory. I have no regrets of anything I've ever done Only what I neglected to do, being too cowardly or too stonehearted. I want a softer courage now, one that doesnt Need to bend the world to my making But will let it flow around my currents like A river tide. If acceptance was never anything I courted, suddenly its zen appeals. And I will wait for luck to decide that intention Is everything. And because I have confidence in my intention I will be lucky

show your sweet side

artwork by Bryan Stober as a gift to the author

Sarah Brown lives in London with a lot of crazy people; some of whom have learning disabilities, some of whom live and work with them, all of whom make her laugh. She writes to stay sane.

show your sweet side

poems from the underground of love

broken hearts have been writing for centuries. it's exorcism. this is another attempt at that holy art.

sarah brown

ID: 1650082 www.lulu.com

sarah brown